THE GOVERNOR 45 FOUR and wipe out the foreigners,"might have won the sympathy of many reformers.One eyewitness of the movement,Sir Robert Hart,described it as "patriotic in origin and justifiable in its The Governor,1899-I9oI fundamental ideas."Another,Putnam Weale,described it as a "blight"attacking the foreigners:"We are accused by the whole population of North China."C.F.Remer was even more explicit: "The movement may be regarded as evidence of a growing feeling of national patriotism in China."a But the similarity between the Boxers and the reformers ends LIKE the Hundred Days'Reform,the Boxer Uprising was a direct here.The reformers were all scholarly gentry,well versed in China's traditional political philosophy and acquainted with result of foreign aggression.It began in the peninsular province of Shantung.Shantung had escaped much of the foreign interference Western statecraft.They argued their case in a highly literate man- suffered by the other coastal provinces since 1840.But the arrival ner.They had little trust in those in power and wanted to replace them with a new kind of official.In contrast,the Boxers were un- of missionaries to set up churches in the villages led to cultural sophisticated,crude,and violent.Their main tactics were slaugh- confrontation,resentment,property disputes,and litigations.The situation was aggravated in the spring of 1898,when Germans ter and plunder.They had little trust in the gentry,proposing instead an alliance between the court aristocrats and the peasantry. came to build railways and to mine.. The movement began to attract official attention early in 18g8, The Shantung peasants were renowned for their physical and mental toughness.(Most of Yuan Shih-k'ai's recruits at Hsiaochan but the provincial authorities took no effective steps against it. In terms of doctrine,it was regarded as no more heretical than the came from this province.)At the same time,they were superstitious Christian churches;nor was it considered politically subversive. and backward.Apart from the experience of endless hardship, their main sources of knowledge were rudimentary,often heretical From May 18g8 to March 1899,the Boxers gained substantial pop- ular support for their brutal activities.Among their victims were religious tenets preached by popular sects,and myths.During the second half of the nineteenth century,stories and myths became Christian missionaries and converts and foreign engineers.The situation took a sharp turn in March,when Germany sent troops to increasingly popular in China as an escape from ugly reality-a Ichow in southern Shantung to protect her missionaries.The development made possible by the introduction of the modern printing press.Many Chinese believed in such phenomena as Peking government,fearing unpleasant consequences,cashiered physical invulnerability,the emission of lethal lights from the the governor,Chang Ju-mei,and appointed Yui-hsien,a Manchu, eyes,the nostrils,and the fingertips,and the existence of invisible in his place.The new governor soon fell under the spell of the generals and armies far stronger than the visible ones.As the for. Boxers.Instead of suppressing them,he became an enthusiastic sponsor of the movement.The Boxers went on killing and burn- eigners'weapons became,in the words of a Chinese epithet,"in- conceivably and obscenely advanced,"the magic tricks of the Chi- ing,violence for which the central government had to pay com- pensation.The Germans demanded 100,o00 taels for the loss of nese grew more elaborate and allegedly more powerful.Although life and property at Ichow,and another 60,ooo taels for damages some considered this extreme belief in-magic absurd,it reflected to the Tsaochow churches in the summer of 1899.Toward the strong popular feelings toward the foreigners.The Boxers based their policy on these beliefs and feelings. end of the year,clashes between Boxers and Christians became The Boxer Movement and the Hundred Days'Reform had a even more frequent.On December 6,1899,Yu-hsien was recalled, similar goal:the strengthening of China's central government.If and Yuan Shih-k'ai was appointed acting governor of Shantung, phrased more elegantly,the Boxers'slogan,"Support the Ch'ing a post that soon became permanent. This important appointment was not unexpected.Yuan was