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Introduction
"The army may be unemployed for a hundred years, but it cannot be left
unprepared for a single day."
- Emperor Ch'ien-lung, taken from the Imperial Military Annals.
From the sudden rise of Nurhaci,
founder of the Manchu state and grandfather of the first Ch'ing emperor,
to the collapse of the Ch'ing dynasty in the early 20th century, there
was hardly a single day in which imperial military forces were not engaged
in some part of the empire or its surrounding borderlands. Prior to the
establishment of the Ch'ing, the Manchus, in their vie for the throne
of China, engaged the forces of the Ming dynasty in a long war of epic
scale. This war culminated in the Sa-erh-hu and Sung-shan campaigns, which
demonstrated the field and siege capabilities of the Manchu bannermen.
After crossing the Great Wall and seizing Peking, the Ch'ing organized
the so-called "Army of the Green Standard," composed of native Chinese
soldiers, which in turn enabled their conquest of central and southern
China. Under the reign of the Ch'ien-lung emperor (1736-1795), the military
further expanded and fortified the borders of the empire. The middle years
of the Ch'ien-lung reign denote the high water mark of the Ch'ing military.
By the end of 18th century, its long decline was already underway. Beginning
in the Tao-kuang reign (1821-1850), military encroachment by Western imperial
powers led to a long series of Ch'ing defeats and the eventual downfall
of the dynasty.
The success and failure of
the Ch'ing military was closely linked to the factors of military power,
strategy, military technology, and the quality of its officer corps. The
success of the Manchu bannermen in the early years of the dynasty was
primarily due to the skill of their cavalry and their possession of firearms.
The infusion of Western technology during the Shun-chih (1644-1661) and
K'ang-hsi (1662-1722) reigns enabled the Ch'ing to further develop their
firearms technology. However, during the mid and latter part of the 18th
century, the government shifted to a closed and defensive military policy
that hailed an end to advances in military thought, weaponry, and strategy.
This shift coincided, disastrously for the Chinese, with the scientific
and technological surge of Western civilization. The crushing defeat inflicted
by British imperial forces in the Opium War and other conflicts of the
mid-19th century forced the Ch'ing court to recognize the flaws and weakness
of the Banner and Green Standard armies. In an anxious effort to place
the military on par with that of the Western powers, the Ch'ing established
the Hsiang and Huai armies, founded naval facilities, and constructed
the Northern and Southern navies. Yet the effort was too little, too late.
Although the Ch'ing succeeded in suppressing the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion
of the 1850s and 60s, they were soundly defeated by the Japanese army
in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. The reasons for the fall of the Ch'ing
are many, yet from a military perspective, they can be summarized simply
as the failures of weaponry, preparation, and leadership.
The present exhibition incorporates
over eighty historical texts, archival documents, and military maps and
illustrations, all of which are related in some way to the Ch'ing military.
These documents are categorized into three topics ??famous campaigns,
military organization and weaponry, and imperial defense ??each of which
is accompanied by a brief introduction. We hope that together, these sources
will both give audiences an impression of the wealth of military related
material found in the Ch'ing archives, and help historians deepen their
understanding of China's military history.
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