Before Puyi abdicated, what did the Janissaries around him do? Although the strength is strong, it cannot protect the emperor
In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded the city of Beijing in a posture of chopping melons and cutting vegetables, and the leaders of various countries sat on the dragon chair and experienced the feeling of being an emperor. At that time, the Yuanmingyuan, which had been partially renovated by Cixi, was once again plundered, and the Eight-Nation Alliance army burned and looted in the capital, bringing deep disasters to the people in the city.
Since the pre-Qin period, various countries and dynasties have stationed special armies in key areas of the capital, often called janissaries. The Janissaries belonged directly to the Emperor and did not obey the dispatches of others, thus defending the imperial family in case of an accident. So when the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, where did the Qing Dynasty Janissaries go? After the abdication of the last emperor Puyi, where should these Janissaries go?
As the emperor's direct army, the last guard of the imperial city is naturally very strict for its members, not only the quality of each soldier must be good enough, but also must be a person that the emperor can trust to be able to become a Janissary.
The old Janissaries of the Qing Dynasty were mainly held by the Eight Banners, most of whom were Manchus, and were assigned to different military camps according to different abilities, such as the Horse Riding Battalion, the Escort Battalion, the Forward Battalion, the Infantry Battalion, and so on. At this time, the Equipment of the Qing Janissaries was the best of all the armies, but the number of firearms formulated was still not enough and not advanced enough.
After 1840, the Qing Dynasty began to enter a history of humiliation, with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in turmoil and the great powers on the outside, in order to maintain the manchu royal rule, the Janissaries also began to innovate. At that time, Li Hongzhang, as a minister of foreign affairs, often went abroad to buy advanced firearms, and copied a large number of foreign enterprises such as the Anqingnei Ordnance Institute at home, and the equipment that was imitated was given priority to be equipped into the Qing Dynasty Janissaries, of which the Shenji Battalion was the most eye-catching.
The Shenji Battalion was established as early as the Ming Dynasty and was equipped with a large number of firearms that were very advanced for the whole world at that time. After the Manchu Qing entered the customs, because they followed the ancestral system and superstitiously believed in their "unstoppable" cavalry, although the Divine Machine Battalion was still established, the degree of attention and equipment level were far less than the normal level of development.
It was not until 1861 that the Xianfeng Emperor restarted the Shenji Camp in order to cope with internal and external troubles. With the support of the Westerners, the Shenji Battalion soon received quite good equipment, and although it was not as good as some industrial powers such as Britain and Germany, it was also enough to rank among the best in the world.
As for the soldiers of the Divine Machine Battalion, they were selected from the Janissaries at that time, initially selecting 14,000 people, and by 1864, they had grown to 30,000. As a royal guard, the quality of the soldiers in the Janissaries itself is much higher than that of ordinary soldiers, and the soldiers in the Divine Machine Battalion are screened out from the Janissaries, coupled with the support of world-class equipment, so the combat effectiveness of the Divine Machine Battalion at the beginning is quite good.
But in the end, it backfired, the upper rulers of the Qing Dynasty themselves were very corrupt, and these Eight Banners disciples had been held in the palm of the Qing Dynasty because of their task of defending the imperial city, so that later they became more and more arrogant, and military discipline became very loose.
Because the welfare of the Janissaries is quite high, they usually do not really go to the battlefield to fight, so they have become the "fragrant food" in the eyes of many people. Many bannermen and nobles rely on family power to stuff the children of the family who do not have the ability to be soldiers at all, so that there are often absurd things that Janissary soldiers do after hastily practicing in the morning and carrying cages to walk birds in the afternoon. "To satirize these brothers in the skin of soldiers."
Therefore, by the time of the Eight-Power Alliance's invasion of China in 1900, although these Janissaries had good equipment, such as Maxim machine guns, various rifles, and even Gatling machine guns and various artillery, they could not hinder the pace of the invaders, and after this battle, the Janissaries were even scattered.
It was not until 1908, when Puyi ascended the throne and his father Zaifeng became regent, that Zaifeng, who had witnessed the power of German firearms, began to rebuild the Janissaries. However, he did not escape the idea of feudal rule, and still used the Manchu Qing Eight Banner descendants, while the Han and other ethnic groups only occupied a small part.
However, Zaifeng still learned from his previous experience to a certain extent, in addition to the basic top equipment to support, he also personally inspected the training situation, so the previous situation of poor military discipline did not appear, and the combat effectiveness of the Janissaries was much stronger than before.
Unfortunately, in addition to the Janissaries, the Most Powerful Army of the Qing Dynasty at that time, the Beiyang Army, was in the hands of Yuan Shikai. In 1911, when the Wuchang Uprising broke out, various localities responded, and the whole south was soon out of the control of the capital. Zaifeng wanted yuan shikai to go south to quell the chaos, but Yuan Shikai repeatedly delayed, Zaifeng could not let the janissaries guarding the capital go south, otherwise once the capital was empty, the consequences would be unimaginable, and at the same time he could not force Yuan Shikai to lead the army to "quell the chaos", otherwise Yuan Shikai would wave a big hand, and the Beiyang army would directly enter the capital, and whether these janissaries could fight was a problem.
Therefore, under the constraints of the two phases, the Janissaries played no role in play, and the Qing Dynasty collapsed in the clouds. In 1912, the Qing Dynasty Emperor Puyi announced his abdication, and these Janissaries were absorbed into his army by Yuan Shikai, thus withdrawing from the stage of history as a Janissary army that maintained feudal rule and was loyal to the imperial family.