Brief: This article recounts the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. Cixi backed the anti‑foreign Boxers and declared war on the Eight‑Nation Alliance. Beijing fell; Cixi fled and ordered Consort Zhen’s death. The Boxer Protocol imposed a huge indemnity, fatally weakening the Qing and fueling revolutionary calls to end dynastic rule.
I. The Failed Coup and the Hundred Days’ Reform
The Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898 (Wu Hsu Reform or Wu Xu Reform) ended abruptly when Empress Dowager Cixi launched a coup. Fearing that the young Guangxu Emperor and his reformist advisors – led by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao – were plotting to strip her of power, she imprisoned the Emperor on an island in the imperial lake (Yingtai) and resumed the regency.
In a desperate attempt to save the reforms, the radical scholar Tan Sitong secretly visited the general Yuan Shikai, urging him to use his New Army to assassinate Cixi’s loyalist Ronglu and protect the Emperor. However, Yuan betrayed the plot, revealing it to Ronglu. Cixi retaliated swiftly: Kang and Liang fled into exile with foreign help, while Tan Sitong and five others – the “Six Gentlemen of the Wu Hsu Reform” – were executed without trial. Tan famously declared before his death that blood must be shed for China’s reform to begin.
II. The Rise of the Boxers
Cixi’s paranoia regarding foreign influence deepened. When Western powers opposed her plan to depose the Guangxu Emperor and replace him with a puppet heir, Pu Jun, she blamed the foreigners for interfering in China’s internal affairs.
Simultaneously, a grassroots movement known as the Boxers (Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists) was sweeping across northern China. Fueled by drought and resentment toward foreign missionaries and economic imperialism, these martial artists claimed invulnerability to weapons and chanted “Support the Qing, Destroy the Foreign.” Initially suppressed, the movement was tolerated – and eventually supported – by the court as a tool to expel the “foreign devils.”
III. The Siege and the Flight
In June 1900, encouraged by the Boxers and misled by fabricated reports that foreign powers demanded her abdication, Cixi issued an imperial decree declaring war on the Eight-Nation Alliance (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, US, Italy, Austria-Hungary). The Boxers and Imperial forces besieged the Legation Quarter in Beijing, where foreign diplomats and Chinese Christians had taken refuge.
However, the modern weaponry of the Eight-Nation Alliance quickly overwhelmed the Boxers’ swords and spears. As the allied troops marched on Beijing, Cixi performed a dramatic volte-face. She ordered the suppression of the Boxers and, on August 15, 1900, fled the capital disguised as a peasant woman, taking the Guangxu Emperor with her to Xi’an. Before fleeing, she ordered the drowning of the Emperor’s favorite concubine, Consort Zhen, in a palace well to prevent her from falling into enemy hands or causing future trouble.
IV. The Boxer Protocol and National Humiliation
When the allied forces entered Beijing, they engaged in widespread looting and atrocities, marking another dark chapter in the city’s history. Defeated and humiliated, the Qing court sued for peace. In September 1901, Li Hongzhang signed the Boxer Protocol.
The terms were crushing:
- An indemnity of 450 million taels of silver (one tael for every Chinese subject), payable over 39 years with interest.
- The execution of officials who had supported the Boxers.
- The stationing of foreign troops in Beijing.
- The destruction of the Taku Forts.
This treaty solidified the Qing government’s status as a puppet of foreign powers (“the court of the foreigners”). The sheer scale of the humiliation discredited the dynasty in the eyes of the people, convincing many that the only path to national salvation was the overthrow of the Qing regime, paving the way for the revolutionaries led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
Note
Empress Dowager Cixi
Actual ruler of the late Qing. She crushed the 1898 reform, imprisoned Guangxu, supported the Boxers, then fled Beijing when foreign troops arrived.
Guangxu Emperor
Reform-minded emperor locked in Yingtai after the Hundred Days’ Reform; forced to flee with Cixi in 1900.
Tan Sitong
Leading reformer. Executed as one of the Six Gentlemen after Yuan Shikai’s betrayal.
Yuan Shikai
General who betrayed the reform plot to Cixi, gaining political power.
Kang Youwei & Liang Qichao
Top reformist thinkers; exiled after the coup.
Li Hongzhang
Qing official who signed the humiliating Boxer Protocol in 1901.
Consort Zhen
Guangxu’s beloved concubine; drowned on Cixi’s order during the 1900 flight.
Hundred Days’ Reform (1898)
Guangxu’s modernization campaign stopped by Cixi’s coup.
Boxer Rebellion (1900)
Anti‑foreign, pro‑Qing peasant movement backed by the court.
War Against the Eight‑Nation Alliance
Cixi declared war; Beijing fell, forcing the court to flee to Xi’an.
Boxer Protocol (1901)
Unequal treaty imposing huge indemnity and foreign military control.
Boxers (Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists)
Grassroots martial group opposing foreign imperialism and missionaries.
Eight‑Nation Alliance
Coalition of foreign powers that invaded Beijing to suppress the Boxers.
Six Gentlemen of the Wu Hsu Reform
Six reformers executed without trial after the 1898 coup.
Yingtai
Island in the imperial lake where Guangxu was imprisoned.
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