 In 1936, the last year of near-normal peacetime policing, the force totaled 4,739, men with 3,466 in the Chinese Branch, 457 serving in the Foreign Branch (predominantly British), 558 in the Sikh Branch and 258 in the Japanese Branch.Though the force was mostly occupied in the routine business of crime prevention, detection and traffic control, it was also seen as the Settlement's first line of defense against Chinese nationalist activity.After the failure of the 1913 Second Revolution against the autocratic presidency of Yuan Shikai, the settlement was increasingly troubled by armed crime.