In the process of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners Army, composed of Manchu soldiers, made great contributions.
During the development of the Qing Dynasty, although the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners Army declined, it was still the most important military force of the Qing Empire.
After the Opium War, the military weaknesses of the Qing Dynasty were exposed, so the rulers of the Qing Dynasty carried out a number of reforms to the Eight Banners Army, and also formed a "modern army" such as the Shenji Battalion and the Weiyuan Brigade, which emphasized the coordination of infantry, artillery, and cavalry.
They also carried the dreams of the younger generation of Qing Dynasty leaders, Zhongxing, so why didn't such a team with high hopes put up a decent resistance during the Xinhai Revolution?
As a regular military force of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners Army actually played a role similar to that of the police today for a long time, especially those deployed outside the capital.
Before the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion, they did not even organize decent military training, which made the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners army very low.
The Eight Banners Army, which was responsible for the defense of the capital, was not much better, and in Mr. Lao She's ** "Under the Red Flag", he described his father's "training" routine.
In the eyes of the protagonist, his father's daily routine is no different from that of ordinary workers, which also proves the perfunctory attitude of the Eight Banners Army towards military training.
Because the soldiers of the Eight Banners have been responsible for public security work for a long time, their requirements for equipment are also low, and when the Western powers have replaced them with new breech-loading muskets, the Eight Banners Army is still using cold weapons.
At the same time, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty and the generals of the Eight Banners Army still had illusions about the traditional cavalry and archery tactics of the Manchus, and even the famous general Monk Greenqin bet on the cavalry, which was obviously behind the form of warfare at that time.
After a series of blows from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Western powers, the Qing court saw the weakness of the Eight Banners Army and tried to regain its military might.
They realized that in addition to the garrison troops, the Eighth Banner Army also needed to form a mobile unit for field operations.
Finally, in the same year, the Qing court restarted the establishment of the famous Shenji battalion in the Ming Dynasty and formed a firearms unit composed of banner men.
However, the Qing rulers did not have a good understanding of warfare, and they believed that as long as they had advanced equipment, they could fight with the Western powers, but they did not realize that the coordination of infantry and artillery was the advantage of the West.
Therefore, although the Qing court purchased a large amount of firearms and equipment from Tsarist Russia, the Eight Banners Army was unable to exert the true power of these **.
At that time, some Western officers working in China saw the state of the Qing army and took the initiative to ask Ying to train the Qing army, but the Qing court was worried that this would lead to the loss of military power and rejected their suggestions, which made the training of the Qing army seriously out of touch with the best equipment, and there was a huge gap between the combat effectiveness and the new army on which the revolutionary party depended.
As a dynasty ruled by ethnic minorities, the Qing Dynasty reflected obvious nationalist tendencies in many systems, and the existence of the Eight Banners garrison system, especially the Eight Banners garrison outside the capital, was actually one of the means used by the Qing rulers to control the people in various places.
In order to maintain ethnic differences, the soldiers of the Eight Banners stationed outside the capital in the early and middle Qing Dynasty still maintained the living customs of the Manchus, and after the death of these soldiers, their bodies were also transported to Beijing for burial, in order to maintain the sense of belonging of the banner soldiers to the Qing Dynasty.
However, in the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty, as the time spent in the garrison increased, their way of life was gradually assimilated by the locals, and due to the lax military training, these bannermen soldiers did not look different from ordinary people, and gradually their national consciousness was also eroded.
Moreover, due to the huge pressure on the national finances in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the system of returning the body to Beijing had to be stopped, which further diluted the sense of belonging of the soldiers of the Eight Banners to the Qing Dynasty.
On the other hand, they have developed a deep affection for the place where they live.
For example, in the First Opium War, more than 1,600 soldiers stationed in the Eight Banners led by Hailing, the deputy capital of Jingkou, caused unprecedented casualties to the British army in previous battles, and finally fought until the whole army was annihilated.
The reason why they have such a high fighting spirit is because the descendants of these Eight Banners soldiers have been stationed here for more than two hundred years for generations, and they have a deep affection for this land, and their military camp is next to the tombs of their ancestors, and they naturally do whatever it takes to protect all this.
In contrast, the Xinhai Revolution was an internal war within the country, and the revolutionary army would not invade the people and destroy the land, so these bannermen naturally did not have such a high fighting spirit.
As for the Eight Banners army in the capital, in the early stage of the Xinhai Revolution, it was already full of gentlemen who pretended to receive high salaries, and their willingness to fight was not so strong.
In addition to the problems of weak military literacy and insufficient will to fight, the weakness of the Qing Dynasty's top brass was also a key factor that led to the surrender of the Eight Banners Army without a fight.
At the time of the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, the Qing court was organizing a large-scale exercise in the Hebei region, the Yongping Autumn Exercise, which allowed the Qing court to have a force that could directly participate in the war, which was originally a very favorable condition.
But with the full support of the railway system, it still took more than half a month for the army to reach Wuhan.
After arriving, they did not engage the revolutionary army head-on, but kept hiding in the train station under the pretext of insufficient armament or waiting for reinforcements.
As a representative of the young elite class of the Qing Dynasty, although he held a high position in the military system, he knew nothing about military theory and was very afraid of the revolutionary army, and the performance of the commander would naturally affect the morale of the Qing army.
The performance of the main force of the Eight Banners Army is still like this, and the combat effectiveness of the other Eight Banner armies can be imagined.
After Yuan Shikai reached a peace agreement with the revolutionary army, the new army of the Qing Dynasty basically stood on the opposite side of the Qing court, and they far surpassed the Eight Banners Army in terms of organizational structure and military quality, and the ability of the leaders was even more different.
In this case, it seems that the Eight Banners Army has only one way to choose from following the surrender of the Qing Dynasty royal family.
As the most important military force of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners played an important role in the early wars of conquest, and for a long time afterward, they played the role of defenders of order everywhere, which made them always represent the conflict and estrangement between the Manchu and Han peoples.
But in fact, most of the soldiers in the Eight Banners Army have basically been completely sinicized, and the contradiction between them and the common people is actually the contradiction between the ruling class and the common people, and their sense of identity with the Qing imperial family has been almost completely lost.
In the face of the menacing revolutionary army in this situation, they naturally would not die for a dying dynasty.
Part of the content of this article is based on "Research on the Transformation of the Eight Banners during the "Tongzhi Zhongxing" Period", written by Yang Deshi, published in May 2013.
List of high-quality authors