1
00:00:09,090 --> 00:00:12,180
Beijing has a lane called Dongjiaomin Xiang.
2
00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:14,390
It runs east from the inside of
3
00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:18,600
Chongwenmen and west to the road along the east side of Tiananmen Square,
4
00:00:19,330 --> 00:00:21,380
a little over fifteen hundred metres,
5
00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:23,160
the longest lane in Beijing.
6
00:00:23,650 --> 00:00:26,840
In September 1901 a treaty stated that this
7
00:00:26,850 --> 00:00:29,160
strip was set aside for the legations
8
00:00:29,180 --> 00:00:31,630
of the foreign powers, to be defended
9
00:00:31,650 --> 00:00:34,060
by them, and that Chinese people were
10
00:00:34,070 --> 00:00:36,000
not permitted to live inside it.
11
00:00:36,470 --> 00:00:38,020
A street in the middle of a
12
00:00:38,030 --> 00:00:40,750
Chinese city where Chinese people could not
13
00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,000
live. That treaty — where did it come
14
00:00:44,020 --> 00:00:44,440
from?
15
00:00:45,580 --> 00:00:47,890
Begin with the weather that summer.
16
00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:51,630
In 1899, the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu,
17
00:00:51,850 --> 00:00:55,230
the governor-general of Zhili, Yulu, sent up
18
00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:58,820
a memorial. It reads: "since summer and
19
00:00:58,830 --> 00:01:00,550
autumn of this year rain has been
20
00:01:00,570 --> 00:01:03,910
scarce, and the drought-stricken districts of Zhili,
21
00:01:04,570 --> 00:01:08,420
Shanxi, Shandong and Henan are very extensive. "
22
00:01:09,010 --> 00:01:11,450
In Shandong that autumn the report reads:
23
00:01:12,350 --> 00:01:14,770
"insects have eaten the crops to nothing,
24
00:01:15,290 --> 00:01:17,100
and grain prices are high. "
25
00:01:17,670 --> 00:01:19,830
North of the Yellow River in Henan,
26
00:01:20,420 --> 00:01:23,660
across three prefectures, the report reads:
27
00:01:24,290 --> 00:01:26,660
"for a thousand li, not a bird
28
00:01:26,670 --> 00:01:29,390
is seen. " The drought carried into the
29
00:01:29,410 --> 00:01:33,570
next year. In 1900 the governor-general of Zhili,
30
00:01:34,230 --> 00:01:38,350
Li Hongzhang, reported fifteen districts and counties
31
00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:39,020
affected.
32
00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:42,440
And before the drought, this region had
33
00:01:42,450 --> 00:01:44,340
been fighting a different war for a
34
00:01:44,350 --> 00:01:47,850
long time. Between foreign missionaries and Chinese
35
00:01:47,860 --> 00:01:50,850
Christians on one side, and Chinese who
36
00:01:50,860 --> 00:01:52,340
did not convert on the other,
37
00:01:53,070 --> 00:01:55,500
conflict had piled up over decades
38
00:01:56,280 --> 00:01:59,350
over the return of property, over levies,
39
00:01:59,790 --> 00:02:03,840
over lawsuits. In January 1900 the Shandong governor
40
00:02:03,850 --> 00:02:06,160
Yuan Shikai sent the Zongli Yamen a
41
00:02:06,170 --> 00:02:07,950
report with one figure in it:
42
00:02:08,630 --> 00:02:15,040
from August 1899 to January 1900, across three prefectures — Jinan,
43
00:02:15,410 --> 00:02:19,190
Dongchang, Tai'an — and the independent prefecture of
44
00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:22,040
Linqing, in seventeen districts and counties,
45
00:02:22,630 --> 00:02:24,380
there had been one hundred and forty-six
46
00:02:24,390 --> 00:02:27,070
incidents involving missionaries and converts.
47
00:02:27,540 --> 00:02:31,350
Five months. Seventeen districts and counties.
48
00:02:31,820 --> 00:02:33,810
One hundred and forty-six.
49
00:02:34,250 --> 00:02:36,200
The court was not calm either.
50
00:02:36,670 --> 00:02:40,820
After 1898, the Empress Dowager Cixi had resumed
51
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:43,250
ruling from behind the curtain, and the
52
00:02:43,260 --> 00:02:45,700
Guangxu Emperor had lost real power.
53
00:02:46,170 --> 00:02:50,280
On 24 January 1900 the court issued an edict
54
00:02:50,290 --> 00:02:53,250
in the emperor's name, naming Pujun,
55
00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:56,730
son of Prince Duan Zaiyi, as Heir
56
00:02:56,750 --> 00:03:00,350
Apparent. The edict went out; the foreign
57
00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:04,310
ministers refused to offer congratulations, and the
58
00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:05,850
matter was set aside.
59
00:03:06,990 --> 00:03:09,510
In that same year an organisation called
60
00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:11,930
the Boxers spread out from Shandong and
61
00:03:11,950 --> 00:03:14,360
Zhili. The name was not new.
62
00:03:14,830 --> 00:03:18,180
The three characters " Yihe Quan" appear as
63
00:03:18,260 --> 00:03:22,050
early as 1779, in a memorial from
64
00:03:22,060 --> 00:03:25,230
the governor-general of Zhili, Zhou Yuanli.
65
00:03:25,700 --> 00:03:30,680
On 26 October 1898, at Jiangjiazhuang in Liyuantun,
66
00:03:30,950 --> 00:03:34,230
Guan County, Shandong, Zhao Sanduo and Yan
67
00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:36,640
Shuqin and others gathered and attacked the
68
00:03:36,650 --> 00:03:39,770
local church. Zhao Sanduo belonged to the
69
00:03:39,780 --> 00:03:43,120
Plum Blossom boxing school, and he renamed
70
00:03:43,140 --> 00:03:47,700
it " Yihe Quan". In June 1900 large numbers
71
00:03:47,710 --> 00:03:49,760
of Boxers entered Beijing.
72
00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:52,140
They came into the inner city on
73
00:03:52,150 --> 00:03:55,510
13 June. That day eleven churches in the
74
00:03:55,520 --> 00:03:58,640
city were burned, among them the Asiatic
75
00:03:58,650 --> 00:04:02,770
Petroleum chapel in Xiaoshun Hutong, the Catholic
76
00:04:02,860 --> 00:04:06,180
East Church at Bamiancao, and the Congregational
77
00:04:06,200 --> 00:04:08,840
church at Dengshikou. The same day,
78
00:04:09,060 --> 00:04:11,890
three thousand two hundred Catholics took refuge
79
00:04:11,900 --> 00:04:13,800
in the North Cathedral in the western
80
00:04:13,810 --> 00:04:16,730
city, and more than two thousand Christians
81
00:04:16,740 --> 00:04:19,400
in the legation quarter at Dongjiaomin Xiang.
82
00:04:20,550 --> 00:04:23,830
On 11 June the Japanese legation's secretary,
83
00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:28,800
Sugiyama Akira, was killed inside Yongdingmen by
84
00:04:28,820 --> 00:04:31,270
Dong Fuxiang's Gansu troops.
85
00:04:31,740 --> 00:04:34,930
On 14 June the German minister von Ketteler
86
00:04:34,950 --> 00:04:37,460
ordered German soldiers to open fire,
87
00:04:38,050 --> 00:04:39,870
killing about twenty Boxers.
88
00:04:40,340 --> 00:04:43,460
On 19 June the Zongli Yamen informed the
89
00:04:43,480 --> 00:04:46,110
foreign envoys that they must leave Beijing
90
00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:49,340
within twenty-four hours. The next morning von
91
00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:51,540
Ketteler left in a sedan chair,
92
00:04:51,950 --> 00:04:54,170
to negotiate a delay at the Zongli
93
00:04:54,180 --> 00:04:54,730
Yamen.
94
00:04:55,850 --> 00:04:59,680
On the morning of 20 June 1900, the German
95
00:04:59,690 --> 00:05:02,590
minister von Ketteler left Dongjiaomin Xiang in
96
00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:05,460
a sedan chair, bound for the Zongli
97
00:05:05,470 --> 00:05:08,940
Yamen. The day before, the Zongli Yamen
98
00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:11,210
had told the foreign envoys to leave
99
00:05:11,220 --> 00:05:13,460
Beijing within twenty-four hours.
100
00:05:13,910 --> 00:05:16,000
Von Ketteler was going to ask for
101
00:05:16,020 --> 00:05:18,310
a delay. At the west mouth of
102
00:05:18,330 --> 00:05:21,620
Xizongbu Hutong, on the street north of
103
00:05:21,630 --> 00:05:24,870
the Dongdan arch, a Qing soldier fired.
104
00:05:25,300 --> 00:05:27,560
Von Ketteler died on the spot.
105
00:05:28,030 --> 00:05:30,220
Accounts from the time leave the name
106
00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:32,910
of the man who fired: Enhai,
107
00:05:33,220 --> 00:05:35,500
a bannerman of the musketry unit of
108
00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:39,120
the Shenjiying. On 31 December that year he
109
00:05:39,130 --> 00:05:41,060
was taken to the spot where von
110
00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:43,220
Ketteler died and executed there.
111
00:05:43,660 --> 00:05:47,490
That afternoon, Dongjiaomin Xiang was surrounded.
112
00:05:47,940 --> 00:05:50,470
The siege lasted fifty-five days.
113
00:05:51,610 --> 00:05:53,680
Inside were the legation guards of the
114
00:05:53,690 --> 00:05:56,590
various powers, more than four hundred men;
115
00:05:57,210 --> 00:05:59,750
four hundred and seventy-three foreign civilians
116
00:06:00,050 --> 00:06:02,530
one hundred and forty-nine women and seventy-nine
117
00:06:02,550 --> 00:06:05,140
children — and more than two thousand eight
118
00:06:05,150 --> 00:06:08,420
hundred Chinese Christians. Why they ran in:
119
00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:12,930
from 13 June onward, accounts of churches burned
120
00:06:12,940 --> 00:06:15,310
and Christians killed had come one after
121
00:06:15,330 --> 00:06:18,210
another. The total for those guards comes
122
00:06:18,220 --> 00:06:20,890
out differently depending on who is counting.
123
00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:23,430
Four hundred and thirty-two is the two
124
00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:25,490
waves of guards who came to Beijing
125
00:06:25,500 --> 00:06:28,310
added together; four hundred and nine is
126
00:06:28,330 --> 00:06:30,690
the number of soldiers actually defending the
127
00:06:30,710 --> 00:06:32,980
legation quarter when the siege began;
128
00:06:33,810 --> 00:06:35,780
eight hundred and eighty-two is the four
129
00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:38,020
hundred and nine soldiers plus the four
130
00:06:38,030 --> 00:06:40,480
hundred and seventy-three foreign civilians.
131
00:06:40,940 --> 00:06:43,440
Three numbers. Three bases.
132
00:06:44,580 --> 00:06:48,320
On 23 June, the Hanlin Academy — sharing a
133
00:06:48,340 --> 00:06:51,030
wall with the British legation — caught fire.
134
00:06:51,500 --> 00:06:54,440
B. L. Putnam Weale, a Briton then
135
00:06:54,460 --> 00:06:57,240
inside the legation quarter, wrote down that
136
00:06:57,250 --> 00:06:59,400
day in Indiscreet Letters from Peking:
137
00:07:00,100 --> 00:07:02,520
"yesterday a fire-setter came creeping like a
138
00:07:02,530 --> 00:07:05,520
cat... threw the fire-brand into the Hanlin,
139
00:07:05,900 --> 00:07:08,030
and in one hour the British legation,
140
00:07:08,220 --> 00:07:10,180
where all the ministers live, was in
141
00:07:10,190 --> 00:07:13,820
desperate danger. " The Hanlin stood right against
142
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,780
the British legation. The fire did not
143
00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:18,900
burn the stone-built legation.
144
00:07:19,380 --> 00:07:21,930
What burned was the Hanlin, and the
145
00:07:21,940 --> 00:07:23,580
books in its courtyard.
146
00:07:24,050 --> 00:07:26,370
Among those books were the Jiajing copy
147
00:07:26,380 --> 00:07:29,630
of the Yongle Encyclopedia — moved into the
148
00:07:29,650 --> 00:07:31,710
Jingyi Pavilion of the Hanlin during the
149
00:07:31,720 --> 00:07:34,630
Yongzheng reign — and the master copy of
150
00:07:34,650 --> 00:07:35,880
the Siku Quanshu.
151
00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:38,780
The count of that one book kept
152
00:07:38,790 --> 00:07:41,710
falling. Under Qianlong it was checked and
153
00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:43,790
over nine thousand volumes were held;
154
00:07:44,630 --> 00:07:47,970
a second check in 1875 found under five
155
00:07:47,990 --> 00:07:52,210
thousand; in 1894 Weng Tonghe made a count
156
00:07:52,290 --> 00:07:53,980
and found eight hundred left.
157
00:07:54,460 --> 00:07:56,440
How much was lost in this fire,
158
00:07:56,470 --> 00:07:59,740
accounts differ: one says at least six
159
00:07:59,750 --> 00:08:02,650
hundred and five volumes, another says about
160
00:08:02,660 --> 00:08:05,740
three hundred. After the fire, the British
161
00:08:05,750 --> 00:08:08,340
legation handed back about three hundred and
162
00:08:08,350 --> 00:08:09,440
thirty volumes.
163
00:08:10,570 --> 00:08:13,570
Life inside the siege was one ceasefire
164
00:08:13,580 --> 00:08:16,320
after another, and then firing again.
165
00:08:16,790 --> 00:08:20,380
On 25 June the Qing troops stopped attacking.
166
00:08:20,850 --> 00:08:22,520
They raised a white flag at the
167
00:08:22,540 --> 00:08:24,580
north bridge and hung out a wooden
168
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:28,380
board reading: " By imperial edict the legations
169
00:08:28,390 --> 00:08:30,890
are to be protected; the attack is
170
00:08:30,900 --> 00:08:33,890
stopped at once. " At midnight that day
171
00:08:33,900 --> 00:08:37,020
the shelling resumed, and the British minister
172
00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:39,630
Claude MacDonald called it in his report
173
00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:41,540
the heaviest of the whole siege.
174
00:08:42,020 --> 00:08:45,130
On 17 July the two sides agreed a
175
00:08:45,140 --> 00:08:48,610
ceasefire. There was another line of events
176
00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:49,920
in the western city.
177
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:52,660
The North Cathedral was surrounded from the
178
00:08:52,670 --> 00:08:55,790
evening of 15 June and held out until
179
00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:57,040
16 August.
180
00:08:58,180 --> 00:09:00,270
The day after the siege began,
181
00:09:00,300 --> 00:09:03,900
21 June, the court issued an edict.
182
00:09:04,370 --> 00:09:07,800
Later generations usually call it the "declaration
183
00:09:07,820 --> 00:09:10,950
of war edict". The edict names no
184
00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:14,740
country. Throughout, it calls the other side
185
00:09:14,790 --> 00:09:17,790
only "them". What is later described as
186
00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:20,390
"a declaration of war on eleven countries"
187
00:09:21,210 --> 00:09:23,100
those eleven are the signatories of the
188
00:09:23,110 --> 00:09:26,270
Boxer Protocol the following year: Germany,
189
00:09:26,610 --> 00:09:31,550
Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, France, Britain, Italy,
190
00:09:31,580 --> 00:09:34,230
the United States, Japan, the Netherlands and
191
00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:37,100
Russia. Whether this edict amounts to a
192
00:09:37,110 --> 00:09:40,820
formal declaration of war, historians hold two
193
00:09:40,830 --> 00:09:43,570
positions. Both are set out here.
194
00:09:44,050 --> 00:09:46,600
One position holds that it is not
195
00:09:46,620 --> 00:09:50,900
a formal declaration. In 2006 the first issue
196
00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:54,960
of Shixue Yuekan, published by Henan University,
197
00:09:55,680 --> 00:09:58,430
carried Guo Tianxiang's article " A query on
198
00:09:58,450 --> 00:10:01,040
the 'declaration of war' by the Qing
199
00:10:01,050 --> 00:10:04,400
government in 1900". He puts four points:
200
00:10:05,110 --> 00:10:07,140
the edict names no clear opponent;
201
00:10:07,670 --> 00:10:10,320
no Chinese or foreign newspaper reported a
202
00:10:10,330 --> 00:10:13,770
declaration; the envoys abroad and the foreign
203
00:10:13,790 --> 00:10:15,890
side knew nothing of it; and the
204
00:10:15,900 --> 00:10:18,420
Qing government neither broke off relations with
205
00:10:18,430 --> 00:10:20,820
the powers nor recalled its envoys.
206
00:10:21,300 --> 00:10:23,570
Hu Sheng, in From the Opium War
207
00:10:23,580 --> 00:10:26,230
to the May Fourth Movement, also writes
208
00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:28,210
that this edict was not delivered to
209
00:10:28,230 --> 00:10:30,290
any foreign government in any form.
210
00:10:30,730 --> 00:10:33,100
The other position holds that it is
211
00:10:33,110 --> 00:10:34,700
a declaration of war.
212
00:10:35,180 --> 00:10:37,740
The Qing History edited by Nan Bingwen,
213
00:10:37,770 --> 00:10:40,890
the General History of China: Early Modern
214
00:10:40,900 --> 00:10:43,670
edited by Bai Shouyi, Lin Huaguo's A
215
00:10:43,680 --> 00:10:46,520
Study of Boxer Affairs, and the Cambridge
216
00:10:46,540 --> 00:10:49,610
History of China: Late Ch'ing edited by
217
00:10:49,620 --> 00:10:51,710
John King Fairbank all treat it as
218
00:10:51,730 --> 00:10:54,230
one. Both positions stand.
219
00:10:55,360 --> 00:10:57,390
Take the attacking side first.
220
00:10:57,860 --> 00:11:00,820
The nominal commander was the Grand Councillor
221
00:11:00,830 --> 00:11:04,070
Ronglu. The main force actually attacking was
222
00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:07,770
Dong Fuxiang's Gansu troops, pressing in from
223
00:11:07,790 --> 00:11:09,260
the north and the west.
224
00:11:09,700 --> 00:11:13,290
They had artillery. Li Yuerui, a man
225
00:11:13,300 --> 00:11:16,400
of the time, recorded one incident in
226
00:11:16,420 --> 00:11:19,510
Chunbing Shi Yecheng —The court pressed for the
227
00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:23,550
attack; the Wuwei Army's field-gun battery entered
228
00:11:23,570 --> 00:11:26,490
the city. The Tianjin brigade general Zhang
229
00:11:26,510 --> 00:11:28,950
Huaizhi got the guns onto the wall
230
00:11:28,990 --> 00:11:30,290
and then held fire.
231
00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:32,400
He came down from the wall to
232
00:11:32,420 --> 00:11:34,620
see Ronglu and asked for a written
233
00:11:34,640 --> 00:11:38,830
order. Ronglu said: " Either way, the sound
234
00:11:38,850 --> 00:11:40,950
of the guns will be heard inside. "
235
00:11:41,420 --> 00:11:45,330
Zhang Huaizhi understood. He went back up
236
00:11:45,350 --> 00:11:47,830
and changed his tune, saying the ranging
237
00:11:47,850 --> 00:11:49,460
was off and the guns must be
238
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,670
re-laid; he moved the battery and fired
239
00:11:52,680 --> 00:11:54,140
for a day and a night at
240
00:11:54,150 --> 00:11:56,390
open ground outside the legations.
241
00:11:56,850 --> 00:11:59,070
The legations were not damaged.
242
00:11:59,550 --> 00:12:01,770
During the siege the two sides were
243
00:12:01,790 --> 00:12:05,270
still in touch. On 25 June the Qing
244
00:12:05,290 --> 00:12:08,050
troops stopped firing and sent watermelons and
245
00:12:08,070 --> 00:12:11,380
vegetables to the legations; from mid-July they
246
00:12:11,390 --> 00:12:14,680
also sent vegetables, white rice, watermelons and
247
00:12:14,700 --> 00:12:15,200
wine.
248
00:12:16,340 --> 00:12:18,030
Now the defending side.
249
00:12:18,500 --> 00:12:20,290
More than four hundred guards from the
250
00:12:20,310 --> 00:12:23,780
various powers held several positions: the British
251
00:12:23,790 --> 00:12:26,400
legation at the core; the United States
252
00:12:26,410 --> 00:12:28,070
and Germany on the city wall;
253
00:12:28,660 --> 00:12:31,690
France, Italy and Japan in the north-west.
254
00:12:32,130 --> 00:12:33,790
They were short of weapons.
255
00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:36,870
The heaviest gun the defenders had was
256
00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:39,220
one they had captured from the attacking
257
00:12:39,230 --> 00:12:41,920
side. Over the fifty-five days of the
258
00:12:41,940 --> 00:12:45,450
siege, the guards lost fifty-five killed and
259
00:12:45,470 --> 00:12:47,630
about one hundred and thirty-five wounded.
260
00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,370
On the other line, the North Cathedral
261
00:12:50,380 --> 00:12:52,540
was held by some forty French and
262
00:12:52,560 --> 00:12:56,120
Italian soldiers, together with about three thousand
263
00:12:56,130 --> 00:12:59,780
Chinese Christians. The attacking force numbered in
264
00:12:59,790 --> 00:13:03,070
the thousands. Mines were blown four times:
265
00:13:03,780 --> 00:13:08,790
11 July, 18 July, 12 August and 13 August.
266
00:13:09,260 --> 00:13:12,200
On 18 July, the western part of the
267
00:13:12,220 --> 00:13:14,920
Sisters' House at the cathedral's north end
268
00:13:14,940 --> 00:13:16,410
collapsed in a mass.
269
00:13:17,540 --> 00:13:20,700
The defenders' casualties were mostly not caused
270
00:13:20,710 --> 00:13:24,170
by bullets. The researcher Dai Haibin counted:
271
00:13:24,680 --> 00:13:26,800
during the siege of the North Cathedral
272
00:13:26,820 --> 00:13:29,170
more than four hundred died, one hundred
273
00:13:29,180 --> 00:13:31,790
and twenty of them children; far more
274
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:33,710
died of disease and hunger than of
275
00:13:33,730 --> 00:13:36,400
gunfire, and the great majority of them
276
00:13:36,420 --> 00:13:39,230
were Chinese. He also points to something
277
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:41,950
else: the cathedral held to the end
278
00:13:41,960 --> 00:13:44,600
not entirely because it was "well defended"
279
00:13:45,430 --> 00:13:47,480
most of the shells flew too high,
280
00:13:47,830 --> 00:13:49,920
and the Qing troops never attempted an
281
00:13:49,930 --> 00:13:51,700
assault at close quarters.
282
00:13:52,820 --> 00:13:56,270
That summer, both sides inside Beijing left
283
00:13:56,290 --> 00:14:00,400
records. On 13 June, eleven churches in the
284
00:14:00,420 --> 00:14:02,610
inner city caught fire on the same
285
00:14:02,630 --> 00:14:05,080
day. The commander of the gendarmerie,
286
00:14:05,630 --> 00:14:09,390
Chongli, wrote in his report: "churches within
287
00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:12,350
both wings of my jurisdiction suddenly caught
288
00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:13,950
fire at the you hour on the
289
00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:18,260
seventeenth, starting inside Chongwenmen in Xiaoshun Hutong...
290
00:14:19,430 --> 00:14:22,170
churches in various places caught fire one
291
00:14:22,180 --> 00:14:25,400
after another. " The next day, the Catholic
292
00:14:25,420 --> 00:14:28,640
South Cathedral inside Xuanwumen was burned.
293
00:14:29,130 --> 00:14:30,960
In the diary of Bishop Favier:
294
00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:34,270
"on 14 June, at half past eleven,
295
00:14:34,610 --> 00:14:36,800
the South Cathedral too caught fire;
296
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:39,670
the hospital, the schools and the foundling
297
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:41,130
home were all affected. "
298
00:14:41,610 --> 00:14:45,200
On 16 June a foreign-goods shop on Qianmen Street
299
00:14:45,210 --> 00:14:47,360
caught fire and the fire spread.
300
00:14:47,850 --> 00:14:51,230
The count afterwards: the Zhengyangmen gate tower
301
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:54,290
burned down; about a thousand shops and
302
00:14:54,300 --> 00:14:56,880
twenty-four silver-melting works were burned.
303
00:14:57,330 --> 00:15:00,320
The resident Zhongfang Shi recorded that day
304
00:15:00,330 --> 00:15:03,300
in Gengzi Jishi. The number of Christian
305
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:05,960
dead varies widely between accounts.
306
00:15:06,420 --> 00:15:09,170
The church historian Gu Changsheng's figures are
307
00:15:09,180 --> 00:15:12,290
about eighteen thousand Catholic converts and about
308
00:15:12,300 --> 00:15:14,510
five thousand Protestant converts.
309
00:15:14,930 --> 00:15:17,980
Another set of church statistics gives thirty
310
00:15:17,990 --> 00:15:21,790
thousand Chinese Catholics. The China Inland Mission
311
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:24,330
monthly of the time reprinted a London
312
00:15:24,350 --> 00:15:27,230
Times survey saying that in north China
313
00:15:27,850 --> 00:15:30,570
"between fifteen and twenty thousand believers were
314
00:15:30,580 --> 00:15:31,020
killed".
315
00:15:32,140 --> 00:15:34,150
In less than a month, it was
316
00:15:34,170 --> 00:15:35,560
the other side's turn.
317
00:15:36,010 --> 00:15:39,200
On 14 August the allied troops broke into
318
00:15:39,210 --> 00:15:42,520
Beijing. What followed was written down in
319
00:15:42,540 --> 00:15:44,300
the commander's own report.
320
00:15:44,770 --> 00:15:46,770
Waldersee wrote to the German emperor:
321
00:15:47,540 --> 00:15:49,430
"the details of all the damage and
322
00:15:49,450 --> 00:15:51,560
looting China suffered this time can never
323
00:15:51,580 --> 00:15:54,550
be ascertained, but they must unquestionably be
324
00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:57,180
very great... and the rapes of women,
325
00:15:57,200 --> 00:15:59,460
the acts of cruelty, the killing at
326
00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:01,400
will and the burning without cause that
327
00:16:01,420 --> 00:16:03,810
occurred during the looting were very numerous. "
328
00:16:04,290 --> 00:16:06,580
Zhongfang Shi wrote in his diary on
329
00:16:06,590 --> 00:16:08,680
the twenty-third day of the seventh month:
330
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:12,120
"the foreign soldiers of the various countries,
331
00:16:12,330 --> 00:16:14,300
after forming up on the twenty-first,
332
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:17,560
looted and plundered everywhere, all under the
333
00:16:17,580 --> 00:16:19,860
name of seizing Boxers and searching for
334
00:16:19,870 --> 00:16:22,680
arms... kicking in doors from house to
335
00:16:22,700 --> 00:16:26,050
house... every coin, watch and valuable was
336
00:16:26,060 --> 00:16:28,730
carried off, and this was called 'disturbing
337
00:16:28,740 --> 00:16:31,560
the city'. Anyone who stood in the
338
00:16:31,580 --> 00:16:34,620
way was killed. " Bertram Lenox Simpson,
339
00:16:35,330 --> 00:16:38,420
then inside the legation quarter, recorded in
340
00:16:38,430 --> 00:16:41,120
Indiscreet Letters from Peking that French troops
341
00:16:41,140 --> 00:16:43,730
machine-gunned a crowd of Chinese driven into
342
00:16:43,740 --> 00:16:46,870
a dead-end lane, "firing for about ten
343
00:16:46,890 --> 00:16:49,360
or fifteen minutes, until not one was
344
00:16:49,370 --> 00:16:53,290
left". On property: Japanese troops took about
345
00:16:53,300 --> 00:16:55,430
three million taels of silver from the
346
00:16:55,450 --> 00:16:58,770
Board of Revenue; Russian troops occupied the
347
00:16:58,790 --> 00:17:01,950
Summer Palace on 19 August and withdrew on
348
00:17:01,960 --> 00:17:03,010
2 October.
349
00:17:04,140 --> 00:17:06,590
How many people died in this conflict
350
00:17:06,610 --> 00:17:09,470
altogether — there is no agreed figure.
351
00:17:09,940 --> 00:17:12,580
Encyclopædia Britannica puts it this way:
352
00:17:13,430 --> 00:17:16,410
"perhaps 100,000 or more people died in
353
00:17:16,430 --> 00:17:19,800
the conflict, although estimates of casualties vary
354
00:17:19,810 --> 00:17:20,460
widely. "
355
00:17:21,610 --> 00:17:25,370
Negotiations began at the end of 1900.
356
00:17:25,840 --> 00:17:30,890
On 7 September 1901, Yikuang and Li Hongzhang signed
357
00:17:30,900 --> 00:17:33,080
the Boxer Protocol on behalf of the
358
00:17:33,090 --> 00:17:35,710
Qing government. On the signing side were
359
00:17:35,730 --> 00:17:39,920
eleven countries: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain,
360
00:17:39,930 --> 00:17:42,920
France, Britain, Italy, the United States,
361
00:17:42,930 --> 00:17:45,050
Japan, the Netherlands and Russia.
362
00:17:45,500 --> 00:17:48,310
The treaty has twelve articles and nineteen
363
00:17:48,330 --> 00:17:51,170
annexes. Four main provisions
364
00:17:51,650 --> 00:17:55,480
Indemnity: 450 million taels of customs silver,
365
00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:57,110
at four per cent a year,
366
00:17:57,590 --> 00:18:01,490
repaid over thirty-nine years from 1902, principal and
367
00:18:01,500 --> 00:18:05,930
interest together more than 982,230,000 taels,
368
00:18:06,310 --> 00:18:08,810
secured on the customs and salt revenues.
369
00:18:09,300 --> 00:18:12,860
The legation quarter: the Dongjiaomin Xiang area
370
00:18:12,870 --> 00:18:14,750
of Beijing was set aside for the
371
00:18:14,770 --> 00:18:17,280
exclusive use of the foreign legations,
372
00:18:17,870 --> 00:18:20,180
to be defended by each power itself,
373
00:18:20,750 --> 00:18:22,830
and Chinese people were not permitted to
374
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:25,460
live inside it. Forts and troops:
375
00:18:26,020 --> 00:18:28,180
the Dagu forts and all forts between
376
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:29,930
Beijing and the sea were to be
377
00:18:29,950 --> 00:18:33,520
razed; foreign powers could station troops along
378
00:18:33,530 --> 00:18:35,830
the railway from Beijing to Shanhaiguan;
379
00:18:36,700 --> 00:18:38,770
no Chinese troops within twenty li of
380
00:18:38,780 --> 00:18:41,230
Tianjin; and for at least two years
381
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:43,640
China was forbidden to import arms and
382
00:18:43,650 --> 00:18:45,140
the materials for making them.
383
00:18:45,610 --> 00:18:49,430
Prohibition of hostility to foreigners: Chinese people
384
00:18:49,450 --> 00:18:51,870
were permanently forbidden to form or join
385
00:18:51,890 --> 00:18:54,670
any organisation hostile to the foreign powers;
386
00:18:55,450 --> 00:18:57,560
officials who had supported the Boxers were
387
00:18:57,580 --> 00:18:59,810
to be punished; and in towns where
388
00:18:59,830 --> 00:19:03,170
incidents involving foreigners had occurred, the civil
389
00:19:03,180 --> 00:19:06,000
and military examinations were suspended for five
390
00:19:06,020 --> 00:19:10,590
years. The indemnity figure, 450 million taels,
391
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,480
was close to China's population at the
392
00:19:13,490 --> 00:19:16,620
time. Later on people said this was
393
00:19:17,150 --> 00:19:18,770
"one tael per person".
394
00:19:19,370 --> 00:19:21,620
Those four characters are not in the
395
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:25,450
treaty. Article 6 reads: "the indemnity to
396
00:19:25,460 --> 00:19:27,060
be paid to the powers shall be
397
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:30,150
450 million taels of customs silver...
398
00:19:31,110 --> 00:19:32,520
at four per cent a year,
399
00:19:33,150 --> 00:19:35,390
the principal to be repaid by China
400
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:38,310
over thirty-nine years in instalments according to
401
00:19:38,330 --> 00:19:41,680
the schedule annexed. " " One tael per person"
402
00:19:41,710 --> 00:19:44,750
is a later interpretation of the relationship
403
00:19:44,770 --> 00:19:47,640
between that sum and the population figure.
404
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:50,800
This street is still there today.
405
00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:53,850
Dongjiaomin Xiang runs east from the inside
406
00:19:53,860 --> 00:19:58,220
of Chongwenmen and west to the road along the east side of Tiananmen Square,
407
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,080
a little over fifteen hundred metres in
408
00:20:01,100 --> 00:20:05,360
all. On 25 June 2001 the State Council listed
409
00:20:05,380 --> 00:20:07,860
it as a fifth-batch Major Historical and
410
00:20:07,880 --> 00:20:10,500
Cultural Site Protected at the National Level,
411
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:13,330
under the name "the Dongjiaomin Xiang legation
412
00:20:13,350 --> 00:20:15,690
buildings", thirteen buildings in all.
413
00:20:16,170 --> 00:20:18,290
Those buildings each have their own use
414
00:20:18,300 --> 00:20:21,720
today: the former Yokohama Specie Bank is
415
00:20:21,730 --> 00:20:25,110
the China Court Museum, the former National City
416
00:20:25,130 --> 00:20:27,440
Bank is the Beijing Police Museum,
417
00:20:28,110 --> 00:20:30,760
the former Japanese legation is the Beijing
418
00:20:30,780 --> 00:20:33,920
Municipal People's Government, and the former Russian
419
00:20:33,940 --> 00:20:36,350
legation is the Supreme People's Court.
420
00:20:36,770 --> 00:20:38,210
Some names are gone.
421
00:20:38,670 --> 00:20:41,660
The Grand Hôtel des Wagons-Lits, the Hongkong
422
00:20:41,670 --> 00:20:45,170
and Shanghai Bank, Jardine Matheson, the German
423
00:20:45,190 --> 00:20:47,030
legation — all demolished.
424
00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:50,450
The North Cathedral is still there too,
425
00:20:50,480 --> 00:20:52,260
in the same place, and still in
426
00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:54,750
use. It did not begin there.
427
00:20:55,230 --> 00:20:57,350
In the thirty-second year of Kangxi the
428
00:20:57,370 --> 00:21:00,750
emperor fell ill with malaria; the French
429
00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:04,150
Jesuit Jean-François Gerbillon brought cinchona bark,
430
00:21:04,600 --> 00:21:06,040
and the emperor recovered.
431
00:21:06,510 --> 00:21:08,430
The emperor granted him a plot of
432
00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:10,910
land at Candi Kou, west of the
433
00:21:10,930 --> 00:21:13,410
Central Lake, and a church was built
434
00:21:13,430 --> 00:21:16,010
there. In the twelfth year of Guangxu,
435
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:17,880
when the three lakes of the Western
436
00:21:17,900 --> 00:21:20,720
Garden were being repaired, the court took
437
00:21:20,730 --> 00:21:22,480
that land back and allotted a new
438
00:21:22,500 --> 00:21:25,230
site at Xishiku, and the new church
439
00:21:25,250 --> 00:21:27,230
was completed in the fourteenth year of
440
00:21:27,250 --> 00:21:30,180
Guangxu. The cathedral standing now is the
441
00:21:30,190 --> 00:21:33,190
one rebuilt then. There is also a
442
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:35,380
stone arch in Zhongshan Park.
443
00:21:35,850 --> 00:21:38,870
In 1901 the Qing government began a memorial
444
00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:40,690
at the spot where von Ketteler was
445
00:21:40,700 --> 00:21:43,870
killed, and it was completed in 1903
446
00:21:43,900 --> 00:21:46,660
white marble, blue glazed tile roof,
447
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,870
four pillars, three bays, seven roof ridges.
448
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,600
In 1918, when the First World War ended,
449
00:21:53,940 --> 00:21:55,910
China was on the winning side.
450
00:21:56,380 --> 00:22:00,000
On 13 November President Xu Shichang ordered the
451
00:22:00,010 --> 00:22:03,340
memorial demolished. The stone was taken down,
452
00:22:03,910 --> 00:22:06,320
moved to the Central Park and reassembled,
453
00:22:07,030 --> 00:22:09,750
the original wording cut away, and four
454
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,560
new characters carved: " Right prevails".
455
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:16,630
In 1952, when the Asian and Pacific Peace
456
00:22:16,650 --> 00:22:19,650
Conference was held in Beijing, the arch
457
00:22:19,660 --> 00:22:22,060
was renamed "the Peace Defence Arch",
458
00:22:22,470 --> 00:22:25,070
the four characters written by Guo Moruo.
459
00:22:25,500 --> 00:22:27,900
It is still in Zhongshan Park today,
460
00:22:28,220 --> 00:22:29,750
inside the south gate.
461
00:22:30,900 --> 00:22:33,620
Part of that indemnity came back later.
462
00:22:34,090 --> 00:22:38,070
On 25 May 1908 the United States Congress passed
463
00:22:38,090 --> 00:22:40,570
a resolution authorising the return of the
464
00:22:40,590 --> 00:22:43,570
portion it judged to exceed actual losses;
465
00:22:44,310 --> 00:22:47,450
President Roosevelt signed it on 28 December that
466
00:22:47,470 --> 00:22:52,120
year. The return began on 1 January 1909.
467
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:55,410
In June 1909 the Bureau for Students to
468
00:22:55,420 --> 00:22:57,940
America was set up; in August the
469
00:22:57,950 --> 00:23:00,090
Qinghua Garden was handed to it as
470
00:23:00,100 --> 00:23:02,090
a preparatory school for study in the
471
00:23:02,100 --> 00:23:05,120
United States; in October the first group
472
00:23:05,130 --> 00:23:06,880
of forty-seven students sailed.
473
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:10,600
In August 1910 a second group of seventy
474
00:23:10,620 --> 00:23:14,620
left. In February 1911 the school moved into
475
00:23:14,630 --> 00:23:17,880
the Qinghua Garden and was renamed " Qinghua
476
00:23:17,900 --> 00:23:21,720
College"; on 29 April it formally opened.
477
00:23:22,870 --> 00:23:25,180
Back to that street from the beginning.
478
00:23:25,650 --> 00:23:29,870
After 1901, Dongjiaomin Xiang became a place where
479
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:31,800
Chinese people could not live.
480
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,620
The stone buildings on that street stayed
481
00:23:34,630 --> 00:23:37,560
standing, and went through several rounds of
482
00:23:37,580 --> 00:23:42,150
other uses. On 6 January 1950 the Beijing Military
483
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,310
Control Commission issued a proclamation taking back
484
00:23:45,330 --> 00:23:47,410
the properties of the foreign barracks in
485
00:23:47,430 --> 00:23:50,030
Beijing and requisitioning the barracks and other
486
00:23:50,050 --> 00:23:53,400
buildings. That month the American, French and
487
00:23:53,410 --> 00:23:55,860
Dutch barracks were handed over one after
488
00:23:55,870 --> 00:23:58,580
another; in April the British barracks were
489
00:23:58,590 --> 00:23:59,910
handed over as well.
490
00:24:00,380 --> 00:24:03,990
From 1959 the foreign legations moved out to
491
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,620
the area beyond Jianguomen one by one.
492
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,580
The history of Dongjiaomin Xiang as a
493
00:24:09,590 --> 00:24:11,560
legation quarter ended there.
494
00:24:11,990 --> 00:24:14,030
Today it is the longest lane in
495
00:24:14,050 --> 00:24:16,240
Beijing, with a main road at each
496
00:24:16,250 --> 00:24:16,710
end.
497
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,710
The complete transcript, bibliography and further reading
498
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,680
for this film are at sylogs.com.