Whether it is ancient or modern, military strength is a proof of whether a country is strong or not, the army is a barrier to protect national security, since ancient times, all countries in the world have different sizes of the army, Sun Tzu said: "Soldiers, the great affairs of the country, the place of death and life, the way of survival, must not be unaware." This means that the military is directly related to the survival of the country.
So where did the millions of Qing troops left after the fall of The Qing Dynasty, the last feudal dynasty in China, go in 1912? What happened to them that lasted until 1987?
Speaking of the Qing Dynasty army, we have to mention their ace army, the "Eight Banner Army", how powerful they were back then, and you can appreciate some of them when you see the "Battle of Salhu".
In 1619, the Ming Dynasty sent 110,000 troops to completely eliminate the Houjin established by Nurhaci, who at that time only had an army of about 60,000 people, which can be said to be a huge disparity in strength. The Ming Dynasty did not expect that their 110,000 elite army would actually lose to Nurhaci's 60,000 people, known in history as the "Battle of Salhu".
Nurhaci led his soldiers to break through the 3-way Ming army in 5 days, annihilated more than 50,000 opponents, captured a large number of military supplies, and other Ming soldiers fled everywhere, which can be said to be a complete victory. This battle is a classic example of winning more with less, and it is a major turning point in the history of ming and qing wars.
The Eight Flags Army is an army under the Eight Banners system, built by Taizu Nurhaci on the Jurchen Niulu system. In fact, at the beginning, there were not as many as 8 flags, and in 1601 there were only 4 flags, namely the positive yellow flag, the positive blue flag, the positive white flag, and the positive red flag. It was not until 1615 that the last four flags were added, namely the yellow flag, the blue flag, the red flag and the white flag. This is the Eight Flags that we often see in TV series.
What is the "cattle record system", the Manchurians sent troops or hunted, according to the family village, each person out of 1 arrow, 10 people for 1 cow record (in Chinese refers to "arrow"). Later, Nurhaci revised and expanded on this basis, creating the eight flags system.
At that time, Niulu was a group composed of families, blood relatives, and villages, and it can be said that everyone in it had family relations, so they took care of each other, helped each other, and the cohesion was far greater than that of their opponents, and they were very desperate for their relatives on the battlefield, and there would be no situation of "you go to my palace first", so they fought extra bravely. In the face of the Ming Dynasty army, it can be said that the momentum is like a broken bamboo, and it is broken with one blow.
However, what happened to such a strong army in the later stages? With the end of the war, they began to be lazy and slippery, drinking and drunk all day, and they had long since stopped practicing, and the most terrible thing was that they were fascinated by smoking big cigarettes, and they immediately killed all sides, and the brave and resourceful Eight Flags Army had long begun to decay from the inside.
By the time of the "Three Rebellions", the Eight Banners Army was already "firing arrows and arrows, and the horsemen fell to the ground", which shows the degree of corruption, how such soldiers can expect them to resist the enemy's attack. Born in sorrow and died in comfort, it is precisely because of the slackness of the Eight Banners Army that such a situation will be created.
With the demise of the Qing government, the soldiers had to evacuate, and they fled to Kowloon Village. In fact, the Beiyang government already knew that they were hiding there, but they did not have the energy to take care of them, until 1984, when China and Britain signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration to deal with the Hong Kong issue, and decided to clear out the Qing soldiers in Kowloon Village.
In 1987, the vulnerable Qing army was of course immediately cleaned up, and the Kowloon Walled City became today's "Kowloon Walled City Park", since then, the Brave and Good War Qing Army has withdrawn from the historical stage.
Today, in the 21st century, although we live a relatively peaceful life, we must not forget our mission and cannot be too immersed in pleasure.