In the twenty-seventh year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1901), the imperial court implemented the standing army system throughout the country, and the first to train the second town of the new army in Beiyang. In the 31st year of Guangxu (1905), the Beiyang New Army organized and trained six towns, which was the strongest armed force in Gongwei Jinggi in the late Qing Dynasty.
The military uniforms and training methods of the new army of the Qing Dynasty were modeled after those of Western countries, and the equipment was also imported from abroad, which was a new type of armed force that was different from the old army. The new armed forces are divided into five categories: infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering, and baggage, and their overall combat strength has been markedly enhanced. However, the financial expenditure for the formation and training of such a new-style unit is very huge, and it can be seen from the fact that on the third day of the eighth month of the 30th year of Guangxu (1904), the training department promulgated the regulations on the military salary of the new army. In the charter, the expenses of the Forces nouvelles are divided into normal and miscellaneous expenses, and the bulk of normal expenditures is military salaries.
For example, when the New Army was first founded, in addition to food and shelter, a regular soldier was paid four taels of silver per month, and logistics personnel such as men were paid three taels of silver per month, and this income was quite generous at that time, which was enough to support him.
Five or six people. By the time the six towns of Beiyang were completed in the 31st year of Guangxu (1905), the military salary of the new army was further increased, and the monthly salary of each regular soldier reached 4 taels and 5 yuan, and the monthly salary of the men increased to 3 taels and 5 yuan. The new army has a total of 797 people at all levels, including 11,882 soldiers, craftsmen, and husbands, and 4,470 mules and horses, and needs about 96,820 taels of silver per month.
The above is the expenditure of personnel and horses in wartime, and some official positions are not set up in peacetime, and there are not so many people for husband service, so the actual salary per month is about 94,245 taels. Miscellaneous expenses refer to the troops' equipment, food, clothing, housing, transportation, office and other expenses in addition to military salaries, and more than 30,000 taels per month, all of the above total, a town of the Beiyang New Army spends about 1.5 million taels a year, and six towns need tens of millions of taels. In the late Qing Dynasty, due to internal and external troubles, the financial situation of the Qing Dynasty was already stretched, and such huge expenditures were difficult to maintain by the imperial court alone, and local cooperation was needed to achieve.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty planned to train the 36 towns of the New Army throughout the country, but because of the huge expenditure, some provinces with poor financial conditions could only keep everything simple. For example, Guizhou began to organize a town, but due to financial difficulties, it could only organize an infantry standard equivalent to a regiment and an artillery team of more than 100 people, with a total of 1,953 officers and men.