New Army

The New Army (Traditional Chinese: 新軍, Simplified Chinese: 新军; Pinyin: Xīnjūn, Manchu: Ice cooha), more fully called the Newly Created Army ( Xinjian Lujun), was the modernised army corps formed under the Qing dynasty in December 1895, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. It was envisioned as a regular and professional fully trained and equipped according to Western standards with a reserve. In 1903 an imperial edict expanded it to 36 divisions of 12,500 men each, or total of 450,000 in peacetime supplemented by a further 523,000 reservists in wartime though it never achieved a strength above 300,000. 1895-1897 There was a forerunner to the effort of modernising the Chinese army, created before the end of the Sino-Japanese War: in February 1895, the Qing court assembled its Dingwu or the Pacification Army ( Dingwu jun), consisting of 10 battalions or ying, totaling 4,750 men. This was initially organized by aided by German advisor Constantin von Hanneken this force however was after 1 year of training regarded as not having been trained sufficiently to western standards. The command of this Pacification Army was turned over to Yuan Shikai by mid-December 1895, and within a few months was renamed the Newly Created Army ( Xinjian Lujun) and expanded to 7,000 men. (Yuan's Newly Created Army was later to become the Guards Army's Right Division (Wuwei Youjun).)