An analogy to Harchong and to the Invincible (have to get that word in there) Omnipotent Host of God and Langhorn and All His Archangels comes to mind.
The analogy is the Chinese Army shortly after the turn of the last century, say between the War with Japan and the Boxer Rebellion or a bit later. A huge mix of weapons, a less than utterly honest bureaucracy, foreign experts not always trusted, bureaucrats and aristocrats though not of the western sort, etc. Even when they had modern weapons, Mausers, Krupp Artillery, they did not get a lot of use out of then effectively, or so my shallow sources say.
I would say more but for other reasons I have been looking unsuccessfully for detailed sources on the military in question. If I ahd the sources, I could say more. I can handle English or German-language sources. Suggestions on sources? There ought to be lots of interesting ideas there that the illustrious author has doubtless already drawn on.
