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The Boxer’s Rebellion. Questions to be addressed: China before the Boxers Origins Nature/purposes Composition Expansion Violence as a result of the Boxers Settlement Reassessment . Qing China Confronted the West. Western powers proved to be a formidable threat to Qing government
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The Boxer’s Rebellion • Questions to be addressed: • China before the Boxers • Origins • Nature/purposes • Composition • Expansion • Violence as a result of the Boxers • Settlement • Reassessment
Qing China Confronted the West • Western powers proved to be a formidable threat to Qing government • China began to suffer from another wave of foreign invasion, this time from Europe Allies soldiers slaughtered boxers
The Opium War (1839-1842) • Cause, burning of opium, Lin Zexu • Qing’s defeat by British humiliated Qing government and the Chinese • “Treaty of Nanjing” stipulated China’s war compensation in twelve articles • one says, “The island of Hong Kong to be possessed in perpetuity” by Victoria and her successors, and ruled as they “shall see fit” • British merchants and soldiers entered Canton as a result of its opening as a treaty port were with anti-British attacks by rural militias and urban mobs • Violent attackers were met by British reprisals and reciprocal atrocities
More Western Presence • Many Chinese began to realize that British army and navy are superior to China’s • More foreign presence/aggression in China coincided with waves of domestic turbulence, such as the Taiping and Nian
The advance of foreign intrusion • “Second Opium War,” or “Arrow War” (1856-1860) • British moved jointly with the Americans and French to press for treaty revision • Qing search of British ship, “Arrow,” a smuggler’s ship furnished British pretext for a new series of military action
Results of the Violent War • Violent war took place in 1859 before the forts of Dagu, where Qing army was defeated • Twenty thousand British and French troops entered into Bejing, sacked and burnt the Summer Palace, the famous Yuan-ming-yuan, to the ground Yuanming yuan ruins
China Encircled • In the end of 1850’s, Qing China was encircled by foreign powers • Russia in the northwest—invaded Xinjiang • Japan in the east—occupied the Ryukyu Islands • France in the southeast Asia and southeast China—took Vietnam, laid seige to Ningpo, occupied the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) British soldiers slaughtered boxers
War with Japan • Japan’s sweeping economic and institutional reforms of the Meiji Restoration, which began in 1868, made Japan a strong power Captivated Boxers
Japan’s military expansion • Resulted in: • the annexation of Ryukyus (1879) • seizing Korean palace during its domestic rebellion (1894) • seizing Chinese harbor at Lüshun • Defeating Chinese Northern Fleet (2 battleships, 10 cruisers, 2 torpedo boats (1895) • Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan to Japan “in perpetuity” Allies soldiers whoring
Late Qing’s Modernization Effort • Both the Taipings and foreign powers pushed the Qing to strengthen itself through modernization: • The Taipings: • Competent governors learned experience from their wars with the Taipings • Foreign powers: • Superiority of western weaponry • The humiliating defeat by Japan in Sino-Japanese war in 1895
French and British invasion in 1860 forced the Qing to adopt a conciliatory policy toward foreign powers • Leader of more open-minded reformers: Yi Xin and Wen Xiang • The Conservatives in the Qing court blocked the reform • The Empress Dowager Cixi, Yi Huan, Wo Ren Cixi ordered the Boxers to fight allies’ armies
Before the Boxers: China Crucified • During 1898 and 1899, foreign powers intensified their pressures and outrages on China • The Germans occupied Qingdao • The British took over Weihaiwei • Also forced the Qing to lease a large area of fertile farmland on the Kowloon peninsula north of Hong Kong for 99 years, which the British called “The New Territories” • The Russians occupied Lüshun
The French claimed special rights in China’s southwesten provinces and on the island of Hainan • The Japanese, already masters of Taiwan, intensified their economic penetration of central China • The US wanted China to declare an “open door” policy, under the terms of which all countries agree not to deny others’ access to their spheres of influences • The Chinese began to fear that their country was about to be “carved up like a melon” (guafen)
Early phase of the Boxers—Restore the Han and Destroy the Manchus
The Boxer Uprising (1898-1901) • “The Boxers United in Righteousness” (Yihequan) appeared as an expression of nationalism • Emerged in northwest Shandong in 1898 Yellow Dragon Triangular Banner
A collective force of a variety of secret-society and self-defense units that had spread in southern Shandong previously in response to the provocations of Western missionaries and their Chinese converts
Desperate local farmers and workers plagued by flood and drought joined the force to call for the ending of special privileges enjoyed by Christian converts and Christian missionaries • By 1898, they had destroyed/stolen a good deal of property from Chinese Christians and had killed several converts in the Shandong-Hebei border area
Foreigners, alarmed by the Boxers killing, demanded that the Qing suppress the Boxers and their supporters Boxers’ Banner
The Boxers responded with a slogan, “Revive the Qing, destroy the foreign” • Many boxers believed they were invulnerable to swords and bullets in combat • “when at last the Foreign Devils/Are expelled to the very last man/The Great Qing, united, together/Will bring peace to this our land”–one catchy jingle
Foreigners killed Chinese during the Boxer Rebellion Empress Dowager Cixi
The Expansion of the Boxers • The Boxers expanded dramatically • 70 percent were poor peasants, male and young • The rest were mixture of itinerants and artisans • Peddlers, rickshaw men, sedan-chair carriers, canal boatmen, leather workers, knife sharpeners, barbers, dismissed soldiers, salt smugglers • Joined by female Boxer groups, such as the Red Lanterns Shining (Hongdeng zhao) • They harassed or killed foreigners and Chinese converts, and sometimes even those possessed foreign objects
The Qing court wavered between punishing the Boxers who killed foreigners and condoning their show of anti-foreign “loyalty”
Qing Declaration of War • Western forces seized the forts at Dagu to provide cover for a troop landing, should full-scale war broke out • News of battle at the Dagu ports arrived Beijing, which agitated Qing court and Beijing citizens • German minister was shot dead in the street as he went to an interview with the Zhongli Yamen, which was in charge of foreign affairs • The Boxers force laid siege to the foreign-legation areas • Praising the Boxers as a loyal militia, the empress dowager Cixi issued a “declaration of war” against the foreign powers
Full-Scale War • With the government behind them, the Boxers launched a series attacks on mission compounds and on foreigners • In August 1900, the colonial troops of the Allied nations, about 20,000, fought they way through Beijing • Soldiers of eight nations sacked the city and burnt imperial palace, the Forbidden City, and used it as the headquarters for the foreign expeditionary force • Boxer resistance quickly crumbled, hundreds of thousand were killed • More than two hundred foreigners were killed • Empress Dowager and Emperor Guangxu fled to the West, establishing a temporary capital in the city of Xi’an
Allies taking picture in front of Dehong Lou, Nanhai ; (standing in the center) German Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee
The Northern Gate of the Forbidden City, Allies’ Victory Parade
Allies holding “occupation ceremony” in front of Golden Water Bridge at Tiananmen, after occupied Beijing in August 15, 1900
Missionaries before the Boxers, often regarded as precursors of European imperialism
Chinese slaved by German soldiers Japanese artillery in front of the Desheng Gate
Revolution • Qing’s being “carved up like a melon” was a national disgrace, which Han Chinese could not tolerate • Revolutionaries wanted to overthrow the Manchu state “to avenge the national disgrace”, and “to restore the Chinese”
