Hello folks
I have tried to research carefully the term militia and conscription to see what is the difference. But according to my knowledge, military conscription was hardly practised in Europe, while it was one of the most important recruited methods in China. Also it was said in schools that peasants during Medieval times did not hold any military responsibilities.
Can anyone mark differences between Chinese conscription and Militia?
(Warhead/BA, are you there, hope you help?)

I think that this is generally correct, but because Europe was composed of many states, some of them tiny, gneralisations about Europe rarely work. Let me give you some examples.

In Anglo-Saxon England, Alfred the Great institutionalised a form of militia conscription known as the fyrd. This obliged all free men in a county to give forty days service when called out. King Harold used the fyrd to repel the Danes in 1066 prior to the William the Conqueror's invasion. Harold defeated the Danes at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, but most of the fyrd returned to their counties prior to the Battle of Hastings. The fyrd is comparable to the Scandinavian system of Leidang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyrd

Actually, in England until the sixteenth century weekly military training in archery was required of all able bodied men. In London this practice was undertaken at the butts outside Houndsditch.

In some places in Europe military service was employed from time to time. In various Italian cities there were militia, but this system feel into desuetude by the later Middle Ages.

Popular military service dies not seem to have been common in Germany, France or the Iberian peninsula. This may be because of the particular characteristics of feudalism.

Another consideration is the meaning of the terms - conscription is generally meant a draft to the regular forces for a long term tour - for instance the early Han Dynasty was for a two-year term. Militia is used for a part-time, locally trained reserve force only called out for emergencies - the "One Weekend a month and two weeks in the Summer" type training. They are two different systems used for different purposes.

The medieval system of arming the peasants was only for local defense, to supplement the small regular forces. As a feudal society, they were not centralized and had no large training facilities, support structures (large magazines, graneries, etc) and thus needed a dispersed solution. Once the large national states began to form, it was shifted to conscription and large standing armies with the necessary supporting structure. France under the First Republic and its levy en mass was the modern forerunner.

China tended to be very centralized during the strong periods of dynastic reign, and feudal (warlords) in between. During the centralized periods, there were large central forces, with a supporting structure. In between, there were militias - parallel to but not exactly similar to the Europeon system and history. In fact I believe China during the Warring States was the first world system to develope and use the conscription system with the central government arming, training and maintaining large conscript armies.

I have always seen militia as a part-time paraprofessional force serving within a a specific locality, be it a local town or track of the country side. This definition though leaves open the means of recruitment, such that it could be a militia of conscripted troops (perhaps in a small town in England or France) to a full conscripted army as was seen under the Former Han. I guess I would say that Militia is a type of troop who is somewhere between the untrained peasant levee and the more professionally trained soldiers, while conscription is a method of recruitment to fill ranks, be it a peasant levee, militia, or professional force (though it seem like a constriction to think of a professional force that was not voluntary.........I have in mind the Soviet Armed forces during the cold war here).

Conscription was simply that ... conscription. During time of war, able bodied men were called to arms. They may (or may not) have been given cursory training and then were thrown into battle. Those who survived eventually became veteran soldiers. At the end of the war, the army would be demobilized and the surviving troops would return home.

The militia had different organizations throughout Chinese history. I will write about the Pao-chia of the late T'ang period. The Pao-chia was basically a local militia that provided home guard services. In addition to protecting their municipality, the militia policed the roads, clearing it of brigands and arresting deserters. They worked as a fire brigade, built roads, and even provided an armed escort for tax collectors.

The officers were 2 men drawn from the wealthiest families. The Superior Guard Leader, was the tu pao cheng. The Assistant Superior Guard Leader was the tu pao fu chng.

Households with 2 or more male adults had to offer the service of one of these men to the militia as a form of service taxation.