Chapter 27 The Boxer Uprising, 1899–1900

In the late 1890s, Germany and the other imperialist powers, acting on the pretext of a series of anti-Christian incidents, began to militarily occupy port cities in North China. From these imperialist bases, missionaries fanned out across the North China plain to aggressively proselytize the gospel. In west- ern Shandong, an area long vulnerable to the dangerous combination of flooding, poverty, and sectarian activity, various self-defense and martial arts groups began banding together in response to the activities of these Catholic and Protestant missionaries and their converts. Drawing on a wealth of local religious traditions and popular culture, these peasant groups fought back by practicing spiritual boxing, which they believed gave them magical powers, in- vulnerability to Western weapons, and other special martial skills. Throughout 1898 and 1899, Shandong peasants seethed at Christian provoca- tions and, in the midst of a drought, began forming what became known as the Militia United in Righteousness (the Boxers) to attack missionary compounds and slaughter Christian converts throughout the region. Emboldened by the encouragement of Shandong governor Yuxian, Boxer groups began moving north in late 1899. As they trekked towards the capital, the Empress Dowager Cixi issued an edict in January 1900 widely believed to support the Boxers and their slogan “Support the Qing, Exterminate the Foreigners.” Throughout the spring, Boxer bands on the outskirts of Beijing and Tianjin began ripping up railroads, cutting telegraph lines, murdering Chinese Christian converts, and burning foreign homes. On June 10, British Minister Sir Claude MacDonald requested Vice Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, stationed off the Dagu Forts near Tianjin, to land an ad- ditional military force to protect the legations. Seymour’s multinational ex- pedition of 2,000 sailors and marines moved up the Tianjin-Beijing railway, but met increasingly stiff resistance and were forced to retreat back to Tianjin. Meanwhile, Boxer groups sensing the vacillating policy at court moved into Beijing where they killed a Japanese diplomat named Sugiyama Akira. As more Boxers moved into the metropolitan area, the other European naval com- manders panicked and decided to attack the Dagu Forts, which they captured on June 17. When the news of the allied attack reached Beijing, the Empress Dowager convened a meeting with her highest-ranking advisors to discuss war, but received divided council. The Zongli Yamen tried to convince the foreign diplomats to leave Beijing, but German Minister Baron von Ketteler

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361003_029 310 Chapter 27 impetuously stormed off to confront the Yamen officials. Just outside the le- gation area, a young Bannerman named Enhai shot von Ketteler in the face. The next morning, June 21, the Empress Dowager issued a “declaration of war” against all eight foreign powers. For the next fifty-five days, the foreign community in Beijing, along with some 3,000 Chinese Christians, remained barricaded inside the foreign lega- tion area in what became known as the Siege of Beijing. In mid-July, an Eight- Nation Expeditionary Force of about 20,000 troops landed at the Dagu Forts to lift the siege. They began by attacking Tianjin, where a small foreign enclave was also under siege. After the allies captured Tianjin in the most bloody fighting of the war, the troops inexplicably rested while the international joint-command structure bickered over strategy. Finally, on August 4, the Expeditionary Force began moving towards Beijing. After some hard-fought resistance by Boxer and imperial forces at Beicang and Yangcun, Boxer forces crumbled and the impe- rial forces went into full retreat. On August 14, the allied forces stormed the walls of Beijing and lifted the siege of the legations.

January 4, 1900

We have received a wire from Yuan Shikai, acting Governor of Shandong, stat- ing that a number of ruffians belonging to the two districts of Pingyin and Feicheng combined recently to create disturbances and during their work cap- tured the day before a missionary whom they cangued and took to a place called Maojiapu. The memorialist did all he could to save the said missionary and also dispatched a cavalry force to surround and capture the marauders, but the force could not arrive in time to prevent the missionary from being murdered by the ruffians.1 We feel deeply grieved at the receipt of this news and pity greatly the fate of the unfortunate missionary.

1 On December 31, 1899, a Boxer group in Shandong kidnapped Reverend Sidney M. Brooks, a member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, a missionary society of the Church of England, and beheaded him. He is often considered the first foreign casualty in the Boxer Uprising.