Talk:Wuwei Corps

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus, so page not moved.
The lengthy discussion here does seem to have been a valuable exchange of ideas, and has led to several editors (including the nominator) changing their views. However, this does not yet seem to have crystallised into a consensus. The exchange of ideas which took place here may be grounds for hoping that a further discussion in a month or two might produce a consensus. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:33, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

---

Wuwei Troop → Guards Army (Qing Dynasty) – "Guards Army" is the dominant translation in reliable sources, whereas "Wuwei Troop" cannot be found there. Per WP:TITLE, which states that "article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources", this page should therefore be renamed "Guards Army". Details: (1) A Google Books search for "Wuwei Troop" yields one work of fiction, a book based on Wikipedia, and an article translated from Chinese.[1] (2) A similar search for "Guards Army" AND "Wuwei" leads to all the familiar sources on the Boxer Uprising, in which the Guards Army played an important role.[2] (3) Searches for "Wuwei jun" (pinyin Romanization)[3] and "Wu-wei chun" (Wade-Giles)[4] reveal no alternative translation. (4) If the move is approved, we will have to write a hatnote and adjust the DAB page, but that's easy to do. Madalibi (talk) 10:04, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

[ADDED after reading In ictu oculi's post below: (5) In army talk, a troop is about the size of a platoon (under 100 men), whereas each division of the Guards Army was more than 10,000 strong and the Guards Army counted five divisions. (6) Because lots of Russian and Soviet military units were also called "Guards Army", I now propose to move this page to Guards Army (China) Guards Army (Qing China). Madalibi (talk) 16:00, 14 February 2014 (UTC)]

• Oppose - "Guards Army" means the Russian 1916 Guards Army alongside the Preobrazhenski Regiment, which became the Special Army, then Stalin's 2nd Guards Army in Stalingrad counteroffensive 1942-43, 4th Guards Army, 6th Guards Army etc. Wuwei Troop is found in contemporary sources Joseph Esherick The Origins of the Boxer Uprising 1987 p285 "one reason the Qing forces were so weak was because it was only at this very late stage that troops from the Western-trained Military Guards Army (Wu-wei jun).." and then there's the Wuwei Right Army or Wuwei Youjun or the Right Division the Wuwei Guards Army. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:43, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Guards Army (China) and Guards Army (Russia) should redirect. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't seen all these pages, thanks for pointing them out! I don't think they pose a serious problem, though, since we can simply move this page to Guards Army (China), as you propose. (I'm modifying my move request accordingly.) That way, we would respect the most common appellation for the "Wuwei jun" in reliable sources, and we would avoid confusion with the various Russian Guards Armies. Your citation from Esherick actually supports "Guards Army". When he mentions Wuwei jun, he is simply giving the original Chinese name for the "Military Guards Army", as he always does when he translates a technical term. As for the five divisions (Front, Rear, Left, Right, and Center) of the Chinese "Guards Army", they are already discussed in the present article, so they wouldn't seem to pose a problem. Cheers, and thanks for the Guards Army (China) idea! Madalibi (talk) 16:00, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Seems reasonable, struck oppose, now neutral on new proposal. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Even if it's moved, which I'm not quite in favor of, it should be moved to Guards Army (Qing Dynasty). Timmyshin (talk) 19:24, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Guards Army (Qing Dynasty) sounds fine to me too! And you don't have to, but could you explain why you're not quite in favor of a move, so that other editors can get more opinions to help make up their minds? Madalibi (talk) 03:44, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from 100%, but we both know that the translation is neither a literal calque nor commonly accepted (like Boxer Rebellion). As mentioned above, "Military Guards Army" is equally valid, as is "Martial Guards Army". Charles Hucker's A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China p. 574 seems to translate the term indirectly as "Capital Guard". Also note the current title "Wuwei Troop".

Still I won't oppose a move to Guards Army (Qing Dynasty). I will, however, oppose Guards Army (China) since there are many kinds of 禁軍 or 御林軍 throughout the imperial Chinese history. Timmyshin (talk) 07:07, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I see, thank you for clarifying! Guards Army (Qing Dynasty) [or maybe Guards Army (Qing China)] could actually be even better than Guards Army (China), because it would prevent confusion with any other Chinese palace guards unit that contained wuwei in its name (like the 12th-century example mentioned by Charles Hucker). Re your other points: I don't think perfect literalness should be a factor (how about the "purple" in "Forbidden City"?), but wei means "guard" and jun means "army", so in this case the translation is straightforward. For the record, I do think that "Guards Army" is the most commonly accepted translation, or I wouldn't have requested a move. Of the 11 results from the online search cited in note 2 of the move proposal, 8 use "Guards Army", 2 use "Military Guards Army", and 1 uses "Martial Guards Army". Search number 3 reveals 1 "Guard Army", as well as "Gardearmee" in German. It seems that early 20th-century western sources often used "Wuwei Army",[5] but these are all primary sources, not reliable sources. Against that we have only one RS supporting "Wuwei Troop", and it's arguably a mistranslation, since "troop" in English never refers to armies of tens of thousands of men. This means that the concise "Guards Army" is by far the most commonly accepted translation for the late-Qing "Wuwei jun". In light of all this, would you be willing to support a move to either Guards Army (Qing Dynasty) or Guards Army (Qing China)? Madalibi (talk) 08:14, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Mildly support a move to Guards Army (Qing Dynasty). Oppose a move to Guards Army (Qing China) (see my reply below). Timmyshin (talk) 21:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose a move to "Guards Army (China)". Neutral on those specifying the Qing Dynasty. --Cold Season (talk) 20:07, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Since there is a certain amount of opposition to Guards Army (China), I have again modified my move request to take the above comments into consideration. The new move target is Guards Army (Qing China), which has the advantage of pointing out that this is China, for the many readers who will not know what the "Qing Dynasty" is. Guards Army (Qing Dynasty) would be fine too. Madalibi (talk) 08:05, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't like the "Qing China" proposal. Qing Dynasty = roughly modern China + modern Taiwan + modern Mongolia. If someone doesn't know what Qing Dynasty is, there's no point in viewing that page anyway. Timmyshin (talk) 21:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support, which is based on the article moving to Guards Army (China) - the section title (understandably) hasn't changed in light of your reply to In ictu oculi above. My rationale is primarily based on the new title reflecting that this is an English language encyclopedia and wuwei doesn't mean much to the average English reader. "China" is necessary for disambiguation as noted above, and as the term is used in reliable sources there is no question of it being original research. As a footnote, Hucker says:

  7834 "wŭ-wèi 武衛 SUI-SUNG: Militant Guard, 2 military units prefixed Left and Right, created in 607 among the Twelve Guards (shiherhwei) at the dynastic capital produced by reorganization of the earlier Left and Right Guards (tso-wei, yu-wei) and Palace Military Headquarters (ling tso-yuýu) ; retained when the Twelve Guards were reorganized into the Sixteen Guards (shih-liu wei), although from mid T'ang all the Guards had only nominal existence, providing grandiose titles for members of the imperial family and other favored dignitaries; headed by a General (chiang-chŭn), normally rank 3a. RR+SP: garde guerrière. P20."

  That might be worth a mention in the article. ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 14:11, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

The passage you quoted from Hucker is irrelevant, because it is about the usage of the word "wuwei" between Sui Dynasty and Song Dynasty (Sung). The current article is about an army in the Qing Dynasty, several centuries after Song/Sung. Timmyshin (talk) 22:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

@Timmyshin: Funnily enough, I understand exactly what the Hucker quote is about, which is why I put it here in the first place. Let me be more explicit for you:

"Although varying iterations of the wuwei as guardians of the Forbidden City existed as far back as the Sui (581–681) and Song Dynasties (960–1279),{{sfn:Hucker}} it was not until the Qing Dynasty ...."

With me now? ► Philg88 ◄ ^talk 05:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Considering that they are "varying iterations", meaning that they are not at all the same topic, there's a need to specify the Qing Dynasty per precision of what this article's actual scope is. --Cold Season (talk) 00:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.