Travels in China - Sir John Barrow (drm ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Tartar cavalry, whose only weapon is the sabre; and a few who carry bows.

Tartar infantry, bowmen; having also large sabres.

Chinese infantry, carrying the same weapons.

Chinese matchlocks.

Chinese Tygers of war, bearing large round shields of basket-work, and long ill-made swords. On the shields of the last are painted monstrous faces of some imaginary animal, intended to frighten the enemy, or, like another gorgon, to petrify their beholders.

The military dress varies in almost every province. Sometimes they wore blue jackets edged with red, or brown with yellow; some had long pantaloons; some breeches, with stockings of cotton cloth; others petticoats and boots. The bowmen had long loose gowns of blue cotton, stuffed with a kind of felt or wadding, studded all over with brass knobs, and bound round the middle with a girdle, from which the sabre was appended behind, hanging with the point forwards, and on the right, not the left, side as in Europe. On the head they wore a helmet of leather, or gilt pasteboard, with flaps on each side that covered the cheeks and fell upon the shoulder. The upper part was exactly like an inverted funnel, with a long pipe terminating in a kind of spear, on which was bound a tuft of long hair dyed of a scarlet colour.

The greatest number we saw at any one place might be from two to three thousand, which were drawn up in a single line along the bank of a river; and as they stood with an interval between each equal to the width of a man, they formed a very considerable line in length. Every fifth man had a small triangular flag, and every tenth a large one; the staffs that supported them were fixed to the jacket behind the shoulders. Some of the flags were green, edged with red; others blue, edged with yellow. I never saw the Chinese troops drawn out in any other way than a single line in front; not even two deep.

The Tartar cavalry appear to be remarkably swift, and to charge with great impetuosity; but the horses are so small and are broken into so quick and short a stroke that the eye is deceived. Their real speed, in fact, is very moderate. Their saddles are remarkably soft, and raised so high both before and behind, that the rider cannot easily be thrown out of his seat. The stirrups are so short that the knee is almost as high as the chin. They have very little artillery, and that little is as wretched as it well can be. I suspect it is borrowed from the Portugueze, as the matchlock most unquestionably has been.

When our fellow-traveller Van-ta-gin was asked the reason of their pretending to give a preference to the clumsy matchlocks over the firelocks now in use among European troops, he replied, it had been found, after a severe engagement in Thibet, that the matchlocks had done much more execution than the firelocks. It is difficult to combat prejudices; but it was not very difficult to convince Van that the men might probably have been quite as much in fault as the musquets, and that the superior steadiness of the fire from the matchlocks might possibly be owing to their being fixed, by an iron fork, into the ground. The missionaries have assigned a very absurd reason for firelocks not being used in China; they say the dampness of the air is apt to make the flint miss fire. With equal propriety might these gentlemen have asserted that flints would not emit fire in Italy. Their want of good iron and steel to manufacture locks, or the bad quality of their gunpowder, might perhaps be offered as better reasons; and as the best of all their want of courage and coolness to make use of them with that steadiness which is required to produce the effects of which they are capable. Their favourite instrument is the bow, which, like all other missile weapons, requires less courage to manage, than those which bring man to oppose himself in close contest with man.

Although the Tartars have found it expedient to continue the Chinese army on the old footing, it may naturally be supposed they would endeavour to secure themselves by all possible means in the possession of this vast empire, and that they would use every exertion to recruit the army with their own countrymen, in preference to the Chinese. Every Tartar male child is accordingly enrolled. This precaution was necessary, as their whole army, at the time of the conquest, is said not to have exceeded eighty thousand men. At this time, in fact, a weak administration had suffered the empire to be torn asunder by convulsions. Every department, both civil and military, was under the control of eunuchs. Six thousand of these creatures are said to have been turned adrift by the Tartars on taking possession of the palace in Pekin.

The conduct of the Mantchoo Tartars, whose race is now on the throne, was a master-piece of policy little to be expected in a tribe of people that had been considered but as half civilized. They entered the Chinese dominions as auxiliaries against two rebel chiefs, but soon perceived they might become the principals. Having placed their leader on the vacant throne, instead of setting up for conquerors, they melted at once into the mass of the conquered. They adopted the dress, the manners, and the opinions of the people. In all the civil departments of the state they appointed the ablest Chinese, and all vacancies were filled with Chinese in preference to Tartars. They learned the Chinese