During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, the entire imperial court reached 1.8 million troops, and the Yongle period reached 2.8 million, even the least powerful Wanli year had 1.2 million people, how could so many troops be defeated by the Qing Dynasty? It should be known that when the Manchu Qing entered the customs at that time, the entire military strength was only 180,000 people, in addition to the accidental factors such as Li Zicheng's uprising and Wu Sangui's defection, the biggest reason was the Sinicization of the Manchu Qing, the appointment of a large number of Han people, familiar with the culture of the Han people, the system of the Han people, and attracting more Han people to join. At the same time, using a set of Confucian cultural systems, he quickly controlled the Confucian ideology and mastered the orthodox status, thus ruling the Central Plains for more than 280 years.
Manchu Sinicization
In order to strengthen border defense, the Ming Dynasty, whether it is the defense of Guannei or the defense outside Guanxi, is taken by military households, and in the later period, the grain and grass of these soldiers are no longer uniformly transported by the state, and the system of "salt introduction" is adopted, using merchants to transport grain and grass to the border in exchange for salt introduction, and these merchants take salt introduction and exchange salt for salt in salt-producing areas and sell it. From the Spring and Autumn Warring States, salt has always been a state monopoly, so the profits are very high, and many merchants rely on selling salt to make a windfall.
Among them, shanxi jin merchants are such a group of merchants, and they are also the first merchants to deal with ethnic minorities such as Jurchen. These Jin merchants not only provided intelligence support for the Manchu Qing, so that the Manchu Qing was very familiar with the administrative mechanism and border policy of the Ming Dynasty, but also provided financial support for the Manchu Qing, and after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, they also gave the Jin merchants excess returns.
The Ming Dynasty's military families on the border outside Guanxi fled in large numbers, leaving only merchants who traded. When Nurhaci established the early Eight Banners, there were nearly 50,000 Han families, some of whom intermarried with Manchu nobles, including Kangxi mothers with Han ancestry; some became Manchu slaves, called "wrapping clothes", similar to the Mongolian slave system, wrapping clothes is the private property of each family, Cao Xueqin's ancestors are the qing dynasty's coats.
However, Nurhaci was very concerned about the Sinicization of jurchens, so he regarded the Han people as the object of slaughter and enslavement. During the Emperor Taiji period, the policy toward the Han people changed, and in order to balance the power of the Jurchen clan's pro-nobles, the imperial examination system was introduced, and nearly 200 officials were selected from among the Han people.
The Jurchens followed the Ming Dynasty in establishing the Six Ministries and placing the Six Ministries above the Eight Banners, so the Jurchens initially introduced the Han political system. In 1629, when Emperor Taiji occupied Beijing, he witnessed the social lifestyle of the Han Chinese and demanded, "As far as the scholars are concerned, I will become a state of etiquette." ", began to read the Han people's "Zizhi Tongjian" and other books.
At the same time, Huang Taiji also knew that if they were excessively Sinicized, these Qing Dynasty people might lose their fighting spirit, just like the ancestors of the Jin Dynasty, who completely degenerated after Sinicization, and their combat effectiveness plummeted. Emperor Taiji demanded that these Manchu princes, Grandpa Belle, could not learn the wide robes of the Han people, and could not grow their hair to facilitate riding and shooting at once and wearing armor.
The rise of the Han Green Camp
After the Qing army entered the customs, the Eight Banners of Manchuria and the Eight Banners of Mongolia, including the Han Chinese absorbed in the early stage, the number of troops did not exceed 180,000, if you count these soldiers stationed in the garrison, even fewer soldiers can enter the customs. Such a military strength was obviously far from enough in the face of the remnants of Li Zicheng and the Southern Ming regime, as well as the armed forces of warlords in various places.
So the Manchu Qing reorganized the Ming army and called this army the Green Battalion. Of course, in the process of fighting, the Eight Banners are still the absolute main force, but in the face of the vast territory and the warlords who rise everywhere, the Eight Banners Army is often tired of running for its life. In response to this situation, Huang Taiji had to recruit a large number of Han Chinese troops and organize them into the Green Battalion.
By the Shunzhi period, the entire Green Battalion had reached 800,000 troops, and it had become the absolute main force when attacking the Southern Ming regime and the southwest region. These Manchu cavalry and Mongol cavalry could not play the advantages of their cavalry, especially in the hilly areas of the southwest, in the jungle, which was very unsuitable for cavalry combat.
And there was a musket team in the Green Camp at that time, which was equipped with Portuguese arquebusiers, commonly known as bird rifles, which were the most advanced weapons at that time. In addition to the Bird Hammer, the Green Battalion also introduced 130 mm caliber Hongyi cannons during the Ming Dynasty, as well as small Flang cannons, which suffered a lot in the early battles with Nurhaci.
In the sixteenth year of Shunzhi, Zheng Chenggong relied on naval strength and planned to sneak attack Nanjing, and in this battle, it was the Han who formed the Green Battalion and successfully repelled Zheng Chenggong. Since then, Zheng Chenggong has no longer organized an effective attack, retreated to Taiwan, and the anti-Qing and Restoration of the Ming Dynasty have also lost their main backbone, and the last hope of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty has been dashed.
The green battalions formed by these Han armies not only had advantages in specific battlefields and weapons, but their comprehensive combat effectiveness soon surpassed those of the Eight Banners at that time. In the thirteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, during the Battle of Yueyang to pacify San Francisco, the Eight Banners army was asked to cut off Wu Sangui's waterway and grain routes, but the Eight Banners were not suitable for water combat, and they did everything they could to prevaricate. Later, when the Eight Banners attacked the city, it turned out that these Eight Banners soldiers did not dare to charge. Later, the Manchus explored a tactic, that is, to let the Green Camp of the Han people fight the vanguard, and the Eight Banners followed.
In fact, it is very simple, after the Eight Banners entered the Central Plains, they slowly became corrupt and degenerate, and their combat effectiveness continued to decline. After arriving south of the Yangtze River, the Eight Banners were even more difficult to adapt to the weather in the south, and became an embellishment of the Han Green Camp. For example, in the fifty-second year of Qianlong, the suppression of the Lin Shuang Uprising in Taiwan, less than 100 Eight Banner Soldiers participated, and later in a series of battles, the Green Battalion was also the main force.
The decline of the Han Chinese Green Camp
During the Qianlong period of the Kangxi Dynasty, when the strength of the Green Camp of the Qing Dynasty was about 600,000, while the Eight Banners were less than 200,000, although the Manchu Qing was constantly Sinicizing, but it did not forget to beware of the Han people and the Green Camp, so how did the Qing Dynasty restrict the Green Camp?
On the one hand, it was to break up the green battalions stationed in various places into small formations, such as a green battalion stationed in Sichuan, which was 10,000 people according to the establishment, and later the Kangxi Dynasty split these green battalion troops into 4 small military units. In addition, the key defense work was entrusted to the Eight Banners, and the Green Camp could only be used to maintain local law and order, and the Green Camp was limited in terms of assigned tasks. Later, the Green Battalion also had the duties of escorting the water transport, guarding the Yellow Tombs, fighting floods and preventing disasters, similar to today's engineers, not only to build roads, but also to maintain river embankments and docks.
Not only that, but the Green Battalion was also restricted in terms of weapons, especially firearms. Each of the Eight Banners has a firearms battalion, but the Green Battalion does not have this organization. During the Yongzheng period, the Military Department reformed the weaponry establishment of the national army, stipulating that the Green Battalion soldiers should all use shotguns, bows and arrows, and rattan cards as their main weapons, and the infantry who used to hold long guns, large knives, and three-eyed rifles in their hands were changed to shotguns. Such shotguns accounted for roughly 50 percent of the Green Battalion's strength.
These are not the main reasons for the decline of the Green Camp, which was also related to the outflow of silver in the Qing Dynasty at that time. There are very few silver mines in China, mainly distributed in Yunnan, and more dependent on imports. At that time, the main imports came from Southeast Asia, Japan, and Spain. So the Qing government's silver was uncontrolled.
In the early 18th century, silver from European countries flowed into China, a very important reason is that the price of silver to gold in China is relatively high, and the same silver can buy more things in the Qing Dynasty, so many European merchants sent Mexican silver to China. But in 1789, the French Revolution broke out, Napoleon invaded Spain, and Spain's colonies in Latin America revolted, resulting in a decrease in silver imports into China.
And with the sale of opium in China, a large amount of silver flowed out, which led to the qing government's actual salary shrinkage, many soldiers' salaries were paid in copper coins, at that time the official price of copper money and silver was 1000:1, but the actual exchange rate reached 2500:1, when the Eight Banner Soldiers could hardly pay soldiers, let alone the Green Camp of the Han People.
The rise of the Han Chinese brave camp
The Yong Camp refers to the recruited township braves, which were set up locally in response to the White Lotus Sect uprising, and the Eight Banners and Green Battalions of the Imperial Court could not pay salaries, and their combat effectiveness declined, so they could only rely on the local township braves. What is the difference between Xiang Yong and Green Camp? One of the most essential differences is that the Green Camp is the army of the imperial court, while the township braves are local troops, and the salaries of the township brave soldiers are relatively low, and raising such a team can save a lot of money.
At that time, the management system of the Green Camp also limited its development. At that time, in order to restrict the Han army, the Manchu Qing recruited each green battalion soldier needed to be verified by the military department, and the procedures were complicated, and it was already in the year of the monkey, so it was impossible to obtain approval from the formalities. In addition, these township heroes protect their own acres and three points of land, and they are naturally heroic in battle.
This has created a vicious circle, and all localities have embezzled the money that should have been distributed to the green camp to collect village heroes, and the green camp cannot pay salaries, and it is slowly eliminated. For example, during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, the Green Camp in Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces had no system. At that time, many provinces had been paying more than 5 years in arrears to the green camp, so the green camp in many places was just a false name.
Because the military power of the Green Camp belongs to the imperial court, the military salary, grain and grass, dispatch, etc. are in the hands of the imperial court, even if the small troop movement also needs the approval of the imperial court, after the general leads the army, the soldier does not follow the general, which leads to the soldiers do not know the general, will not be familiar with the soldiers, so the combat effectiveness declines. In the Brave Battalion, the soldiers were recruited step by step, only responsible for the generals at the higher level, and wherever the generals went, the soldiers went, almost becoming their own private armed forces, and the imperial court could not control them at all.
These local generals have obtained the status of governor and inspector, and they not only have military power, but also control the local finances and civil affairs. Among them were Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army and Li Hongzhang's Huai Army, but these Han armies, which relied on recruitment and recruitment, almost fought for money, had no sense of honor, and robbed everywhere when they suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement. During the Sino-Japanese War, Li Hongzhang's Huai army was no different from bandits in Korea, so the Korean people also had a poor evaluation of the Huai army.
Therefore, during the Sino-Japanese War, the common people thought that the army was bandits and did not feel that the war had anything to do with themselves. At that time, there was a saying that "bandits come like combs, and soldiers come like grates", which means that bandits come like combs and loot the property of the common people; and these soldiers come, like grates, comb them again densely than combs. These soldiers were more powerful than bandits, the people had no concept of the state, and soldiers were even more terrible than bandits, and the Qing Dynasty at that time certainly could not defeat foreigners.
As an ethnic minority regime, the Qing Dynasty was able to establish a rule that lasted for more than two hundred years and pushed the traditional Chinese imperial model to a new peak, and one of the important factors was Sinicization, making full use of the power of the Han people. However, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, foreign enemies invaded, but they lost control of the Han people, thus further accelerating the collapse of the Qing Dynasty.
Resources:
Wei Feide's Hongye: A History of the Founding of the Qing Dynasty
Lin Manhong, "The Silver Thread: The World and China in the 19th Century"