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The University High School Band
The History and Theory of Music

The Boxer Rebellion

The Qing Dynasty had long been on the losing end of its interactions with the rest of the world. After the Opium Wars, European economic exploitation of the country accellerated. In the 1890s, now-modernized Meiji Japan decided to get in on the action, launching the Sino-Japanese War and forcing China to cede territory to a newly rising Japanese Empire.

Beginning in 1900, an anti-Christian, anti-foreign group called the "Order of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists" rose up. As they practiced traditional Chinese martial arts, they earned the Western nickname "Boxers." (They also claimed they were impervious to bullets.) The Boxers targeted Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries, believing them to be the source of their country's weakness.

Beijing Legation Quarter

Initially driven out of the province of Shandong, the Boxers headed north, attacking railroads, telephone lines, and Christian communities en route to Beijing. The Qing Dynasty knew this group was dangerous, but the conservative faction at the imperial court was sympathetic.

To stop them, an international force from Japan, Russia, Great Britain (including India), France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the United States landed in Tianjin, launching an invasion of mainland China. In response, the Qing army sided with the Boxers and besieged Beijing's Christians and foreign emissaries in the city's "legation quarter."

The international force moved in and after intense fighting, captured Beijing. China was forced to sign yet another unequal treaty, forced to pay reparations to Europe, and forbidden from importing firearms.

The Qing Dynasty was overthrown by Chinese nationalists just eleven years later, its government replaced by the first-ever Republic of China.