ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the military structures in China between 1650 and 1900 from the perspective of labour history as devised by the Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations 1500-2000. It will first present the basic structures of the Qing armies. There follows a discussion of the state of the art in research and the major issues and debates in this field. Finally, the authors assess trends and tendencies in the framework of the matrix of hypotheses developed within the research group Fighting for a Living.
