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The Boxer Rebellion, or Boxer Movement, was an uprising by members of the Chinese Society of Right and Harmonious Fists against foreign influence in areas such as trade, politics, religion and technology. The campaigns took place from November 1899 to 7 September 1901, during the final years of Manchu rule in China under the Qing Dynasty. The members of the Society of Right and Harmonious Fists were simply called "Boxers" by the Westerners due to the martial arts and calisthenics they practiced. The uprising began as an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist peasant-based movement in northern China. They attacked foreigners who were building railroads (railways) and violating Feng shui, as well as Christians, who were held responsible for the foreign domination of China. In June 1900, the Boxers invaded Beijing and killed 230 foreign diplomats and foreigners. Some Chinese Christians were also killed, mostly in Shandong and Shanxi Provinces as part of the uprising. The government of Empress Dowager Cixi was not helpful, and diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers and some Chinese Christians retreated to the legation quarter where they held out for fifty-five days until a multi nation coalition rushed 20,000 troops to their rescue. The Chinese government was forced to indemnify the victims and make many additional concessions. Subsequent reforms implemented after the crisis of 1900 laid, at least in part, the end of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the modern Chinese Republic. PerspectiveIn traditional Western histories, the Boxers were condemned as a product of irrationality and xenophobia among the common people. However, controversy still exists about the significance of the movement. Today, the Boxers are praised by the government of the PRC, in accordance with the Eastern perspective, as patriotic and anti-imperialists.citation needed Empress Dowager most remembered sayings
Translation: 爱新覺羅 Aisin Gioro, was the clan name of the Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty . The word aisin means gold in the Manchu language, and "gioro" means clan in the Manchu language. 天下,Literary it means everything under the heaven.Used in this context,it means China as a nation.Empress Dowager was saying China,is the property of the Aisin Gioro clan.It is our family's private property,and has got nothing to do with anyone else.
After the Manchu Dynasty's humiliating defeat by the Eight Nations Alliance,the western powers demanded huge compensations.To this,Empress replied:量中华之物力, 中华,the original,and the oldest name of China.The whole phrase translate:We have to put together,and offer whatever China can manage to supply.结与国之欢心 translate:Have to try to satisfy foreign nation's desires,and make them happy. Put the two phrase together,we can then work out,that Empress Dowager always put the interests of Aisin Gioro clan at first priority,anything else is secondly.
Failure of the Hundred Days' ReformThe Hundred Day's Reform ( 戊戌變法); 11 June 1898 - 21 September 1898) was started. The leaders of the reform were Guangxu Emperor, Kang Youwei ( 康有為) and Liang Qichao ( 梁啟超). Eventually, it ended in a coup d'état led by Empress Dowager Cixi. The Dragon Empress Dowager ,then staged a coup d'etat by putting then young Emperor Guangxu under house arrest in the middle of a lake,and had trusted eunuchs to keep watch,even though the Emperor was her own nephew.However,the western powers preferred Emperor Guangxu to stay at the throne,and kept on pressuring Dowager to cease control of the Emperor. Righteous Harmony Society 義和團
BMS Missionaries BeheadedBy 1900 Baptist Missionary Society, along with many other missioanry organisations, had sent hundreds of missionaries to China's Shanxi province, including Taiyuan, the main city.In August 1900, an article in the mission's magazine Missionary Herald published a letter from Shanxi hinting that there was "[a] terrible cloud that hangs fierce and ominous over China". The news gradually emerged that there had been a massacre at Taiyuan. One of the telegram on 10/1900 Missionary Herald :"Mission houses in Taiyuan burned…. Missionaries fled there… promised safety, immediately massacred, altogether thirty-three Protestants. " Orthodox Missionaries burnt to deathRussian orthodox church,had set up mission in China at the end of the seventeenth century.A former Buddhist temple near Beijing was converted into a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, and church vestments and holy objects were sent from the Imperial Court in Russia. Jesuit priests beheaded.The Jesuit priests,Father Isore and Father Andlauer,were both killed at a chapel,quote:Then they beheaded them and displayed the heads of the Jesuits on the village gates as a brutal warning of what awaited Christians who did not return to their ancestral religion. Unquoted. English Professor Henry HartPrpfessor's great-grandfather was a larger then life figure.Among many things,he was 30,000 Chinese Roman Catholics martyredReports on Oversea Missionary Fellowship on Chinese Martyrs The following list complied by the Oversea Missionary Fellowship says it all: First-hand eye-witness's account. (1) William S Fleming, an Australian, had become the first CIM martyr. Fleming died trying to protect his friend and assistant Pan Shoushan, a Black Miao convert. Pan Shoushan was also martyred. The uprising
Boxers, drawn by Johannes Koekkoek circa 1900.
The Imperial court's Self-Strengthening Movement. One of the first signs of unrest appeared in a small village in Shandong province, where there had been a long dispute over the property rights of a temple between locals and the Roman Catholic authorities. The Catholics claimed that the temple was originally a church abandoned for decades after the Kangxi Emperor banned Christianity in China. The local court ruled in favor of the church, and angered villagers who claimed the temple for rituals. After the local authorities turned over the temple to the Catholics, the villagers (led by the Boxers) attacked the church building. The exemption from many Chinese laws of missionaries further alienated some Chinese. Marshall Broomhall pointed to the policy pursued by Catholic missionaries. In 1899, with the help of the French Minister in Peking, they obtained an edict from the Chinese Government granting official rank to each order in the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The Catholics, by means of this official status, were able to more powerfully support their people and oppose Mandarins.[1] cayla*** The early months of the movement's growth coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (June 11–September 21, 1898), during which the Guangxu Emperor of China sought to improve the central administration, though the process was reversed by several court reactionaries. After the Boxers were mauled by loyal Imperial troops in October 1898, they dropped their anti-government slogans and turned their attention to foreign missionaries (such as those of the China Inland Mission) and their converts, whom they saw as agents of foreign imperialist influence.
Now with a majority of conservative reactionaries in the Imperial Court, the Empress Dowager issued edicts in defence of the Boxers, drawing heated complaints from foreign diplomats in January, 1900. In June 1900 the Boxers, now joined by elements of the Imperial army, attacked foreign compounds in the cities of Tianjin and Peking. The legations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, Russia and Japan were all located on the Legation Quarter close to the Forbidden City in Peking. The legations were hurriedly linked into a fortified compound that became a refuge for foreign citizens in Peking. The Spanish and Belgian legations were a few streets away, and their staff were able to arrive safely at the compound. The German legation on the other side of the city was stormed before the staff could escape. When the Envoy for the German Empire, Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was murdered on June 20 by a Manchu banner man, the foreign powers demanded redress. On June 21 Cixi declared war against all Western powers, but regional governors refused to cooperate. Shanghai's Chinese elite supported the provincial governors of southeastern China in resisting the imperial declaration of war.[3] Siege in PekingThe fortified legation compound in Peking remained under siege from Boxer forces from June 20 to August 14. Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald, the legation staff and security personnel defended the compound with one old muzzle-loaded cannon; it was nicknamed the "International Gun" because the barrel was British, the carriage was Italian, the shells were Russian, and the crew were from the United States. Foreign media described the fighting going on in Peking as well as the alleged torture and murder of captured foreigners. Whilst it is true that tens of thousands of Chinese Christians were massacred in north China, many horrible stories that appeared in world newspapers were based on a deliberate fraud[4]. Nonetheless a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment arose in Europe, the United States and Japan. [5] The poorly armed Boxer rebels were unable to break into the compound, which was relieved by an international army of the Eight-Nation Alliance in July. Eight-Nation AllianceThe rebellion was stopped by an alliance of eight nations, including Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Military of the Powers during the Boxer Rebellion, with their naval flags, from left to right: Italy, United States, France, Austria-Hungary, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia. Japanese print, 1900.
ReinforcementsForeign navies started building up their presence along the northern China coast from the end of April 1900. On May 31, before the sieges had started and upon the request of foreign embassies in Beijing, an International force of 435 navy troops from eight countries were dispatched by train from Takou to the capital (75 French, 75 Russian, 75 British, 60 U.S., 50 German, 40 Italian, 30 Japanese, 30 Austrian); these troops joined the legations and were able to contribute to their defence. First intervention (Seymour column)
Contingent of Japanese marines who served under the British commander Seymour.
As the situation worsened, a second International force of 2,000 marines under the command of the British Vice Admiral Edward Seymour, the largest contingent being British, was dispatched from Takou to Beijing on June 10. The troops were transported by train from Takou to Tianjin (Tien-Tsin) with the agreement of the Chinese government, but the railway between Tianjin and Beijing had been severed. Seymour however resolved to move forward and repair the rail or such as the train, or progress on foot as necessary, keeping in mind that the distance between Tianjin and Beijing was only 120 kilometers. After Tianjin however, the convoy was surrounded, the railway behind and in front of them was destroyed, and they were attacked from all parts by Chinese irregulars and even Chinese governmental troops. News arrived on June 18 regarding attacks on foreign legations. Seymour decided to continue advancing, this time along the Pei-Ho river, towards Tong-Tcheou, 25 kilometers from Beijing. By the 19th, they had to abandon their efforts due to progressively stiffening resistance, and started to retreat southward along the river with over two hundred wounded. Commandeering four civilian Chinese junks along the river, they loaded all their wounded and remaining supplies onto them and pulled them along with ropes from the riverbanks. By this point, they were very low on food, ammunition and medical supplies. Luckily, they then happened upon The Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache that the western powers had had no knowledge of until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering not only German Krupp made field guns, but rifles with millions of rounds in ammunition, along with millions of pounds of rice. Further, medical supplies were ample too. There they dug in and awaited rescue. A Chinese servant was able to infiltrate through the boxer and Qing lines, informing the western powers of their predicament. Surrounded and attacked nearly around the clock by Qing troops and boxers, they were at the point of being overrun. On June 25 however a regiment composed of 1800 men, (900 Russian troops from Port-Arthur, 500 British seamen, with an ad hoc mix of other assorted western troops) finally arrived. Spiking the mounted field guns and setting fire to any munitions that they could not take (an estimate £3 million worth), they departed the Hsi-Ku Arsenal in the early morning of June 26, with the loss of 62 killed and 228 wounded.[6] Second intervention
With a difficult military situation in Tianjin, and a total breakdown of communications between Tianjin and Beijing, the allied nations took steps to reinforce their military presence significantly. On June 17, they took the Taku Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and from there brought increasing numbers of troops on shore. The international force, with British Lieutenant-General Alfred Gaselee acting as the commanding officer, called the Eight-Nation Alliance, eventually numbered 54,000, with the main contingent being composed of Japanese soldiers: Japanese (20,840), Russian (13,150), British (12,020), French (3,520), U.S.(3,420), German (900), Italian (80), Austro-Hungarian (75), and anti-Boxer Chinese troops.[7] The international force finally captured Tianjin on July 14 under the command of the Japanese colonel Kuriya, after one day of fighting. Notable exploits during the campaign were the seizure of the Taku Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and the boarding and capture of four Chinese destroyers by Roger Keyes. The march from Tianjin to Beijing of about 120 km consisted of about 20,000 allied troops. On August 4 there were approximately 70,000 Imperial troops with anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 Boxers along the way. They only encountered minor resistance and the battle was engaged in Yangcun, about 30 km outside Tianjin, where the 14th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. and British troops led the assault. However, the weather was a major obstacle, extremely humid with temperatures sometimes reaching 110 °F (43Celsius). The International force reached and occupied Beijing on August 14. The United States was able to play a secondary, but significant role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion largely due to the presence of U.S. ships and troops deployed in the Philippines since the U.S conquest of the Spanish American and Philippine-American War. In the United States military, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition. The end of rebellionA large international expeditionary force under the command of German general Alfred Graf von Waldersee arrived too late to take part in the main fighting, but undertook several punitive expeditions against the Boxers. Troops from most nations engaged in plunder, looting and rape. German troops in particular were criticized for their enthusiasm in carrying out Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany's July 27 order:
The speech, in which Wilhelm invoked the memory of the 5th century Huns, gave rise to the British derogatory name "Hun" for their German enemy during World War I and World War II. ReparationsOn September 7, 1901, the Qing court was compelled to sign the "Boxer Protocol" also known as Peace Agreement between the Eight-Nation Alliance and China. The protocol ordered the execution of ten high-ranking officials linked to the outbreak, and other officials who were found guilty for the slaughter of Westerners in China. China was fined war reparations of 450,000,000 tael of fine silver (around 67.5 million pounds) for the loss that it caused. The reparation would be paid within 39 years, and would be 982,238,150 taels with interests (4% per year) included. To help meet the payment, it was agreed to increase the existing tariff from an actual 3.18% to 5%, and to tax hitherto duty-free merchandise. The sum of reparation was estimated by the Chinese population (roughly 450 million in 1900), to let each Chinese pay one tael. Chinese custom income and salt tax were enlisted as guarantee of the reparation. Russia got 30% of the reparation, Germany 20%, France 15.75%, Britain 11.25%, Japan 7.7% and the US share was 7%.[9] China paid 668,661,220 taels of silver from 1901 to 1939. Some of the reparation was later earmarked by both Britain and the U.S. for the education of Chinese students at overseas institutions, subsequently forming the basis of Tsinghua University. The British signatory of the Protocol was Sir Ernest Satow, and was in response to the SCHIA programs. The China Inland Mission lost more members than any other missionary agency: 58 adults and 21 children were killed. However, in 1901, when the allied nations were demanding compensation from the Chinese government, Hudson Taylor refused to accept payment for loss of property or life in order to demonstrate the meekness of Christ to the Chinese.[10] AftermathThe imperial government's humiliating failure to defend China against the foreign powers contributed to the growth of nationalist resentment against the "foreign nation" Qing dynasty (rulers were the members of a minority nation, Manchu, as compared to a Han majority) and an increasing feeling for modernization, which was to culminate a decade later in the dynasty's overthrow and the establishment of the Republic of China. The foreign privileges which had angered Chinese people were largely cancelled in the 1930s and 1940s. In October 1900, Russia was busy occupying much of the northeastern province of Manchuria, a move which threatened Anglo-American hopes of maintaining what remained of China's territorial integrity and an openness to commerce under the Open Door Policy. This behavior led ultimately to the Russo-Japanese War, where Russia was defeated at the hands of an increasingly confident Japan. ResultsDuring the incident, 48 Catholic missionaries and 18,000 Chinese Catholics were murdered; 222 Chinese Eastern Orthodox Christians were also murdered, along with 182 Protestant missionaries and 500 Chinese Protestants known as the China Martyrs of 1900. The effect on China was a weakening of the dynasty as well as a weakened national defense. The structure was temporarily sustained by the Europeans who were under the impression that the Boxer Rebellion was anti-Qing. Besides the compensation, Empress Dowager Cixi realized that in order to survive, China had to reform despite her previous view of European opposition. Among the Imperial powers, Japan gained prestige due to its military aid in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion and was now seen as a power. Its clash with Russia over the Liaodong and other provinces in eastern Manchuria, long considered by the Japanese as part of their sphere of influence, led to the Russo-Japanese War when two years of negotiations broke down in February 1904. Germany earned itself the nickname "Hun" and occupied Qingdao bay, consequently fortifying it to serve as Germany's primary naval base in East Asia. The Russian Lease of the Liaodong (1898) was confirmed. The U.S. 9th Infantry Regiment earned the nickname "Manchus" for its actions during this campaign and members of the regiment (stationed in Camp Casey, South Korea) still do a commemorative 25 mile (40 km) foot march every quarter in remembrance of the brutal fighting. Soldiers who complete this march are authorized to wear a special belt buckle that features a Chinese imperial dragon on their uniforms. Likewise both the U.S. 14th Infantry Regiment, which calls itself "The Golden Dragons"; the 15th Infantry Regiment; the U.S. 6th Cavalry Regiment; the US 3rd Artillery (see Coats of arms of U.S. Field Artillery Regiments) also have a Golden Dragon on their coat of arms. Another U.S. unit involved in the rebellion was the first formation of "2d Regiment" of USMC detachments.
ProfessorYuan Weishi published an essay : Modernization and History Text books[11]. 現代化与中國的历史教科書问題,by criticizing the errors on Chinese school's history text books,he is analizing the Manchu Dynasty's history from a broader perspective.
孫中山 ,the founding father of modern Republic of China.Sun Yat Sen ,proclaimed as such when he launched his rebellion against the Manchus: Fictional interpretations
Footnotes
References
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