Asian Colonization
Overview
The Decline of Imperial China
The Chinese Empire was arguably the largest and wealthiest state in the world in the early 18th century. By the late 19th century, however, the Qing Dynasty was severely weakened, as foreign powers aggressively pressed the Chinese state to cede territory and economic control to them.
Learning Objective
- Analyze the weaknesses of the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century that opened China to foreign influence and aggression.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Taiping Rebellion: a civil war in China (1850 – 1864) between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the millenarian movement of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace (It began in the southern province of Guangxi when local officials launched a campaign of persecution against a millenarian sect known as the God Worshipping Society led by Hong Xiuquan, who believed himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ. The war ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the 19th century.)
Nian Rebellion: an armed uprising in northern China from 1851 to 1868, concurrent with the Taiping Rebellion (1851 – 1864) in South China (The rebellion failed to topple the Qing dynasty but caused the immense economic devastation and loss of life that became one of the major long-term factors in the collapse of the Qing regime in the early 20th century.)
Panthay Rebellion: an 1856 – 1873 rebellion of the Muslim Hui people and other non-Muslim ethnic minorities against the Manchu rulers in southwestern Yunnan Province, China; part of a wave of Hui-led multi-ethnic unrest; began after massacres of Hui perpetrated by the Manchu authorities
Punti-Hakka Clan Wars: the conflict between the Hakka and Punti (Cantonese people) in Guangdong, China, between 1855 and 1867 (The wars were particularly fierce around the Pearl River Delta, especially in Taishan of the Sze Yup counties. They resulted in roughly a million dead with many more fleeing for their lives.)
millenarianism: the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a major impending societal transformation; a concept or theme that exists in many cultures and religions
Dungan Revolt: a mainly ethnic and religious war fought in 19th-century western China, mostly during the reign of the Tongzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty (r. 1861 – 75); a term that sometimes includes the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan, which occurred during the same period (The 1862 – 1877 revolt arose over a pricing dispute involving bamboo poles, when a Han merchant selling to a Hui did not receive the amount demanded for the goods.)
Anti-Qing Sentiment
In the mid-19th century, China’s Qing Dynasty suffered a series of natural disasters, economic problems, and defeats at the hands of the Western powers. In particular, the humiliating defeat in 1842 by the British Empire in the First Opium War exposed the increasing weakness of the Imperial government and military. The terms of the treaties that ended the First Opium War undermined the traditional mechanisms of foreign relations and methods of controlled trade practiced by China for centuries. Shortly after the treaties were signed, internal rebellions began to threaten the Chinese state and its foreign trade.
The government, led by ethnic Manchus, was seen by many Han Chinese as ineffective and corrupt. Anti-Manchu sentiments were strongest in southern China among the Hakka community, a Han Chinese subgroup. The Qing dynasty was accused of destroying traditional Han culture by forcing Han to wear their hair in a queue, which was the Manchu style. It was blamed for suppressing Chinese science, causing China to be transformed from the world’s premiere power to a poor, backwards country. In the broadest sense, an anti-Qing activist was anyone who engaged in anti-Manchu direct action. This included people from many mainstream political movements and uprisings that developed throughout the second half of the 19th century.
Taiping Rebellion
While the Taiping Rebellion was not the first mass expression of the anti-Qing sentiment, it turned into a long-lasting civil war that cost millions of lives. In 1837, Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka from a poor mountain village, once again failed the imperial examination, which meant that he could not follow his dream of becoming a scholar-official in the civil service. He returned home, fell sick, and was bedridden for several days, during which he experienced mystical visions. In 1842, after more carefully reading a pamphlet, he had received years before from a Protestant Christian missionary, Hong declared that he now understood that his vision meant that he was the younger brother of Jesus and that he had been sent to rid China of the “devils,” including the corrupt Qing government and Confucian teachings. It was his duty to spread his message and overthrow the Qing dynasty. In 1843, Hong and his followers founded the God Worshiping Society, a movement that combined elements of Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism, and indigenous millenarianism. The movement at first grew by quelling groups of bandits and pirates in southern China in the late 1840s. When the Qing authorities began to suppress the movement, guerrilla warfare and, subsequently, a widespread civil war broke out.
For a decade in the 1850s, the Taiping occupied and fought across much of the mid and lower Yangzi valley, some of the wealthiest and most productive lands in the Qing empire. Hostilities began on January 1, 1851, when the Qing Green Standard Army launched an attack against the God Worshiping Society at the town of Jintian, Guangxi. Hong declared himself the Heavenly King (T'ien Wang) of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace (or Taiping Heavenly Kingdom), from which the term Taiping has often been applied to the supporters of Hong in the English language. The Taiping nearly managed to capture the Qing capital of Beijing in northwest China with a northern expedition launched in 1853, due to the fact that Qing imperial troops were ineffective in halting Taiping advances because they were focused on a perpetually stalemated siege of Nanjing. In Hunan Province, a local irregular army, called the Xiang Army or Hunan Army, under the personal leadership of Zeng Guofan, became the main armed force fighting for the Qing against the Taiping. Zeng’s Xiang Army gradually turned back the Taiping advance in the western theater of the war.
In 1856, the Taiping were weakened after infighting, following an attempted coup against Hong led by the “East King”, Yang Xiuqing, who was one of five “kings” serving as Hong’s commanders. During this time, the Xiang Army managed to gradually retake much of the Hubei and Jiangxi province. In 1860, the Taiping defeated the imperial forces that had been besieging Nanjing since 1853, eliminating imperial forces from the region and opening the way for a successful invasion of southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang province, the wealthiest region of the Qing Empire. While Taiping forces were preoccupied in Jiangsu, Zeng’s forces moved down the Yangzi River capturing Anqing in 1861.
In 1862, the Xiang Army began directly besieging Nanjing and managed to hold firm despite numerous attempts by the Taiping Army to dislodge them with superior numbers. Hong died in 1864 and Nanjing fell shortly after that. The remains of the Taiping resistance were eventually defeated in 1866.
The Taiping Rebellion was the largest war in China since the Qing conquest in 1644 and ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, as well as the bloodiest civil war and the largest conflict of the 19th century, with estimates of war dead ranging from 20 to 100 million, as well as millions more displaced.
Significance of the Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion marked the birth of China as a country among others, rather than the only nation under Heaven. It is one of the early tremors of a Communist earthquake, and the ultimate rise of a dynasty of the people, rather than the conquerors. China had been slowly breaking away from tradition for several hundred years, and the Taipings only widened the rift between modern China and its ancestors. Secret societies, like the Taipings, had existed in China for as long as there were Emperors to oppose. However, the Taipings were perhaps the most successful of any that had gone before them. The scale of the Rebellion was such that it merited complete imperial attention for a time. Not only did the Chinese elite take notice of the Taiping Rebellion, but there were foreigners watching as well. England and Japan waited in the wings as they vied for the key to absolute control of China. The country had ceased to be the sleeping dragon tucked behind the Himalayas and inside their Great Wall.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Chinese culture began to move away from the traditional beliefs of the past. Western culture and beliefs moved slowly into the foreground in China, especially the Christian doctrine spread by missionaries that found itself at the center of the Taiping ideology. The Chinese were beginning to realize the present glory of the Western nations, which stirred a brief resurgence in traditional thinking. Even radical quasi-Christian movements like the Taiping Rebellion made use of Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist ideas to develop its tenets.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the unrest moved closer to the surface. Natural disasters in the form of floods, droughts, and famines swept across the entire country. Neglect on the part of the Manchu government not only facilitated the incidents but offered no relief or aid in their aftermath. The defeat of the Manchus by the English during the Opium War heightened the tensions between governed and government even more. The outburst of pro-Chinese thinking prompted an anti-Manchu feeling, especially in the south where Manchu rule had never been strong. While the Manchus had been given credit for China's success in conquest only a century before, they were charged with all of China's problems by the mid-nineteenth century. All of this contributed to the evolution of the T'aip'ing T'ien-Kuo and the end of China as an isolated kingdom.
The Treaty of Nanking of 1842 aided in lowering the status of the Qing dynasty even further. Among the elite of China, an aversion to absolute rule was spreading. Scholars thought that the Manchus had outlived their use after a brief golden age, and that the time had come to place the rule of China in Chinese hands again. The foreign ideas and people who now streamed into China without hindrance were strongly resented. The Emperor Tao Kuang (1821 – 1850) had lost the respect of his people. The Emperor had lost the “Mandate of Heaven”, which was its authority to govern China with divine blessing, and the Chinese people looked for a new dynasty of emperors to rule with this mandate.
The Manchu Dynasty
The Manchu or Qing Dynasty came to power after the Ming. Called in to aid a rebellion that the now-weak Ming dynasty could not control, the Manchus took over Peking in 1644 and turned over the rule of South China to the Chinese generals who had aided in their conquest. There were several main factors which contributed to the longevity of the Manchu state. They maintained an impressive military force, and during the Qing dynasty, China's borders expanded greatly. Nurhachi (1569 – 1626)—the first Manchu Emperor and founder of the dynasty—made a conscious effort to avoid the mistakes made by the Mongols centuries before. He kept the tribal lands of Manchuria as a cultural base and altered the Ming bureaucratic system to admit only Manchu leaders. The highest government office and all important positions were held by Manchus. In this manner, they made use of Chinese ideas but were careful to remain in control of the bureaucracy. However, the administration at the capital city of Peking (Beijing) was a mix of Chinese and Manchu officials, so much so that the Qing came to be called a dyarchy or the “rule of two”.
The problem the Manchus were faced with in China was their preservation as a ruling body despite their obvious minority, (only two percent of the entire population of China was Manchu). To do this they used a combined measure of Legalist and Confucian ideas. The ruling class amassed enormous material resources, which laid down the barrier of wealth. To keep the nobility from becoming corrupt, they instituted a class policy in which every son had to earn his father's rank. They also maintained a distance from the Chinese culture. Intermarriage and trade with the Chinese was illegal. Manchu traditions like the Banner System were preserved, and knowledge of the Manchu language was mandatory. To further the separation, all Chinese men were made to braid their hair in a queue as a token of their submission.
The Opium War and its aftermath had a great influence on the Qing dynasty. The English, when told "Take away your opium, and your missionaries, and you will be welcome" chose to come with both and throw welcome to the wind. The fact that the English had the power in the first place to disregard the Emperor and his ambassadors was a blow to Chinese esteem. Suddenly these little European nations from far away were threatening the traditions and tenements kept by China for thousands of years. Losing the Opium War was the beginning of the end of the Manchu dynasty. Later, one of the Taiping leaders would state
"Each year they [the Manchus] transform tens of millions of China's gold and silver into opium and extract several millions from the fat and marrow of the Chinese people and turn it into rouge and powder ... How could the rich not become poor? How could the poor abide by the law?"
By 1850, years of leadership and comfort had taken their toll on the Qing dynasty—the nobility was indolent and corrupt and the military had become lax. The Emperor Hsien-Feng had not yet completely let go of the government, but he was not viewed as a strong ruler. There were rumors to the effect that the Emperor was ready to abandon China entirely. Hsien-Feng personified the waning of Qing glory: he was weak and ill. The Emperor stayed in Peking but gave all power of government to the Prince of Korchin—Seng-ko-lin-chin—and Yehonala—a favorite concubine with much power.
The Taiping and Secret Societies
Secret Societies, always a factor in Southern China, now rose to prominence. China, who had swept their ideas into back corners for fifty years, was now ready to listen to the radicals. The Taiping rebels secretly encouraged and allied with other groups, including a band called the Triad. On May 18, 1853, Triad members instigated the locals and took over the major shipping port of Amoy. They held onto the port despite imperial assault until November 11, executing all Manchu officials and foreigners during that time. Suddenly, the people of China realized that the Qing was no longer an absolute power. With that act, the Taipings awakened a nation to rebellion.
The leader of the Taipings, Hong Hsiu-Ch'uan, shaped the entire rebellion and thus much of modern China. He was born on January 1, 1814 and lived in the farming community of Fu-yuan-shui in Kwangtan Province, South China. His father Hong Ching-yang was small independent farmer. Because Hong was an exceptionally bright child, his family hoped that he would pass the examinations in Canton and thus become one of the prestigious elite. They, therefore, sent him to school when he was seven, where he did well. In 1827, when Hong was fifteen, he was given his first examination, the preliminary. He passed this but failed the main examination for a sheng-yuan degree, which was the one that would have elevated his class. Hong tried to pass the exam several times until 1843. This incident may have fed his hostility towards the Qing and China's condition. He took an interest in politics and the government after he was converted to Christianity. His translation of the Christian doctrine formed the beliefs and ideology of the Taiping Rebellion.
In 1837, Hong had a revelation which changed his life, career and outlook. At the time he was in Canton for his examinations, where he knew a Protestant missionary. Hong spent two months studying the bible doctrines under the missionary. Some years before, in 1835, Leang-afa—the first protestant Christian in China—had given Hong several papers about religion. Hong had not studied these until he was given a second pamphlet and began to look at them in more depth back at his home village. Hong was struck suddenly by sickness, leaving him unconscious for about four days. He claimed that, during the time he was in a coma, he had been taken up to Heaven to see Jesus, where he was informed that he was the younger brother of Jesus.
For the next ten years, Hong joined Leang-afa as a street preacher. With several close friends, he founded the Society of God Worshippers and remained the head of that organization until the March of 1847, when he returned to Canton to study with Isaachar T. Roberts—who was an American Southern Baptist missionary who had adopted Hong as a special student, initially encouraging his ideas of rebellion. From these studies Hong created his own version of the Christian doctrine. He readily agreed that God was the maker of the universe, which may be because the Chinese could accept God as a father figure because ancestor worship had been a part of their culture for thousands of years. But he never accepted Jesus as a deity, and the entire idea of a Trinity seemed to him to be too similar to Confucian values. Despite the thorough assimilation of Western religious beliefs by the Taiping, their theology was more of a mosaic than a pure Christian sect. There was an innate sense of family in their doctrine, which hearkened back to Confucianism. Their idea, too, of bringing divinity into the reality of everyday life was more a corrupted version of Buddhism than Protestantism. Even their version of the Ten Commandments—called the Ten Heavenly Precepts—differed significantly from the bible. Their religion was a translation of a translation and completely their own creation. Not surprisingly, the missionary Roberts was to later change his mind about Hong, calling him and his fellow revolutionists "coolie kings" who were "crazy and unfit to rule."
Although much of the "borrowing" from their traditional religions may have been subconscious, almost all of the Taiping propaganda and essay writing depended as much on Confucianism as on Christianity. Confucianism had a large influence on the Taiping religion. Hong recognized and incorporated several key Confucian tenets into his doctrine, such as converting the Five Human Relationships of Confucius to The Five Heavenly Relationships of the Taiping. The Classics, too, were a source of Taiping wisdom literature. Mencius, the early Confucian philosopher (4th century BCE) appealed especially to them because of his semi-Christian stress on the inherent goodness of humanity. In fact, the only point that the Taipings went directly against traditional religions was the role of women in society. The Taipings included women as commanders of forces, and several famous woman bandits played key roles in the rebellion as well.
The Taipings thought that they were the chosen people of their god, with a mission to overthrow the wicked Manchu regime. Because they were a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, they believed the Manchus to be thieving usurpers and therefore incapable of a legitimate claim to the government. The goal of the Taipings from the start had been to take Nanking, and to spread their rule throughout the entirety of China. Though severely factionalized and having changed leaders several times, they managed to install a Taiping government in Nanking, stressing egalitarian values and claiming to be in the process of restoring China's glory. The Taipings formed a kingdom indeed, selecting kings on the basis of their purity and devotion. For instance, Yang Hsiu-ch'ing had previously been a charcoal seller, but he was chosen to be the Eastern King and later head of the entire rebellion.
The Taipings as a fighting force were formidable but rather less than coherent. Their style was to collect an army as they went, inciting the populous to rebellion. Their first military success was the capture of Hupeh, after being held in the city of Yung-an by the Emperor's militia. They attempted in that same campaign to seize Kwangsi and Hunan but failed to hold either. This initial success was balanced by severe defeats at the hands of the imperial forces at sea, where the Emperor had far better material resources. Their battle record was inconsistent, with spurts of inspired fighting and long periods of relative inertia.
By 1863 the Taiping Rebellion was falling apart. Holding the city of Nanking against imperial and foreign forces had become virtually impossible. Sometime in the June of 1862, the Hunan army was preparing to launch their final attack. Hung Jen-kan—the third and final leader of the Rebellion—had attempted during his rule to reevaluate the tenets and beliefs of the Taipings, as well as salvage the Taiping cause. This was not to be the case. Their dream of moving beyond Nanking seemed to be lost.
Nanking fell to the army of Tseng Kuo-ch'uan on July 19th, 1864. The Taiping kings and leaders had planned an organized breakthrough, but the walls fell too suddenly for many to escape. Hong Hsiu-ch'uan had died in Nanking a month before, on June 1. His son was taken out of the city in the band of escapees and named the new Heavenly King or T’ien Wang. Every Taiping found by the Hunan army who did not renounce their faith and surrender was killed. The brother of the conquering general, Tseng Kuo-fan, wrote a report on the condition of Nanking after its siege. The report illustrates the intensity of Taipings even in the face of utter defeat:
"Others searched the city for any rebels they could not find, and in three days killed over 100,000 men. The Ch'in-huai creek was filled with bodies ... Not one of the 100,000 rebels in Nanking surrendered themselves when the city was taken but in many cases gathered together and burned themselves and passed away without repentance."
The initial response of the Manchus to the Taiping Rebellion was fairly straightforward. "Hong Hsiu-chuan's head, with that of the Ch'en-Huan, hung over a Peking gateway until it rotted, and so ended the lesson." However, there were far more aftershocks to come. The Manchu government, weak from a "debauched" emperor and the Opium War, could ultimately not withstand such a severe earthquake as the Taiping Rebellion.
Long Term Effects of the Rebellion
Although a technical failure, the Taiping Rebellion changed the way the Chinese government functioned. The devastation and loss of life in the Yangtze Valley left the once-fertile area a desert for the next hundred years. The Land Tax which the Qing leaned upon so heavily was simply no longer a source of any money at all. Soon, the Manchus were relying solely on the Maritime customs taken in by non-Chinese port operators, as well as on the sale of offices in the administration. The examination system fell into serious neglect and eventually passed away altogether. Now, the main way to advance in class was to buy into political rank. Province leaders and generals assumed a greater power than the central bureaucracy, because the Emperor had bestowed power upon warlords to raise a large enough army. Most of these armies remained under private command rather than returning to the Emperor, and the entire society became factionalized as a result.
When the Qing dynasty fell in the early 1900s, it left a power vacuum. Foreign influence reached new heights, as the merchants and traders that had been so much a part of the late Manchu dynasty poured into China. Japan swiftly became the dominant power in the country. The Chinese economy in every respect increasingly became a subsidy of Japan, especially North and Northeast China. China was pushed into the modern world by force. Soon Japan began to take Chinese territory. In 1915 they began to assert a dominant role in ports and small cities in Manchuria and Shandong. This subversive method of war culminated in 1931 with the taking of Northeast China and the establishment of a puppet government called Manchukuo. China was taken from the inside out.
The Taiping Rebellion changed the face of China. Every revolution that it inspired brought the country closer and closer to the rest of the world and to a communist ideal. Although the Taipings had heard neither of Karl Marx nor of Communism, they shared many of the same ideals. The Heavenly Kingdom of the Taipings is not so distant from the commune-oriented vision for the future. The Taiping leaders had attempted to establish a caste-free society based on egalitarian precepts. Land was evenly distributed. Slavery and the sale of women was outlawed, as were foot-binding, prostitution, arranged marriages, and polygamy. The Taipings were strongly against opium, alcohol, and tobacco. In short, the later Communist Revolution may have been but a realization of this secret society in China which operated in the mid-19th century.
The Taiping Rebellion played a significant role in ending China's isolationist outlook. The Nian Rebellion, Boxer Rebellion, and the Communist Revolution all stem from the emotions and ideas which emerged from the Taiping vision. The influx of strange, new things had started in China an unsettling movement, away from the old ways of the ancestors and into the Western sphere of influence. The attempts of the Taipings to end this unrest and to reinstate a golden era are similar in many points to the Communist attempts in the same direction. After the Taiping Rebellion, China would never again be a realm unto herself. With the failure of the Taiping movement, the age of the emperors was finished.
The Taiping movement itself was a product of the clash between the East and the West, which took place in the 19th century. The people of China, on the verge of joining the forming world community, took refuge briefly in their unique blend of traditional culture and modern idealism. For a time, they fended off the foreigners, the weak Emperors, the crowding countries, and strange cultures with this faith. When the Taiping Rebellion was crushed, the Chinese once again fled to an idealistic society, listening eagerly to the promises of Mao and Communism. In each of these cases, there was an inherent wish to return to the golden age of China, when the only threat to the unity of their lives was nature itself. The Taiping Rebellion was a reaction against progress, more importantly against change. That action continues to mold the current events in China, a sign that the people, not the central authority, can control the future of China.
Continuous Crisis
A string of civil disturbances followed the outbreak of Taiping Rebellion, many of which lasted for years and resulted in massive casualties. For instance, the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars pitted the Hakka against Punti (Cantonese people) in Guangdong between 1855 and 1867. The wars resulted in roughly a million dead with many more fleeing for their lives. The Nian Rebellion was an armed uprising that took place in northern China from 1851 to 1868, contemporaneously with the Taiping Rebellion in southern China. The rebellion caused immense economic devastation and loss of life that eventually became one of the major long-term factors in the collapse of the Qing regime in the early 20th century. The Dungan Revolt (1862 – 1877) was a mainly ethnic and religious war fought in western China. The revolt arose over a pricing dispute involving bamboo poles, when a Han merchant selling to a Hui did not receive the amount demanded for the goods. Up to 12 million Chinese Muslims were killed during the revolt as a result of anti-Hui massacres by Qing troops sent to suppress their revolt. Most civilian deaths were caused by war-induced famine. The Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873; discussed sometimes as part of the Dungan Revolt) was a rebellion of the Muslim Hui people and other non-Muslim ethnic minorities against the Manchu rulers in southwestern Yunnan Province as part of a wave of Hui-led multi-ethnic unrest. It started after massacres of Hui perpetrated by the Manchu authorities.
All rebellions were ultimately put down, but at enormous cost and with millions dead, seriously weakening the central imperial authority. The military banner system that the Manchus had relied upon for so long failed. Banner forces were unable to suppress the rebels and the government called upon local officials in the provinces, who raised “New Armies” that successfully crushed the challenges to Qing authority. As a result of that and with China failing to rebuild a strong central army, many local officials became warlords who used military power to effectively rule independently in their provinces.
Zeng Guofan’s strategy to fight anti-Qing rebels was to rely on local gentry to raise a new type of military organization. This new force became known as the Xiang Army, a hybrid of local militia and a standing army. The army’s professional training was paid for out of regional coffers and funds its commanders—mostly members of the Chinese gentry—could muster. This model would eventually lead to the further weakening of the central authority over the military.
Imperial China and the Western Powers
As Western powers at the end of the 19th century attempted to extract economic and territorial concessions from China’s Qing dynasty, the Chinese people’s reaction to this crisis was mixed. Some Chinese embraced Western ideas and practices and hoped to reform Chinese society along Western lines. Other Chinese fiercely opposed all Western influences; this was reflected in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the reaction of the Chinese government to foreign aggression in the 19th century.
- Assess the perceptions of Western ideas in China in the 19th and early 20th century.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Boxers: a martial society, known as the Militia United in Righteousness (Yihetuan), motivated by proto-nationalist sentiments and opposition to imperialist expansion and associated Christian missionary activity in China at the end of the 19th century; a reference to the members of Yihetuan who practiced martial arts and claimed supernatural invulnerability towards Western weaponry
Boxer Rebellion: a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, toward the end of the Qing dynasty; 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 imperialist expansion, as well as the associated Christian missionary activity
Hundred Days’ Reform: a failed 103-day national cultural, political, and educational reform movement from June 11 to September 21, 1898 in late Qing dynasty China. It was undertaken by the young Guangxu Emperor and his reform-minded supporters. The movement was short-lived, ending in a coup d’état by powerful conservative opponents led by Empress Dowager Cixi
Boxer Protocol: a treaty signed on September 7, 1901 that ended the Boxer Rebellion; participants included the Qing Empire of China and the Eight-Nation Alliance that provided military forces—Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands; provided for the execution of government officials who supported the Boxers, foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million taels of silver to be paid as indemnity over the next 39 years to the eight nations involved
Juye Incident: the killing of two German Catholic missionaries— Richard Henle and Franz-Xavier Nies of the Society of the Divine Word—in Juye County Shandong Province, China on November 1, 1897
Legation Quarter: the area in Beijing, China, where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959; located in the Dongcheng District, immediately east of Tiananmen Square
Gaselee Expedition: a successful relief by a multi-national military force to march to Beijing and protect the diplomatic legations and foreign nationals in the city from attacks in 1900; part of the war of the Boxer Rebellion
New Policies: a series of political, economical, military, cultural, and educational reforms implemented in the last decade of the Qing dynasty to keep it in power after the humiliating defeat in the Boxer Rebellion, starting in 1901
Seymour Expedition: an attempt by a multi-national military force to march to Beijing and protect the diplomatic legations and foreign nationals in the city from attacks by Boxers in 1900 (The Chinese army forced it to return to Tianjin, also known as Tientsin).
Nine-Power Treaty: a 1922 treaty affirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China as per the Open Door Policy; signed on February 6, 1922, by all attendees to the Washington Naval Conference—the United States, Belgium, the British Empire, Republic of China, France, Italy, Imperial Japan, the Netherlands, and Portugal
Lansing-Ishii Agreement: a diplomatic note signed between the United States and the Empire of Japan on November 2, 1917, over their disputes with regards to China (Both parties pledged to uphold the Open Door Policy in China with respect to its territorial and administrative integrity. However, the United States government also acknowledged that Japan had “special interests” in China due to its geographic proximity, which was in effect a contradiction to the Open Door Policy.)
Open Door Policy: a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, as enunciated by Secretary of State John Hay; proposed to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, preventing any one power from total control of the country
The Self-Strengthening Movement
In response to calamities within the Qing empire and threats from imperialism, the Self-Strengthening Movement emerged. This institutional reform in the second half of the 19th century aimed to westernize the empire, with prime emphasis on strengthening the military. However, the reform was undermined by corrupt officials, cynicism, and quarrels within the imperial family. The Guangxu Emperor and the reformists then launched a more comprehensive reform effort—the Hundred Days Reform (1898), but it was soon overturned by the conservatives under Empress Dowager Cixi in a military coup. The anti-Qing sentiment only strengthened as the internal chaos and foreign influences grew, finally leading to the Boxer Rebellion: a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising that was a turning point in the history of Imperial China.
The Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion—a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901—both exposed and deepened the weakening of the Qing dynasty’s power. The Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yihetuan) arose in the inland sections of the northern coastal province of Shandong, an area long known for social unrest, religious sects, and martial societies. American Christian 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. Their primary practice was a type of spiritual possession that involved the whirling of swords, violent prostrations, and chanting incantations to deities. The excitement and moral force of these possession rituals were especially attractive to unemployed and powerless village men, many of whom were teenagers.
The Boxers believed that through training, diet, martial arts, and prayer they could perform extraordinary feats. The tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West, which included Christian missionaries. The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability to blows of cannon, rifle shots, and knife attacks. Furthermore, the Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers of Heaven would descend to assist them in purifying China of foreign oppression.
Although women were not allowed to join the Boxer units, they formed their own groups called the Red Lanterns. Popular local lore reported that they were able to fly, walk on water, set Christians’ homes on fire, and stop foreign guns; all of these were powers that the male Boxers themselves did not claim. The only reliable account of their actual activities comes from the 1900 Battle of Tientsin, when they nursed wounded Boxers and did domestic work such as sewing and cleaning.
Causes of Rebellion
International tension and domestic unrest fueled the spread of the Boxer movement. Natural disasters and the rights granted to European missionaries were two of the foremost instigations. A drought followed by floods in Shandong province in 1897 – 1898 forced farmers to flee to cities and seek food. And treaties signed after the Second Opium War granted foreign missionaries the freedom to preach anywhere in China and buy land on which to build churches.
The Juye Incident occurred in 1897, when a band of armed men who were likely members of the Big Swords Society—a traditional peasant self-defense group widespread in northern China—stormed the residence of a German missionary and killed two priests. 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. Germany’s action triggered a scramble by Britain, France, Russia, and Japan to also secure their own spheres of influence in China.
In 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. This incident marked the first time the Boxers used the slogan “Support the Qing, destroy the foreigners” that would later characterize them. The Boxers called themselves the Militia United in Righteousness for the first time at the Battle of Senluo Temple (1899), a clash between Boxers and Qing government troops. 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.
By 1900, the Qing dynasty was crumbling, and Chinese culture was under assault by powerful and unfamiliar religions and secular cultures. Despite the obvious internal weaknesses, the national crisis was widely seen as being caused by foreign aggression. 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 immunity from Chinese law; this caused resentment and xenophobic reactions among the Chinese. When France, Japan, Russia, and Germany carved out spheres of influence, it appeared to the Chinese that their nation would be dismembered, with foreign powers each ruling a part of the country.
Spreading Rebellion
The early growth of the Boxer movement coincided with the Hundred Days’ Reform (June 11 – September 21, 1898). Progressive Chinese officials, with support from Protestant missionaries, persuaded the Guangxu Emperor to institute sweeping reforms that alienated many conservative officials. Such opposition from conservative officials led Empress Dowager Cixi 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.
In January 1900, with a majority of conservatives in the imperial court, Empress Dowager Cixi changed her long-standing policy of suppressing Boxers and issued edicts in their defense, causing protests from foreign powers. As a result, the Boxer movement spread rapidly. They burned Christian churches, killed Chinese Christians, and intimidated Chinese officials who stood in their way. After several months of growing violence against both the 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. This resulted in foreigners and Chinese Christians seeking refuge in the Legation Quarter and the Eight-Nation Alliance sending the Seymour Expedition of Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, American, and Austrian troops to relieve the siege. The Expedition was stopped by the Boxers at the Battle of Langfang and forced to retreat. Due to the Alliance’s attack on the Dagu Forts, the Qing government in response sided with the Boxers and the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers. On June 21, 1900, she issued an Imperial Decree officially declaring war on the foreign powers. The Alliance formed the second, much larger Gaselee Expedition and finally reached Beijing, resulting in the Qing government’s evacuation to Xi’an.
The Boxer Protocol signed on September 7, 1901 ended the war between the Qing Empire of China and the Eight-Nation Alliance. It provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and for the payment of 450 million taels of silver—more than the government’s annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next 39 years to the eight nations involved.
The Boxer Protocol led to official US government support of Chinese students studying in America. A large portion of the reparations paid to the United States was diverted to pay for the education of Chinese students in U.S. universities under the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program. To prepare the students chosen for this program, an institute was established to teach the English language and serve as a preparatory school. When the first of these students returned to China, they taught subsequent students. From this institute was born Tsinghua University. Some of the reparation due to Britain was later earmarked for a similar program. And these programs led to increased Western influence in China.
Carving Up China
In the late-nineteenth century, the major imperial powers competed aggressively for domination of most of the world’s territory. Railroads supported increasing penetration of remote regions, and the telegraph rapidly communicated one nation’s victory to others around the world, empowering a sense of competition. Each imperial power felt that it had to defend its own territories and pre-empt the moves of others.
The first durable trans-Atlantic telegraph cable, laid in 1866, connected the New and Old Worlds with a rapid communication link. The opening of the Suez canal in 1869 dramatically shortened the route to the Far East, just as the U.S. completed the transcontinental railroad. As regions of the Ottoman empire loosened their dependence on the central government of the Ottoman Sultan, the French, British, and Russians looked to expand their influence in that region. The “Scramble for Africa,” touched off in 1882 by the submission of the ruler of Tunis to a French resident, was followed by British intervention to secure its financial investments in Egypt. Over the next twenty years British, French, Belgian, and German troops, explorers, and investors carved up nearly all of the African continent. In the 1890s, the global scramble expanded to Asia, and new powers joined the race. Japan’s defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 put Taiwan and Korea under its control; this ensured Japan emerged as the next imperialist power in Asia. The United States joined the pack of genuine imperial powers with its victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898, which added Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the list of its colonial possessions. Russia, turning eastward, began building the trans-Siberian railroad in 1891 to connect its Asian regions closely to Moscow. The railroad reached the port of Vladivostok (meaning “Ruler in the East”) in 1916. Russia’s turn to the East inevitably brought it into conflict with the rival powers of northeast Asia: China, Korea, and Japan. As Britain and Russia competed in the “Great Game” for power over Central Asia, Britain allied with Japan in 1902 to balance Russian expansion. The multipower scramble for China, from 1895 to 1905, followed a similar pattern to that of Africa, but with very different results.
Critique of the Break-up and Foreign Conquest of China
Japan’s surprising defeat of the Qing empire instigated all the powers to secure spheres of influence connected to their economic interests, and fears of “slicing the Chinese cake” increased. Many writers predicted the imminent breakup of the empire into regions, each dominated by one imperial power.
As it happened, the push to carve China into foreign spheres of interest coincided with a revolutionary transformation in the nature of international communication. Advances in telegraph transmission expedited the speed of journalistic reporting. At the same time—and more vivid and dramatic—the turn of the century saw a great leap forward in color printing. The lavish political cartoons in illustrated periodicals such as Punch in England and Puck in the United States are classic examples of this explosion in dramatic, colorful political commentary. They had counterparts, moreover, throughout Europe. The images below exhibit variants of the metaphor of the slicing of China, representing critiques from French, American, and British perspectives.
One popular form of critiquing “the slicing of China” was through cartoons or comic images. In Puck, the American counterpart to the famous British humor magazine Punch, Louis Dalrymple sardonically juxtaposed U.S. expansion in and immediately after the Spanish-American War of 1898 against the contemporaneous scramble by other imperialist powers to carve up China. As in the French cartoon, “No Chance to Criticize” presents Russia, France, Germany, Japan, and England slicing the Chinese cake, but the not-so-subtle point of this cartoon was that while the United States self-righteously criticized the foreign scramble for spheres of influence in China and called for an “Open Door” policy there, it was in the process of establishing its own spheres of influence in the Caribbean and the Philippines.
In Le Petit Journal Supplément Illustré, another French perspective on the matter appeared as “La France et La Russie. — Pas si vite! Nous sommes là.” In the foreground of the image England and Japan, who had just negotiated the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1902, find themselves surprised by Russia and France, who claim equal rights in slicing the Chinese cake.
In the following cartoon by Louis Dalrymple, Britain—which held the dominant position in spheres of influence in China—confronts the rival claims of Russia and Germany, while the French cock squawks in the rear.
In addition to cartoons or comic representations, visual rhetoric in the form of cartographic commentary was popular. Two maps published in Harper’s Weekly (1900) graphically depict the imperialist rivalries and tensions that accompanied the carving up of China.
In “A Forecast of the Partition of China” spheres of influence are “forecasted,” revealing Russian, German, British, French, Japanese, and Italian claims in the beleaguered country.
“Map of the Orient showing Manila, P.I. as the Geographical Centre of the Oriental Commercial Field” highlights the strategic significance of the U.S. conquest and colonization of the Philippines in 1899 – 1900, which placed America at “the geographical centre of the Oriental commercial field.”
The anxiety over China’s partition shown in the previous two maps helps to explain why U.S. foreign policy called for an “open door” in China, in which all foreign powers had equal rights to exploit China’s territory, without reserved spheres of influence.
Along with the technological transformation was the emergence of international postal regulations that facilitated the global dissemination of picture postcards. Images produced in one country were frequently reproduced for a global audience—sometimes so quickly that the original place of origin became obscured. Naturally, this heightened popular awareness of international affairs. Beyond this, it also stimulated international give-and-take in the form of graphic replication, imitation, adaptation, and even outright parody. A particularly colorful example of this new world of pictorial global sharing was a bilingual English and Chinese political map of foreign encroachment on China at the time of the Boxer uprising. Of uncertain origin, this was disseminated in several variations. The colloquial correctness of English notations on the map make some kind of British-Chinese collaboration plausible.
One version—reproduced in the American magazine Leslie’s Weekly in 1900—assigns authorship to a Chinese artist in Hong Kong in July 1899. The most sophisticated and often reproduced rendering of this elaborate geopolitical commentary—replete with the Russian bear, British lion, American eagle, French frog, Japanese rising sun, and caricatures of the Chinese—bears a bold border of Chinese ideographs. Clearly, this was directed to Chinese (and possibly Japanese) audiences.
In the following image the bold lettering in the borders reads “Picture of Current Times” (top), “Obvious in One Glance” (left), and “It Speaks for Itself” (right). The Russian bear approaches from Siberia. Japan, who would go to war with Russia in 1904, is identified as “The Rising Sun” and accompanied by a parenthetical declaration that “John Bull & I will watch the bear.” (A reference to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902.) England—here depicted as a lion (rather than the bulldog on the 1899 map)—sinks its claws into south China, while a circular sausage with the legend “German Sausage Ambitions” surrounds Shandong. The American eagle, approaching from the Philippines, bears the quotation “Blood is thicker than water,” a famous comment made by a U.S. admiral in 1859 indicating that the U.S. would side with Britain in the Second Opium War. France, depicted as a frog, is ensconced in Southeast Asia and reaches toward China, with the words “Fashoda: Colonial Expansion” on its back, referring to the clash between British and French troops in East Africa in 1898. The Chinese figures (which do not appear on the 1899 version of the map) depict Manchu soldiers, coolie laborers, sleeping officials, and literati carousing with mistresses while the wild beasts prowl.
Imperialist Rivalries
Although the imperial powers joined together to raise an Eight Nation Army to relieve the siege by the Boxers, each of the major powers had its own special relationship with China and its own view of its geopolitical interests. In sum, each of the imperial powers had its particular motives for sending troops to China, and each of them distrusted the others. The deluge of global imagery from this period thus not only reveals a common racial prejudice against savage Orientals, but also shows the deep tensions between the powers that were only temporarily soothed by the joint expedition.
Great Britain
The British were still the predominant world imperial power, as they had been during the nineteenth century since the defeat of Napoleon. Their primary interests in China were commercial, and they focused most of their attention on the lower Yangzi valley, while they sent steamships up the Yangzi to obtain goods from the interior. They also held Hong Kong and developed substantial commerce in the Canton region. But British dominance, based on its control of the oceans and its large colony in India, was coming under challenge from several fronts. Germany began building a navy to contest British supremacy, while the French moved to take control of Indochina and extend their interests into south China. Russia presented a constant imagined threat to India as it moved into Central Asia.
From 1899 to 1902, British troops in South Africa fought a war against two independent republics founded by Dutch Afrikaners, the Transvaal and the Oranje Vrijstaat. Early victories by the British were not decisive, as the Boers waged a drawn-out guerrilla war campaign, just as the Filipinos were doing against American forces at the same time. Both countries used brutal tactics of internment of civilian populations in concentration camps and ravaging of the countryside to force surrender by the farmer fighters. The popular press, however, showed a sanitized picture of the war, with traditional pictures and lithographs of military operations. But the Boers were depicted as savages, analogous to the Boxers in their closeness to the earth and rejection of the British civilizing mission.
France
The French, unlike the British, had never created a successful East India Company to participate in the Canton trading system, and they had not traded in opium. Initially, their primary interest in China was the promotion and protection of Christianity. They joined with the British in 1856 to make war on China, benefiting the most from the provisions of the treaty ending the Second Opium War (1856 – 1860), which allowed missionary access to the Chinese interior. Beginning in the late-nineteenth century, they moved to take control of Indochina. In 1884, they fought their first independent war with China, when the court in Vietnam appealed for aid from China against French incursions. The French victory in the Sino-French war gave the French unimpeded control of Indochina, and the opportunity to spread their influence in south and southwest China. They sent commercial missions to the region to explore mineral and plant resources and to plan for railroad development.
Germany
Germany, unified as a nation state in 1870, soon felt that it, too, needed an imperial mission to make itself into a recognized world power and to secure sources of raw materials for its rapid industrialization. Germany joined the struggle to carve up Africa, established a colony in Samoa, and looked for a chance to take a piece of Chinese territory. German missionaries also penetrated the Shandong province under government protection beginning in the 1890s. When Chinese murdered two German missionaries in 1897, the Germans found their pretext and occupied Jiaozhou on the coast of Shandong, forcing the Chinese government to lease the territory to them for 99 years. Jiaozhou became a popular tourist destination for Germans, who sent back postcards depicting both its exotic markets and the availability of familiar German products like beer and sausages. Additionally, the Germans founded the first major beer factory in Jiaozhou’s capital of Qingdao in 1903; Tsingtao beer is still the most popular Chinese beer sold abroad. And postcards produced by Germans celebrated the harmonious mingling of different races—white, Asian, and black—in the new German empire.
The United States
The United States was also a latecomer to the cause of imperialism in Asia. Although Commodore Matthew Perry’s ships had begun the opening of Japan in 1853, and Americans eagerly participated in both the Canton trade and the chances to trade in opium after the opening of Chinese ports, Americans still saw themselves as different from European powers who aimed to occupy territory in China. American missionaries and businessmen hoped to help Asian peoples become richer and stronger without imposing discriminatory treaties on them and they argued that free trade would benefit all countries equally.
The American proposal for an “Open Door” that made Chinese markets available to all countries equally implied that no single power could occupy territory with exclusive rights. All the other imperial powers, who did occupy Chinese territory, paid lip service to the American proposal but ignored it in practice. For much of the nineteenth century the U.S., with its huge continental territory, was either insulated from economic dependence on the wider world across the Pacific, or it was too involved in the domestic repercussions of the Civil War to pay attention to geopolitical concerns. But as its industrial economy needed more overseas markets and materials from abroad, and its expansion continued beyond the west coast into the Pacific, the U.S. inexorably became an imperial power in its own right.
Promoters of open imperialist annexations argued that the U.S. needed to compete for global commercial supremacy by securing raw materials and territories. American businessmen staged a coup in Hawaii in 1893, and the U.S. annexed the islands in 1898. The takeover of the Philippines from Spain in 1898 was followed by a brutal campaign to suppress the anti-imperialist Filipino force led by Emilio Aguinaldo. Popular journalists depicted the U.S. as a benevolent school teacher lifting the burden of Catholic medievalism from the ordinary Filipino peasant, as well as repelling the corrupt banditry of Aguinaldo and his rebels. Geopolitical analysts focused on the Philippines as the key gateway to Asia for American commerce.
The U.S. experience in the Philippines certainly affected views of the role of U.S. troops in the relief of the Boxer siege of foreign legations in Beijing. Images of benevolence toward smaller dark-skinned people transferred easily from one Asian country to another, but the awareness that Asian peoples could resist white domination with harsh military action prepared the American public to accept that the Boxers represented yet another savage, inexplicable outburst by ungrateful Asians against their white benefactors.
Chinese immigration to the U.S. also added a distinctive element to the American image of the Orient. Chinese had begun to leave Canton in significant numbers in the 1850s to flee the disturbances of the Taiping rebellion (1850 – 64) and to participate in the gold rush in America. During the 1860s many Chinese immigrants worked to build the first transcontinental railroad in America, which was completed in 1869.
The Burlingame treaty of 1868, which normalized relations between China and the U.S. also provided for free immigration of Chinese but did not allow Chinese to become citizens. In this era, many Americans believed that non-Europeans were racially inferior and incapable of becoming citizens of their republic.
Japan
Of all the nations engaged in the Boxer expedition, Japan and Russia had the most well-defined material and territorial interests to protect, and the most reason to distrust each other. In the Sino-Japanese war of 1895, Japan had established preeminent influence over Korea, forcing Korea open to Japanese trade and driving out the pro-Chinese faction in the country. Japan saw its role in Korea in the same way as the other imperial powers viewed their own colonial actions; Japan claimed to bring “enlightenment” in the form of modern science and culture to backward peoples. Japan had no missionaries to protect in China, and it was not a target of Boxer attacks, but it identified itself with the Western powers’ goal of forcing China to accept trade and modern culture, and it saw advantages in joining the Western expedition as a way of raising its status among the Western powers. Not until the signing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902, directed against Russia, could Japan gain recognition of its role as one of the major world powers. Its participation in the Boxer expedition, for which it sent the largest number of troops and often took the lead in attacks, showed that Japanese could fight for the Western version of “civilization” even more effectively than the Westerners themselves. Most Japanese graphic renderings of the multinational intervention tended to be detailed and relatively straightforward nationalistic depictions that emphasized the discipline of Japan’s military forces and their equality to and close collaboration with the Western powers.
The Japanese sense of perfect equivalence to the Western powers was rarely reciprocated, however. On the contrary, most European and American depictions of the foreign forces in China routinely depicted the Japanese as “little men”—not only vis-à-vis the Westerners, but vis-à-vis China and the Chinese as well. A full-page treatment in Harper’s Weekly in early 1900—five full years after Japan had crushed China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to 1895—reflected the resilience of this lingering anti-Japanese condescension.
Russia
Russia was the power with the longest historical engagement with China, having signed its first treaties with the Qing dynasty in 1689 and 1727. The early period of equitable interaction changed in the late-nineteenth century, when Russia took advantage of China’s defeat in the Second Opium War to gain its own favorable treaty, sending troops into the Ili valley during the Muslim uprisings of the 1870s, where they stayed until China forced them out diplomatically in 1881. By the 1890s, Russia had developed its commercial interests on the Pacific coast, founding the town of Vladivostok in 1880. But Russian interests in the Far East faced resistance both from the British, who feared a potential move against India, and from Japan, which aimed for uncontested influence in Korea. Russia, like Japan, had no missionary activities in China and was not a target of Boxer attacks, but it saw the foreign expedition as a golden opportunity to take advantage once again of China’s weakness and other powers’ interests to advance its own at low cost. The Russian Minister for War General Alexi Kuropatkin, as well as the Minister of Finance Count Sergei Witte, saw the Boxer expedition as a perfect excuse for seizing Manchuria and turning it into a Russian colony.
Dangerous China: Another Kind of China Peril
As a general rule, most foreign caricatures of China depicted the country as either a formidable menace to the world or a small backwater ripe for commercial penetration. A cartoon published in the American periodical Judge in 1898, as the Boxer depredations were about to rise to a crescendo, conveyed a somewhat different picture. Here the world was a “see-saw,” in which the Anglo-American powers were engaged in a uneven “balance of power” game vis-a-vis the other major nations of the world. In this power struggle, some countries already had fallen off the see-saw— and China was hanging on for dear life and perilously close to falling also.
Awakening China
As the Boxer uprising flared into the multinational intervention, some graphic renderings depicted an even more precarious picture of the see-saw of imperialist rivalries. In this situation, China itself became a potential source of global discord—a giant firecracker; a dark and dangerous terrain to navigate, full of traps that might lead to future wars; a “sword of Damocles” hanging by a thread over the heads of the interventionist powers. The danger was multifold. Intervention threatened to intensify already-existing rivalries among the imperialist powers (as indeed happened, when the intervention was followed four years later by war between Tsarist Russia and Japan). At the same time, the humiliation of China threatened to awaken the nation in truly perilous ways. This latter premonition became especially strong in 1901. The victorious foreign powers had weakened the Qing court by imposing a harsh indemnity on it, and by forcing it to execute officials who had stirred up the Boxers, but they shared an interest in keeping the dynasty alive. They feared the possibility of another uprising of the Chinese masses and the onset of conflict between the imperial powers themselves. This China, unlike the slain dragon, as firecracker or as sword of Damocles, threatened to blow up the imperial world order.
Consequences of the Boxer Rebellion
The European great powers finally ceased their ambitions to colonize China, having learned from the Boxer Rebellion that it was best to deal with China’s ruling dynasty, rather than directly with the Chinese people. Concurrently, this period marks the ceding of European great power interference in Chinese affairs, with the Japanese replacing the Europeans as the dominant power for their lopsided involvement in the war against the Boxers, as well as their victory in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 – 95). With the toppling of the Qing that followed and the rise of the nationalist Kuomintang, European sway within China was reduced to symbolic status.
In 1900, Russia occupied Manchuria, a move that threatened Anglo-American hopes of maintaining what remained of China’s territorial integrity and the country’s openness to commerce under the Open Door Policy. Japan’s clash with Russia over Liaodong and other provinces in eastern Manchuria, due to the Russian refusal to honor the terms of the Boxer protocol that called for their withdrawal, led to the Russo-Japanese War when two years of negotiations broke down in 1904. Russia was ultimately defeated by an increasingly confident Japan. After taking Manchuria in 1905, Japan came to dominate Asian affairs both militarily and culturally.
Besides paying reparations to European powers and Japan due to its support of the Boxers, the government of the Empress Dowager Cixi reluctantly started some reforms despite her previous views. Under her reforms known as the New Policies started in 1901, the imperial examination system for government service was eliminated and as a result the system of education through Chinese classics was replaced with a European liberal system that led to university degrees. Along with the formation of new military and police organizations, the reforms also simplified central bureaucracy and revamped taxation policies.
From the beginning, views differed as to whether the Boxers were better seen as anti-imperialist, patriotic, and proto-nationalist or as violent, irrational, and futile opponents of inevitable change. More recently, Chinese historians have undermined the dominant history textbook narrative in China, which presents the Boxer Uprising as an admirable expression of patriotism. The historians emphasize the damage and suffering that the rebellion caused and note that the majority of the Boxer rebels were both violent and xenophobic. This reinterpretation remains controversial in China.
The Open Door Policy
At the conclusion of Boxer Rebellion, the United States continued to advocate for and Open Door Policy concerning China. After winning the Spanish-American War of 1898 and acquiring the Philippine Islands, the United States also increased its Asian presence and was expecting to further its commercial and political interest in China. However, the United States felt threatened by other powers’ much larger spheres of influence in China and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the country be partitioned. As a response, U.S. diplomat William Woodville Rockhill formulated the Open Door Policy to safeguard American business opportunities and interests in China. In 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia, asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China. The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy equal access to the Chinese market. In reply, each country tried to evade Hay’s request, taking the position that it could not commit itself until the other nations had complied. However, Hay announced that each of the powers had granted consent in principle. In 1900, Britain and Germany signed the Yangtze Agreement, which provided that they would oppose the partition of China into spheres of influence. The agreement was an endorsement of the Open Door Policy. Nonetheless, competition between the various powers for special concessions within Qing dynasty China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and privilege continued unabated.
Open Door Policy in Practice
In 1902, the United States government protested the Russian encroachment in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion as a violation of the Open Door Policy. When Japan replaced Russia in southern Manchuria after the Russo-Japanese War (1904 – 05), the Japanese and U.S. governments pledged to maintain a policy of equality in Manchuria.
In 1917, a diplomatic note was signed between the United States and Japan to regulate disputes over China. Signed by U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Japanese special envoy Ishii Kikujirō—and known as the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, the note pledged to uphold the Open Door Policy in China with respect to its territorial and administrative integrity. However, the United States government also acknowledged that Japan had “special interests” in China due to its geographic proximity, especially in those areas of China adjacent to Japanese territory, which was in effect a contradiction to the Open Door Policy. In a secret protocol attached to the public note, both parties agreed not to take advantage of the special opportunities presented by World War I to seek special rights or privileges in China at the expense of other nations allied in the war effort against Germany.
At the time, the Lansing-Ishii Agreement was touted as evidence that Japan and the United States had laid to rest their increasingly bitter rivalry over China, and the Agreement was hailed as a landmark in Japan-U.S. relations. However, critics soon realized that the vagueness of the Agreement meant that nothing had really been decided after two months of talks.
The Lansing-Ishii Agreement was replaced in 1923 by the Nine-Power Treaty. During the Washington Naval Conference of 1921 – 1922, the United States government again raised the Open Door Policy as an international issue and had all of the attendees (United States, Republic of China, Imperial Japan, France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Portugal) sign the Nine-Power Treaty, which intended to make the Open Door Policy international law. The Nine-Power Treaty affirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China as per the Open Door Policy. It also effectively prompted Japan to return territorial control of Shandong province (a former German holding in China controlled by Japan as a result of World War I) to the Republic of China.
The Nine-Power Treaty lacked any enforcement regulations, and when violated by Japan during its invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and creation of Manchukuo, the United States could do little more than issue protests and impose economic sanctions. In 1937, the signatories of the Nine-Power Treaty convened in Brussels for the Nine Power Treaty Conference after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, but to no avail. World War II effectively violated the Nine-Power Treaty.
In conclusion, the Open Door Policy was a principle that was never formally adopted via treaty or international law. It was invoked or alluded to but never enforced as such. In practice, it was used to mediate competing interests of the colonial powers without much meaningful input from the Chinese, creating lingering resentment and causing it to later be seen as a symbol of national humiliation by Chinese historians.
Primary Source: Fei Ch'i-hao: The Boxer Rebellion, 1900
Fei Ch'i-hao was a Chinese Christian. Here he recounts the activities of the millenialist "Boxers" in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
The Gathering of the Storm
The people of Shansi are naturally timid and gentle, not given to making disturbances, being the most peaceable people in China. So our Shansi Christians were hopeful for themselves, even when the reports from the coast grew more alarming. But there was one thing which caused us deep apprehension, and that was the fact that the wicked, cruel YU Hsien, the hater of foreigners, was the newly appointed Governor of Shansi. He had previously promoted the Boxer movement in Shantung, and had persuaded the Empress Dowager that the Boxers had supernatural powers and were true patriots.
Early in June my college friend K'ung Hsiang Hsi came back from T'ungchou for his vacation, reporting that the state of affairs there and at Peking was growing worse, that the local officials were powerless against the Boxers, and that the Boxers, armed with swords, were constantly threatening Christians scattered in the country.
From this time we had no communication with Tientsin or Peking. All travellers were searched, and if discovered bearing foreign letters they were killed. So though several times messengers were started out to carry our letters to the coast, they were turned back by the Boxers before they had gone far. It was not long before the Boxers, like a pestilence, had spread all over Shansi. School had not closed yet in Fen Chou Fu, but as the feeling of alarm deepened, fathers came to take their boys home, and school was dismissed before the end of June.
Mr. and Mrs. Lundgren and Miss Eldred of the China Inland Mission had come to Mrs. Price's about the middle of June, and after the Boxer trouble began they were unable to leave. Mr. and Mrs. Lundgren soon heard that their mission at P'ing Yao had been burned.
During the two long months that followed not a word reached us from beyond the mountains. The church in Shansi walked in darkness, not seeing the way before it.
The wicked Governor, Yü Hsien, scattered proclamations broadcast. These stated that the foreign religions overthrew morality and inflamed men to do evil, so now gods and men were stirred up against them, and Heaven's legions had been sent to exterminate the foreign devils. Moreover there were the Boxers, faithful to their sovereign, loyal to their country, determined to unite in wiping out the foreign religion. He also offered a reward to all who killed foreigners, either titles or office or money. When the highest official in the province took such a stand in favor of the Boxers, what could inferior officials do? People and officials bowed to his will, and all who enlisted as Boxers were in high favor. It was a time of license and anarchy, when not only Christians were killed, but hundreds of others against whom individual Boxers had a grudge.
Crowds of people kept passing our mission gate to see what might be happening, for the city was full of rumors. "The foreigners have all fled."
"Many foreigners from other places have gathered here."
"A great cannon has been mounted at the mission gate."
"The foreigners have hired men to poison wells, and to smear gates with blood."
I was staying in the compound with the Prices, inside the west gate of the city, and Mr. and Mrs. Atwater, with their children, Bertha and Celia, lived near the east gate. On the 28th of June all day long a mob of one or two hundred roughs, with crowds of boys, stood at the gate of the Atwater place, shouting:
"Kill the foreigners, loot the houses."
Mr. Atwater came out once and addressed the crowd:
"Friends, don't make this disturbance; whoever would like to come in, I invite to come, and we will talk together."
When the crowd saw Mr. Atwater come out, they all retreated, but when he shut the gate they thronged back again with mad shouts. This happened several times. By six or seven in the evening the crowd had increased and gathered courage. The gate was broken down and they surged in, some shouting, some laying hands on whatever they could find to steal, some throwing stones and brickbats at the windows. As they rushed in, Mr. Atwater and his family walked through their midst and took refuge in the Yamen of the District Magistrate, which was near by. The Magistrate, not even waiting for his official chair, ran at once to the mission and arrested two men with his own hands. His attendants followed close behind him, and the mob scattered. The Magistrate then sent soldiers to stand guard at the mission gate, and the Atwaters came to live with the Prices. We expected the mob to make an attack on us that same night, but we were left in peace...
Late in july a proclamation of the Governor was posted in the city in which occurred the words, "Exterminate foreigners, kill devils." Native Christians must leave the church or pay the penalty with their lives. Li Yij and I talked long and earnestly over plans for saving the lives of our beloved missionaries. "You must not stay here waiting for death," we said. Yet we realized how difficult it would be to escape. Foreigners with light hair and fair faces are not easily disguised. Then where could they go? Eastward toward the coast all was in tumult. Perhaps the provinces to the south were just as bad. Our best way would be to find a place of concealment in the mountains. Li Y0 and I thought that the chances of escape would be better if the missionaries divided into two companies; they must carry food, clothing, and bedding, and the large company would surely attract attention. Moreover, if they were in two parties, and one was killed, the other might escape. So Li Yü and I went to talk the matter over with Mr. Han, the former helper, and a Deacon Wang. Both of these men had recanted, but they still loved their foreign friends. Deacon Wang, who lived in a village over ten miles from Fen Chou Fu, wished to conceal Mr. and Mrs. Price and little Florence in his home for a day or two, and then take them very secretly to a broken-down temple in the mountains. Li Yü said to me:
"If you can escape with Mr. and Mrs. Price to the mountains, I will try to take the Atwaters, Mr. and Mrs. Lundgren, and Miss Eldred to another place in the mountains."
But when I proposed this plan to Mr. and Mrs. Price, they said:
"We missionaries do not wish to be separated. We must be in one place, and if we die we want to die together."
When I spoke to them again about going, they said:
"Thank you for your love, but we do not want to desert the other missionaries."
"You will not be deserting them," I pleaded. "If you decide to flee with me, Mr. Li will do his best to escape with the others."
Then I brought forward all my arguments to persuade them. Again all consulted together, and decided to go. I think this was the last day of July-the very day of the Tai Ku tragedy. Mr. and Mrs. Price made up two bundles of baggage and gave them to Mr. Han, to be carried secretly to Deacon Wang's home. Mr. Han paid a large price for a covered cart to wait for us secretly at ten o'clock in the evening at the gate of an old temple north of the mission. We were to walk to the cart, as it would attract attention if the cart stopped near the mission. We could not leave by the front gate, for the four Yamen men were guarding it; and patrolling the streets in front by day and night were twenty soldiers, ostensibly protecting us, but, as we surmised, stationed there to prevent the escape of foreigners. I went privately to the back of the compound and unlocked an unused gate, removing also a stone which helped to keep it shut. I had already made up a bundle to carry with me, and asked Mr. Jen, a Chirstian inquirer, to take care of it while I was helping Mr. and Mrs. Price to get ready. After I had opened the gate I asked Mr. Jen to wait there until I went into the south court to call the Prices.
Man proposes, but God disposes. A Mr. Wang who had often come to the mission knew that we were planning to escape that night and saw me give my bundle to Mr. Jen. Thinking that it must contain some valuable things belonging to the Prices, an evil thought entered his heart. He watched when Mr. Jen laid the bundle in a small empty room close by the gate, and after he came out, Mr. Wang went into the room. Mr. Jen thought nothing of this, supposing that Mr. Wang was a friend. But in a minute he saw Mr. Wang rush out of the room, leap over the wall, and run away. Going at once into the room and not finding the bundle, he lost his head completely, and set up a loud wail. His one thought was that he had been faithless to his trust, and sitting down in the back gate which I had opened so secretly, he cried at the top of his voice, thus bringing to naught our carefully laid plans to escape. Up ran the four Yamen men and the soldiers from the street. Everyone in the compound appeared on the scene. When I heard his outcry I thought that he had received some serious injury. All gathered about him asking his trouble, but overcome with emotion he jumped up and down, slapping his legs and crying lustily. Finally he managed to say through his tears, "Mr. Fay [Fei], Mr. Wang has stolen the things which you gave me.
"When I heard this I could neither laugh nor cry nor storm at him. The Yamen men and soldiers at once picked up their lanterns and began to search. When they saw that the back gate had been unlocked and the stone removed, not knowing that I had done it, they began to scold and mutter:
"These things! How contemptible they are! When did they open this gate in order to steal the foreigners' things?"
As they muttered they locked the gate and replaced the stone, then left two men to guard it.
It was after midnight when this commotion was over, and every gate was guarded. Mr. Price and I saw that it would be impossible to get out that night. Even if we could leave the compound, we could not reach Deacon Wang's before daylight. If we attempted it, the Prices would not be saved, and Deacon Wang's whole family would be endangered.
So I went alone outside the compound to tell Mr. Han to dismiss the cart. As soon as he saw me, he said quickly:
"It is indeed well that the Prices have not come. I just came across several thieves, and was mistaken for one of their company. One of them said to me, 'If you get anything, you must divide with me.' If the Prices had come out, I fear they would have been killed."
The next day we consulted again about flight. Li Yii said:
"Let us flee all together to the mountains from thirty to sixty miles away."
So we hired a large cart and loaded it with food and other necessities, and sent it ahead of us into the mountains. Two Christian inquirers went with the cart to guard it. When it had entered the mountains about seven miles from the city, suddenly a man ran up and said to the inquirers:
"Run quick for your lives! Your mission in the city is burning, and the foreigners have all been killed."
As soon as they had jumped down from the cart and run away, rascals came up and stole all that was on the cart.
When we heard this we gave up all hope of escape, especially as we were told that bad men in the city had heard of our intention, and were hiding outside the city day and night ready to kill and rob the foreigners if they should appear. So we talked no more of fleeing, but committed our lives into the hands of our Heavenly Father, to do as seemed to Him best. We had little hope that we would be saved. Still we kept guard every night, Mr. Atwater and Mr. Lundgren being on duty the first half of the night, and Mr. Price and I the last half. At that time all of the servants had left us, and Mrs. Price did all the cooking, Mrs. Lundgren and Miss Eldred helping her. It was the hottest time in summer, and Mrs. Price stood over the stove with flushed face wet with perspiration. Li Y0 and I were so sorry for her, and wanted to help her, but alas! neither of us knew how to cook foreign food, so we could only wash the dishes and help to wash the clothes.
Li Yü was so helpful those days. He alone went outside the compound to see the Magistrate, to transact business, to purchase food, and every day to get the news.
August had come, and we were still alive. Could it be that God wishing to show His mighty power, would out of that whole province of Shansi save the missionaries at Fen Chou Fu and Tai Ku?The second day of August, a little after noon, a man came into our compound with the saddest story that our ears had heard during those sad summer days. He was Mrs. Clapp's cook, and two days before, in the afternoon, he had fled from the Tai Ku compound when flame and sword and rifle were doing their murderous work. As he fled he saw Mr. Clapp, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Davis making a last vain effort to keep back the mob of hundreds of soldiers and Boxers, and saw Mrs. Clapp, Miss Partridge, Miss Bird, and Ruth taking refuge in a little court in the back of the compound. Miss Bird had said to him as he ran:
"Be quick! be quick! "
Over the compound wall, then the city wall, he had taken shelter in a field of grain, where he still heard the howling of the mob and saw the heavens gray with smoke from the burning buildings. He hid in the grain until morning broke, then started on his journey to Fen Chou Fu.
So to our little company waiting so long in the valley of the shadow of death, came the tidings that our Tai Ku missionaries had crossed the river. Several native Christians who counted not their lives dear unto themselves, had gone with the martyr band. Eagerly I asked about my sister, her husband and child. The messenger did not know whether they were living or dead---only that they had been staying in the mission buildings outside the city. Two days later full accounts of the massacre reached us, and I knew that they were among the slain.
Bitter were the tears which we shed together that afternoon. It seemed as if my heart was breaking as I thought of the cruel death of those whom I loved so much, and whom I should never again see on earth. What words can tell my grief? I could not sleep that night, nor for many nights following. I thought how lovingly Mr. and Mrs. Clapp had nursed me through my long illness. I wept for Miss Bird, who had sympathized with me and helped me. "My dear ones, my dear ones, who loved and helped me as if I were your very flesh and blood, who brought so much joy and peace to the lonely one far from his home, who worked so earnestly for God, who pitied and helped the suffering and poor, would that I could have died for you! Could my death have saved one of You, gladly would I have laid down my life.
"The Tai Ku missionaries were gone, the Christians were killed or scattered, the buildings were all burned. We of Fen Chou Fu alone were left. We all thought that our day was at hand, but God still kept us for nearly two weeks. And now I want to tell you the story of those remaining days.
Last Days at Fen Chou Fu
The next day after we heard of the Tai Ku tragedy a man ran in to tell us that several hundred Boxers were coming from the east. They were those who had killed the missionaries at Tai Ku, and now they were resting in a village outside the east gate, prepared to attack our mission that afternoon. We all believed this report, for we were hourly expecting death. There was nothing the foreigners could do but to wait for the end. Mr. Price urged me to leave them at once and flee. Mr. Price, Mrs. Atwater, Mrs. Lundgren, and Miss Eldred all gave me letters to home friends. All of my foreign friends shook hands with me at parting, and Mrs. Atwater said, with tears in her eyes:"May the Lord preserve your life, and enable you to tell our story to others."Miss Eldred had prepared for herself a belt into which was stitched forty taels of silver. She thought that she was standing at the gate of death and would have no use for money, so she gave it to me for my travelling expenses. Mrs. Price gave me her gold watch and an envelope on which an address was written, and asked me to take the watch to Tientsin and find someone who would sent it to her father. Before I went out of the I gate I saw Mrs. Price holding her little daughter to her heart, kissing her through her tears, and heard her say:
"If the Boxers come today, I want my little Florence to go before I do."
My heart was pierced with grief as I saw the sad plight of my friends, but I could do nothing for them. Had I died with them it could not have helped them. So we parted with many tears.
While I was away the Magistrate had sent for Li Yü and demanded that all the firearms of the foreigners be given up to him. Li Yü replied, "I know the missionaries will use their weapons only in self-defense.
"The Magistrate was very angry, and ordered that Li Yü be beaten three hundred blows, with eighty additional blows on his lips because he had used the word 'I' in speaking to the Magistrate, instead of the humble "little one" which was customary. Li Yü was then locked in the jail, and the Magistrate sent men to the mission to demand the firearms. The missionaries could not refuse to comply, so their two shotguns and two revolvers were given up.
In this time of need two Christians named Chang and Tien came to help the missionaries. They worked for Mrs. Price to the last. The sufferings of the missionaries were indeed sore. Their patience and perfect trust in God greatly moved my heart. In the summer heat Mrs. Price three times a day hung over the stove preparing food for her family of ten, yet I never heard a word of complaint. Her face was always peaceful, and often she sang as she went about her work. One evening when we were all standing in the yard together Mrs. Price said to me:
"These days my thoughts are much on 'the things above.' Sometimes when I think of the sufferings through which my loved friends passed it seems as if a voice from heaven said to me, 'Dear sister, see how happy we are now; all of earth's sufferings are over, and if our sorrows on earth are compared with our bliss in heaven, they are nothing, nothing."'
Miss Eldred was very young, and had come from England only a year or two before, so she could speak little Chinese. The expression of her gentle face moved one to pity. When she was not helping Mrs. Price, she played outdoors with the three children, and gave Mrs. Price's little daughter music lessons.
We still patrolled the place at night, I continuing to take my turn with Mr. Price in the last half of the night. So I had an opportunity for forming a most intimate friendship with Mr. Price. He told me many things during those long hours, sometimes relating his own experiences when a soldier during the American Civil War.
Every day at sunset I played with Florence Price and Celia and Bertha Atwater. Ever since I had come to Fen Chou Fu I had played an hour with Florence. This had been good for both of us, for me because I learned English by talking with her, and for Florence because she had no children for companions and was very lonely. If there was a day when something prevented my going to her as usual, she would come or send for me. When Mr. Atwater moved to the same place his two little girls were very fond of romping with me too. I often carried the children on my shoulder, and they loved me very much. At seven o'clock, when their mothers called them to go to bed, all three would kiss me, saying: "Good-night, Mr. Fay, good-night. Pleasant dreams, pleasant dreams." So it was until the day when they left the earth.
At this time it seemed as if the Boxer trouble might be over. There were few rumors on the streets, and there had never been organized Boxer bands in Fen Chou Fu. So our hearts were more peaceful. Perhaps it was God's will after all to save our little band. Still no word reached us from the outside world. We walked on in the darkness. It was because of the friendliness of the Fen Chou Fu Magistrate that the little Christian community there was preserved so long after the floods of destruction had swept over every other mission in the province. His superior officer, the Prefect, a weak old man, died July 27. Upon the character of his successor might depend the life or death of the missionaries.
On August 12 the new Prefect appointed by the Governor arrived from Tai Yuan Fu. He was a man of great leaming but little practical ability, the tool of the Governor, who had sent him expressly to murder the foreigners. So he made their extermination his first business on reaching Fen Chou Fu. It was the 13th when he took the seals of office, and that same day he went to the Magistrate and upbraided him for his remissness in the work of massacre....
Outside the City Wall
It was a clear, beautiful day, with a gentle wind blowing, a bright sun shining, and not a cloud within sight. As we drove out of the gate we saw the streets packed with a dense crowd of spectators. From the mission to the North Gate of the city they seemed a solid mass, while house roofs and walls swanned with men and women eager for a sight of us. There were tens of thousands, and when we left the city gate behind, many flocked after us and stood watching until we were out of sight. So we left Fen Chou Fu on that fateful morning, August 15.
We had been imprisoned within walls for two or three months, and our hearts had all the time been burdened and anxious. Now suddenly we were outside the city in the pure, bracing air, in the midst of flowers and trees, luxuriant in summer beauty, riding through fields ripe for the harvest. It was all so beautiful and peaceful and strength-giving. So as soon as we were out in the country air our spirits rose and fresh life and joy came to us.
In the front of our cart sat Mr. Atwater with the carter, behind him were Mrs. Atwater and Mrs. Lundgren, and I sat in the back of the cart with the two little girls. On both sides, before and behind, walked the twenty soldiers, while in front of all, mounted on my white horse, with chin held high and a very self-satisfied manner, rode the leader. After ten o'clock the sun's rays grew warmer, and Mrs. Lundgren handed her umbrella to a soldier, asking him to offer it to the leader to shield him from the heat.
We talked as we rode along. Mrs. Lundgren remarked: "What a beautiful day it is!" Mrs. Atwater said, "Who would have thought that when we left Fen Chou Fu we would have such an escort?" "See the soldiers' uniforms, gay with red and green trimmings," said Mrs. Lundgren.
So the light conversation went on. Mrs. Atwater said to me, "I'm afraid they'll not give your horse back to you at P'ing Yao."
"I'm afraid not," I replied.
Then the two ladies tumed and talked in English with Mr. Atwater, and I talked and laughed with the two children close beside me. We played a finger game, and they prattled ceaselessly.
"Mr. Fay, please tell us where we are going," they said.
After a while little Bertha grew sleepy, and nestled to rest in her mother's arms.
When we left Fen Chou Fu we thought that we might meet Boxers or robbers by the way, but we said, "If any danger comes, these soldiers will protect us with all their might."
Little did we dream that these very soldiers were to murder us.
We passed through several villages, and every man, woman, and child was out to stare at us. Then we came to a large village. It was nearly noon and very hot, so we stopped to rest a while, and the carters watered their mules. A man happened to be there peddling little sweet melons. We were all thirsty, so we bought some, and as Mr. Atwater had no change handy I paid for them with the cash in my bag. We passed some back to those in the other cart, and Mrs. Lundgren took out a package of nice foreign candy and passed some to us. After a few minutes we were on our way again.
As we travelled the young soldier who had taken my horse away walked close behind my cart, never taking his eyes off me. I thought that he was angry because I had objected to giving him the horse, so I gave little attention to it. Then I noticed something strange in his way of looking at me, as if there was something he wished to say to me.
After we had gone on a little farther with the soldier walking behind the cart, still keeping his eyes on me, he heaved a great sigh, and said:
"Alas for you-so very young!"
The soldier walking at the side looked sternly at the speaker and said something to him which I could not hear, but I heard the reply:
"This is our own countryman, and not a foreigner."
When I saw the expression on their faces and heard these words, suddenly it flashed across me that they had some deep meaning, and I asked the young soldier what was up.
"I don't know," he replied.
"If anything is going to happen," I said, "please tell me."
He hung his head and said nothing, but followed still close to the cart, and after a while said to me plainly:
"You ought to escape at once, for only a short distance ahead we are to kill the foreigners."
I jumped down from the cart, but another soldier came up: saying, "Don't go away."Then I began to think it was true that the foreigners were to be killed, and wanted to get farther away from the cart, but the soldier who had first talked with me, said:
"You can't go yet; you must first leave your money with us."
I said, "I have only a little, barely enough for my joumey."
But I knew that they would not let me off without money, so I gave my watch to the soldier who had taken my horse. Another soldier demanded money, saying:
"If you have no money you may give me your boots."
So I took off my newly purchased boots and gave them to him putting on the well-worn shoes which he gave me in exchange. Another soldier took away my straw hat and the whip which I carried in my hand. It happened that at just this point a little pad branched off from the main road through a field of sorghum higher than my head. I started off on the path. While I had been talking with the soldiers Mr. Atwater had conversed with the two ladies and had not noticed our words. As I left my friends I took alas look at them, saying in my heart:
"I fear that I shall never again on earth see your faces."
I had no chance to speak to them, for the village where they were to be killed was only a quarter of a mile away, the carts had not stopped, and many people were following close behind. A crowd was also coming out from the village which they were approaching.
I had walked only a short distance on the little path when I heard footsteps following, and looking back saw that it was the two soldiers hastening after me. My heart stood still, for I thought that they were coming to prevent my escape and kill me. I did not dare to run, for they had rifles in their hands. Soon they overtook me, one seizing my queue and another my arm, and saying:
"You must have some money; we'll only let you escape with your life; your money must be given to us."
Before I had time to answer, the soldier snatched from my purse all the silver which Mr. Price had given me. I made an effort to get it back, but the soldier said:
"If we kill you, nothing will be yours.
If we let you escape with your life, should not your silver be given to us?"
There was some reason in their talk, so I only entreated them to leave me a little money, for I had many hundred miles to travel before I would reach my home. The soldiers had a little conscience, for dividing the silver between them they took out a small piece amounting to about a tael, and gave it to me.
The young soldier who had first talked with me said:
"Don't go far away yet. Wait until you see whether we kill the foreigners or not. If we don't do it, hunt me up and I'll give you your watch and all of your silver. If we kill them consider that we did not take your money without cause."
They then hurried back to the road.
When I had gone on a little farther I heard a loud rifle report. By that time I was almost convinced that they were indeed going to kill the foreigners. So I ran with all my might. It was about one o'clock and the sun beat down fiercely. After I had gone several miles I felt very weary, and though I was not afraid, my heart still fluttered and my flesh crept.
The sun was sinking westward, and I looked up to the sky with a sigh. The atmosphere was clear, wind and light were fair, and I asked myself:
"Can the great Lord who rules heaven and earth permit evil men under this bright heaven, in this clear light of day, to murder these innocent men and women, these little children? It cannot be. Perhaps I can still reach P'ing Yao, and look in the faces of those whom I love."
Then I thought that if the soldiers had really killed them in that village, as they said they would, they were no longer on the earth, but were happy with God. When this thought came I lifted my face toward heaven, saying:
"My beloved Mr. and Mrs. Price and other dear friends, if you are truly in heaven now, do you see my trouble and distress?"
So I walked on, my heart now in heaven, now on earth, a thousand thoughts entangling themselves in my bewildered mind.
I was weary and would walk a mile or two, then rest. I came to the bank of the Fen River, five miles from P'ing Yao, and waited some time at the ferry to hear what men were saying; for if the foreigners had not been killed they must certainly cross by this ferry, and everyone would be talking about it. But though I stood there a long time I heard no one mention the subject, and the dread that my friends had been killed took full possession of my heart. Then I crossed on the ferry with others, and strange to say the ferryman did not ask me for money.
Once across the river I reached a small inn outside the wall of P'ing Yao. I had walked twenty miles that day-the longest walk I had ever taken, and I threw myself down to sleep without eating anything. Often I awoke with a start and turned my aching body, asking myself, "Where am I? How came I here? Are my Western friends indeed killed? I must be dreaming."
But I was so tired that sleep would soon overcome me again.
The sun had risen when I opened my eyes in the morning. I forced myself to rise, washed my face, and asked for a little food, but could not get it down. Sitting down I heard loud talking and laughter among the guests. The topic of conversation was the massacre of foreigners the day before! One said:
"There were ten ocean men killed, three men, four women, and three little devils." Another added, "Lij Cheng San yesterday morning came ahead with twenty soldiers and waited in the village. When the foreigners with their soldier escort arrived a gun was fired for a signal, and all the soldiers set to work at once."
Then one after another added gruesome details, how the cruel swords had slashed, how the baggage had been stolen, how the very clothing had been stripped from the poor bodies, and how they had then been flung into a wayside pit.
"Are there still foreigners in Fen Chou FuT' I asked.
"No, they were all killed yesterday."
"Where were they killed?"
"In that village ahead-less than two miles from here," he said, pointing as he spoke. "Yesterday about this time they were all killed."
"How many were there?" I asked.
He stretched out the fingers of his two hands for an answer.
"Were there none of our people?"
"No, they were all foreigners."
My heart was leaden as I rode on the cart, with my face turned toward Fen Chou Fu. It was eight when the carter drove up to an inn in the east suburb of Fen Chou Fu, and I walked on into the city. Fortunately it was growing dark, and no one saw my face plainly, as, avoiding the main street, I made my way through alleys to the home of a Mr. Shih, a Christian who lived near the mission. When I knocked and entered Mr. Shih and his brother started up in terror and amazement, saying:
"How could you get here?"
We three went in quickly, barring the gate, and when we were seated in the house I told my sad story. Sighing, Mr. Shih said:
"We knew when the foreigners left yesterday that death awaited them on the road. Not long after you had gone the Prefect and the Magistrate rode in their chairs to the gate of the mission, took a look inside without entering, and then sealed up the gate."
Mr. Shih told me also how the Prefect, as soon as he had returned to his Yamen, had ordered Li Yü brought before him, and inflicted more cruel blows on his bruised body. Then he told details of the massacre. There was one young soldier named Li who had studied several years in the mission school, and whose sword took no part in the carnage. When the leader knew this he beat him from head to foot with his great horsewhip. The poor remains of the missionaries would have been left on the village street had not the village leaders begged that they be taken away. So the soldiers dragged them to a pit outside the city, where they found a common grave.
Source:
Luella Miner, Two Heroes of Cathay, (N.Y.: Fleming H. Revell,1907), pp. 63-128, quoted in Eva Jane Price, China Journal, 1889-1900 (N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989), pp. 245-247, 254-261, 268-274.
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© Paul Halsall, October 1998
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Title Image
Yu Xunling, Court Photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons