"Organising Tai Pings" Topic

I'm begining to organise my Tai Pings and I thought others might be interested in how Pingers fought and in ways of representing that on the tabletop.

The first thing I needed was a skirmish line. Mine currently consists of two mixed units each consisting of two bases of Jingals and two of swordsmen. The purpose of the skirmish line is to disrupt and distract the enemy. To be effective it needs to get close to the enemy.

If the Tai Ping commander has been lucky enough to enlist some Miao allies then this may be the place to put the Miao 'jezzails' with their slow loading but accurate and long ranged pieces. Add to that the possibility of an artillery battery and the skirmish line becomes a much more deadly proposition.

The next command is the front line 'Lu' which consists of 5 units the front,centre,rear, left and right each with its own flag. My Tai Pings have the centre and rear with spears and the front, left and ring with firearms. This is the command with the most newly trained men accordingly I have painted about a third of them in light blue the rest being mainly in red and black.

The remaing four Lu will all be spearmen but for one unit of muskets in the veteran rear LU that will consist entirely of highly motivated aggressive troops.

I have also bought a couple of units of cavaly to represent Nien Fein (or Fenians as the British called them) or Tai Ping cavalry proper.

If you need more information on the Taipings check out these sites

taipingrebellion.com/weapons.htm

The following is found there

"Each Taiping army, or keun, is composed of 13,125 officers and men, under the command of a general (keun-shwae), and is divided into five divisions (ying), front, rear, right, left, and center. A division musters 2,625 strong, commanded by a general of division (sze-shwae), and contains five leu, or regiments, the front, rear, left, right, and centre. A regiment is composed of 525 men and officers, commanded by a colonel (leu-shwae), and is divided into five tsuh, or companiesA company is composed of 104 men and officers, commanded by a captain (tsuh-chang) ; then come four lieutenants (leang-sze-ma), distinguished as the north, south, east, and west, each in command of four sergeants (woo- chang), and twenty privates (woo-tsuh). The lieutenants, and all above, have each a banner with his designation inscribed on it, which increases in size with the rank of the officer. "

More info here on their opponents

link

Thanks for the link on the Taiping organisation.

The link on the EVA is interesting, but it is easy to forget that this was just a sideshow. The real fighting was done by the Hunan Army. Do you have anything similar on them?

As part of the research for the Tai-P'ing Flags Collection, I put together an organizational table for war gaming purposes which specifies weapon types and proportions at a notional 1:60 figure to man ratio.

Interested parties are welcome to a gratis copy simply by writing me at TVAG@att.net and making the request.

TVAG

I have used TVAG flags for each Tai Ping unit and am very pleased with them. My figures are Irregular and Falcon 15s. Some photos shortly.

For their opponents I'm using Falcon and Khurasan for Imps and Museum for Tatars with Outpost for generals and cavalry officers. They all match nicely.

Re Hunan Army

Some mentions here

link

taipingrebellion.com/jingnan.htm

and of course the usual Wiki article -

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiang_Army

@TVAG: e-mail sent!

Thank you, TVAG!

@Anybody: Out of curiosity, to what extent might the Tai Ping organization have been inspired by some traditional precedents, perhaps among Chinese militia or even in the Chinese classics?

The Tai-P'ing Armies were based on classical Chou Dynasty practices.

There was little or no sign that the Founders had any interest in anything that wasn't tried and true, though anything resembling the Manchu/Ching traditions was held in contempt.

Allow me to highly recommend "The Taiping Revolutionary Movement" by Jen Ye-wen, 1973. A much more complete history than many, and written from original Mandarin and Cantonese sources, this is pretty much the straight stuff.

AbeBooks shows the least expensive copy of this out-of-print title for $52.00 USD here: link

It's gone up in price since I got my copy, so waiting will only make it worse, but if you want perhaps the most complete single source in English, this is the one to get.

If, however, you want a more nearly down-and-dirty popular history, "God's Chinese Son" can be had for just $12.00 USD here: link

The Osprey title is, of course, excellent for as far as it goes, and the Perry Brother's did fine research on uniforms, etc, and it can be gotten for less than $7.00 USD here: link

So get what works for you and ground yourself in the subject to help get you going!

TVAG

Thanks again! That's more or less what I had suspected, given the fivefold organization and the directions.

I've got a copy of the popular history somewhere, and may have the Osprey, but the first history sounds as though it could be worth acquiring.