A Study On The Issue Of Xidan In Northeast China In The Late Qing Dynasty

Sidan, the agreed name for Manchu adolescent males in Manchu, is the root of the system of Eight Banners, which is set as the foundation of building the Qing Dynasty. While the eight banners decayed rapidly after the Qing army’s conquest of the Central Plain, the eight banners in the northeast still keep an energetic fighting capacity. Although been strictly prohibited to participate in war by the Qing Court, the Sidan in the northeast were frequently dispatched to suppress peasant uprisings and to deal with the border crisis by the emperor, who has the supreme command over armed forces since 1856. These dispatches brought serious results. To turn the scale, the Qing Court had tried many times, in vain finally, to practice the reform on the Sidan. In a turbulent age full of reformations, the Sidan bear the brunt of the military focus. Based on the historical background mentioned above, this essay aims to provide some insights into researches on Chinese military history by sorting out and analyzing the problems of the Sidan.