Yong Ying

Yong Ying (Chinese: 勇營; pinyin: yǒng yíng; Wade–Giles: yung-ying, literally "brave camps") were a type of regional army that emerged in the 1800s in Qing dynasty army, which fought in most of China's wars after the Opium War and numerous rebellions exposed the ineffectiveness of the Manchu Eight Banners and Green Standard Army. The Yong ying were created from the earlier tuanlian militias.

Tuanlian (Chinese: 團練) is the Chinese term for localised village militias created in the Zhou Dynasty. In May 1645, Ming rebel leader Li Zicheng (Chinese: 李自成) was killed by a tuanlian of local landowners in Hubei province.

During the Jiaqing reign, with the corrupt and ineffective official military establishment of the Eight Banners and Green Standard Army incapable of curbing the White Lotus Rebellion, the Qing court began to order local gentry and landowners in all ten provinces to organise tuanlian for self-defense, with both funding and control in the hands of local gentry and landowners.

Yong (Chinese:勇), literally "Braves", was the official name for members of the militia, which was recruited from the local civilian population. These "braves" were grouped into units (ying), known as the "Yong Ying". Yong were not regarded as part of the official imperial army of Eight Banners or Green Standard, with their funding and logistics provided by civilian society, not the imperial governments.

The Xiang Army, a "Yung-ying" army in Qing Dynasty China, separate from the Manchu Eight Banners and Green Standard Army. They used modern weapons and the officers were never rotated, so relationships formed between officers and the troops, unlike Green Standard and Banner forces.

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