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The Righteous and Harmonious Fists or "Boxers United in Righteousness" (Yihequan/I-ho-chuan) was a secret society which arose in the inland sections of northern coastal province of Shandong. American missionaries were probably the first to refer to the well-trained, athletic young men as "Boxers," because of the martial arts and calisthenics they practiced. The Boxers' primary feature was spirit possession, which involved "the whirling of swords, violent prostrations, and chanting incantations to Taoist and Buddhist spirits."[5] The excitement and moral force of these possession rituals was especially attractive to unemployed and powerless village men, many of whom were teenagers.[6] The Boxers believed that through training, diet, martial arts and prayer they could perform extraordinary feats, such as flight. Furthermore, they popularly claimed that millions of spirit soldiers would descend from the heavens and assist them in purifying China of foreign influences.[7] The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability towards blows of cannon, rifle shots, and knife attacks. The Boxer beliefs were characteristic of millenarian movements, related to such practices as the Native American Ghost Dance, another practice of a society under stress.[8] A Boxer during the revolt Several secret societies in Shandong prepared the way for the Boxers. In spite of ambivalence toward their heterodox practices, in 1895, Yuxian, a Manchu who was then prefect of Caozhou and would later become provincial governor, used the Big Swords Society in fighting bandits. The Big Swords, emboldened by this official support, also attacked their local Catholic village rivals, who turned to the Church for protection. The Big Swords responded by attacking Catholic churches and burning them. "The line between Christians and bandits," remarks one recent historian, "became increasingly indistinct." As a result of diplomatic pressure in the capital, Yuxian executed several Big Sword leaders, but did not punish anyone else. More secret societies started emerging after this.[9] The early years saw a variety of village activities, not a broad movement or a united purpose. Like the Red Boxing school or the Plum Flower Boxers, the Boxers of Shandong were more concerned with traditional social and moral values, such as filial piety, than with foreign influences. One leader, for instance, Zhu Hongdeng (Red Lantern Zhu), started as a wandering healer, specializing in skin ulcers, and gained wide respect by refusing payment for his treatments.[10] Zhu claimed descent from Ming dynasty emperors, since his surname was the surname of the Ming Imperial Family. He announced that his goal was to "Revive the Qing and destroy the foreigners" ("Fu Qing mie yang").[11] Although women were not allowed to join the Boxer units, they formed their own groups, the Red Lanterns. Local lore reported that they were able to fly, walk on water, set Christians' homes on fire, and stop foreign guns, powers which the male Boxers themselves did not claim. But the only reliable account of their actual activities comes from the Battle of Tientsin, when they nursed wounded Boxers and did work such as sewing and cleaning.[12] Causes of conflict and unrest International tension and domestic unrest fueled the spread of the Boxer movement. First, a drought followed by floods in Shandong province in 1897–1898 forced farmers to flee to cities and seek food. As one observer said, "I am convinced that a few days' heavy rainfall to terminate the long-continued drought... would do more to restore tranquility than any measures which either the Chinese government or foreign governments can take."[13] A French political cartoon depicting China as a pie about to be carved up by Queen Victoria (Britain), Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany), Tsar Nicholas II (Russia), Marianne (France) and a samurai (Japan), while a Chinese mandarin helplessly looks on. A major cause of discontent in north China was missionary activity. The Treaty of Tientsin (or Tianjin) and the Convention of Peking, signed in 1860 after the Second Opium War, had granted foreign missionaries the freedom to preach anywhere in China and to buy land on which to build churches.[14] On 1 November 1897, a band of armed men who were perhaps members of the Big Swords Society stormed the residence of a German missionary from the Society of the Divine Word and killed two priests. This attack is known as the Juye Incident. When Kaiser Wilhelm II received news of these murders, he dispatched the German East Asia Squadron to occupy Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong peninsula.[15] Germany's action triggered a "scramble for concessions" by which Britain, France, Russia, and Japan also secured their own sphere of influence in China.[16] In October 1898, a group of Boxers attacked the Christian community of Liyuantun Village where a temple to the Jade Emperor had been converted into a Catholic church. Disputes had surrounded the church since 1869, when the temple had been granted to the Christian residents of the village. This incident marked the first time the Boxers used the slogan "Support the Qing, destroy the foreigners" (扶清灭洋) that would later characterise them.[17] The "Boxers" called themselves the "Militia United in Righteousness" for the first time one year later, at the Battle of Senluo Temple (October 1899), a clash between Boxers and Qing government troops.[18] By using the word "Militia" rather than "Boxers," they distanced themselves from forbidden martial arts sects, and tried to give their movement the legitimacy of a group that defended orthodoxy.[19] Aggression toward missionaries and Christians drew the ire of foreign (mainly European) governments.[20] In 1899, the French minister in Beijing helped the missionaries to obtain an edict granting official status to every order in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, enabling local priests to support their people in legal or family disputes and bypass the local officials. After the German government took over Shandong many Chinese feared that the missionaries and quite possibly all Christians were imperialist attempts at "carving the melon", i.e., to divide and colonise China piece by piece.[21] A Chinese official expressed the animosity towards foreigners succinctly, "Take away your missionaries and your opium and you will be welcome."[22] The early growth of the Boxer movement coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (11 June–21 September 1898). Progressive Chinese officials, with support from Protestant missionaries, persuaded Emperor Guangxu to institute reforms which alienated many conservative officials by their sweeping nature. Such opposition from conservative officials led the Empress Dowager to intervene and reverse the reforms. The failure of the reform movement disillusioned many educated Chinese and thus further weakened the Qing government. After the reforms ended the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi seized power and placed the reformist Guangxu Emperor under house arrest. The European powers were sympathetic to the imprisoned emperor, and opposed Cixi's plan to replace him.[citation needed] The national crisis was widely seen as being caused by foreign aggression.[6] Foreign powers had defeated China in several wars, asserted a right to promote Christianity and imposed unequal treaties under which foreigners and foreign companies in China were accorded special privileges, extraterritorial rights and immunities from Chinese law, causing resentment and xenophobic reactions among the Chinese. France, Japan, Russia and Germany carved out spheres of influence, so that by 1900 it appeared that China would likely be dismembered, with foreign powers each ruling a part of the country. Thus, by 1900, the Qing dynasty, which had ruled China for more than two centuries, was crumbling and Chinese culture was under assault by powerful and unfamiliar religions and secular cultures.[23] The Boxer War The intensifying crisis Chinese Muslim troops from Gansu, also known as the Kansu Braves, killed a Japanese diplomat on 11 June 1900. Foreigners called them the "10,000 Islamic rabble".[24] In January 1900, with a majority of conservatives in the Imperial Court, the Empress Dowager changed her long policy of suppressing Boxers, and issued edicts in their defense, causing protests from foreign powers. In Spring 1900, the Boxer movement spread rapidly north from Shandong into the countryside near Beijing. Boxers burned Christian churches, killed Chinese Christians, and intimidated Chinese officials who stood in their way. American Minister Edwin H. Conger cabled Washington, "the whole country is swarming with hungry, discontented, hopeless idlers." On 30 May the diplomats, led by British Minister Claude Maxwell MacDonald, requested that foreign soldiers come to Beijing to defend the legations. The Chinese government reluctantly acquiesced, and the next day an international force of 435 navy troops from eight countries (75 French, 75 Russian, 75 British, 60 U.S., 50 German, 40 Italian, 30 Japanese, 30 Austrian) disembarked from warships and traveled by train from Dagu (Taku) to Beijing. They set up defensive perimeters around their respective missions.[25] On 5 June, the railroad line to Tianjin was cut by Boxers in the countryside and Beijing was isolated. On 11 June, the secretary of the Japanese legation, Sugiyama Akira (杉山 彬?), was attacked and killed by the Muslim soldiers of General Dong Fuxiang, who were guarding the southern part of the Beijing walled city.[26] Armed with Mauser rifles but wearing traditional uniforms,[27] Dong's troops had threatened the foreign Legations in the fall of 1898 soon after arriving in Beijing,[28] so much that troops from the United States Marine Corps had been called to Beijing to guard the legations.[29] The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was so alarmed by the Chinese Muslim troops that he requested the Caliph Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire to find a way to stop the Muslim troops from fighting. The Caliph agreed to the Kaiser's request and sent Enver Pasha (not the future Young Turk leader) to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time.[30] Also on June 11, the first Boxer, dressed in his finery, was seen in the Legation Quarter. The German Minister, Clemens von Ketteler, and German soldiers captured a Boxer boy and inexplicably executed him.[31] In response, thousands of Boxers burst into the walled city of Beijing that afternoon and burned many of the Christian churches and cathedrals in the city, burning some victims alive.[32] American and British missionaries had taken refuge in the Methodist Mission and an attack there was repulsed by American Marines. The soldiers at the British Embassy and German Legations shot and killed several Boxers,[33] alienating the Chinese population of the city and nudging the Qing government toward support of the Boxers. The Muslim Kansu braves and Boxers, along with other Chinese then attacked and killed Chinese Christians around the legations in revenge for foreign attacks on Chinese.[34] Seymour Expedition Main article: Seymour Expedition Japanese marines who served in the Seymour Expedition. As the situation worsened, a second international force of 2,000 sailors and marines under the command of the British Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour, the largest contingent being British, was dispatched from Dagu to Beijing on 10 June 1900. The troops were transported by train from Dagu to Tianjin with the agreement of the Chinese government, but the railway between Tianjin and Beijing had been severed. Seymour resolved to move forward and repair the railway, or progress on foot if necessary, keeping in mind that the distance between Tianjin and Beijing was only 120 km. However, Seymour left Tianjin, and started toward Beijing, which angered the Chinese Imperial court. As a result, the pro-Boxer Manchu Prince Duan became leader of the Zongli Yamen (foreign office), replacing Prince Ching. Prince Duan was a member of the imperial Aisin Gioro clan (foreigners called him a "Blood Royal"), and Empress Dowager Cixi had named his son as next in line for the imperial throne. He became the effective leader of the Boxers, and he was extremely anti foreign like his friend Dong Fuxiang, and wanted to expel them from China. He soon ordered the Imperial army to attack the foreign forces. Confused by conflicting orders from Beijing, General Nie Shicheng let Seymour's army pass by in their trains.[35] Admiral Seymour returning to Tianjin with his wounded men, on 26 June. After leaving Tianjin, the convoy quickly reached Langfang, but found the railway there to be destroyed. Seymour's engineers tried to repair the line, but the allied army found itself surrounded, as the railway both behind and in front of them had been destroyed. They were attacked from all parts by Chinese irregulars and Chinese governmental troops. Five thousand of Dong Fuxiang's "Kansu Braves" and an unknown number of "Boxers" won a costly but major victory over Seymour's troops at the Battle of Langfang on 18 June.[36][37] As the allied European army retreated from Langfang, they were constantly fired upon by cavalry, and artillery bombarded their positions. It was reported that the Chinese artillery was superior to the European artillery, since the Europeans did not bother to bring along much for the campaign, thinking they could easily sweep through Chinese resistance. The Europeans could not locate the Chinese artillery, which was raining shells upon their positions.[38] Mining, engineering, flooding, and simultaneous attacks were employed by Chinese troops. The Chinese also employed pincer movements, ambushes, and sniper tactics with some success against the foreigners.[39] Italian mounted infantry near Tientsin in 1900 News arrived on 18 June regarding attacks on foreign legations. Seymour decided to continue advancing, this time along the Beihe river, toward Tongzhou, 25 km 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 200 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 Xigu Arsenal, a hidden Qing munitions cache of which the Allied Powers had had no knowledge until then. They immediately captured and occupied it, discovering not only Krupp field guns, but rifles with millions of rounds in ammunition, along with millions of pounds of rice and ample medical supplies. There they dug in and awaited rescue. A Chinese servant was able to infiltrate through the Boxer and Qing lines, informing the Eight 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 25 June, a regiment composed of 1800 men, (900 Russian troops from Port Arthur, 500 British seamen, with an ad hoc mix of other assorted Alliance troops) finally arrived on foot from Tientsin to rescue Seymour. Spiking the mounted field guns and setting fire to any munitions that they could not take (an estimated £3 million worth), Seymour, his force, and the rescue mission marched back to Tientsin, unopposed, on 26 June. Seymour's casualties during the expedition were 62 killed and 228 wounded.[40] Conflicting attitudes within the Imperial Court Qing Imperial soldiers during the boxer rebellion Meanwhile in Beijing, on June 16, the Empress Dowager summoned the Court for a mass audience and addressed the choices between using the Boxers to evict the foreigners from the city or seeking a diplomatic solution. In response to a high official who doubted the efficacy of the Boxers' magic, Cixi replied: Perhaps their magic is not to be relied upon; but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people? Today China is extremely weak. We have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts, what can we use to sustain the country? Both sides of the debate at court realized that popular support for the Boxers in the countryside was almost universal and that suppression would be both difficult and unpopular, especially when foreign troops were on the march.[41] Two factions were active during this debate. On one side were conservative traditionalists who viewed foreigners as invasive and imperialistic and evoked a nativist populism. They advocated taking advantage of the Boxers to achieve the expulsion of foreign troops and foreign influences. The moderates on the other hand advanced rapprochement with foreign governments, recognizing their military superiority. The event that tilted the Imperial Government irrevocably toward support of the Boxers and war with the foreign powers was the attack of foreign navies on the Dagu Forts near Tianjin, on 17 June 1900. Siege of the Beijing legations Main article: Siege of the International Legations Locations of foreign diplomatic legations and front lines in Beijing during the siege On June 15, imperial Chinese forces deployed a weapon called "electric mines" in the river Beihe (Peiho) to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack.[42] 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 17 June they took the Dagu Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and from there brought increasing numbers of troops on shore. When Cixi received an ultimatum[when?] demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners,[43] she defiantly stated before the entire Grand Council, "Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?"[44] It was at this point that Cixi began to blockade the legations with the armies of the Peking Field Force, which began the siege. Cixi stated that "I have always been of the opinion, that the allied armies had been permitted to escape too easily in 1860. Only a united effort was then necessary to have given China the victory. Today, at last, the opportunity for revenge has come.", and said that millions of Chinese would join the cause of fighting the foreigners since the Manchus had provided "great benefits" on China.[45] On receipt of the news of the attack on the Dagu Forts on the 19 of June, the Empress Dowager immediately sent an order to the legations that the diplomats and other foreigners depart Beijing under escort of the Chinese army within 24 hours.[46] The next morning, the German envoy, Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was killed on the streets of Beijing by a Manchu captain.[47] The other diplomats feared they also would be murdered if they left the legation quarter and they defied the Chinese order to depart Beijing. The legations were hurriedly fortified. Isolated legations, such as the Spanish and Belgian, and foreign businesses were abandoned.[citation needed] Most of the foreign civilians, which included a large number of missionaries and businessmen, took refuge in the British legation, the largest of the diplomatic compounds.[citation needed] Chinese Christians were primarily housed in the adjacent palace (Fu) of Prince Su who was forced to abandon his property by the foreign soldiers.[citation needed] Eight nations alliance soldiers and European recruits On the 21 of June, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers. Regional governors who commanded substantial modernized armies, such as Li Hongzhang at Canton, Yuan Shikai in Shandong, Zhang Zhidong at Wuhan, and Liu Kunyi at Nanjing, refused to join in the Imperial Court's declaration of war and withheld knowledge of it from the public in the south. Yuan Shikai used his own forces to suppress Boxers in Shandong, and Zhang entered into negotiations with the foreigners in Shanghai to keep his army out of the conflict. The neutrality of these provincial and regional governors left the majority of China out of the conflict.[48] The legations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, Russia and Japan were located in the Beijing Legation Quarter south of the Forbidden City. The Chinese army and Boxer irregulars besieged the Legation Quarter from 20 June to 14 August 1900. A total of 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge there.[49] Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald, the legation staff and security personnel defended the compound with small arms, three machine guns, and one old muzzle-loaded cannon, which was nicknamed the International Gun because the barrel was British, the carriage Italian, the shells Russian, and the crew American. Chinese Christians in the legations led the foreigners to the cannon and it proved important in the defense. Also under siege in Beijing was the Northern Cathedral (Beitang) of the Catholic Church. The Beitang was defended by 43 French and Italian soldiers, 33 Catholic foreign priests and nuns, and about 3,200 Chinese Catholics. The defenders suffered heavy casualties especially from lack of food and mines which the Chinese exploded in tunnels dug beneath the compound.[50] The number of Chinese soldiers and Boxers besieging the Legation Quarter and the Beitang is unknown, but certainly there were many thousands. 1900, soldiers burned down the Temple, Shanhaikuan. The destruction of a Chinese temple on the bank of the Pei-Ho, by Amédée Forestier On the 22 and 23 of June, Chinese soldiers and Boxers set fire to areas north and west of the British Legation, using it as a "frightening tactic" to attack the defenders. The nearby Hanlin Academy, a complex of courtyards and buildings that housed "the quintessence of Chinese scholarship ... the oldest and richest library in the world," caught fire. Each side blamed the other for the destruction of the invaluable books it contained.[51] After the failure to burn out the foreigners, the Chinese army adopted an anaconda-like strategy. The Chinese build barricades surrounding the Legation Quarter and advanced, brick by brick, on the foreign lines, forcing the foreign soldiers to retreat a few feet at a time. This tactic was especially used in the Fu, defended by Japanese and Italian soldiers and inhabited by most of the Chinese Christians. Fusillades of bullets, artillery, and firecrackers were directed against the Legations almost every night -– but did little damage. Sniper fire took its toll among the foreign soldiers. Despite their numerical advantage, the Chinese did not attempt a direct assault on the Legation Quarter although in the words of one of the besieged, "it would have been easy by a strong, swift movement on the part of the numerous Chinese troops to have annihilated the whole body of foreigners... in an hour."[52] American missionary Frank Gamewell and his crew of "fighting parsons" played an invaluable role in fortifying the Legation Quarter.[53] Gamewell impressed Chinese Christians to do most of the physical labor of building defenses.[54] The Germans and the Americans occupied perhaps the most crucial of all defensive positions: the Tartar Wall. Holding the top of the 45 ft (14 m) tall and 40 ft (12 m) wide wall was vital. The German barricades faced east on top of the wall and 400 yd (370 m) west were the west-facing American positions. The Chinese advanced toward both positions by building barricades even closer. "The men all feel they are in a trap," said the American commander, Capt. John T. Myers, "and simply await the hour of execution."[55] On 30 June, the Chinese forced the Germans off the Wall, leaving the American Marines alone in its defense. At the same time, a Chinese barricade was advanced to within a few feet of the American positions and it became clear that the Americans had to abandon the wall or force the Chinese to retreat. At 2 am on 3 July, 56 British, Russian, and American soldiers under the command of Myers launched an assault against the Chinese barricade on the wall. The attack caught the Chinese sleeping, killed about 20 of them, and expelled the rest of them from the barricades.[56] The Chinese did not attempt to advance their positions on the Tartar Wall for the remainder of the siege.[57] Sir Claude MacDonald said 13 July was the "most harassing day" of the siege.[58] The Japanese and Italians in the Fu were driven back to their last defense line. The Chinese detonated a mine beneath the French Legation pushing the French and Austrians out of most of the French Legation.[59] On 16 July, the most capable British officer was killed and the journalist George Ernest Morrison was wounded.[60] But American Minister Edwin Hurd Conger established contact with the Chinese government and on 17 July, an armistice was declared by the Chinese.[61] More than 40% of the legation guards were dead or wounded. The motivation of the Chinese was probably the realization that an allied force of 20,000 men had landed in China and retribution for the siege was at hand. The Boxer Rebellion, Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement was a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement which took place in China towards the end of the Qing dynasty between 1898 and 1900. It was initiated by the Militia United in Righteousness (Yihetuan), known in English as the "Boxers", and was motivated by proto-nationalist sentiments and opposition to foreign imperialism and Christianity. The Great Powers intervened and defeated Chinese forces. The uprising took place against a background of severe drought, and the disruption caused by the growth of foreign spheres of influence. After several months of growing violence against foreign and Christian presence in Shandong and the North China plain, in June 1900 Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support the Qing, exterminate the foreigners." Foreigners and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter. In response to reports of an armed invasion to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 authorized war on foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers, and Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were under siege by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers for 55 days. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, Ronglu, later claimed that he acted to protect the besieged foreigners. The Eight-Nation Alliance, after being initially turned back, brought 20,000 armed troops to China, defeated the Imperial Army, and captured Beijing on August 14, lifting the siege of the Legations. Uncontrolled plunder of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with the summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers. The Boxer Protocol of September 7, 1901 provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, provisions for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million taels of silver – more than the government's annual tax revenue, to be paid as indemnity over a course of thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved.[4] |
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