Huai Army
The origins of the armies and leaders which dominated politics after 1912 lay in the military reforms of the late Qing dynasty. During the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), the Qing dynasty was forced to allow provincial governors to raise their own armies, the "Yong Ying", to fight against the Taiping rebels; many of these provincial forces were not disbanded after the Taiping rebellion was over, like Li Hongzhang’s Huai Army.