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Updated: May 11, 2025
There were Tung Fu-hsiang's artillerymen, with violet embroidered coats and blue trousers; dismounted cavalry detachments belonging to the same commander in red and black tunics and red "tiger skirts"; Jung Lu's Peking Field Force; Manchu Bannermen; provincial levies and many others.
In a similar sense, until quite a recent date, skill in archery was required of every Bannerman; and it was undoubtedly a great wrench when the once fatally effective weapon was consigned to an unmerited oblivion. But though Bannermen can no longer shoot with the bow and arrow, they still continue to draw monthly allowances from state funds, as an hereditary right obtained by conquest.
All carried staves bound with streamers of ribbons. Following the attendants came a line of bannermen, with red flags, on which were various inscriptions in blue; then came drummers and pipe-players dressed in yellow costumes, their instruments decked with ribbons.
There were about a hundred red Lamas in the centre, with bannermen whose heads were covered by peculiar flat fluffy hats, and an equal number of soldiers and officers in their gray, red, and black tunics some two hundred horsemen in all. The Pombo, in his yellow coat and trousers and his queer pointed hat, sat on a magnificent pony in front of the crowd of Lamas and soldiers.
These Bannermen, as they are called, in reference to eight banners or corps under which they are marshalled, may be known by their square heavy faces, which contrast strongly with the sharper and more astute-looking physiognomies of the Chinese.
Many of the officials had on high-crowned hats decorated with bunches of feathers and crimson tassels. These were fastened by a string of amber beads around the throat. Blue and orange and red were the colours of their robes. Then followed more bannermen, drummers, and servants carrying food, fire, and pipes.
Dense bodies of men in white tunics and dark trousers were debouching into the street, thousands of yards away, and were then marching due east that is, towards the Palace. They came on and on, until it seemed they would never cease. What were these newcomers? Were they white troops at last were they Bannermen of the white Banners?...
When they arrived at the forbidden precincts, the Manchu Bannermen on guard at the various city gates were replaced by Li's Anhui braves, and as the Empress Dowager had sent eunuchs to point out the palace troops which were doubtful or that had openly declared for the conspirators, these were at once disarmed, bound and sent to prison.
Their movements were so dilatory that that place would have fallen if it had not been for the courage and military capacity shown by Wurantai, leader of the Canton Bannermen. This soldier fully realised the perils of the situation. In a memorial to the Throne he spoke plainly: The whole country swarms with the rebels.
A hound bays in the distance; the smoke of cottages rises straight toward heaven; a lazy jingle of sleigh-bells wakens the quiet of the high-road; and upon the hills the leafless woods stand low, like crouching armies, with guns and spears in rest; and among them the scattered spiral pines rise like bannermen, uttering with their thousand tongues of green the proud war-cry "God is with us!"
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