Green Standard Army

He had always doubted the battle-worthiness of his Chinese Green Standard armies.

The Emperor blamed the low battle-worthiness of his Green Standard armies for the first two failed invasions.

The Green Standard Army was extremely fragmented, with literally thousands of large and small outposts throughout the empire, many with as few as twelve men.

He commissioned a study of the first two invasions, and the report reinforced his biases-that the low battle-worthiness of the Green Standard armies was the reason for the failures.

At Kunming, Liu assessed that the use of Tai-Shan militias alone was not working, and that he needed to commit regular Green Standard Army troops.

Although the Banners and Green Standard armies lingered on as parasites depleting resources, henceforth the Yongying corps became the Qing government's de facto first-line troops.

Li Xubin had to retreat back to the forts with surviving imperial troops and attempted to hold their position and wait for reinforcement but 15,000 Green Standard Army delay never show.

By 1800 both the Banner forces and the Green Standard armies had declined to a low level of military effectiveness, as was shown in both the Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion.