Peking Field Force

Peking Field Force
Active	1862–1900
Country	Qing Dynasty
Branch	Imperial Guards Brigade
Type	Field Force
Role	Garrison
Size	3,000 (1862) 30,000 (1865)
Garrison/HQ	Imperial City, Beijing
Engagements	Boxer Rebellion Battle of Peking

Peking Field Force

The Peking Field Force was a modern-armed military unit that defended the Chinese imperial capital Beijing in the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Its troops were on duty in the Imperial City, Beijing, as one of the units of the Qing emperor's Imperial Guard.

The Force was founded in 1862, two years after the humiliating capture of Beijing and the sack of the Qing emperor's Summer Palace in 1860 by foreign powers at the end of the Second Opium War. After that war, high Qing officials like Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Wenxiang (the latter a Manchu) tried to acquire advanced western weapons and to copy western military organization. Founded by Wenxiang and manned by mostly Manchu Bannermen, the soldiers most loyal to the dynasty, the Force was armed with Russian rifles and French cannon and drilled by British officers. The Field Force was one of the main units defending Beijing from the Eight Nation Alliance during the Boxer Rebellion in the summer of 1900, and it was destroyed by the heavy losses it took during the Western siege.

The "First Historical Archives of China" () in Beijing hold a collection of primary documents on the Peking Field Force.

Name

The Chinese name of the battalions is Shenji ying, in which shenji means "divine mechanism" and ying either "military camp", "battalion", or "regiment". The Qing force had the same name as the Shenjiying, a Ming-era (1368–1644) military corps that specialized in training with firearms. The Ming division has been variously referred to as "Divine Mechanism Battalions", "Firearms Division", "Artillery Camp", "Shen-chi Camp", and "Firearm Brigade". or "Divine Engine Division", whereas the Qing division that specialized in training with firearms has been referred to as the Firearm Battalion or "Huoqiying".

The Qing army corps also named "Shenji ying" is sometimes called the "Metropolitan Field Force", but is mostly known as the "Peking Field Force", the name by which foreigners referred to it in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

History

The force was created in 1862 and consisted entirely of bannermen. Initially it was 3,000 men strong, although by 1865 it had grown to 30,000 men. The force had received western training and modern equipment during the period 1862–1865, though after that while it continued its existence further, modernisation had not occurred and it had been left to languish.

See also

• Military of the Qing dynasty
• Imperial Guards (Qing dynasty)
• Firearm Battalion
• Hushenying

Works cited

• Brunnert, H. S.; Hagelstrom, V. V. (1911). Present Day Political Organization of China. New York: Paragon.
• Chan, Hok-lam (1976). "Li Ying". Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644, Volume I. Stanford University: Stanford University Press. pp. 887–892. ISBN 0231038011.
• Template:The Cambridge History of China
• Crossley, Pamela Kyle (1990). Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691055831.
• Dreyer, Edward L. (1982). Early Ming China: A Political History, 1355–1435. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804711054.
• Template:Cite ECCP
• Horowitz, Richard S. (1992). "Bannermen and Soldiers: Wenxiang and the Creation of the Peking Field Force (Shenji Ying), 1860–1866". Papers on Chinese History. 1 (1): 91–105.
• Horowitz, Richard S. (2002). "Beyond the Marble Boat: The Transformation of the Chinese Military, 1850–1911". In David A. Graff; Robin Higham (eds.). A Military History of China. Boulder, Colorado, and Oxford, England: Westview Press. pp. 153–74. ISBN 0813337364. (hardcover), Template:ISBN (paperback).
• Hucker, Charles O. (1985). A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804711933..
• Template:The Cambridge History of China
• Powell, Ralph L. (1955). The Rise of Chinese Military Power, 1895–1912. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press..
• Purcell, Victor (1963), The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521060066 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) (hardback). Template:ISBN (paperback).
• Rhoads, Edward (2000). Manchus & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861–1928. Seattle and London: University of Washington press. ISBN 0295979380.
• Wright, Mary C. (1957). The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-Chih Restoration, 1862–1874. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.