Post by debugger on Jul 11, 2022 20:06:52 GMT
Plenty of secret societies make grandiose, but conveniently unprovable claims about their historical influence. But China's Righteous and Harmonious Fists indisputably changed the course of history in 1899, when its members fomented what became known as the Boxer Rebellion.
The Fists were mostly peasants and farmers from China's Shandong province, an area that had suffered droughts, floods and famine in the quarter-century leading up to the rebellion. After its defeats in the Opium Wars and the First Sino-Japanese War, China's ruling Qing Dynasty had been forced to allow considerable foreign activity in the region, particularly by German and Japanese interests. The Fists, who became known as 'Boxers', because the martial arts exercises they performed reminded observers of shadow boxing, resented the encroachment and blamed foreign occupiers for their poor living conditions. The Boxers first targeted Christian missionaries and Chinese Christians in the late 1890s. In 1900, the Qing Dynasty lent its support to the group and the Boxers laid siege to Beijing's foreign district.
The group was armed with knives, spears, swords and rifles; and they were fierce and ruthless fighters, who believed their calisthenic rituals made them bulletproof. (According to the book Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution 1850-1950 by Kazuko Ono and Kathryn Bernhardt, the Boxers were occasionally joined in battle by their all-female counterparts, the Red Lanterns.) It took an eight-nation force, including troops from America, Russia and Japan, to quash the violent uprising. The Qing Dynasty, which had ruled since the 17th Century, was weakened by the rebellion. It was overthrown in 1912, ending centuries of imperial rule in China and making way for Mao Zedong and his People's Republic.
The Fists were mostly peasants and farmers from China's Shandong province, an area that had suffered droughts, floods and famine in the quarter-century leading up to the rebellion. After its defeats in the Opium Wars and the First Sino-Japanese War, China's ruling Qing Dynasty had been forced to allow considerable foreign activity in the region, particularly by German and Japanese interests. The Fists, who became known as 'Boxers', because the martial arts exercises they performed reminded observers of shadow boxing, resented the encroachment and blamed foreign occupiers for their poor living conditions. The Boxers first targeted Christian missionaries and Chinese Christians in the late 1890s. In 1900, the Qing Dynasty lent its support to the group and the Boxers laid siege to Beijing's foreign district.
The group was armed with knives, spears, swords and rifles; and they were fierce and ruthless fighters, who believed their calisthenic rituals made them bulletproof. (According to the book Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution 1850-1950 by Kazuko Ono and Kathryn Bernhardt, the Boxers were occasionally joined in battle by their all-female counterparts, the Red Lanterns.) It took an eight-nation force, including troops from America, Russia and Japan, to quash the violent uprising. The Qing Dynasty, which had ruled since the 17th Century, was weakened by the rebellion. It was overthrown in 1912, ending centuries of imperial rule in China and making way for Mao Zedong and his People's Republic.
