British-style unit names for a surviving Chinese Imperial Army?

By which I mean instead of dull, functional unit names like 2nd Division, 58th Division, 88th Division, etc, you have the Yorkshire Regiment, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, the Queen's Own Yeomanry, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, etc.

What might be a Chinese version of that British style, in a TL where the Qing survive (or Yuan Shikai's imperial experiment succeeds, or some other imperial claimant manages to prevail in the chaos of the 1910s and 20s)? The unit names don't have to be explicitly tied to the monarchy, could be based on Chinese mythology or history or whatnot, but they have to actual names and not just numbers. Ideas?

(There might be an incredibly easy OTL answer to this, but I can't find out what the units of the Green Standard Army were named.)
 
By which I mean instead of dull, functional unit names like 2nd Division, 58th Division, 88th Division, etc, you have the Yorkshire Regiment, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, the Queen's Own Yeomanry, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, etc.

What might be a Chinese version of that British style, in a TL where the Qing survive (or Yuan Shikai's imperial experiment succeeds, or some other imperial claimant manages to prevail in the chaos of the 1910s and 20s)? The unit names don't have to be explicitly tied to the monarchy, could be based on Chinese mythology or history or whatnot, but they have to actual names and not just numbers. Ideas?

(There might be an incredibly easy OTL answer to this, but I can't find out what the units of the Green Standard Army were named.)


It seems to me there's a lot of things in Chinese traditional literature that are of the nature The Number Style x's of This Thatting - so you might have a battalion called the Twelve Swift Companies of Perfect Stealth, or whatever. A sort of madlibs structure fed with the right things could generate a lot of unit names.

Have some you just make up off the top of your head, the less sense they make, the better. Who are the Nine Equals? Equal to who, or what? Leave the reader guessing.

Then you've got places etc: The Third Levy of Tong Li, etc. Battle honours may be added to a unit's name somehow. Poke about in google earth, find some place, and in your TL, have a battle there, have a regiment called The Valiant Defenders Of The Lingqu Bridge and so on and so forth.
 
It seems to me there's a lot of things in Chinese traditional literature that are of the nature The Number Style x's of This Thatting - so you might have a battalion called the Twelve Swift Companies of Perfect Stealth, or whatever. A sort of madlibs structure fed with the right things could generate a lot of unit names.

Have some you just make up off the top of your head, the less sense they make, the better. Who are the Nine Equals? Equal to who, or what? Leave the reader guessing.

Then you've got places etc: The Third Levy of Tong Li, etc. Battle honours may be added to a unit's name somehow. Poke about in google earth, find some place, and in your TL, have a battle there, have a regiment called The Valiant Defenders Of The Lingqu Bridge and so on and so forth.

Approved! Thanks for the ideas.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I always thought the British had the coolest regimental names. Let's face is. . . "The Black Watch" sounds a lot more interesting than the "10th Illinois Infantry Regiment".
 
By which I mean instead of dull, functional unit names like 2nd Division, 58th Division, 88th Division, etc, you have the Yorkshire Regiment, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, the Queen's Own Yeomanry, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, etc.

What might be a Chinese version of that British style, in a TL where the Qing survive (or Yuan Shikai's imperial experiment succeeds, or some other imperial claimant manages to prevail in the chaos of the 1910s and 20s)? The unit names don't have to be explicitly tied to the monarchy, could be based on Chinese mythology or history or whatnot, but they have to actual names and not just numbers. Ideas?

(There might be an incredibly easy OTL answer to this, but I can't find out what the units of the Green Standard Army were named.)

This sounds a bit like what happened after the Green Standard Army declined. In terms of geography and history, Qing China had the Northern Ocean Army, the Southern Ocean Fleet, the Chu Army (named after an ancient Chinese kingdom), the Huai Army (named after a river), the Xiang Army (named after another river), and some others. This isn't really different from, say, the British Army of the Rhine, or the Army of Italy.

The only difference is that Qing China never had units named after people, while I don't think they ever named units after mythological concepts either.
 
It seems to me there's a lot of things in Chinese traditional literature that are of the nature The Number Style x's of This Thatting - so you might have a battalion called the Twelve Swift Companies of Perfect Stealth, or whatever. A sort of madlibs structure fed with the right things could generate a lot of unit names.

Have some you just make up off the top of your head, the less sense they make, the better. Who are the Nine Equals? Equal to who, or what? Leave the reader guessing.

Then you've got places etc: The Third Levy of Tong Li, etc. Battle honours may be added to a unit's name somehow. Poke about in google earth, find some place, and in your TL, have a battle there, have a regiment called The Valiant Defenders Of The Lingqu Bridge and so on and so forth.
Don't forget OTL's Kansu Braves, who sound suspiciously like a baseball team. :p
 
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