Beiyang Army

The defeats led China to reform her army and after the adoption of Western technology China‟s new army began to show its face. It was the one of the strongest unit of new China; The Beiyang Army. ²²⁷

The Beiyang Army (北洋軍) or we can translate it as North Ocean Army was a very powerful, Western-style Chinese military force. It was created by the Qing Dynasty government in the late 19th century in China. It was the centerpiece of a general reconstruction of China‟s military system. Li Hong Zhang‟s Anhui Army later transformed in to Beiyang Army. This army has done its first action during the

225 Quoted from Hans van de Ven, Military and Financial Reform in the late Qing and Early Republic, p.27.

226 For a valuable reference book please see: LI, Xiao Bing, A History of the Modern Chinese Army, USA: Kentucky, University Press of Kentucky, 2007.

227 Rawlinson, J., China’s Struggle for Naval Development 1839–1895, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967, pp. 60-150.

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Taiping Rebellion. Unlike the traditional Green Standard or Banner forces of the Qing, the Anhui Army was largely a militia army based on personal, rather than institutional, loyalties. The Anhui Army was at first equipped with a mixture of traditional and modern weapons. The creator of the army, Li Hong Zhang, used the customs and tax revenues of the five provinces under his control in the 1880s and 1890s to modernize segments of the Anhui Army, and to build a modern navy (the Beiyang Fleet). It is around this time that the term “Beiyang Army” began to be used to refer to the military forces under his control.

By the mid-1890s the Beiyang Army was the best regional formation China could field. The real test of the effectiveness of the military self-strengthening reforms of the late 19th century came with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. It was the First challenge of Beiyang Army after its formation. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) was fought almost entirely by the Beiyang Army, unsupported by the forces of other provinces. In the war the Beiyang Fleet, which included two pre-Dreadnought battleships, was overwhelmed by the well-served quick firing guns of a lighter Japanese fleet. Similarly, on land, Japan's German-styled conscript army, led by academy trained professional officers, handily defeated the Beiyang Army.

Nonetheless, the outcome of the war showed that the best was not good enough. The Huai Army was shattered and the Beiyang fleet totally destroyed. The shock and humiliation of this defeat by a much smaller Asian nation acted as a catalyst for even more fundamental military reform. At the same time, the efficiency of Japan's more thoroughly Westernized army showed the direction these reforms would have to take^228.

228 Mc, Cord Edward, The Power of the Gun, Berkely, University of California Press, 1993, pp. 33–34.

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When Li Hong Zhang died in 1901 he was replaced by Yuan Shi Kai (袁世 凱)²²⁹ and after this time Beiyang Army was controlled by him. Since Yuan succeeded to Li Hong Zhang‟s posts as Zhili governor-general and commissioner of northern trade in 1901, he is seen as the direct heir to Li's regional organization.

Yuan Shi Kai oversaw the piecemeal reform of Qing military institutions after 1901. He founded the Baoding Military Academy, which allowed him to expand the Beiyang Army. With the creation of the Commission for Army Reorganization in December 1903, the Beiyang Army became the model on which the military forces of other provinces should be standardized.

By 1905 Beiyang Army was increased by Yuan Shi Kai to six divisions. In October he held maneuvers near Hejian in central Zhili using the newly completed Beijing-Hankou railway. Similar exercises where held the next year with Zhang Zhi Dong's army in Hubei. It was the unanimous opinion of foreign observers that the Beiyang Army was the largest, best equipped and best trained military force in China at the time that was not Western/Colonial. The Beiyang Army has played a very important role in Chinese politics for at least three decades and arguably right up to 1949.²³⁰

229 Yuan Shi Kai (1859 –1916) was an famous Chinese general and politician famous for his influence during the late Qing Dynasty, his role in the events leading up to the abdication of the last Qing Emperor of China, his autocratic rule as the second President of the Republic of China, and his short-lived attempt to revive the Chinese monarchy, with himself as the “Great Emperor of China.” For more information about him please read: Chen, Jerome. Yuan Shih-K'ai; 1859–1916. George Allen &

Unwin Ltd: Liverpool, 1961.

230 This resource comes from the web data base Economic Expert This site is intended as a resource for those working or interested in working on macro-economy research, training, education and economic development. We provide a comprehensive and searchable reference tool on the web please see; http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Beiyang:Army.htm

130 3.9.2 Beiyang Fleet

The Beiyang Fleet was one of the four modernised Chinese navies in the late Qing Dynasty²³¹. The navies were heavily supported by regional leader Li Hong Zhang. The Beiyang Fleet was the dominant navy in East Asia before the first Sino-Japanese War. This strong fleet was consisted mostly of battleships imported from Germany and Britain. When the flagships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were purchased from Germany at that time it was said The Beiyang Fleet was the “Best in Asia” and “The 8th best in the world” during the late 1880s.

The prides of the Beiyang Fleet were the German-built steel battleships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. The Beiyang Fleet was created in 1871, when four ships from the southern provinces were shifted north to patrol the northern waters. The Beiyang fleet was actually considered to be the weakest of the four Chinese regional navies. However, with the appointment of Li Hong Zhang and his own support Beiyang Fleet became the one of the most important fleet in China. In 1884, on the eve of the Sino-French War, the Beiyang Fleet was the second-largest regional navy but was gradually closing the gap with the Nanyang Fleet, based at Shanghai. By 1890 it was the largest of China‟s four regional navies²³².

Beiyang Fleet was consisted of 78 ships, with a total tonnage of 83,900 tons during its best period. However, construction of new ships almost completely stopped in 1888 due to high expenditures in other fields by the Qing Dynasty and the supposed naval expenditures were used to repair and build palaces by the Empress Dowager Cixi after she lost interest in naval construction. Due to missing

231 China‟s four modernized army at that period: Beiyang Fleet, Fujian Fleet, Guangdong Fleet, Nanyang Fleet.

232 Rawlinson, J., China’s Struggle for Naval Development 1839–1895, Harvard, 1967, pp. 75-150.

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expenditures, the training of the fleet and personnel essentially ran to a standstill, which eventually contributed to its defeat in the Battle of the Yalu River against Japan²³³.

As the author already wrote in the former chapters that the corruption in Qing dynasty among the politicians was a very serious problem. Chinese politicians systematically embezzled funds, even during the war. This was a terrible problem that was lasting long years in Chinese bureaucracy. As a result of that, the Beiyang Fleet could not purchase any battleships after its establishment in 1888. The purchase of ammunition stopped in 1891, with the funding being embezzled to build the summer palace in Beijing. Logistics were a huge problem, as construction of railroads in Manchuria had been discouraged.

Between 1881 and 1889 the Beiyang Fleet acquired a squadron of eight protected or armoured cruisers, most of which were built in either Britain or Germany.

However ships were not maintained properly and indiscipline was common. When the Beiyang Fleet visited Yokohama in 1891, Togo Heihachiro was shocked to see trash on the decks and washing hanging from the guns. He liked the Chinese fleet to having the appearance of a fine sword but being no sharper than a kitchen knife.²³⁴

The Beiyang Fleet was due to take delivery in early 1884 of Dingyuan, Jiyuan and Zhenyuan, three modern warships then building in German shipyards. In December 1883, as war with China seemed increasingly likely, the French persuaded

233 Rawlinson, J., China’s Struggle for Naval Development 1839–1895, Harvard, 1967, pp. 50-150.

234 Quoted from The First Sino Japanese War‟s web site please refer to;

http://sinojapanesewar.com/forces.htm

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the German government to delay the release of these three ships. They did not reach China until the autumn of 1885, after the end of the Sino-French War²³⁵.

In February 1885 the Beiyang Fleet reluctantly released two of its ships, Chaoyong and Yangwei, to join a sortie launched by a number of ships of the Nanyang Fleet to break the French blockade of Formosa. The two ships set sail for Shanghai to join the Nanyang vessels, but were almost immediately recalled by Li Hong Zhang, who claimed that they were needed to watch the Japanese in Korea. The result was the loss of two Chinese warships from the Nanyang Fleet at the Battle of Shipu (14 February 1885). Li‟s selfish attitude was neither forgotten nor forgiven, and in the First Sino-Japanese War the Nanyang Fleet made little attempt to help the Beiyang Fleet²³⁶.

In the year of 1894, Japanese claimed her China‟s responsibilities on Choson affairs (Korea Peninsula)²³⁷ and the Imperial Japanese Navy launched the First Sino-Japanese War against China²³⁸. Due to the lack of government funding and the intensive Japanese naval program, Beiyang Army‟s once superior resources were becoming outdated. By the time of the Battle of Yalu River (1894)²³⁹, the Beiyang

235 Lung Chang, 龍章, Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng 越南與中法戰爭, Vietnam and the Sino-French War, Taipei, 1993, pp. 180–83, 184–94.

236 Lung Chang, 龍章, Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng 越南與中法戰爭, Vietnam and the Sino-French War, Taipei, 1993, pp. 8–327.

237 Very important location in Korea Peninsula and for a long time in history, Japan did not give up its interests on this state. Some resources also call Chosŏn, Choson, and Chosun. This was a Korean sovereign state (July 1392 – August 1910) founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye, and lasted for approximately five centuries.

238 Hawley, Samuel, The Imjin War. Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China, Korea: Seoul, The Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 2005, p. 195.

239 The Battle of the Yalu River (黃海海戰, lit. Battle of the Yellow Sea), this war took place on September 17, 1894. Japanese and the Chinese navies fought a big war on this river which is between

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Fleet suffered heavy losses due to the surprise attack of the Japanese and the inferiority of its equipment, and was eventually defeated in the Battle of Weihaiwei.

Some small attempts to rebuild the fleet were made after the war, but the Beiyang Navy was never to gain the old power and importance in its former significance²⁴⁰.