Yong Ying were a type of regional army that emerged in the 19th century in the Qing dynasty army, which fought in most of China's wars after the Opium War and numerous rebellions exposed the ineffectiveness of the Manchu Eight Banners and Green Standard Army. The Yong ying were created from the earlier tuanlian militias.
Tuanlian history
Tuanlian is the Chinese term for localised village militias created in the Zhou Dynasty. In May 1645, Ming rebel leader Li Zicheng was killed by a tuanlian of local landowners in Hubei province. During the Jiaqing reign, with the corrupt and ineffective official military establishment of the Eight Banners and Green Standard Army incapable of curbing the White Lotus Rebellion, the Qing court began to order local gentry and landowners in all ten provinces to organise tuanlian for self-defense, with both funding and control in the hands of local gentry and landowners.
Yong
Yong, literally "Braves", was the official name for members of the militia, which was recruited from the localcivilian population. These "braves" were grouped into units, known as the "Yong Ying". Yong were not regarded as part of the official imperial army of Eight Banners or Green Standard, with their funding and logistics provided by civilian society, not the imperial governments. The Xiang Army, a "Yung-ying" army in Qing Dynasty China, separate from the Manchu Eight Banners and Green Standard Army. They used modern weapons and the officers were never rotated, so relationships formed between officers and the troops, unlike Green Standard and Banner forces. It was recorded that
Although rations came from public funds, the yung-ying troops were nevertheless grateful to the officers of the battalion for selecting them to be put on the rolls, as if they had received personal favours from the officers. Since in ordinary times there existed relations of kindness as well as mutual confidence, in battle it could be expected that they would see each other through hardship and adversity.
During the Taiping Rebellion, tuanlian militia was expanded by Zeng Guofan into an army force of thirteen battalions consisted of 6500 men, a navy of ten battalions consisted of 5000 men, of a total of 17,000 men, was given the name of Xiang Army, with Zeng Guofan as the Commander-in-chief, accepting orders from Zeng alone. The new rule was termed "Soldiers followed the general, soldiers belonged to the general", contrary to the old military rule before the Northern Song Dynasty's "Soldiers had no fixed commander, commander had no fixed soldiers". This new military rule was the direct cause of the Warlord era. These Tuanlian were turned into the Yong Ying Xiang Army.
