Was this a patriotic act or an uncivilized act?
Let us look at how the textbook's authors evaluate the Boxer rebels.
The textbook correctly disclosed that "after the United Armies of the Eight Nations entered Bejing, arson, murders and looting was committed"; "when the United Armies of the Eight Nations invaded Tianjin ... the Russians committed the shocking massacre at Hailanpao. The Russian army also forcibly took over China's Jiangdong Liushisitun and butchered the local residents." Apart from the above, everything else was error-filled.
1. The textbook did not mention anything about how the Boxers were hostile to modern civilization or they blindly rejected foreigners and all foreign civilizations through extremely ignorant ways.
The Boxers cut down telegraph lines, they destroyed schools, they demolished railroad tracks, they burned foreign merchandise, they murdered foreigners and all Chinese who had any connection of foreign culture ... any person or thing that had some foreign flavor had to be totally annihilated. Even if the Boxers made great contributions towards "supporting the Qing government and destroying the foreigners," you should not be avoiding those anti-civilization and anti-humanity mistakes. Besides, these criminal actions brought unspeakable suffering to the nation and its people! These are all facts that everybody knows, and it is a national shame that the Chinese people cannot forget. Yet our children's compulsory textbooks will not speak about it.
The textbooks also spoke about the destruction of the railroad tracks. But what did it say? "In June 1900 ... more than 2,000 invaders from the Eight Nations led by British navy commander Moore went from Dagu through Tianjin towards Beijing. The Boxers destroyed the railroad track from Tianjin to Beijing and then attacked the invading force. The invading force was surrounded near Langfang by the Boxers and suffered many casualties before retreating back to Tianjin." On this basis, the destruction of the railroad track was just an unavoidable act required to repel the invaders. But what actually happened?
On May 28, 1900, the local governor Yu Lu telegraphed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "On the evening of May 27, we learned that the Boxer bandits have destroyed the railroad tracks from Zhuozhou to Liulihe. This morning, all railroad stations, bridges and buildings belonging to the railroad department along the 100 mile stretch from Liulihe to Changxindian have been attacked and set on fire by the Boxer bandits." At the same time, other emergency reports flooded in: "The telegraph is now down ... the line to Changxindian is down; the line from Liulihe to Zhuozhou is also cut off by the bandits and all telegraph messages are stopped." They destroyed these equipment solely because these things came from the outside, and not because there were unavoidable actions that had to taken to stop the invaders. At the same time, these activities occurred everywhere and they were not infrequent actions that took place in isolated areas That is to say, this was intentional destruction of property, and not what some historians credited as heroic measures to resist the invaders. From the timing, Moore's army was forced to retreat back to Tianjin between June 10 and June 26. Prior to this, the urgent reports from everywhere about the destruction of the railroad and telegraph lines, the burning of the train stations and the looting of property had already been coming in. The Boxers burned, killed, looted and deliberately destroyed modern civilization first, and then the United Armies of the Eight Nations came. This chronology is the historical truth and cannot be revised.
2. The textbooks did not condemn the Qing dynasty and the Boxers for killing the innocent and their barbaric and cruel crimes in burning, killing and looting.
The most representative case is what the Shanxi official Yu Xian did. On June 27, he burned down the foreign hospital in Taiyuan. He lured the foreigners in the province to stay together in one place. At the time, there were 211 women, some of whom were old but most of them between 5 to 30 years old, in the church ... on June 13, he personally led the troops to the place where the foreigners were gathered. The foreigners attempted to resist arrest, but the troops overpowered them and arrested 44 foreigners as well as 17 other Chinese converts. All were brought to the marketplace and executed"; "in Shouyang county, Qin Xingui arrested seven foreign troublemakers and brought them there for execution. That night, the Northern Gate church was set on fire by the Boxers. There are no signs of any foreign churches left in the provincial capital city." At the time, the newspapers even reported: "The westerner at Yujin heard about the troubles in the capital, and they asked official Yu Xian for protection. But he told them to gather together and then he butchered them; he was personally responsible for killing several people with his own hands."
The actions of Yu Xian was not isolated. All these obstinate regressives were the inheritors of the most retrogressive and barbaric elements of traditional culture. There were numerous examples in which these obstinate bureaucrats caused trouble. For example, the Hebei province official Dai Lan was ordered to "direct" the Boxers with Dai Xun and Gang Yi, and his cruelty was no less than Yu Xian's: "When the trouble began in the capital, Dai Lan let the Boxer bandits enter the large houses and conduct searches. If they find carpets and other stuff, the occupants were regarded as believers and executed. Not even royal relatives were spared."
Let us look at what the Boxers did.
Previously, it has been pointed out that we cannot regard all those people who participated in the Boxer organization should be regarded as bandits because some of them were just blind followers. But there are quite a few bandits and hooligans there. Overall during the Boxer incident between June 24 and July 24 of 2000, 231 foreigners were killed, of which 53 were children. Most of them died at the hands of the Boxers. As for the Chinese believers who were killed, there is no known number. Most of them were killed by the Boxers, and others by the government soldiers. In Shanxi province alone, more than 5,700 Catholic followers were killed. In Liaoning province, "more than one thousand believers." "In Heibei province, killings and arson occurred in every single county. In one county alone, between 1,000 to 2,000 were killed." Even in Zhejiang province, "looting and burning of the homes of believers occurred more than 1,000 times."
"The maximum damage" occurred in Beijing, where there were many records left behind by the victims. On June 18, 1900, "the burning and destruction began in midday and the fire was still going at night ... if you don't like someone, you accuse them of being believers and you murder their entire family. The number of dead was more than 100,000. Most people died from knifes and spears, and their bodies were cut up. Even babies not more than a month old were slaughtered. There was no feeling of humanity left." "The French catholic church was located inside Xian Gate. Gang Yi supervised the soldiers to attack the church, but they could not breach the defense. The Boxers did not dare advance so they ended up shouting a lot. Then they turned around and headed towards Yongding Gate. There were about 70 rural villagers going to the market. These people were seized and accused of being from the White Lotus Sect because they carried some children toys and clothes. Under interrogation, they had nothing to confess to. So they were all executed in the marketplace. One woman was executed while still holding her child in her arms ... Yu Ding tried to appeal on their behalf by saying: 'There has to be evidence for subversion. Old men and weak women are not subversives; toys are not weapons for subversion ...' But it was too late as the sentence had been carried out already."
On June 16, "at 9am, the Boxers set fire to the Deji Pharmacy at the Dasanlan district. The fire moved on to the food stores, the lamp street, the Guanyin temple, the jewel market ... and more then 4,000 shops were burned down. The fire did not stop until daylight. The bandits forbade the fire brigade to fight the fire with water." Thus, the most prosperous and busy section of Beijing was destroyed in one day. Overall, "at its peak, there were more than four million living in Beijing. When the Boxer chaos came, the bandits came and looted the city with no one spared. The market was deserted, and even wild animals can be seen roaming in broad daylight. The formerly busy streets were like graveyards." This was one of the results of the so-called Boxer "revolution."
At first, the contradictions between the people versus the preachers and the converts drew some sympathy. But what they did later far exceeded anything to do with conflicts with outside religions. Afterwards all the way through the founding of the republic, the consensus opinion of the officials and citizens was that this organization should be properly regarded and defined as the Boxer bandits.
3. The most incomprehensible thing is that there is no mention of the fact that this calamity was brought about by the autocracy of the Empress Dowager.
When the Boxers first emerged, Yuan Shikai presented a report to the Emperor: "They deceive the people by claiming to be able to dodge and repel bullets and cannonballs. But whenever they fought against the militia, the Christians and the soldiers, many of them die by gunfire and they dissolve away quickly ... they attempt to sway people by claiming to want to destroy the foreigners. Yet between last Spring and Summer, they robbed the homes of more than 1,100 believers as well as more than 200 ordinary citizens in Caozhou and Jining. Between Autumn and Winter in Dongyang and Jinan, they robbed the homes of more then 600 believers and more than 100 ordinary citizens. There were also many cases of kidnapping for ransom. These people are no different from bandits. Believers suffered at their hands, but so do many ordinary citizens." Certain other more senior officials than Yuan Shikai (such as the Lord of the Northern Sea and the Hebei province governor Yu Lu) also offered similar opinions. But the Empress Dowager refused to listen. So the more perceptive officials can only maintain their silence, while other officials of bad character ran with the trend and looked for favors (such as Yu Lu).
So a weak country which could not even handle a "tiny little country" such as Japan six years ago wanted to simultaneously declare war against eleven nations including Japan! Sixty years after the "International Law" reached China, they wanted to send troops to attack the foreign consulates in China!
To decide between war and peace, from June 16, 1900, the Empress Dowager held a four-day conference with the senior government officials. At the conference, many officials pleaded with the Empress Dowager not to listen to the evil cultists, not to assault the consulates and not to declare war first. The Foreign Ministry officials Yuan Changhu and Xu Jingdeng wrote in a joint petition: "Since ancient history, when two nations go to war, they do not kill innocent travelers. In international law, the consul is a major official of the country. To hold the consul in contempt is to hold the country in contempt. If the orders are sent for the bandits to attack the consulates and kill their officials, the countries will regard this as a huge humiliation and they will united together to seek revenge. For one country to fight against all the other countries is not a matter of winning or losing; it is about keeping or losing the entire country as a result." But the Empress Dowager not only did not accept these obvious commonsense wisdom, but she threw a fit and had those two officials executed!
At the same time, most of the crimes such as Yu Xin killing the foreigners occurred after the order to declare war on the other nations on June 21 and the order to the local governors to kill the foreigners on June 24. Therefore, the head criminal is the Empress Dowager, and people like Yu Xin and Dai Yi were just brutal executioners.
4. The textbook is not serious about handling certain historical materials.
"The Boxers arose from Shandong and by March, the earth was red everywhere. All the children took up knives to become heroes who defend the nation." The textbook highlighted this folksong and said that this was a "Boxer folksong." But this author has never been able to find anything that supports this after reading all the existing Boxer flyers and documents. Usually, the so-called oral tales from such investigations are created by others later on, and are not trustworthy.
The textbook also said: "In Beijing's Dongdan Xibiao Hutong, there is a temple of Yu Qian. In order to learn from Yu Qian's patriotic spirit, the Boxer entered the city in April 2000 and then set up their altar there." All academic viewpoints should reject unfounded assertions. Dai Yi, Dai Lan and other Manchurian lords who brought calamity to the country and its people also had Boxer altars set up inside their homes. So what were the Boxers trying to learn from them?
In our country, apart from the aforementioned textbook published by the People's Educational Publisher, there is another set of textbooks used in the coastal regions. This is known as the coastal edition, and it contains even more factual errors in places and the notion of right versus wrong is even more muddled.
For example, it describing the Boxer incident, it added these sentences: "After mid-June, the Boxer masses began to surround the Xishiku church and the foreign consulate areas occupied by the foreign invaders. The Qing government secretly delivered food, vegetables, wine and fruits to the besieged invaders." Every single sentence is wrong!
First, we ask: Is the Xishiku church "a site occupied by the invaders"? Prior to the Boxer incident, this was just an ordinary French Catholic church. There was nothing to prove that it is "a site occupied by the invaders." During the Boxer uprising, from June 13, 1900, most of the churches and residences in Beijing were destroyed in a few days, together with several thousand civilian homes and shops. The surviving Xishiku church and the Dongjiao consulate area provided shelter for a great many foreign survivors and Chinese believers. The survivors inside this church could not count on the Qing government to maintain normal social order and they were fighting back to avoid being massacred. There is no way to find fault either by reason or law. To say that this church is "a site occupied by the invaders" is irresponsible speech.
Next, the attack on the Dongjiao area was willed by the Empress Dowager. The main assault force was Dong Fuxiang's army and Rong Lu's army. They committed the crime and the Boxers were just helping them. To gloss over this fact and to make out as if the Boxers was a spontaneous patriotic action not only distorts the historical truth but it also conceals the fact that the Qing government had trampled all over international law. Furthermore, the attack against the Xishiku church and the consulate area revealed the ignorance and brutality of the autocracy and its autocrat. If this cannot even be confronted in the late 90's of the twentieth century, then this represents ignorance of international law while praising a national shame and forgetting the duty to oppose the feudal autocracy!
Now look at the second sentence. The Qing government did sent daily supplies to the besieged foreign consulates. This was done publicly and so that "secretly" was not based on historical data. At the time, some more alert officials in the Qing government repeatedly requested protection of foreign diplomats and citizens in accordance with international law. The various governors of the southeastern provinces actually publicly stated that they will not follow the "false order" after the June 21 declaration of war. In the face of these pressures, the Empress Dowagers backed off and besides she also wanted some space left for maneuver. No matter what, the Qing government still had some people inside who had not completely lost their rationality and conscience. But to demean their actions with respect to that of the Boxers is clearly inappropriate.
Again, the Hong Kong textbook presents a more complete picture of the Boxer incident and the United Armies of the Eight Nations. They denounced the Boxers for "large-scale xenophobia, murdering preachers and believers including even those who own foreign books or wear eyeglasses, destroying everything, burning churches, cutting down telegraph lines, destroying railroad tracks." "A secretary in the Japanese embassy and the German consul were killed." But they also pointed out that "the discipline of the United Armies was very poor and they burned, looted and killed at will. Among them, the Russians, the Germans and the Indian soldiers of the English contingent were particularly brutal." They analyzed in detail the background which allowed the Boxers to rise: 1. Nationalism. 2. Poverty. 3. Invasion of the foreign powers. 4. Frequent occurrence of cases concerning religion. They also covered the contents of the Treaty of Xinchou and its deep effect on China then and later. Any unprejudiced person will agree that this textbook contained the true history.