The White Lotus War by Dai Yingcong;

Author:Dai, Yingcong;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Washington Press

ETHNIC SOLDIERS

Besides the militias, there was another type of irregular in the White Lotus War, ethnic soldiers. Commonly referred to as “native soldiers” (tubing), “barbarian soldiers” (fanbing), or “native militias” (tulian), they were the military forces of the non-Han chieftains on the empire’s margins. When the chieftains were subjugated by the Qing, they were often allowed to keep their own troops. In its early years, the Qing dynasty sometimes recruited ethnic soldiers to help garrison frontiers but was not inclined to deploy them to wars, except those from Manchuria.81 In its expansion to Tibet starting from in early eighteenth century, the Qing made more use of ethnic soldiers. During the first invasion of Tibet to expel the Zunghar Mongols, who had invaded Tibet and occupied Lhasa in 1717, the Qing expedition recruited Tibetan and other ethnic soldiers from Kham, or eastern Tibet, to join the operation, some of whom marched to Lhasa with the Qing forces.82 After this campaign, native soldiers were enlisted to help staff the newly set up outposts along the highway connecting Sichuan with Lhasa. It was a cost-effective way to maintain the Qing military station in this new dominion.83

During the Yongzheng period, campaigns to incorporate local chieftains’ territories in Kokonor and the southwest brought more native military forces under Qing patronage. Some of those ethnic soldiers were placed in local garrisons; their chiefs were given Green Standard titles but with a prefix of “native” (tu), such as “native brigade commander” and “native squad leader.” They were used in local campaigns against ethnic uprisings, but it was rare for them to be deployed beyond their home regions. During the Qianlong period, the Jiarong soldiers in the Jinchuan area were enlisted for the two Jinchuan campaigns. In the years from 1765 to 1770, native soldiers in Yunnan’s border marches were recruited for the Qing invasions of Myanmar. When deployed, the ethnic troops were usually compensated but always at rates lower than those for bannermen and Green Standard troops,84 though the emperor granted benefits to them ad libitum from time to time.

Although enlisting ethnic soldiers in frontier wars became a fixture in the Qing westward and southwestward expansions, the state did not try to institutionalize this practice until the Wartime Expenditures Statute, which contained specific rules for compensating ethnic soldiers deployed in wars. Ethnic soldiers were now entitled to almost all the wartime allowances and bonuses that bannermen and Green Standard soldiers had been receiving for decades, albeit at reduced rates for some of the benefits. For food rations and “salt and vegetable allowances,” they were entitled to the same amounts as the Green Standard soldiers (0.83 sheng per day for the former and 1.3 taels per month for the latter).85 The noticeable elevation of the treatment of ethnic soldiers signaled an important yet subtle change in the Qing military strategy. Instead of using them as a convenient and inexpensive tool to help keep order in their home regions, the Qing was in a position to use them as mercenaries.

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