A Study On The Decision-making Of Training The New Army By The Qing Government (1894-1895)

After the Sino-Japanese War,the army of the late Qing Dynasty entered a transition period from traditional to modern.Because of imminent military crisis, there were lots of recommendations about straightening military in and out of the Qing government.The German Hanneken and the Foreign Affairs official Sheng Xuanhuai suggested training the new army modell on German system of military.The decision-making level of the Qing government paid more attention to the suggestions.Based on the programme of Hanneken,the Qing government talked about training the new army.Due to the serious situation and considerable prospects of training the new army,the Qing government hastily approved Hannaken's training programme without a full discussion,and appointed that Hu Yufen and Hanneken took responsible for the implementation of this programme.Faced the reality of inadequate funding and lack of army officers,Hu Yufen recommended the programme of training 100,000 new army adjust to 30,000. During the process of training the new army, Hanneken touched the right of the control abroadly, that led to the rifeness oppose of the Qing government officials, so the suggestion which was made by Hanneken was piled up. After about a month of Hanneken's suggestion was piled up,Hu Yufen still actvivly called on training the new army.The Qing government decided that Hu Yufen separately trained 5,000 new army.Although it was full of twists and turns, the discussions and attempts of training the new army were always continued by the Qing government. As a result, after the Sino-Japanese War, questing how to training the new army, the Qing government launched a big discussion.Different programmes of training the new army were raised by Zhang Zhidong,Yuan Shikai,and others.The Qing government ultimately decided to adopt Yuan Shikai's programme, but also accepted the model of Ziqiang army of Zhang Zhidong and Wuyi army of Nie Shicheng.The decision of the new army training programme specified the direction of training.Despite the scale of the new army was very limited,it laid the foundation for military reform of the late Qing Dynasty.