I am introducing an overview of military institutions of Imperial China from Qin to Ming, focussing primarily on the major dynasties, and excluding the Yuan Dynasty which had a unique system from the nomadic Mongolian society.

I hope to discuss the relative merits and drawbacks of the systems with those more knowledgable.


Qin-Han (Universal Conscription)
The Qin and Han Dynasties (秦汉) implemented universal conscriptions (征兵制), whereby all males from the age of 17 to 60 were eligible. But instead of a central recruitment centre, the conscripts were organised at prefectural levels. They served 2 years as fulltime servicemen, one year in the local prefecture, another in either the capital or a border garrison. Having completed their two year tour, they returned home but continued to be subjected to one month of corvee labour in the local prefecture.


Sui-Tang (Farmer Soldier)
The Sui and Tang Dynasties (隋唐) inherited the farmer-soldier themes (寓兵于农-府兵制), which was built upon the equal-farm system (均田制), both originally created during the Northern Wei Dynasty. These soldiers came under the centralised military bureau (折冲府). They were alloted farmlands to provide for their families and had the obligation to serve in the military. This arrangement was found to be useful for seasonal campaigns whereby their service could be arranged to minimise disruption to the farming activities.

The soldiers basically provided their own supplies, reducing the burden on the state. They receive professional military training when not farming, and in general had high morale. The command of the soldiers did not rest with the generals but with the Imperial Court, preventing any commander from becoming ambitious.

The system broke down when private landowners, through legal and illegal methods, acquire lands at the expense of the farmer-soldiers. Unable to meet their obligations, many farmer-soldiers fled their assigned lands. Even during the late reign of Emperor TaiZong (太宗), some took to maiming themselves to avoid fulfilling their obligations.

By the reign of Emperor XuanZong (玄宗), the central military bureau found it no longer had a credible force to call upon and had to resort to recruitment (募兵制). These soldiers became like mercenaries. A number were of dubious characters or qualities. Those who were good at fighting became greedy. The worst was they placed a great fiscal burden on the state. To address the problem the Imperial Court decentralised the recruitment and stationing of these soldiers to regional level, which led to regional separatism (藩镇割据).


Song Dynasty (Recruitment)
To address these problems, the Song Dynasty (宋朝) greatly strengthened the central authority over the military. The pioneer Zhao Pu advocated reducing the provincial governors' powers by having them transfer all the taxes collected to the capital, retaining only what was necessary for their local administration, which excluded the defence.

During the Song Dynasty, they continued with recruitment (募兵制) as the main source of troops, but this time on a central basis.

The military was organised into two main bodies:
(1) 禁军 Imperial Army
(2) 厢军 Auxillary Force
All recruits who met an exacting standards were assigned to the Imperial Army, the rest into the auxillary.
The Imperial Army undertake garrisoning the Capital, strategically important locations and the border forts. Their commanders were rotated on a regular basis to prevent attachments forming.
The Auxillary Force basically undertook corvee duties such as transportation, building and repairs of roads, bridges and city walls.

Soldiers in the Imperial Army were not allowed to quit - any vacancies formed had to be filled in by family members.

While the salaries for soldiers in the Imperial Army were generally sufficient, those in the Auxillary were not as fortunate. The latter had to moonlight or run away, which led to harsh imposition of tattooing as punishments to discourage the move.

During famine or draught, the Court recruited displaced masses, creating a huge burden for the state.
The Court also preferred to offer amnesty to bandits and recruit them into the military as a means of dealing with the problems.
Quality of the troops suffered greatly as a result.


Ming Dynasty (Wei-Suo)
The Ming Dynasty tried to implement a method proposed by Liu Ji to enjoy the benefits of both conscriptions and recruitment, while avoiding their respective drawbacks. The result was the Wei-Suo System (卫所制).

Liu Ji analysed to Zhu YuanZhang that universal conscriptions had the advantage of having a large pool of manpower available. They could be drafted during wartimes, trained and despatched to fight, and returned to their farms after the war. The quality would be deemed as reliable, the origins of the troops clear and did not post a permanent burden on state finances. One drawback would be their campaigning would be disruptive to the agriculture.

On recruitment, Liu Ji pointed most recruits were homeless vagabonds. As professional soldiers, they had more training and were not subject to seasonal restrictions like farmer-soldiers. The drawbacks was they had a tendency to be difficult to control, and their hazy origins made it hard to bring them to justice if they deserted.

Liu Ji's proposal was to create a military registry and adopt a system similar to the soldier-farmer. As the lands belonged under state ownership, he hoped to avoid the problems faced during the Tang Dynasty.

The army would be organised into 3 bodies:
(1) One to protect the capital.
(2) One to protect strategically important regions.
(3) One to the border garrisons.

To ensure adequate supplies, Liu Ji advocated for those at the border regions, 7 out of 10 soldiers should be engaged in farming while the remaining 3 to be on active guard duty.
For those inland, the ratio would be 8 to 2.
The local officials would be responsible for providing all the necessary implements, including housing and tools.

While the theory was sound, it ran into practical problems after several generations.

First, the status of the soldiers were low, and they naturally associated with the lower strata of society, including criminals.
Even the military registry did not prevent them from running away.
Corrupt local officials who withheld rightful dues also made it impossible for the troops to provide for themselves or their families.

Eventually, the Ming Court found itself turning to recruitment, creating a huge fiscal burden for itself.

References:
Wikipedia's Military history of China
维基百科-府兵制
维基百科-衛所制
中国古代军事精华之军事制度篇
关于我国古代历代兵役制度的史料收集
中国古代军事制度

An excellent post.

Do you know anything about Zhanguo recruitment?

Thanks. I think there's room for improvement or suggestions to improve. Hope to solicit some.

About ZhanGuo, the last 3 reference links I provided gave some basic info.

Here's an excerpt.



A rough translation of summarising the above:
There was a change within the feudal states from Spring-Autumn to the Warring States Era.
Many states implemented administrative units similar to the prefectual system, and set up a registry to include eligible males age 15 to 60. These would be conscripted whenever necessary. The supplies for the conscripts would come from the same pool of commoners.

Some states also used recruitment process to select elite troops, such as the "Martial Peon" in Wèi and "Elite Warriors" in Qin.

Wèi's selection for the Martial Peon required them to wear a 3-layered armour and able to extend a bow which require a hundred jin of strength, carry a 50-arrow quiver, wear a helm, a sword on the belt and 3 days' supplies, and finish a hundred li (50 km) in half a day. Those selected would have the family members exempted from taxes or corvee.

Additional Info:

The farmer-soldier theme of Sui-Tang was originally developed during the Northern Wèi (北魏, AD 386-584) was initially based on centralising the private armies of the regional lords. Depending on the sizes of the armies they turn over to the central government, the lords were conferred different titles of nobilities.

There was another body of soldiers during the Song Dynasty known as 乡兵 or local militias.
As the central government were determined to maintain a policy of "strong trunk and weak branches", private landholders in the countryside were left very much on their own to defend against bandits, which the central government would not intervene unless the situation was very serious.

These militias were organised along villages. Their members were recruited from among local populace, they were armed by the landlords and trained by professionals hired for the purpose.

Another aspect about the Wei-Suo which I forgot to mention.
To prevent desertion, soldiers were oft stationed outside their native counties. But this also brought about problems of acclimatisation of the soldiers in their assigned postings.

During the Western Han, the military is divided into the "central" and "regional" army. The central army is divided into the north and south armies. They are directly controlled by the central government.
The regional army is controlled by the local Jung郡, all of these troops are divided into cavalry, infantry, and the navy. They are trained in the local Jung for a year, then sent north to the capital or frontier for another year under the central control, therefore there is really no distinction between the central and the prefecture military.

However, during the Eastern Han, the division of the empire into larger unit of Zhou became the norm and the Jung Guo Bing became known as the Zhou Jung Bing 州郡, because the universal conscription is abolished, the distinction of cavalry, infantry, and navy ceased to exist, and the regional army became truely regional under the control of local governors instead of sending to the central government in their second year like during the Western Han. These became the basis of worlordism duing the end of Han.



Thats true only for the Western Han for not the Latter Han. I've already distinguished this in the other thread.



In the 6th year of Jian Wu(30 A.D.) the prefecture Du Wei was abolished, and the old regional army structure also disappeared.
Hisotrians previously thought it meant tht these army no longer exist, but that is the misconception.
Yet Hou Han Shu's numerous quotes in Wu Han chapter and Guan Wu Di's biography shows otherwise, in fact it states "诸郡甲卒但坐费粮食，若有逃亡，则沮败众心，宜悉罢之"

Therefore during the Western Han, these regional army became a professional army under the service of the warlords, not the central government, and the central government's power wanned.

Cao Cao's Zhou Jung Ling bing is actually a continuation and reorganization of this military system.

I am gratified that warhead, a noted contributor to the area of Chinese military, has made an input to this thread.

Just want to clarify something : the purpose of this thread is not to examine the physical organization of the military such as the number of divisions etc. Many of these were already covered in the military threads in the respective folders of the relevant dynasties.

I welcome comments and contribution towards looking and comparing of
(1) How were armies recruited and managed - reflecting the concerns of the military planners of the eras.
(2) How they were funded or provided for.

Could any provide any more info on Cao Cao's Zhou Jung Ling Bing?

In one of the reference I provided, the Dū Wèi (都尉) system during the Han Dynasty was the result of a number of ethnic minorities at the border submitting to the Han.

The Dū Wèi was originally the deputy to the prefect (太守) in the prefecture.

The prefect was responsible for civil administration while the Dū Wèi was in charge of military affairs.

Where the ethnic minorities submitted to the Han regime, a vassal state was established, and the Dū Wèi was the most senior official appointed by the Imperial Court in the vassal states.

Q: Did Wang Xu (Master of Ghost Valley) who trained SunBin & Pang Juan, run the 1st military academy?

See the thread http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=1446 and http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=1773 for more info on Gui Gu Zi (Wang Yu, Master of the Ghost Valley).

The school ran by Gui Gu Zi was not a military academy. From the descriptions of the accounts, he was a polymath, a person skilled in several fields.

Sūn Bìn and Páng Juān were militarists, while Sū Qín and Zhāng Yí were diplomats (to put it simply).

After doing some further reading, the Wei-so system in the early years is not really a huge success as the Ming Shih has claimed and is not a good long term system.

The problem was already started during Hong Wu period and deteriorate by the time of Xuande reign. The plan was first put into effect without proper planning or preparation. No field investigation was ever conducted. The emperors merely forced the military commanders to carry out with whatever resources at their disposal. So, the central government had little control on these military farming lead to ineffeciency. Military farming in many area is not even close to self-sufficiency in food supplies. Army units continue to rely heavily on civilian sources. Even Yongle Vigorous promotion of military farming in 1404, its production in many areas could not meet half of food requirements of the cultivators themselves.

Many Ming officals and early record exagerate the success of farming and inflated the figure. For example, in 1403 it was reported that 23 million piculs grain was received but this is almost impossible. Later the figure was revised downward to only 5 millions piculs in 1423.

In 1429, Minister of Revenue Ko Tun report that many dozen of soldiers was assigned to farm duty but only produced 100 piculs of grain, which is far from the requirement each units needs (10,000 piculs just for maintenance). Furthermore, the productivity in the north was very poor and farming program soon turn into failure.

From the historical examples, it was apparent that there was no perfect military institution that would fully meet the needs of the State, not in the long run anyway.

The institutions that worked in the beginning after their implementation would encounter problems after several generations.

Part of the problems arose from mismanagement.
One example would be the corrupt local officials of the Ming embezzling resources intended for the Wei-Suo.

Part of the problems arose because of the change in demographic and economic conditions.
An example would be the break-down of the Equal-Field Systems during the Tang Dynasty.
Or the Song Dynasty absorbing numerous famine refugees into the military to prevent the refugees from causing serious disruptions to society, but also creating a heavy fiscal burden on itself.

The main threats faced by Chinese dynasties can be summed up as follows:
(1) From without - threats of foreign invaders, usually but not exclusively from the north.
(2) From within, ambitious men seeking to rise to the top of society.
(3) From within, uprisings by peasants whose goodwill were lost through exploitation. Rebellions could then be easily sparked off by one of the three natural calamities: flood, drought or locusts.

The military institutions were the means by which the State organized the military, recruit the soldiers and fund the army.

Some of the challenges in choosing the form of the military institution are:
(1) Being able to form a credible fighting force at short notice.
(2) Being able to provide for the army and meeting logistical needs.
(3) Being able to keep the military under the control of the ruler.

Wars are expensive to the State, and hence armies are needed to avoid wars or end wars.
Armies are expensive to the State at peace time without the apparent use for them.

Even a conscientious ruler would have difficulty balancing between them, it was no wonder that many rulers neglected the military until they were faced in emergencies.

What do modern armies such as the US and PLA use? I know that the US just recruits, but does it cause the same problems as the Song? The PLA I think is a mix. All college men, I believe, are forced to undergo some sort of military training, but service in the military itself is not required.