At the outset of the Taiping rebellion, the Qing government was in a dire position. Its once strong banner armies had melted from the inside, as had the green banner armies of Han troops who had been meant to shore the banner armies up. Therefore, much of the fighting fell to the local militias, which often were more interested in victimizing their neighbors in the pursuit of wealth than fighting the rebels. For the rebels’ part, similar disunity quickly emerged, as different groups within the Taiping ranks fought amongst themselves. Ultimately, it was the advent of larger, more independent provincial armies by men such as Zeng Guofan that were able to restore order, but in the process they severely weakened the Qing state.
When the Manchus originally conquered China, they quickly realized that the banner armies would never be large enough to control the whole country. Indeed, during the fighting to complete the conquest of China, the Qing relied more and more extensively on native Han troops; these troops were then formally incorporated into the regular Qing army as green banner troops.1 However, as the years wore on, these troops steadily decreased in effectiveness. Just as the rest of Qing bureaucracy atrophied, so did these units. Broadly the problem was that the officers abused their men, treating them as servants and stealing their pay.2 As a result, mass desertions became the norm. In a foreboding parallel to the late Ming military, most of the green banner armies by the time of the Taiping rebellion were extant only on paper.3
Stepping into the vacuum left by the national forces were the local militias, known as t’uan-lien (this appears to be the older style of transliteration, but I could not find the more modern one).4 These units were closely tied to the local gentry, despite the fact that they were ostensibly illegal.5 One of the complicating factors of the t’uan-lien was that they were often indistinguishable from the other armed groups in China at the time, such as bandits, pirates, and secret societies.6 In addition, these troops often were chronically undersupplied, often with only pikes in an era where rifled muskets were the norm for modern armies.7 Moreover, these units were only truly useful for defensive actions, as the militiamen would not feel much incentive to risk their lives fighting anywhere other than at home.8
In many ways, the Taiping rebels themselves were simply an extension of the t’uan-lien system. As a force originally centered around Hakka people who had converted to Hong Xiuquan’s new religion, they did not differ much from the local bands that opposed them in structure.9 Ironically, another area in which the Taiping and t’uan-lien were similar was the disunity that could undermine their capabilities. In the Taiping armies, this came originally from the fact that not all of the rebels were directly members of Hong Xiuquan’s movement. Rather, some were followers of other leaders who were allies of the Taiping rebels.10 Later on, the infighting was done by the various generals who ran the military matters of the rebellion. By the apex of the rebellion, the heavenly leader himself was not much more than a puppet of his military commanders.11
Despite the apparent weakness of both rebel and loyalist forces, the Qing government was not the one to finally build a competent army. That distinction would fall to Zeng Guofan, who combined the small, local t’uan-lien troops into a larger provincial army.12 One of Zeng’s primary reforms was that his forces would be required to operate beyond their home territory, and that they would be paid. Not only would they be paid, but paid well; troops in Zeng Guofan’s army were paid four times the wage of regular Qing troops.13 Perhaps just as alluring was the fact that these men were paid regularly, unlike the regulars. Another factor that set Zeng’s men apart was that they were recruited from tough peasants, often from the mountains, rather than the more easily accessible bands of unemployed.14 Zeng also armed his troops better than the t’uan-lien militias. In 1854, the Qing government finally officially permitted its militias to use firearms, making Zeng’s army far more formidable. Zeng funded his provincial army through “donations” by the local gentry, as well as taxes that were essentially leveled independent of the state.15
Zeng’s army was highly successful, and his model was quickly copied by other loyalist leaders.16 Zeng’s troops and those in the units like his also countered the Taiping on a moral front; while the Taiping had their pseudo-Christian beliefs, the men of Zeng’s army used Confucianism as their inspirational doctrine.17 Importantly, this doctrine did not rely very heavily on the Qing government, and neither did the new armies in practice. Therefore, despite the fact that these new armies did succeed in putting down the Taiping rebellion, they did not so much restore Qing authority as replace Taiping rule. From the end of the Taiping rebellion to the fall of the Qing dynasty (and beyond), the central government would not have the same amount of power over its armies as it had before the war.18
1 Michael, “Military Organization and Power Structure of China during the Taiping Rebellion”, 471-742.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Kuhn, “The T’uan-Lien Local Defense System at The Time of The Taiping Rebellion”, 249.
5 Smith, “Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850—1860”, 146.
6 Michael, “Military Organization and Power Structure of China during the Taiping Rebellion”, 473-474.
7 Smith, “Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850—1860”, 146.
8 Michael, “Military Organization and Power Structure of China during the Taiping Rebellion”, 478.
9 Kuhn, “The T’uan-Lien Local Defense System at The Time of The Taiping Rebellion”, 249.
10 Michael, “Military Organization and Power Structure of China during the Taiping Rebellion”, 477-483.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
Works Consulted
Kuhn, Philip. “The T’uan-Lien Local Defense System at The Time of The Taiping Rebellion.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 27 (1967): 218–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/2718389.
Michael, Franz. “Military Organization and Power Structure of China during the Taiping Rebellion.” Pacific Historical Review 18, no. 4 (1949): 469–83. https://doi.org/10.2307/3635664.
Smith, Richard J. “Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850—1860.” Journal of Asian History 8, no. 2 (1974): 122–61.
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