ELI5: Boxer Rebellion

>>3381720
Chinese termites had enough of the Emperor termite bowing to white devils so they tried to use their bullet-catching kung-foo to make things right, but they just ended up getting shot and strengthening the position of the white devils.

The violent immigrants, aka Western Nationals, were raping and pillaging until the local people decided to form a militia to kick them out. The federal authorities decided to back the militias to forestall them becoming a powerful insurgency, since they had support from all echelons of society. Unfortunately they lost and China was forced to maintain open borders and grant the victors most favored trade nation status.

>>3381739
>unfortunately
>implying China deserves anything but a holocaust

Here's something you won't learn from mainstream history: the Boxers were actually winning, hence why the Qing court ultimately decided to throw their support behind the Boxers despite opposing it at first.

However, Yuan Shikai and the Beihai army refused the orders to join the Boxers, probably because Yuan was already planning for the collapse of the Qing and taking power in his own right. With the Beihai army essentially remaining neutral, the Boxers were eventually overwhelmed when the Eight Nation alliance sent reinforcements.

>>3381805

>countries shouldn't be allowed to secure their borders
>proposes holocaust when we all know there is no such thing as a holocaust

kys

>>3381830
>an intercontinental force was losing until reinforcements
crazy...

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>>3381831
>Implying the Westphalian system should be followed
>Implying Ch*nese should be given the same privileges as civilized nations
>Implying the word holocaust is not also a common noun deriving from the Greek word holokaustos

File: 1024px-Siege_of_Peking,_Boxer_Rebellion.jpg (234KB, 1024x629px) Image search: [Google]

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>>3381720
>>3381720

The Boxer Rebellion was in large part a reaction to the growth of Christianity in China. Many conservative Chinese felt that their culture was being dominated by Europeans, and they wanted to remove European influence from China, especially Christianity. The Boxers saw Christianity as something akin to a virus which was infecting their land and had to be expunged. The rebels specifically targeted 2 groups in particular: European diplomats and Christian missionaries, although in practice, any white person could be targeted. Chinese who had converted to Christianity were considered traitors, and they were executed and tortured by the Boxers in very large numbers.

The most dramatic event of the war was the Siege of Peking. A large group of European diplomats and Chinese Christians barricaded themselves into an old castle to protect themselves. The Boxer forces surrounded the castle and tried to break in, with the intention of massacring everybody inside. Lacking in artillery, the Boxers couldn't breach the walls, but they knew that the castle had limited food and so they waited. The group hiding inside the Castle included diplomats from American, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, as well as a large number of Chinese Christians. The siege lasted for 55 days.

The desperate holdouts were rescued when an international task force composed of American, British, German, Russian, and French soldiers arrived to evacuate the trapped civilians. It was later discovered that there had been several modern artillery pieces nearby that the Boxers could have used to breach the walls, but were kept hidden by a Chinese official who was unsympathetic to the Boxer cause. The howitzers, originally purchased from Krupp, were safely packaged away in a nondescript warehouse.