Huai Army

[1] Officers from the Anhwei Army such as Ch'a Lien-piao (Zha Lianbiao) also studied Western military drill overseas in Germany.

[5] Zhou was extremely interested in modern technology such as medicine, telegraphs and railways, criticizing British advisor Charles Gordon for not considering the use of them extensively in war.

Li Hongzhang's German instructor officers were criticized by Zhou over their lack of knowledge of prone firing and fighting at night time.

[9] Anhui Army troops were stationed in various provinces all across China such as Zhihli, Shanxi, Hubei, Jiangsu, and Shaanxi by the government, around 45,000 in total.

[10] General Liu Mingchuan's leadership over the Anhwei Army enabled the Chinese to match up against the French forces in combat on Taiwan.

[11] When the French attempted to seize Taiwan's Keelung forts, and attack near Tamsui, they were beaten back by the Anhwei soldiers under General Liu.

However, even the figures on the table above only list the authorised standardised unit, those on special assignment or not yet formalised are not included within the army structure and due to corruption and combat as well as general attrition it is highly likely that most Ying were understrength to varying degrees.

[14] Facing the more mobile mounted force of the Nian rebels the Huai army began to introduce cavalry to its organisation with each cavalry ying containing 250 mounted soldiers, 225 foot soldiers 25 sergeants and 11 officers for 511 men with 81 labourers for a total of 592 men with the armed contingent divided into 5 companies.

Uniform of a division of the Huai Army