Background

The following website contains good background information on the Taiping Rebellion - http://www.watson.org/rivendell/historyeasttaiping.html

Armies

Imperial Chinese Army

The Eight Banners
Chinese  ku-sai (Brigade) - 5 chia-la (Regiments) per ku-sai - 5 niu-lu (companies) per chia-la (50 to130 men per niu-lu)
Manchu  ku-sai (Brigade) - 5 chia-la (Regiments) per ku-sai - 5 niru (companies) per chia-la (50 to130 men per niru)
Mongol ku-sai (Brigade) - 2 chia-la (Regiments) per ku-sai - 5 sumum (companies) per chia-la (50 to130 men per sumum)
(Mainly distributed as small garrisons throughout the country-side. 50% cavalry and little or no firearms)

The Peking Bannermen
Six "Elite" Corps based in the Capital (They are elite only in name)
Imperial Bodyguard (Ch'in-chün ying) - All cavalry force of roughly 3000 men
Vanguard Division (Ch'ien-feng ying) - 1500 to 2000 men organized in Left and Right Wings. Half armed with Matchlocks, half with bows
Flank Division (Hu-chün ying) - 15000 to 16000 men. Organized into eight divisions. Mixture of infantry and cavalry armed with everything!
Light Division (Ch'ien-jui ying) - 3000 to 4000 men. Infantry and Cavalry force armed with matchlocks, swords, bows, spears, etc
Firearms Division (Huo-ch'i ying) - 8000 men divided into Inner (city defence) and Outer (field) forces.  Infantry and Cavalry armed with Matchlocks, bows, Jingalls, and artillery.
Paid Force (Hsiao-ch'i ying) -  65000 men most cavalrymen, but there were 7000 matchlock infantry men. Best force of the six elite corp.

Army of the Green Standard
Little more than poorly trained militia
18 Armies (chüns) - 5000 to 50000  men per chün
Three catagories of troops, each type was found in every garrison. Infantry usually outnumbered cavalry by 5:1 or more.
     - Garrison Infantry (shou-ping)
     - Mobile Infantry (pu-ping)
     - Cavalry (ma-ping)
Division (chen-piao) - 3 or more Brigades (hsieh) - 4 regiments/battalions (ying) per Brigade (Roughly 500 infantry men or 250 cavalry per ying)

Militia/Peasants
They fought the Taipings, Bandits, or unruly Imperialists
Basic unit is a Battalion (ying) - 3 to 5 companies, each company has 100 men
Usually no more than 2000 militia were ever formed together. Militia was armed with bows, bamboo spears, spears, pole arms, and swords.

Yung and Yung-Ying Armies
Yung means "Brave" and Ying means "Battalion". These armies started to be raised (mid-1850's) in the local provences and were paid and trained better (at least in theory) than the Banner armies. Inititally and through most of thier existance the Yung-Ying armies were mostly infantry.
Each Yung-Ying was roughly 500 infantry with all sorts of weapons mixed together (i.e. - matchlock, spear, polearm, sword, etc)
From 1858  - Some small cavalry units of 250 men each

Brigades contained 2 -10+ battalions, each Division had 10 to 30 battalions. Brigades were named after their commander (i.e. <commander's name>-ying) Generalizations - The Yung-Ying had good NCOs and Leadership at the battalion level.

Taiping Army

Here is the paper strength of a Taiping "Army Corp".

Chün - (Army Corp)              [commanded by a chün-shuai (general)]        
5 shih (regiments) per chün   [commanded by a shih-shuai (regimental commander)]
5 leu (battalions) per shih      [commanded by a leu-shuai (battalion commander)]

Each leu (battalion) has 500 men. In reality these strengths were much lower and regiments were seldom at full strength. The Taipings also has "water regiments" called shui-ying which fought on the numerous waterways of the area. There were three catagories of Taiping soldiers:

"Bona fide" (Veteran) Taipings with 6 or more years of service
"Acknowledged brethern" (Volunteers) with 3 to 6 years experience
"new levies" (Conscripts) with less than 3 years of service

By 1860 the vast majority of Taipings were Conscripts.

Ever Victorious Army and Other "Foreign Trained" Units

British and French Armies

Tactics

Chinese armies were big on pomp and circumstance rather than actual fighting. Chinese armies went into battle with thousands of flags and banners. These along with large musical instruments and large explosions were used to make the enemy flee. Chinese tended to fire thier weapons at extreme distances in an attempt to scare off the enemy rather than delivering the crushing volley at point blank range. If neither side backed down then they would engage in combat. This applies to open field combat. Whenever a chinese army was defending a fort or city they fought like devils. Cavalry was always deployed on the flanks of the army and once the cavalry routed it would never come back. Chinese armies used clouds of skirmishers, usually armed with swords and small shields. They were also armed with Jingalls. All units were capable of deploying in skirmish formation.

Rules

Piquet Modification using Hallowed Ground

Rules by Michael Huskey

Army and Battle pictures

Photos of Sébastien Coels' Taiping Collection
Muster Call of Eric's Taiping Rebellion Collection (TBD)

Site created and maintained by Eric Burgess

Hits since July 28, 2000