Jianruiying, the emperor's elite troops
by Peter Dekker
Introduction
During emperor Qianlong's reign (1736-1795) there were a number of rebellions in the Jinchuan area in Sichuan. Qing forces had considerable difficulty fighting these rebels because they lived in high stone towers that were easy to defend and hard to attack. The emperor hand picked 300 of his very best men to train in wall scaling assault tactics to overcome these rebels. Because of their success the initial 300 men later grew out to a force of over 3.800 men under the name jianruiying (jianrui battalion) which was part of the Eight Banners.
The Eight Banners
Baqi in Chinese and Jakun gusa in Manchu, the Eight Banners was a military institution that enlisted every Manchu household under one of eight banners. Every banner had its own color scheme that was reflected in their clothing, armor and flags. See fig 1.
Apart from priviliges that came with banner enrollment such as exclusion from torture and regular stipends in silver and rice, being a bannerman also meant that you could only assume one of two jobs: warrior or clerk. Every household was to raise and support an amount of warriors and horses, and those enlisted in the banners either lived in the capital's neicheng (inner city) directly surrounding the Imperial Palace, or lived in walled garisson compounds in strategically located cities all across the Qing empire. During the great expansions of the Qing during the 17th and 18th the Eight Banners were the backbone of the Qing military machine that pretty much set the boundaries of mondern day China, adding the vast deserts of Xinjiang, the Tibetan plateau, the forests of Manchuria and a large part of Mongolia's steppe grasslands that previously did not belong to China. Their combination of military power and brilliant intercultural politics made even the Great Wall that had protected China from the feared nomadic raids, obsolete. The Manchu's, indeed, also traced their heritage back to the steppe warriors and had lived and fought much like them for hundreds of years prior to overtaking China proper. Next to the Eight Banners there was the luying or Green Standard Army, which was also called the Old Han Army, which consisted of only native Chinese and the occasional Manchu commander. The Green Standard Army was much larger than the Eight Banners in numbers but highly fragmented over thousands of little garrissons where they mostly served to keep internal peace. The Green Standard Army generally did not serve on the frontlines of expansive campaigns, but had proven useful against internal rebellions on a number of occasions.
fig 1.
The jianruiying
The story of the jianruiying begins in the spring of 1747 in the mountainous regions of Sichuan in central China, bordering the Tibetan region. In dajinchuan, a local chieftain opposes the Qing and causes some large scale conflicts in the region. The rebellion was hard to repress because the Jinchuans lived in stone towers in heavily fortified cities located in the mountains. The Qing's specialty of deploying swift mounted archers did not work on such stone structures and the mountainous terrain was also not at all suited for mounted archery. In July of the following year the Qianlong emperor picked 300 of his best men and stationed them at Xiangshan in the hills West of Beijing. There he had them trained in assault techniques using ladders to scale replica Jinchuan towers that were built especially for this purpose. After training he sent them back to Sichuan to fight the Jinchuan minority leaders under the command of general Fu Heng, backed up by a regular Qing army consisting of Banner soldiers and officers. In early February of 1749 the Jinchuan chieftains capitulated and the wars were over.
After returning to the capital the scaling troops were officially enlisted in the jianruiying and permanently stationed at Xiangshan. Barracks for more than 3000 soldiers were built between the Fourth Prince's residence and the Mentou Village south of Xianshan. Government offices and schools for the soldiers' children were established. Later the force grew to more than 3800 soldiers. The jianruiying was trained in the use of firearms, bian (steel staves) , dao (sabers), qiang (spears) and archery from horse and on foot. Apart from scaling they also trained amphibious operations, a skill regular Manchu troops lacked training in.
Three years after the capitulation in February 1749, rebellions bursted out again in Jinchuan and five major battles and many smaller skirmishes took place in the region only to stop in 1771. The jianruiying took part in all these battles and also succesfully repressed the Hui rebellion in Xinjiang. There, in May 1757, the rebel Xiaohezuomu (Huojizhan) had killed Amindao, the deputy commander-in-chief that had been sent to Nanlu to pacify the Hui in the city of Kuche and had gathered a small army to openly oppose the Qing. The following year general Zhao Hui was sent with a combination of regular and jianruiying troops to destroy Xiaohezuomu's army, which they did in October 1756 after a series of bloody battles.
Equipment
The jianruiying was trained in the use of scaling ladders called yunti or "cloud ladders", and those scaling the ladders would wear yuntidao or "cloud ladder sabers". According to the 1759 Huanchao Liqi Tushi the design for both the ladders and sabers was the Qianlong emperor's own and he did so in his 14th year of reign, being 1749. Two other weapons especially designed by Qianlong for these troops are a special jianruiying bian (an iron stave with bamboo shaped segments), and a special spear, the jianruiying qiang. That there are no bows, arrows or firearms specifically attributed to the jianruiying while they did train with them is likely because in this case standard non-specialized weapons were used. One can assume then that the items listed below served a special function, be it purely practical or to differentiate the men from the boys in Qianlong's army.
Jianruiying equipment of which the design was set by the Qianlong emperor himself,
as they appear in the original woodblock prints in the 1759 Huangchao Liqi Tushi:
1.Jianruiying cloud ladder
2.Jianruiying cloud ladder saber
3.Jianruiying bian
4.Jianruiying spear
1.Jianruiying cloud ladder
Made of standard wood, stands 7.33 metres tall. It has 24 steps and is 40 cm wide at the top and 67 cm wide at the bottom. Every second step sticks out a bit, being wider than the others. There are two iron wheels attached to the top step. Two wooden handles hook to the top step with iron hooks.
Note
Period artwork of a slightly different, possibly earlier, cloud ladder design show 4 shorter handles per ladder which are detached. Each handle is half the length of the ladder in this case. Oddly, the text doesn't mention the two ropes on each side but perhaps these were already common knowledge on siege ladder design and therefore did not need mention.
2.Jianruiying cloud ladder saber
Blade 76.7 cm long, and 43 mm wide. Handle is 16.7 cm. Brass fittings. Guard is 7 mm thick, which is very thick for a guard. Handle wrapped in blue silk with a blue lanyard going through a hole in the grip. The scabbard is 83 cm long, made of wood and covered with leather.
Note
It is notable that the text does not specifically mention the yuanshi (round style) guard and scabbard while it is one of only two sabers in the text that are depicted in this style. I tend to think that the cloud ladders might be a reason for the yuanshi style to emerge during Qianlong's reign because they were bound to slam against the ladder upon climbing and the round style would have a better structural integrity than square. The round chaowei or chape seems better attached and more suited to endure rigorous use. It was only after the jianruiying's founding and successes that Qianlong began to style his own sabers in the yuanshi style, and set a trend that would result in the practical replacement of fangshi or angular style by yuanshi in the later Qing.
3.Jianruiying bian
Steel stave 78.3 cm long, handle 20 cm long with a big iron ball pommel. The stave is shaped like bamboo sections. The guard is an iron disc, 5mm thick. The fittings are damascened in gold and the handle is wrapped with green silk.
Note
This is the only weapon of the jianruiying that is lavishly decorated with gold damascening and as such might have only served as a ceremonial weapon by this time, or be a weapon for officers only. This in sharp contrast to the cloud ladder sabers with simple sturdy brass fittings.
4.Jianruiying long spear
Overall 343 cm long. The spearhead is 30 cm long and has a leaf shaped tip with center ridge. The wooden shaft is 300 cm long, the tail fitting is 15.3 cm. On the side just behind the tip a steel edge is inserted and glued in, sharp like a knife. It is 46.7cm long and 17 mm wide. Under the head are two round wooden pearls attached to cords.
Note
The knife inserted in the side probably serves to prevent the opponent from grabbing the spear, and the round pearls might prevent the spear from penetrating too deep. In comparison, the Tiger Spear in the same regulations has two staves attached to cords behind the spearhead to prevent the spear from penetrating too deep. Probably staves are not used here because they also make the spear easier to grab with hands or could get tied up in clothing, while balls won't so easily.
Note on sizes: All sizes are converted from the Imperial system on the assumption that 1 cun equals 3.33 centimeter.
Clothing patterns
The troops in the Eight Banners dressed in clothing or armor that matched their banner color but there were some exceptions for certain divisions that dressed in their own characteristic colors regardless of banner affiliation. The Huangchao Liqi Tushi describes two different types of jackets worn by jianruiying troops. One type is attributed to the jianruiying soldier, and consists of a blue jacket with yellow lining. A second type is worn by the jianruiying vanguard and has an opposite color scheme, yellow with blue lining. See below.
By the time of the publication of the Huangchao Liqi Tushi, armor was largely made obsolete by the widespread use of muskets but there is still some possibly earlier artwork left that depicts men in typical jianruiying colored armor that is possibly only ceremonial and without actual plates but still of a type that is not present in 1759 regulations on jianruiying clothing. The period artwork below is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden, the Netherlands, and is believed to date from 1785-1790. I would be temped to date it between 1748 - 1759 because it shows red banner jianruiying troops between their time of formation and the time armor had became obsolete. Then again, it might also be post 1759 and a depiction of a special occasion where jianruiying men were hailed in ceremonial armor not yet present in the 1759 Huangchao Liqi Tushi but the latter would seem less likely as armor, be it functional or ceremonial, is rarely seen on artwork of this time.
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