Research On The Defense Corps In The Later Period Of The Westernization Movement

After the suppression of peasant uprisings such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,the Defense Corps stationed or stayed behind in various province's critical areas and important towns.The Defense Corps was "recruited on account of events and was disbanded immediately afterwards." However,the internal and external problems of the late Qing Dynasty and the declining reality of the military system provided the Defense Corps with room for their existence.At the same time,the Defense Corps monopolized all kinds of new types of war resources.In fact,it has achieved standing army status in the late Qing Dynasty.In the later period of the Westernization Movement,in order to adapt to the needs of modern warfare,the Defense Corps were reformed in many ways,mainly including the reform of military establishment and functions,the reform of training systems,the upgrading of weapons and equipment,the establishment of modem military schools,and the dispatch of international students.The reformed Defense Corps has been strengthened in all aspects such as combat effectiveness and military discipline,but it still exposes the decentralization of military power,the backwardness of the officer training system,the unskilled training of soldiers,the military system is not suitable for multi-arms cooperative operationsand,the difficulty in ensuring the logistics of local defense forces.the incomplete reform of military education reform and so on,these problems led to the continuous defeat of the Defense Corps in the later anti-aggression fighting.Since the Defense Corps did not disassociate themselves from the nature of the old-styled army,the modernization of weapons cannot substitute for the modernization of the military system.In addition,the decision-making figures at the upper levels of the Qing court ignored the Army's modernization,so the reconstructed Defense Corps was still an old-style army.