Jianruiying, the Special Forces of the Qing Dynasty | Hacker News Reader

Jianruiying, the Special Forces of the Qing Dynasty

mandarinmansion.com

79 pointsvanderburgt28 comments

BTW the portraits near the end were painted by a Jesuit priest in the court of Qianlong named Giuseppe Castiglione.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Castiglione_(Jesuit_p...

His works is a blending of both European and Chinese techniques.

What was expected to become a quick and decisive victory for the otherwise highly effective Qing army, ended in a stalemate.

This was a constant theme throughout Chinese dynastic history -- leaders at the provincial or national level underestimating the military capabilities of tribal peoples/"barbarians," rebels, and smaller tributary states. The preceding Ming dynasty is littered with similar examples involving Japanese-led pirate bands on the coast and tribal groups to the north and west. The 15th-century Zhengtong Emperor decided to take part in crushing one border flare-up with the Mongols, and was even captured. The dynasty itself was ended by Manchu invaders in the mid-1600s.

I don't believe the Ming ever trained a distinct/elite group of special forces as described in TFA, but innovative and effective generals were sometimes given special commands and employed new modes of training and tactics but using regular conscripted forces. The aforementioned Japanese-led pirates raiding the coast were vanquished in this way.

I recommend 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline by Ray Huang (a historian and former military officer) for anyone who is interested in this topic.

But that's not a problem unique to China. Historically people from stronger/wealthier nations have underestimated others in poorer nations, especially when the poorer country is on the defense. Mongols vs. Vietnam, UK vs. Maori, Japan vs. China (China took a beating but Japan thought they can win the war in 4 months and China's strategy did win out in the end at great cost.), Chinese nationalist vs. Chinese communists, France vs. Vietnam, US vs. Vietnam, China vs. Vietnam, USSR vs. Afghanistan, etc.

Everyone else vs someone else in Afghanistan...

Chinese actually fought there and won at one point.

Sivaji's raiding attacks are also a good example. His army was a very small group of horsemen (at least in the beginning), but was very, very effective in being a major headache to Mughals and others

Japan versus China? Do people really consider China to have won that one? I always thought they mostly made it out due to the US defeating Japan.

China was not yet defeated and was slowly retaking territory, but of course Japan's unconditional surrender made everything much easier. HistoryLapse has a pretty good article on that last stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War: https://en.historylapse.org/japan%27s-defeat-in-the-second-s...

You should read up on what Chiang's strategy. He knew that Japan can no way take China quickly enough and that Japan was still too weak to defeat a major Western power. He realized where Japan had won in China in the past was because China kept trying to make peace after initial defeats so Japan was able to take China bit by bit. Based on this assumptions, his plan was to retreat into the interior, last as long as possible, and wait for aid from the Western nations.

A lot of history mocked Chiang but in the past two decades after China opened up the archives in Nanjing, Chiang has started to look much less of a fool but a strategist playing with a weak deck of cards. Counting on the Western powers was always part of his plan. He sent one son to Germany and another to the USSR as sort of "hostages". Stalin was a major supplier of arms to China for a while because Stalin needed China to occupy Japan's attention. Germany also ended up helping China by sending advisers to train the Chinese army (a big part of the reason why China lasted as long as it did and why the Battle of Shanghai stunned Japan.) At the same time Chiang sent his US educated wife to court the Americans. She actually got to testify in front of Congress to appeal for aid and her Southern accent was actually quite charming to some.

Not all wars are won on the battlefield (i.e. Vietnam War, etc.)

>I don't believe the Ming ever trained a distinct/elite group of special forces as described in TFA

Embroidered Uniform Guard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embroidered_Uniform_Guard

I always find certain weapons like the hook sword shown at the bottom to be interesting as they don't show up in other cultures, although the straight sword is pretty much available across the globe. Did it excel in some manner for the threats in China that were less relevant elsewhere? Maybe better armor in the west would have made it less relevant?

Curved swords are quite common in Persian, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cultures. They're not exclusively Chinese.

Even the Europeans used curved swords:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre

Generally curved swords are better at slashing and straight swords better at thrusting, which is particularly useful against weak points in armors.

OP is talking about these

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_sword

I guess the OP meant this hook sword

https://www.mandarinmansion.com/item/chinese-hook-sword

It does have a strange shape, and indeed I don't think I saw anything similar in other cultures.

Ah, that makes more sense. I was looking for a sword "near the bottom" of the article itself and saw just the curved sword; the hook sword was past the end.

Ah, I shouldn't been more descriptive lol

This is more of an axe than a sword.

Are you looking at it backwards? I think the axe looking part is a guard for the hands. See how it's held: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_sword

oh..

Well, here's a kinda similar European version

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(weapon)

This looks like a pre-Bat'leth.

I think Worf does have some smaller versions of these in an episode (one for each hand).

Yes, I'm well aware that curved swords are common (scimitar, calvary saber, katana, wakizashi...etc), but that hook sword is just out there.

I think op was referring to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_sword

https://www.mandarinmansion.com/item/chinese-hook-sword

There's a fun fight with it in Crouching Tiger.

The article says the emperor compared his soldiers to the Solon cavalry. Does anyone know who/what that refers to? A quick Google search did not turn up anything.

From internal evidence from the article, they were also a people inside the Chinese empire. Nothing to do with the Greek Solon :-)

Yes, the Solon were a subtribe of what were later called "Manchu". It is quite notable that while most tribes started to fall under the Manchu identity at some point, the Solon were often mentioned separately.

They first resisted Qing empire-building fiercely, but once subjugated made some of the best warriors of the Qing. They were even feared still in the 1860s by the Taipings, in a time when most of the Qing army had become a caricature of itself.

By the time the Qing fell, all Solon, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Mongolian, Hui and Manchu Bannermen were classified as "Manchu" and by now they are probably truly sinicized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon_people

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