LECTURE. Friday, 5th July, 1878. GENERAL SIR WILLIAM J. CODRINGTON, G.C.B., &c., VicePresident, in the Chair. ON THE ADOPTION OF THE NAVAL AND MILITARY SYSTEMS OF EUROPE BY CHINA AND JAPAN. By Captain CYPRIAN G. BRIDGE, R.N. My first duty this afternoon is to explain, and, if necessary, apologise for coming forward as a lecturer in this theatre a second time in the course of one annual session. I hope my audience will accept my assurance that my appearance here to-day is due only to an invitation, more than once repeated. The subject to be brought before you is not of my own selection, but was proposed to me in the invitation mentioned, and no one can be more fully persuaded than I am of my inability to handle it effectively. To do it perfect justice, it should be treated by a competent scholar of the Chinese and Japanese languages, by a student of the abundant military literature of those tongues, and by a person conversant with the internal and foreign politics of the two countries. To not one of these qualifications do I make the smallest pretence. I have, indeed, spent some time in both China and Japan, and I have also had some opportunities of witnessing the progress they have made in their adoption of the naval and military systems of the West, and I have diligently searched through literally scores of volumes for notices of the condition of their armaments at various periods of their history, as recorded by foreign observers; but beyond this I have no claim to be considered in any way an authority in the matter. The subject-though, as I have said, not one of my own choosing-is an important and interesting one, and I regret, for many reasons, that it has not come to be taken up by one of the many highly competent gentlemen whose names are well known in the far East, and who are now in this country. An inquiry into any of the institutions of either China or Japan is likely to possess an interest of a highly peculiar nature, and depending on different causes in the case of either nation. The astonishing antiquity of the Chinese Empire must render extremely interesting an examination of any department of its polity. A thousand years before the half-mythical period when the rape of Helen was avenged by the siege and destruction of Troy, China had attained a considerable national position, and was in possession of a settled government. Within the space of time that has since elapsed, empires have risen and fallen, others have been erected on their ruins, to fall in their turn, and great revolutions of race, in politics, and in religion have changed the aspect of the world elsewhere; but with her, language, institutions, and national character have maintained a remarkable, unquiet indeed occasionally, but still unbroken continuity. As has been eloquently said of her, she is "a venerable structure, the last remains "of the fabric of empire reared by the hands of the men of olden "time." The antiquity of Japan, respectable as it is, seems insignificant by the side of that of her neighbour nation; but there is something about her so attractive, the scenery of the country is so beautiful, the climate so lovely, the history so romantic, and the manners of the people so polished and engaging, that an investigation of any matter concerning her exercises a fascination over the minds of all who have enjoyed the advantage of visiting her shores, or to whom descriptive accounts of her are familiar. Both nations, for many generations, evinced a strong repugnance to submit to foreign instruction, and, in the case of one-China-that repugnance has been overcome as yet only as regards advance in the path of naval and military progress, which-regret it as we may-few here will be disposed to deny is, in our own time at least, an important branch of high statecraft; whilst, in the case of Japan, movement along this path is but part of a wholesale change of system and imitation of the institutions existing in the western world. To simplify the method of the inquiry which I have been asked to undertake, it will be better to examine the advancement of each country separately, in the improvement of its naval and military system under the influence of foreign instruction. For each, then, it will be well to, first, give an account of the condition of its armaments at the epoch at which Europeans first began to be intimately acquainted with the concerns of the far Asiatic East. Secondly, to call attention to the progress made by them, as noted by foreign observers. Thirdly, to ascertain their condition during our several conflicts with them. And, lastly, to glance at the progress they have made up till now, and the position in which either country stands at present. Our earliest intimate knowledge of China we owe to the accounts sent home by the Roman Catholic missionaries. To them and to their contemporaries that empire seemed, and rightly seemed, to have attained a marvellous pitch of culture and enlightenment. At the present day, there still exist in many parts of China obvious traces of good order and refinement, to which the Europe of Charles V or Elizabeth must have failed utterly to find a parallel. Gigantic public works, of pomp or utility, an ancient literature in the native tongue, an active and wide-spread commerce, remarkable mechanical ingenuity and skill in the useful and decorative arts, as well as a highly organized system of government, and an orderly and pacific population, formed a combination to be looked for in vain in the kingdoms of the West. Europe, torn by conflicts waged in the name of religion, or because of the ambition of dynasties, could not claim great superiority over the newly visited empire, even in the matter of warlike science. Certain weapons she indeed possessed, such as cannon and portable firearms, rude and imperfect as both these were, which China, we may concede, had not learned to use. But in organization and discipline, the eastern country was, and continued to be for many years, far in advance of even the foremost European military states. The Jesuit Navarrete, writing in the seventeenth century, tells us that, having had personal experience of a Chinese Army on the march, he would far rather have to traverse two Chinese Armies than one of Spaniards. In his celebrated work, the "Histoire Philosophique et Politique," &c., published a hundred years ago, the Abbé Raynal-summing up the accounts of Chinese polity due to the diligence of the missionary visitors-noted the absence of a warlike spirit amongst the Chinese, but expressly asserted that its non-existence was not incompatible with a self-devoting courage. Many incidents of our own wars with them show that, if they did not know how to fight, they at least knew how to fall courageously; and, in the course of the long struggle, now apparently approaching its issue in Kashgaria, the devotion of many commanders of beleaguered Chinese garrisons-who preferred self-destruction to surrender-has rarely been surpassed, even among the warrior races of the western world; so that the submission to the restraints of military discipline, which rendered a Chinese force so orderly, and therein so different from a contemporary European one, was not due to any pusillanimity on the part of its members. The unwarlike spirit of the nation showed itself in a horror of war for war's sake, and in an enlightened preference for the arts of peace over that military glory which is but too often accompanied by bloodshed, rapine, and pestilence. "Contumelious, "beastly, madbrained war," as Shakspear stigmatises it, was to be dreaded as interfering with the prosperity of the people, not because they were afraid to risk their lives in it. Unwarlike as it was, the nation was not unmilitary. Several military maxims, long current in the country, have been made known to us. An Army is intended "to defend the people, and not molest them," must have sounded strange in the ears of Europeans, who might have had personal experience of the conduct of Tilly's and Mansfield's troopers. "The Army may be a hundred years unemployed, but not a single day un"prepared," summarised the whole theory of a standing army, ages before our "bluff King Hal" had called his Yeomen of the Guard into existence, and was probably not unthought of at Berlin, between La Belle Alliance and Koeniggratz. 66 66 So in the government of the Empire, under both its native sovereigns and the present intrusive reigning house, a separate branch of the administration was charged with the duty of superintending the defensive forces as is the case in the countries of modern Europe and in America. One of the boards into which the supreme Government was divided, was and is the Ping-pu, or Board of War; War Office, as we may term it. Under it was the superior military tribunal, or YongChing-pu, which seems to have exercised the functions of the headquarter staff, and was the vehicle for the transmission of the orders of the supreme authority, with whom the decision on great questions of military policy lay, to the executive departments or bureaux, of which there were five seated at the capital. Since the Manchu dynasty has usurped the throne there have been in reality two distinct Chinese Armies; one the Banner force, and the other the Lah-Ying, or troops of the Green Standard. On the organization and distribution of these bodies of men a series of admirable essays were written more than twenty years ago by Her Majesty's present distinguished representative at the Court of Peking, Sir Thomas Wade. They are to be found in the Chinese Repository for 1852, and I strongly recommend the perusal of the exhaustive account of the Chinese Army contained in them to any person interested in the subject. The qualifications of their eminent author, as soldier, sinologue, and diplomatist, give to them an authority which no other writings on the same theme can well lay claim to. The Banner force comprises both a standing army and a body of household troops. It may be roughly, but with sufficient accuracy, divided into palace satellites, Imperial Guard, and garrisons for the capital and several of the chief cities of the Empire. It is divided into eight corps, or banners, and in its ranks are Mongols, Manchus, and Han-kiun, or descendants of those Chinese who forsook the native Ming dynasty at the invasion and went over to the cause of the usurper. These last are spoken of in the accounts of the missionaries as "Tartarised Chinese." Each corps contains archers, musketeers, and artillery, and there is also a large body of cavalry belonging to it. Its nominal strength has been roughly estimated at from 100,000 to 130,000 men; all the males of Tartar families dwelling in or near the capital being in a sense enrolled in it. It is, however, very doubtful if it could turn out in anything like that number. This corps d'elite has yielded, in its organization, drill, and equipment, less to the influence of foreign ideas than the other portions of the Chinese Army, and the long-bow and the cross-bow are still its favourite arms. I have myself seen considerable bodies armed with those antiquated weapons going to and returning from the practice ground outside the walls of Peking; where it is no uncommon sight also to meet with some dashing young Officer of the Guards driving out to the butts in a springless cart, the ordinary street-cab of Peking, from under the arched covering of which peep out the end of a bow and a quiver well filled with arrows. The troops of the Green Standard are almost entirely Chinese. A few Officers above the rank of subaltern are Manchus. This force has been, at different times, variously estimated at from 600,000 to 800,000 men. The numbers on the lists probably do not fall much short of the larger total; but many of them only turn out for duty when actually required. "It is," says Sir Thomas Wade, "rather an immense "constabulary than a fighting Army." Differing from the Banner force in one important respect it is under the orders of the provincial mandarins. The Government of China is in great measure local and provincial in its character; each province having separate revenues, a separate army, and-if ou the sea-board or traversed by great rivers -a separate naval force. To this we may with all appearance of probability attribute that extraordinary want of uniformity in organization and equipment which is to be observed in different bodies of Chinese troops and different squadrons of armed vassals. Within the course of a short journey, bows and arrows, breech-loading rifles, spears, sword bayonets, shields, Krupp guns, matchlocks, and antique smooth-bores may all be seen in use both on shore and afloat. And I have noticed, not once but often, man-of-war junks and steam gunboats flying the dragon flag lying at the same anchorage. A progressive Governor-General, like the eminent Li-Hung-Chang and his reputed rival Tso-Tsung-Tang, establishes arsenals for the construction of modern weapons and ships of European model, whilst a conservative contemporary adheres to the fashions of his ancestors; both being little hampered by orders from the Central Government. The troops of the Green Standard are, or were, divided in 1,202 ying or battalions, and they were distributed through forty-one different stations. one. Recruiting for both branches of the Army, we learn, is not attended with many difficulties. The Banner-men are hereditary soldiers; and the ranks of the Green Standard are filled by volunteers who, as one account informs us, are often so anxious to enlist that they give presents to the mandarins to allow them to enrol themselves. When not on duty they are permitted to work at their trades, and thus earn an addition to their regular pay. The Officers often, perhaps generally, rise from the ranks; but the system of competitive examinations is in force for the military, as well as for the civil service of the Empire. The examination, unlike that in some enlightened countries which have copied it with so much self-congratulation, is not simply a literary In China, the original home of competitive examinations, where cramping the feet of ladies and the intellects of those who desire to serve their country are both in fashion, they have not gone quite so far as to make a rule that that which is a good test for selecting pupilteachers is by itself an equally good one for selecting naval and military Officers. A part of the examination is designed to test proficiency in riding and martial exercises. As the country makes farther "progress in the art of war," and comes more under the influence of western enlightenment, we may hope to see the scholastic test alone retained as evidence of fitness for the least scholastic of professions. But they are not an illogical people, and when they do this they will probably also make superior proficiency in knotting and splicing an essential qualification for a college tutorship. The examinations are held periodically, at different head-quarters. What in Western Europe is called "interest" is nevertheless not unknown in China, and Sir Thomas Wade states that the claims of parents of hereditary rank for appointments are admitted. 66 The arms of the troops when we first learn much concerning them were swords and lances, the bow and arrow, the cross-bow and bolt; and we are expressly told there were "few musketeers." The match |