| Battle of Shanhaiguan | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Boxer Rebellion | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United Kingdom |  Qing China  Boxer movement | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Edmund Barrow | Song Qing | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 17,000 British troops | 14,000 Chinese troops | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 199 killed 587 wounded Railway destroyed | Heavy "Old dragon head" destroyed | ||||||
The Battle of Shanhaiguan took place in 1900 when Qing dynasty imperial troops and the Boxers engaged in combat against British forces.
The permanent Chinese forces stationed at Shanhaiguan consisted of the left division under commanding officer General Song Qing. It consisted of two battalions, one under General Ma Yukun, however, both withdrew to Tianjin in June and July before the battle, which they did not participate in. [1] In June Ma Yukun then received orders from Empress Dowager Cixi to enter Beijing, to crush the Boxer rebels along the way. [2]
Part of the Great Wall, the "old dragon head", was destroyed during the battle by the British during a sea attack. [3] [4] In response, Chinese Boxer forces responded with a counterstrike and destroyed the railroad nearby. [5]
Louis Livingston Seaman wrote about an incident in which the Chinese Honghuzi bandits, who were also Boxers, captured, tortured, and executed Eight-Nation Alliance Sikh soldiers at Shanhaiguan:
"In January, 1900, during the Boxer campaign (and the Hunghutzes were all Boxers in those days) I chanced to be on the Great Wall of China at Shan-HaiKwan, when a party of five sikhs, with two coolies and a cart, went through a gateway on a foraging expedition for wood. Shortly after one of the coolies rushed back, so frightened he could hardly articulate, and reported that a party of mounted Hung-hutzes had swooped down on the sikhs, who had carelessly neglected to take their arms, and had carried them off and stolen their ponies. The coolies had escaped by hiding in a near-by nullah. [6]
It was " boots and saddles," and in less time than one can write it, the Royal Bengal Lancers, Beluchis, and Gourkas were swarming over the hills in a vain hunt for their comrades and the Boxers. But they were late. Several hours after, they came upon the scene of torture. All was over. There remained only the mutilated remains of their companions and the inhuman instrument that had accomplished its deadly work.
The death instrument was a sort of iron cage, about eight feet high, made of rods fastened to a small ring at the base, resembling somewhat the steel frame of an umbrella on an enlarged scale. The rods were closed round the victim much as they are round the handle of a closed umbrella, and a rudely constructed nut or screw at the top forced them tightly together. In this infernal device the unfortunate sikhs had been forced, one after another, and as the screw was tightened and the flesh of the victim protruded between the bars, these fiends had sliced it off with their swords until the end came, and it came quickly." [7]
In September, Shanhaiguan was occupied by Britain, which wanted to prevent Russia from entering the area. [8]
of twenty well-mounted men to accompany us wherever it suited our convenience to go, and directed that we should be furnished with good mounts whenever we desired. The photograph of Li Hung Chang, already referred to, contributed in no small degree to the cordial relations that we had established. General Chung was a great admirer of the old statesman, and through this influence our new host welcomed us as old friends. This was not, however, my first acquaintance with the Hung-hutzes. In January, 1900, during the Boxer campaign (and the Hunghutzes were all Boxers in those days) I chanced to be on the Great Wall of China at Shan-HaiKwan, when a party of five sikhs, with two coolies and a cart, went through a gateway on a foraging expedition for wood. Shortly after one of the coolies rushed back, so frightened he could hardly articulate, and reported that a party of mounted Hung-hutzes had swooped down on the sikhs, who had carelessly neglected to take their arms, and had carried them off and stolen their ponies. The coolies had escaped by hiding in a near-by nullah.LONDON SIDNEY APPLETON COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Original from the University of California Digitized Nov 21, 2007
It was " boots and saddles," and in less time than one can write it, the Royal Bengal Lancers, Beluchis, and Gourkas were swarming over the hills in a vain hunt for their comrades and the Boxers. But they were late. Several hours after, they came upon the scene of torture. All was over. There remained only the mutilated remains of their companions and the inhuman instrument that had accomplished its deadly work. The death instrument was a sort of iron cage, about eight feet high, made of rods fastened to a small ring at the base, resembling somewhat the steel frame of an umbrella on an enlarged scale. The rods were closed round the victim much as they are round the handle of a closed umbrella, and a rudely constructed nut or screw at the top forced them tightly together. In this infernal device the unfortunate sikhs had been forced, one after another, and as the screw was tightened and the flesh of the victim protruded between the bars, these fiends had sliced it off with their swords until the end came, and it came quickly.LONDON SIDNEY APPLETON COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Original from the University of California Digitized Nov 21, 2007 Archived 2014-10-29 at the Wayback Machine
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. The group was known as "Boxers" in English because many of its members practised Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". It was defeated by the Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers.
Coolie is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent.
Zhang Zuolin was a Chinese warlord who ruled Manchuria from 1916 to 1928. He led the Fengtian clique, one of the most important factions during China's Warlord Era. During the last year of his life, he briefly installed himself as President of the Republic of China.
Blagoveshchensk is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, opposite to the Chinese city of Heihe. Population: 241,437 (2021 Census); 214,390 (2010 Census); 219,221 (2002 Census); 205,553 (1989 Census).
Shanhai Pass or Shanhaiguan is one of the major passes in the Great Wall of China, being the easternmost stronghold along the Ming Great Wall, and commands the narrowest choke point in the Liaoxi Corridor. It is located in Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, on the east bank of the Shi River between the Yan Mountains and the Liaodong Bay coast.
Louis Livingston Seaman, FRGS was an American surgeon, born in Newburgh, New York.
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC, with selective stretches later joined by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC), the first emperor of China. Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The best-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
The Sixty-Four Villages East of the River were a group of Manchu, Daur and Han-inhabited villages located on the left (north) bank of the Amur River opposite of Heihe, and on the east bank of Zeya River opposite of Blagoveshchensk. The area totaled 3,600 square kilometers (1,400 sq mi).
The British expedition to Tibet, also known as the Younghusband expedition, began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian Armed Forces under the auspices of the Tibet Frontier Commission, whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and Sikkim. In the nineteenth century, the British had conquered Burma and Sikkim, with the whole southern flank of Tibet coming under the control of the British Indian Empire. Tibet ruled by the Dalai Lama under the Ganden Phodrang government was a Himalayan state under the protectorate of the Chinese Qing dynasty until the 1911 Revolution, after which a period of de facto Tibetan independence (1912–1951) followed.
The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Beijing (Peking), China where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In the Chinese language, the area is known as Dong Jiaomin Xiang, which is the name of the hutong through the area. It is located in the Dongcheng District, immediately to the east of Tiananmen Square.
The Battle of Peking, or historically the Relief of Peking, was the battle fought on 14–15 August 1900 in Peking, in which the Eight-Nation Alliance relieved the siege of the Peking Legation Quarter during the Boxer Rebellion. From 20 June 1900, Boxers and Imperial Chinese Army troops had besieged foreign diplomats, citizens and soldiers within the legations of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain and the United States.
Honghuzi were armed Chinese robbers and bandits who operated in the areas of the eastern Russia-China borderland during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Their activities extended over southeastern Siberia, the Russian Far East, and Manchuria/Northeast China. The word honghuzi has been variously transliterated as hong huzi, hong hu zi, hunghutze, hun-hutze, etc. There is also a common transliteration from Russian, khunkhuzy, and a back-formation for the singular, khunkhuz. Korean immigrants to Manchuria in the 20th century called the honghuzi ma-jeok (마적,馬賊). Groups of honghuzi were recruited as guerrillas by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 into chunchu sabotage units.
The Kucheng massacre was a massacre of Western Christians that took place at Gutian, Fujian, China on August 1, 1895. At dawn of that day, a fasting folk religious group attacked British missionaries who were then taking summer holidays at Gutian Huashan, killing eleven people and destroying two houses. The Kucheng Massacre is considered one of the worst attacks against foreigners in China prior to the Boxer Movement in 1899–1901, the only comparable event in China's missionary history being the Tianjin Massacre in 1870.
The Battle of Tientsin, or the Relief of Tientsin, occurred on 13–14 July 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion in Northern China. A multinational military force, representing the Eight-Nation Alliance, rescued a besieged population of foreign nationals in the city of Tianjin by defeating the Chinese Imperial army and Boxers. The capture of Tianjin gave the Eight-Nation Alliance a base to launch a rescue mission for the foreign nationals besieged in the Legation Quarter of Beijing and to capture Beijing.
The Nine Garrisons, or Nine Defense Areas, was a system implemented during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to protect the northern border and the Great Wall. Originally consisting of nine garrisons, the system was later expanded to eleven. Each garrison was controlled from a fortified garrison town, strategically located at important passages and reinforced militarily. The leadership of the garrisons was divided among three supreme commanders: Jiliao, Xuanda, and Shaanxi sanbian. Each garrison had a military commander, as well as a civilian administration. In total, approximately 300,000 soldiers and officers were deployed in the garrisons.
The Tilanqiao Prison, formerly known as the Ward Road Gaol or Shanghai Municipal Gaol, is a former prison in Hongkou District of Shanghai, China. Originally built in the foreign-controlled Shanghai International Settlement, following the Chinese Revolution it was run by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. Throughout the first forty or so years of its life it was the largest prison in the world and earned a reputation as the "Alcatraz of the Orient".
The Wuwei Corps or Guards Army was a modernised army unit of the Qing dynasty of China. Made up of infantry, cavalry and artillery, it was formed in May or June 1899 and trained by western military advisers. The guard took responsibility for the security of Peking (Beijing) and the Forbidden City, with Ronglu as its supreme commander. This move was an attempt by the Qing imperial court to create a western-style army equipped with modern weaponry following the Qing Empire's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. Three out of the five divisions of the Wuwei Corps were disbanded after two years due to attrition caused by the Boxer Rebellion.
The Russian invasion of Manchuria occurred in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) when concerns regarding Qing China's defeat by the Empire of Japan, and Japan's brief occupation of Liaodong, caused the Russian Empire to speed up their long held designs for imperial expansion across Eurasia.
Shi Yukun, courtesy name Zhenzhi, was a highly popular Qing dynasty storyteller who performed in Beijing during the first half of the 19th century. Little is known about his life, but anecdotes recorded in the 1940s claimed he worked as a Booi Aha at prince Zhaolian's mansion before he became a performer.