ABSTRACT
Four bureaus performed the divers functions of the department: the Bureau of Military Selection (Wu Shuan Sse) for appointments, dismissals, ranks, titles, and organization of army corps; the Bureau of Statistics (Chih Fang Sse) for rewards, punishments, investigation of men already in service, defense, policing, issuance of passports to service men going outside of the country, and enforcement of prohibitive regulations; the Bureau of Communications (Chu Chia Sse) for the raising and supply of horses 3 and relay communications; and the Commissariat Bureau for keeping records of the service men, recruitment of officers from competitive examinations, and the supply of uniforms and ammunitions. The division of the functions here, as elsewhere, is by no means scientific. The enormous size of the bureaus made the administration of a department which had under its control three-quarter million of soldiers and spent seventy-three per cent of the government expenditures, difficult as well as unsatisfactory.
