Symbolic Changes in Modern Chinese Military Bands from Westernization to Revolution (c. 1895 to c. 1937)

China's modern military drew on the Western industrial model after China's defeat in the 1st Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. A major musical change was the incorporation of brass bands for military use and displays of national pageantry. Bands already were known in China in the civilian realms, and they were considered Western pastimes. The military brass bands became readily Sinicized by 1898 when, Yuan Shikai, the Qing Court advisor and garrison commander in the Sino-Japanese War hired a Prussian band master to train new Chinese army units in music performance and marching. Yuan in 1912 became the President of the Republic of China, and by the time of his death in 1916, warlords had brass bands in their cliques supporting their offices. Bugles later became adopted by the communist peasant armies who since the 1920s joined Mao Zedong, later accompanying him on the Long March of 19341935. Bugles had become the symbol of revolution. Their symbolism was concurrently represented by the bugle call in Nie Er's >> March of the Volunteers,<< heard in the 1935 film Children of Troubled Times. This march in 1949 became the provisional National Anthem of the People's Republic of China. Edgar Snow's 1936 photograph of a bugler in Ningxia also became iconic to the People's Revolution. The article halts prior to the start of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War in 1937, for by then the symbolism of Western military instruments was firmly establish in revolutionary thought.