Saturday, March 7, 2015

The Taiping rebellion "T 'uan Lien" part 2

This is the next installment in my Taiping Rebellion project.  These guys are local groups of militia that defended their specific region.   I believe that this would be the main enemy of the Taiping rebels early in the conflict. 

I imagine them as having some flags that they have hung on to for decades.  The flag with the character is the leader's banner.  Some units had a banner with their officer's first initial on it.  The first commander of the ever victorious army had his own banner with his first character in chinese.  Since I do not speak chinese this may not be a first  character.  I hope that a Chinese speaker will correct me before I make to many mistakes. 

I realize I may have set the bar to high because the peasant unit has three flags.  How many flags should an Imperial Chinese regular unit have?  I am in luck as each unit is battalion sized.  Each unit is actually 4 stands large.  This painted experiment is actually a quarter of the peasantry.  I think the "leader" unit can have an extra flag.   The other stands will probably have one or maybe two flags.  
The regular units will have more flags...maybe 4 or 5.  The more flags the better.  The Chinese loved flags.  The main tactic of the period was to wave the flags,  scream, bang on musical instruments really loud in order to spool the oppositon.  Apparently whole battle lines clashing in a bloody Melee was considered reckless.  The general rule of thought was that if you do not die you can fight again tomorrow.   It sounds cowardly to western minds but it made sense to the Chinese of the time.  It is considered better to be cautious then to throw lives away in futile assaults. 

That was not always the case.  The Taiping rebels had special black flags.  When these banners were flown the Taiping rebels would fight to the death.  This terrified the Imperial forces and they usually gave up the field. 

Even with the reluctance the projected casualties were only beaten by the ww2 scale of death. 

I plan on adding more stands in the near future.  I just need to finish my baccus 6mm Greek DbA army.  It is only 12 units but those Hoplites take time to paint. 

You can see them looming in the background base coated and menacing. 

3 comments:

  1. I visited your blog after seeing your question on the Piquet group. I really like your Viet Cong conversions. I enjoy 6mm figures, but I'm not sure I could do that! :)

    Sorry to hear about your accident. Take good care of yourself.

    Barry

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  2. Impressive conversion. Wish there were more Chinese figures available in 6mm

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  3. Thanks. I plan on doing some more. One GhQ blister will make 4 stands. It is a side project for the time being.

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