In January 1901 the Yangtze Viceroys submitted a memorial to the Throne suggesting among other things the disbandment of the useless _Lü Ying_ [Armies of the Green Standard], the employment of the Bannermen, almost as useless, in service other than military, and the creation of a modern army. This brought forth an Imperial decree ordering reorganization of the army, of which Yuan Shih-kai, then Viceroy of Chihli, took advantage to build up six new divisions, four of which were transferred to the Ministry of War in 1906. This was the real beginning of the _Lu Chun_, the Chinese National Army. In January, 1905, a comprehensive scheme was outlined designed to give China an army of 36 Divisions or 360,000 men, by the year 1911. Three years after this decision was made there were about 60,000 men, with 360 guns, in the North, and 40,000 men, with 174 guns, in the South. The army was developing along sound lines when Yuan Shih-kai was removed from office in 1908 after the death of his great patroness the Empress Dowager, and the direction of military, as well as other affairs, fell into the hands of the Manchu princes, whose mismanagement contributed much to the downfall of their dynasty three years later.[19] The beginning, although auspicious, did not mean that even the model sections of the modernized forces were comparable to those of other lands. The confusion of weapons was already evident. A member of the United States General Staff wrote in 1910: To arm these masses China has been obliged to use weapons that are considered somewhat out of date. There are four types of rifles, mostly Mausers and Japanese Murata rifles of old pattern. They are, however, breech-loading, small-caliber weapons, not to be despised, even if they do not reach the ideal which some nations set. In fact they are the weapons which have been used in the great wars of most recent date. It is so also with the artillery where even a greater difference of types is to be observed. This is, undoubtedly, a serious drawback, owing, of course, to the great difficulty of providing ammunition.[20]