and fought under their respective banner leaders. Banner leaders maintained
direct military and political power over their bannermen and their families.
Large numbers of Mongols, who had been the Ming’s original steppe threat,
were also brought into the Manchu system and organized into their own
eight banners. The Mongols, like the Manchus, were horse cavalrymen.
A third group, Han Chinese, formed another set of eight banners, but they
were mainly artillerymen and infantry.
Bannermen were prohibited from practicing a trade or doing manual
labor. Ideally, from the perspective of the Qing government, the privileged
bannermen would maintain a loyal and effective military force in return
for government economic support. By living apart from the subject pop-
ulation in their own garrisons, working and functioning within their
particular banner, the bannermen would keep a strong group identity.
The system worked reasonably well during the extended period of conquest,
but it was beginning to show cracks as early as the Revolt of the Three
Feudatories ( 1673 – 81 ). The banners neither produced enough trained sol-
diers nor enough competent battlefield leaders. The Three Feudatories
themselves were thefiefs provided to Wu Sangui and his fellow generals
following their efforts in subjugating the Ming empire. They rebelled when
it became clear that the Qing government would not permit them to keep
their semi-independent authority in southern China in perpetuity.
Chinese soldiers serving in units of the Green Standard Army, so called
because they carried green colored pennons or standards, were critical in
providing the manpower to defeat the Revolt of the Three Feudatories.
Handguns, and particularly cannon, continued to grow in importance
during these campaigns. Gunpowder weapons were increasingly critical
tools of warfare. Massed cannon could smash through any enemy position
given enough time and supplies. Armies needed cannon to succeed, and
cannon required a very different set of skills from those used in hand-to-
hand martial arts. The shift toward modern warfare that began during the
Song Dynasty was far advanced even before Western armed forces appeared
in China in the nineteenth century. The Green Standard forces outnumbered
the banner forces two to one in suppressing the Three Feudatories; they
would go on to handle most of the local security in the Chinese part of the
Qing empire during peacetime.
Horse archery and prowess on the battlefield were key components of
the Manchu identity. In peacetime, however, there were no battlefields to
fight on, and horse archery was difficult to practice for Manchus living
within China. Archery and riding were ordinary activities on the steppe but
not in China. Bannermen of all stripes who lived in or near Chinese towns
The Qing Dynasty 187