A Historial Image: The Boxer Rebellion

有许多历史人物或历史形象，塑造了每个民族的发展。例如，日本军队犯下的南京大屠杀给中国人民带来了无尽的痛苦，同时也给日本政府带来了永恒的耻辱。同时，美国陆军提出中国在二战结束的助手已经影响了这两个国家之间的贸易与合作。尽管这两国曾经历过冷战，中国与美国的团结和友谊不会被打破。我想从超过百万的历史图像中塑造这个世界，我想从拳击比赛中选择一张照片，并在这篇文章中讨论这一事件。

There are many historical figures or historical images that shape the development of every single nation. For example, the NanJing Massacre committed by Japanese army has inflicted endless pain on Chinese citizens, at the same time, it has brought the eternal shame on the Japanese government. Also, the aide that American army offered to China at the end of the World War Two has influenced the trade and cooperation between these two countires. Although these two countries had been through cold war, the bond and friendship between China and the United State of America will not be broken. Out of more than millions of historical images that shape the world, I would like to choose a picture from the Boxer Rebellion and discuss the event in the essay.

In this picture, a large group of brave Chinese men were suffering because they fought against the foreign power solely by kungfu, arrow and knife. The army that was fighting against the boxers carried the flag of Britain. The British army was strong and united. Right before the event from the picture, the Chinese boxers had been burning down foreign churches, robbing off any foreigners or any Chinese who believed in foreign religion. In the end, the foreign army and citizens could not bear it anymore so that they formed the army of eight nations to fight back the Chinese boxers. In the picture, Chinese boxers believed that their strong bodies can endear the arrow just like Achilli. However, many sharp arrows and bullets had been shot through their bodie. So, most of the boxers are either suffering or dying.

In fact, this picture was taken during the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxer Rebellion has several names, for example, sometimes it is called Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement. This even happened at the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the Chinese government was all vulnerable and corrupt. This Boxers Rebellion was not any formally form army. On the contrary, it was solely “initiated by the Militia United in Righteousnes.” (David J. Silbe, 8)  These group of boxers are not really trained or educated soldiers but they are depicted by the Chinese textbooks as patriotics who are brave to fight against the foreign imperialism and other Chritian missionary activities. However, this even was ended terribly by the unprecedented alliance. (David J. Silbe, 25) This unprecedented alliance was formed by “powerful military powers such as France, Germany, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Rusia, Australia and the United States.” (Osprey Publishing, 23 )

This boxer Rebellion should start with the background to the siege of Peking. Therfore, to simply put in this way. The Chinese boxers gathered together in North China in the summer of 1990 simply because there is a growing hatred of foreigners and the intruders of the country. (Peter Harriton, 1 ) also, the movement was also due to the economic hardships that foreign intruders brought on because the armies of the Great Britain and of America had been taking money from the Qing Dynasty. During that time, although many countries were studying science and geogrephy so that they were well infromed with phenomenon such as poor harvest. However, for the Chinese farmers and workers, they were ignorant of such knowledge so they were superstitious. The majority of them firmly believed that the poor harvests were brought on by the “foreign devils.” (Peter Harriton, 1 ) To put a long story short, the Boxer Rebellion was the last trial that Chinese citizens put on before the Qing Dynasty to cast off foreign intruders and to preserve the Chinese culture and Chinese religion, given that the constant “visiting” of foreign intruders have brought too many other culture and religion in Peking.

However, what happened in the picutre can be traced back to a decade ago, when the endless foreign intervention had seriously annoyed the Chinese government. During the late 19th century, after the western couties finished the Napoleonic Wats, the victorious nations were looking for chances and places to expand their foreign markets. Some of the western coutires atarted to acquire foreign lands by force. The tradgidy of Chinese government started with the Great Britain. Around 1860, the British army had tried to open the Chinese market because it needed to sell enough weeds to make money. Later on, its ambition got too strong that it started the Opium War, which caused many deathes. They started this war soley because they were not satified with the disagreement about the port of Canton. After the opium war, China has literaly begun to decline.

During the boxer rebellion, Chinese boxers had been humiliating foreigners inside the Peking cities. Sometimes, they graped any innocent foreign citizens on the street to kill them. These foreigners were not soldiers or armed, so that very often, they had no idea how to fight back. In  a famous movie called 55 Days in Peking, it was showed at the begginning of the movie that an innocent foreigner was tortured to death by bring rolled in the windmill. Inside the picture, many Chinese citizens were applausing for the death of a human being. When these accidents happened, the Chinese Empress at the beginning turned a blind eye to it because she somehow believed that it might help the government cast out the intruders. In fact, the boxers’ intentions were good. They solely wanted to defend their own coutry. It is a basic belief that every citizen from any coutry can have. However, as time went by, their actions were getting more extreme and more violent. Sometimes the Chinese boxers destroyed any foreign churches they set their eyes on althought they know there are people inside. One time they had designed a very big machine that shoots the fire into a church. Many helpless foreign citizens can only hide behind the war, waiting for the medical aides to be carried inside. This event has always been depicted as a heroic chapter among many Chinese offical documents. However, from the international point of view, it is often written as a violent and irrational attack that ignorant Chinese defenders initiated.

During the time, there was many huge conlicts not only between the boxers and the foreign citizens, but also the the conflict between the Chinese government and the Boxers. Even inside the Qing Dynasty Imperial Court, there was intense conflicting attitudes among the officials. During the YiHeTuan movemtn, in Peking, the Empress Dowager had summoned the Court for a lot of audience and decided to discuss the choices about whether it is right to use the Boxers to “evict the foreigners from the city” or whether it is more sensible to “seek a diplomatic solution.” In the meeting, a high official had made it clear that he did not believe that the Boxers' are able to evict the foreign force. In response to this, the Empress Dowager Cixi replied: “Perhaps their magic is not to be relied upon; but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people? Today China is extremely weak. We have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts, what can we use to sustain the country?” (Joseph Esherick, 45)

Two opposing factions were active during this movement. On one side were anti-foreigners. As a result, they firmly supported the actions of the boxers since they literally viewed foreigners as invasive and imperialistic. For this group of people, they had been gladly advocating to take advantage of the Boxers because they hope it might help them to achieve the expulsion of foreign troops and foreign culture. On the contrary, many other Chinese officials were not supporting the cause of the boxers because they regarded the Chinese boxers as superstitious and ignorant. These two fractions had only been sitting around to debate for the boxers. (Joseph Esherick, 34) However, they had actually done nothing to support their actions. The best that the Empress Dowager Cixi could do was only to keep quiet about the event.

In fact, there are many reports that described in detail about what really happened. There are records about heros in the Yi He Tuan Movement. There is an unsung hero called Danial Joesph Daly. He was the Sergeant Major and he was one of the only nineteen men who have actually received the Medal of Honor twice. Another Major General named Butler has once described Daly as, "The fightin'est Marine I ever knew!"

Daly was part of the U.S. Embassy Guard in Peking when the Boxer Rebellion broke out. During one of the wars that took place during the boxer rebellion, the Boxers had “surrounded the compound of the foreign legations in Peking and laid siege to the place for 55 days.” At one time, when German Marines were forced to retrieve back, Daly solely by himself took a position in a bastion on the Tarter Wall and he remained awake there to defend his friends throughout the night. Even though he was under the risk of being shot by sniper fire and other attacks, Private Daly was still holding his position with for a long time, keeping his people from being killed by the boxers. These heroic reports about Daly could only be found in books published in English because from the Chinese officials’ point of view, the boxers were the brave defenders but the foreign generals were the violent and cruel intruders.

What happened in the image has inflicted pain on Chinese citizens but helped the foreign citizens inside Peking to get rid of pain and danger. But the intrusion of the alliance had caused more serious decline of Qing Dynasty. I have chosen this image because the same image and the same historical event can be viewed as totally different behavior in different countries and the Boxer Rebellion is the best example of them.

Reference:
David J. Silbey, 2013, The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Diana Preston, 2001, The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900, Berkley Books
Joseph Esherick, 1988, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, University of California Press
Osprey Publishing, 1979, The Boxer Rebellion, Osprey Publishing
Peter Harrington, 2013, Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion, Osprey Publishing


51Due网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文著作权归51Due所有；未经51Due官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯著作权现象，51Due保留一切法律追诉权。