The fatherly attention, the wise precautions, and the extreme jealousy of the government, have not been considered as alone sufficient for the internal and external protection of the empire, without the assistance of an immense standing army. This army, in the midst of a profound peace, was stated by _Van-ta-gin_ to consist of eighteen hundred thousand men, one million of which were said to be infantry, and eight hundred thousand cavalry. As this government, however, is supposed to be much given to exaggeration in all matters relating to the aggrandisement of the country, and to deal liberally in hyperboles, wherever numbers are concerned, the authenticity of the above statement of their military force may perhaps be called in question. The sum of money, that would be required to keep in pay and furnish the extraordinaries of so immense an army, is so immoderate that the revenues would appear to be unable to bear it. If the pay and the appointments of each soldier, infantry and cavalry one with another, be supposed to amount to a shilling a day, the sum required for the pay alone would amount to 33,000,000_l._ sterling a year! To come nearer the truth, let us take the calculation drawn up by Lord Macartney from the information of _Van-ta-gin_. +-----------------------------------------+--------+-----------+---------+ | | | Salaries, | | | Rank | Number | oz. | Total | +-----------------------------------------+--------+-----------+---------+ |Tau-ton, | 18 | 4000 | 72,000| |Tsung-ping | 62 | 2400 | 148,800| |Foo-tsung | 121 | 1400 | 157,300| |Tchoo-tsung | 165 | 800 | 132,000| |Tchoo-tze | 373 | 600 | 223,800| |Too-tze | 425 | 400 | 170,000| |Sciou-foo | 825 | 320 | 264,000| |Tsien-tsung | 1680 | 160 | 268,800| |Pa-tsung | 3622 | 130 | 420,370| |Commissaries of provisions of first | | | | |rank | 44 | 320 | 14,080| |Commissaries of provisions of second | 330 | 160 | 52,800| |rank +-------+-----------+----------+ | Total 1,974,450| | | |1,000,000 infantry, at two ounces of silver each } 24,000,000 | | _per_ month, provisions included } | | 800,000 cavalry, at four ounces each, } 38,400,000 |