The Late Qing Shandong Militia

With fast changes of political situations in the second half of 19 century, Shandong Tuan' lien, which appeared to resist Taiping Army at the very beginning, experienced springing up, flourishing, declining, rebounding, flourishing again, declining again, until it was changed into police and finally went out of history stage. The whole process lasted half of a century. In this period, Shandong Tuan' lien had helped Qing Imperial Government suppress peasant uprisings, such as uprisings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Nien and the Boxre, and performed the ruler's political mission successfully. What's more, Shandong Tuan's lien played an important historical role in the fights against invasions of the west big powers.In Shandong of the late Qing dynasty, there held Tuan' lien of large scale for three times. The first time was for resisting Taiping Army and the Nien during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng and Tongzhi. The second time was for resisting Japanese pirates during Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. In this period, the performance of the coastal Tuan' lien was especially outstanding. The third time was for Wuxu Putsch and the Boxre and it fully played two functions— "resisting the outside" and "pacifying the inner side". On this basis, the dissertation classifies the history changes of Shandong Tuan' lien in the late Qing dynasty into three periods, that is, the reign of Emperor Xianfeng and Tongzhi, Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and the Boxre period.Taking the development of Shandong Tuan' lien as a clue, the dissertation tries to investigate Tuan' lien of different periods respectively about their establishing background, process and situation, the relationship with other local social organizations of basic level and government, and their functions. It focuses on probing answering measures when Shandong Tuan' lien was confronted with big impacts home and abroad, probing the relationship with other local social organizations of basic level and government in particular and historical changes in three periods, and then summarizing the nature and functions of Tuan' lien in different periods and their changing features. The role of Shandong Tuan' lien changed with changes of social and political surrounding of the late Qing dynasty, and appeared different characteristics in different historical periods, which makes systematical combing very difficult for later researchers and provides a case for the complexity and changeability of history.