YuanJanuary 1900
With a majority of conservatives in the imperial court, Empress Dowager Cixi changed her long standing policy of suppressing Boxers, and issued edicts in their defence, causing protests from foreign powers
China · Warfare / Boxer Rebellion. Chronological records rendered directly from the World History Database.
With a majority of conservatives in the imperial court, Empress Dowager Cixi changed her long standing policy of suppressing Boxers, and issued edicts in their defence, causing protests from foreign powers
The Boxers raise their standard of revolt on the railway line to Hankow
The first Boxer, dressed in his finery, was seen in the Legation Quarter. The German Minister, Clemens von Ketteler, and German soldiers captured a Boxer boy and inexplicably executed him. In response, thousands of Boxers burst into the walled city of Beijing that afternoon and burned many of the Christian churches and cathedrals in the city, burning some victims alive
The Boxers enter Peking & destroy most of the foreign owned buildings
The event that tilted the Qing imperial Government irrevocably toward support of the Boxers and war with the foreign powers was the attack of foreign navies on the Dagu Forts near Tianji
In response to reports of an armed invasion to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 issued an Imperial Decree declaring war on the foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers as well as Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were placed under siege by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers for 55 days
Chinese officialdom was split between those supporting the Boxers and those favoring conciliation, led by Prince Qing
The Boxers bombard the Russian town of Blagoveshchensk that lies across the Amur River
The Boxers blow up the railway line under Russian construction to Port Arthur
The Boxer Protocol of 7 September 1901 provided for the execution of Government officials who had supported the Boxers, provisions for foreign troops to be stationed in Beijing, and 450 million taels of silver—more than the Government's annual tax revenue—to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next thirty-nine years to the eight nations involved
Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support Qing Government and exterminate the foreigners."
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