They Were Easily Seized With A Panic, And The
Celerity And Dash Of Chinese Troops Only Became Perceptible When Their
Backs Were Turned To The Foe.
So evident had these faults become that more
than one emperor had endeavored to recruit from among the Tartar tribes,
and to oppose the national enemy with troops not less brave or active than
themselves.
But the employment of mercenaries is always only a half
remedy, and not free from the risk of aggravating the evil it is intended
to cure. But Taitsong did not attempt any such palliation; he went to the
root of the question, and determined to have a trained and efficient army
of his own. He raised a standing army of nine hundred thousand men, which
he divided into three equal classes of regiments, one containing one
thousand two hundred men, another one thousand, and the third eight
hundred. The total number of regiments was eight hundred and ninety-five,
of which six hundred and thirty-four were recruited for home service and
two hundred and sixty-one for foreign. By this plan he obtained the
assured services of more than a quarter of a million of trained troops for
operations beyond the frontier. Taitsong also improved the weapons and
armament of his soldiers. He lengthened the pike and supplied a stronger
bow. Many of his troops wore armor; and he relied on the co-operation of
his cavalry, a branch of military power which has generally been much
neglected in China. He took special pains to train a large body of
officers, and he instituted a Tribunal of War, to which the supreme
direction of military matters was intrusted. As these measures greatly
shocked the civil mandarins, who regarded the emperor's taking part in
reviews and the physical exercises of the soldiers as "an impropriety," it
will be allowed that Taitsong showed great moral courage and surmounted
some peculiar difficulties in carrying out his scheme for forming a
regular army. He overcame all obstacles, and gathered under his banner an
army formidable by reason of its efficiency and equipment, as well as for
its numerical strength.
Having acquired what he deemed the means to settle it, Taitsong resolved
to grapple boldly with the ever-recurring danger from the Tartars, Under
different names, but ever with the same object, the tribes of the vast
region from Corea to Koko Nor had been a trouble to the Chinese
agriculturist and government from time immemorial. Their sole ambition and
object in life had been to harry the lands of the Chinese, and to bear
back to their camps the spoils of cities. The Huns had disappeared, but in
their place had sprung up the great power of the Toukinei or Turks, who
were probably the ancestors of the Ottomans. With these turbulent
neighbors, and with others of different race but of the same disposition
on the southern frontier, Taitsong was engaged in a bitter and arduous
struggle during the whole of his life; and there can be little or no doubt
that he owed his success to the care he bestowed on his army.
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Words from 16130 to 16651
of 191255