The Qing Dynasty once claimed to have a million male masters, but after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the huge 1 million soldiers and horses were silent overnight.
What is even more strange is that until the 1980s, there were suddenly traces of the Qing army, was it that from the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the modern society, the Qing army still existed? Where are they?
First of all, let's take a look at how the Qing army developed into a "million lions".
The original Qing army actually existed during the Ming Dynasty, but strictly speaking, it was not called the Qing army at that time.
Previously, Nurhaci led soldiers and horses to fight the world, in 1616, Nurhaci established himself and established the Houjin, at this time there was the eight flags system.
You know, at that time, the Eight Banners army was very brave, after all, it was a nomadic people, with a warlike gene in its bones, Nurhaci led the army to attack the Ming Dynasty, and defeated the 140,000 troops of the Ming Army with only 80,000 soldiers and horses.
It should be known that during the Ming Dynasty, hot weapons have already appeared, and the "Wang Gong Factory" of the Ming Dynasty is the place where gunpowder is made, so this strength gap cannot be underestimated.
Later, these soldiers and horses repeatedly won battles, and Nurhaci established the Mongolian Eight Banners and the Han Eight Banners, at this time the so-called Mongolian Banner and the Han Banner were actually not much different.
That is to say, the disparity in the status of the two parties is not so obvious, in addition to the difference in nationalities, the rest of the treatment is not a big difference, as long as it is in the military, you can get the corresponding official positions, and most of them are hereditary systems.
After the Qing army entered the customs, on the one hand, the number of Mongolian banners was limited and they could not continue to conquer new territories, and second, in order to vigorously expand the army, the Qing army began to recruit a large number of Han Chinese as the main force.
At this time, Nurhaci had already died of illness, and after Emperor Taiji took the throne, he took these Eight Banners army around to fight, and the system in the army was gradually improved.
Therefore, in order to distinguish between the Eight Banners and the Han Army, the green flag is used as a distinction, which is the origin of the "Eight Flags Green Camp" as we know it.
The Eight Banners Army is the initial army of Nurhaci's "entrepreneurship", and it is also the main combat force that helps the Qing army enter the customs and pacify the Central Plains, at this time, the Eight Banner Army is still very fierce, at least no one in the world is an enemy.
Later, the Shunzhi Emperor officially set the name of the country, and after the complete demise of the Ming Dynasty, there were still many Ming troops, and Shunzhi simply absorbed them all.
Although the combat effectiveness of these Ming armies was not as fierce as the original Eight Banners, the combat effectiveness was acceptable, and Shunzhi followed the system of many Ming armies, using them as standing soldiers of the imperial court.
The Eight Banners Army was the main force that ran through the Qing Dynasty and the fall of the Qing Dynasty, in other words, the Eight Banners Army was the central military power of the Qing Dynasty.
We know that the identity of these Eight Flags Army is hereditary, so their families are actually banner people, and the imperial court has deliberately set up "Mancheng" in order to let the families of the Eight Banner Army have a place to live.
The identity status of the flag people and the Han people has been obviously different from this time, and the differential treatment of the two sides can see the attitude of the Manchus towards the Han people.
With the stability of the social status of the Qing Dynasty, there was no major war to fight, so the Eight Banners gradually began to corrupt, and even in the Yongzheng Period, because the imperial court reused the Han People's Nian Tangyao, the rights of the Eight Banners were once weakened or even emptied.
During the Qianlong period, the actual Eight Banners had no combat effectiveness, and the main force at this time was the Green Camp, during which the Rebellion of san Francisco, coupled with the civil White Lotus Sect rebellion, actually relied on the Green Camp to quell it.
Especially when suppressing the White Lotus Sect, because the Qing soldiers were not familiar with many of the terrain of the people, coupled with their original limited combat effectiveness, they had to rely on the strength of civilian mercenaries.
In the process, the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement became a watershed in the military reform of the Qing Dynasty.
After Hong Xiuquan launched the uprising, the 600,000 Qing troops in the hall were unable to suppress it, and the imperial court at this time had realized the seriousness of the problem.
Judging from the current combat effectiveness of the Qing army, there is no hope of even defeating the civil uprising, and once another major war occurs, the Qing Dynasty will only have the share of slaughter.
So after the end of this rebellion, the imperial court began to attach importance to local militia groups, and they vigorously recruited some militias to join the Green Battalion, and from then on, the military system of the Qing army added another militia force.
Until 1852, Zeng Guofan became the "regimental training master" in Hunan, and he began to integrate various local armed forces, gradually absorbing the strength of various places for his own use.
It was at this time that the famous Xiang Army came out.
Soon after, Li Hongzhang, a protégé of Zeng Guofan, began to assemble local teams in the Anhui area, and the Huai army began to officially enter the battle.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could be suppressed by the strength of the Xiang Army and the Huai Army.
It can only be said that the psychological shadow left by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement on the imperial court was too deep, so after the rebellion was completely over, various localities began to form troops, and the Dian Army, the Yu Army, the Sichuan Army and other places began to establish teams, and they also became the most important military pillars of the imperial court.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty had begun to be chaotic, and after the end of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the foreign affairs movement had risen again, at this time Li Hongzhang realized that the local army had begun to be weak, so he had the idea of establishing a navy.
In 1866, Li Hongzhang built gunboats in Jiangnan, and if the fleet was successfully built, then a modern army would be born.
For the establishment of the navy, the imperial court did not waste time and effort, the Qing government first invited the British Royal Navy to be the command, and then because the ships built by China were expensive, they were directly imported from abroad.
In just 20 years, the Qing government had more than 50 Western-style warships and gradually unified naval forces everywhere.
At this time, the emperor had actually delegated military power, and with the gradual decline of the Xiang army and the Huai army, the main force of the Sino-Japanese War in the late Qing Dynasty had become the Beiyang Marine Division.
Looking at it this way, from the beginning of the Qing army's entry into the customs to the demise of the Qing Dynasty, a total of 300 years, if the Qing army does not look at the combat effectiveness but only the number of people, there is indeed a full 1 million troops
However, although the emperor's decentralization of military power allowed the military power to be consolidated, the drawbacks also appeared.
The original regular Green Battalion Army became the logistics, and the newly formed New Army became the main force of the army, and because the local forces were too chaotic, their loyalty was much worse than that.
In this way, the consequences are more fatal, and the Qing Dynasty can perish so quickly, and these new armies are "indispensable."
So how did these armies get to this point? Since there were an army of 1 million people, where did they go after the fall of the Qing Dynasty?
First of all, let's look at how the Eight Banners changed from the main force of fighting the world to the joke that everyone shouted and beat.
As the main force that helped Nurhaci to settle the world, the Eight Banners became the greatest contributor after the Qing army entered the customs, and we all know that the Qing government even specially resettled the residence for these flag people in order to resettle these flag people.
Many of the Eight Banners had hereditary official positions, and their treatment was very generous, and the Qing government specially formulated different laws in order to distinguish between manchus and Han Chinese.
For example, if a Manchu commits the same thing as a Han Chinese, the Manchu only needs to be locked up for a few months, and even the person who goes to the Three Banners will not be punished, but the Han will have to go to prison for at least a year.
Under such a bias, the flag people gradually began to develop towards the side of the poor children, they ate and drank without worry, they were not afraid of breaking the law, and their descendants also had knighthoods and protections.
With the corruption of these Eight Banner Army ideology, they slowly lost their combat effectiveness, not only incapable of fighting for the imperial court, but even became a moth to the imperial court.
During the Xianfeng years, these Eight Banners disciples gave Xianfeng a headache, and the original imperial treasury was seriously empty, and every year he had to spend huge sums of money to raise a group of waste.
So the Eight Banners were gradually dismantled or incorporated into patrol battalions, and in short, they were almost no longer on the battlefield.
After the birth of the later Xiang Army and the Yu Army, although they were the main army of the imperial court for a period of time, after all, they were sparse in number, and when they resisted local rebellions, they obviously lacked stamina.
With the invasion of the great powers of various countries, the local armed forces can still fight the rebellion, and if they really want to fight against foreign guns and cannons, they will be immediately vulnerable.
Later, there was the Beiyang Water Division, but due to the serious decay of the Qing government at this time, the people were already miserable, and the strength of the Beiyang Water Division was chaotic.
At that time, there were only two kinds of people who went to serve as soldiers:
Either the Eight Banners, who have no skills and no skills, are thrown into the army to live a chaotic life, or they are poor people who really can't survive, and they go to the army just to eat for the sake of mixed food.
The two have different statuses, but the thinking is the same, that is, they never dreamed of going to war one day, these people have never seen blood, and as soon as they hear that the foreign army has reached the door, the morale in the army is half destroyed.
Even if you are finally forced to go to the battlefield helplessly, you will only take the form and eventually fall without a fight.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, warlords from all over the country rose up, and of the 1 million troops, more than half of the eight banners defected, half of the militia scattered and fled, and a large part of the militia was absorbed by the warlords everywhere.
However, even if the world was already in chaos at this time, it was inevitable that a small part of the Qing army would be forgotten.
In the Kowloon City Walled City, there was also a Qing army hidden.
Kowloon Village was recognized as Chinese territory after the end of the Opium War, when the Qing government signed a treaty with Britain, so the imperial court sent an army to garrison it.
However, this army waited here until the fall of the Qing Dynasty and did not return, until after the chaos in the world, no one remembered this place.
So this army was completely at ease stationed in Kowloon Village, and they intermarried with the local residents and gradually integrated into the area.
In 1984, when China and britain began to deal with the problem of Hong Kong, the government was planning to demolish kowloon village, when it was accidentally discovered that there was still a remnant of the Qing army hidden here.
The descendants of these Qing troops have been stationed here for many years, and because it has been forgotten and unruly since the end of the Qing Dynasty, until 1992, the laws of the Qing Dynasty were still followed here.
The local population also had a system of concubinage and a strict hierarchy, which was so shocking that it was not until it was demolished that they finally lived a modern life.