Compared with the former dynasty, the military system of the Manchu Dynasty degenerated to an incredible degree, and the direct consequence was that it lost the ability of large corps to fight, and dismantled the armed forces into battalion-level scale, which was mainly used to suppress the resistance of local Han people. When it comes to the Opium War, we are always saddened. The 800,000 standing army in the Qing Dynasty was defeated by thousands of British troops. In fact, in most battlefields, the strength contrast between the two sides simply failed to reach the expected disparity, and some even fell behind (for example, in the best battle of Zhenjiang, the effective strength of the Qing side was less than 2,000).

In the battle between Guangzhou and eastern Zhejiang, the Qing army mobilized hundreds of thousands of reinforcements from all over the country. Some reinforcements are still on the way, and the battle is over. Even if they can arrive, it is conceivable that this patchwork of armed forces can be dispatched from a long distance. During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Qing government mobilized 40,000 Xiang troops to fight in the northeast battlefield at one time, which was regarded as a great progress in mobilization ability. Compared with the Han and Tang dynasties, how can we not be embarrassed by the scale of the battle in which more than 200,000 troops participated in the war?