34 THE ARMY THE ARMY sisting of units armed with rapid-fire guns,units with heavy artil- 35 lery,and reserve units.The engineers were divided into bridge- cated man."15 Imitating the West,as Yuan had suggested to Li building,fortification,ordnance,repair,surveying,mine-laying, Hung-tsao,meant simplifying the army's organization,concentrat- and telegraph detachments.There were also four administrative ing power in a few hands,and making discipline more stringent- bureaus:supply,ordnance,transport,and foreign affairs(intelli. all tasks he undertook at Hsiaochan. gence).According to Yuan's report to the Grand Council,foreign- He organized the new army differently from both the traditional style training should be continued,and the.number of drill in- forces and Li Hung-chang's Hwai Army.His system was soon structors increased from two (a'German and a Norwegian)to five. adopted by the other army units reorganized under Jung-lu.16 In He also proposed to expand the army from 5,o00 to 7,o0o men. firm personal control of the operations at Hsiaochan,Yuan con- According to a wage scale Yuan devised,the total monthly payroll centrated on developing professionalism and discipline among the would amount to 7o,o0o taels of silver.This and other expenses. troops.7 Just as he had established rigorous standards for his re- were to come from the Board of Revenue.10 cruits,Yuan imposed stern regulations on their conduct;theft, Yuan's chief-of-staff was his old friend Hsui Shih-ch'ang,who rape,rioting,and desertion all carried the death penalty.He also knew nothing of military affairs.*T'ang Shao-i,Yuan's assistant took special steps to discourage opium smoking.Finally,to pre- in Korea,continued on as his secretary.The German-trained Man- vent embezzlement,the soldiers were paid individually under chu General Yin-ch'ang,who was the head of the military academy Yuan's supervision,as opposed to the customary practice of issuing at Tientsin,recommended four of his best students to Yuan:Feng the money to the commanding officers.(Even so,in April 1897,a Kuo-chang,Tuan Ch'i-jui(also German-trained),Wang Shih-chen, censor wrote a memorial to the emperor charging Yuan with bru- and Liang Hua-tien.Liang later drowned during a night maneu- tality and corruption.In response to this,Jung-lu went to Hsiao- ver,but the other three assumed important positions in the army. chan to investigate in person.On his return,he paid an unquali- Feng became Yuan's aide-de-camp and headed the infantry school; fied tribute to Yuan's accomplishments.Two years later,when Tuan commanded and instructed the artillery corps;and Wang Yuan and the censor met again in Shantung,all was forgiven and held a similar post with the engineering corps. forgotten;in fact Yuan took the man into his secretariat.19) As Yuan understood it,the army's duties were "to defend the Yuan's army was equipped primarily with foreign goods-in- honor of the country and to suppress violence.on behalf of the cluding arms,tools,tunics,boots,canvas tents,raincoats,blankets, people."u By "country"(kuo),he did not mean the Chinese na- field glasses,drums,telephones,and medicine.2 The infantry was tion but the throne,the realm,the dynasty.In classical parallel armed with standardized Mauser rifles,the cavalry with both Mau- sentences,his recruitment notices stressed over and over again the sers and lances,and the artillery with Maxim machine guns and graciousness of the throne and the corresponding debt of gratitude six-gun batteries of one-to six-pounders. owed by the people.Indeed,an important goal of the soldiers' The officers came from two major sources:they were either grad- training was to "consolidate their loyalty"to the throne.1s If the uates of the Peiyang Military Academy in Tientsin or veterans army was to perform its imperial duties,Yuan felt it must emulate without much formal education.The former prided themselves on Western models.14 Like most of the Chinese who were not xeno- their scholarly knowledge,the latter on their battle experience.21 phobes,Yuan tended to idealize the West.He once remarked,for Yuan's way of reducing tension between the two groups was to example,"In the West there is not a single civilian who does not emphasize their common duty to the throne,as well as his own understand military affairs.Conversely,every soldier is an edu- expectations of them.22 Hsii hadhad a checkered career since he and Yuan had parted as young A great moment in Yuan's career came when the British rear- men.Although he held a chin-shih,the highest degree,he was not an out- standing scholar and had not-won a promising appointment.(He was also .They should be twenty to twenty-five years of age,at least 4 feet,8 inches hindered by the death of his mother,which interrupted his career.)At Hsiao- in height,able to lift 1oo pounds,and able to walk 61 miles an hour.They chan,he was actually working under a man with no degree. should not be physically deformed or addicted to opium,and should have no criminal record.Yuan Shih-k'ai,ed.,Hsin-chien lu-chin,pp.85-87