Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, Boxer Movement, or Yihetuan Movement (traditional Chinese: 義和團運動; simplified Chinese: 义和团运動), was an anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. Its members were known as the "Boxers" in English, owing to many of them practicing Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". It was defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers.

Following the First Sino-Japanese War, villagers in North China feared the expansion of foreign spheres of influence and resented Christian missionaries who ignored local customs and used their power to protect their followers in court. In 1898, North China experienced natural disasters, including the Yellow River flooding and droughts, which Boxers blamed on foreign and Christian influence. Beginning in 1899, the movement spread across Shandong and the North China Plain, destroying foreign property such as railroads, and attacking or murdering Chinese Christians and missionaries. The events came to a head in June 1900, when Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support the Qing government and exterminate the foreigners".

Diplomats, missionaries, soldiers, and some Chinese Christians took refuge in the Legation Quarter, which the Boxers besieged. The Eight-Nation Alliance—comprising American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian troops—invaded China to lift the siege and on 17 June stormed the Dagu Fort at Tianjin. Empress Dowager Cixi, who had initially been hesitant, supported the Boxers and on 21 June issued an imperial decree that was a de facto declaration of war on the invading powers. Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favouring conciliation, led by Prince Qing. The supreme commander of the Chinese forces, the Manchu general Ronglu, later claimed he acted to protect the foreigners. Officials in the southern provinces ignored the imperial order to fight against foreigners.

The Eight-Nation Alliance, after initially being turned back by the Imperial Chinese military and Boxer militia, brought 20,000 armed troops to China. They defeated the Imperial Army in Tianjin and arrived in Beijing on 14 August, relieving the 55-day Siege of the International Legations. Plunder and looting of the capital and the surrounding countryside ensued, along with summary execution of those suspected of being Boxers in retribution. The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 1901 provided for the execution of government officials who had supported the Boxers, for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and for 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 invading nations. The Qing dynasty's handling of the Boxer Rebellion further weakened both their credibility and control over China, and led to the Late Qing reforms, and to a greater extent the Xinhai Revolution.

The Righteous and Harmonious Fists arose in the inland sections of the northern coastal province of Shandong, a region which had long been plagued by social unrest, religious sects, and martial societies. American Christian missionaries were probably the first people who referred to the well-trained, athletic young men as the "Boxers", because of the martial arts which they practised and the weapons training which they underwent. Their primary practice was a type of spiritual possession which involved the whirling of swords, violent prostrations, and incantations to deities.

The opportunities to fight against Western encroachment were especially attractive to unemployed village men, many of whom were teenagers. The tradition of possession and invulnerability went back several hundred years but took on special meaning against the powerful new weapons of the West. The Boxers, armed with rifles and swords, claimed supernatural invulnerability against cannons, rifle shots, and knife attacks. The Boxer groups popularly claimed that millions of soldiers would descend out of heaven to assist them in purifying China of foreign oppression. Members demonstrated their claimed invulnerability to new initiates by firing guns loaded with blank rounds at one another.

In 1895, despite ambivalence toward their heterodox practices, Yuxian, a Manchu who was the then prefect of Cao Prefecture and would later become provincial governor, cooperated with the Big Swords Society, whose original purpose was to fight bandits. The German Catholic missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word had built up their presence in the area, partially by taking in a significant portion of converts who were "in need of protection from the law". On one occasion in 1895, a large bandit gang defeated by the Big Swords Society claimed to be Catholics to avoid prosecution. "The line between Christians and bandits became increasingly indistinct", remarks historian Paul Cohen.

Some missionaries such as Georg Maria Stenz also used their privileges to intervene in lawsuits. The Big Swords responded by attacking Catholic properties and burning them. As a result of diplomatic pressure in the capital, Yuxian executed several Big Sword leaders but did not punish anyone else. More martial secret societies started emerging after this.