The military song of China is a Chinese patriotic song that dates back to the formation of the New Armies of the late Qing Dynasty. The succeeding Chinese regimes recycled the music and changed the lyrics.
In urban legend, the music was taken from the Prussian March of the Emperor Wilhelm II which can' be found in Armeemarschsammlung. The original Qing lyrics were commissioned by Zeng Guofan for the Xiang Army. The same lyrics were used during the Yuan Shikai regime and known as the Soldier's Training Song.
After the Xinhai Revolution, the lyrics were changed again and continued to be used by the Chinese military. A well known variant was the National Revolution Army Song.
The Communists reworded the song into the Land Revolution Is Successful. A further modification transformed the song into Three Rules and Eight Notices, which is the best known form today. The latest lyrics is an extension of Zeng Guofan's version, adding additional rules to further inspire soldiers' discipline.
At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the music was used in the presence of representatives of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China.
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or china:
“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“It all ended with the circuslike whump of a monstrous box on the ear with which I knocked down the traitress who rolled up in a ball where she had collapsed, her eyes glistening at me through her spread fingers—all in all quite flattered, I think. Automatically, I searched for something to throw at her, saw the china sugar bowl I had given her for Easter, took the thing under my arm and went out, slamming the door.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)