Beiyang Army - Origins Under Li Hongzhang (to 1900)

Origins Under Li Hongzhang (to 1900)

The Beiyang Army was created from Li Hongzhang's Huai Army, which first saw action during the Taiping Rebellion. Unlike the traditional Green Standard or Banner forces of the Qing, the Huai Army was largely a militia army based on personal, rather than institutional, loyalties. The Huai Army was at first equipped with a mixture of traditional and modern weapons. Its creator, Li Hongzhang, used the customs and tax revenues of the five provinces under his control in the 1880s and 1890s to modernize segments of the Huai 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. The term "Beiyang", meaning literally "Northern Ocean", refers to the customs revenues collected in North China, which were used first to fund the Beiyang Fleet and later the Beiyang Army. However, funding was usually irregular and training by no means systematic.

By the mid-1890s the Beiyang Army was the best regional formation China could field. 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. Some Beiyang officers were also academy trained at the Tianjin Military Academy in western style drill with foreign advisors.

The Chinese Muslim Kansu Braves formed part of the Beiyang Army.