Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
than 800 cities were burned, thousands of acres of crops were destroyed, and as many as
twenty million were killed (some estimates put the total at forty million).
Taiping's devastation set in motion a chain of events that led to more rebellions, not
less than three foreign invasions, and ultimately the final collapse of dynastic rule. In the
quarter-century after Taiping, impoverished peasants resisted rapacious landlords by mur-
dering rent collectors and brandishing scythes and axes. Students and intellectuals joined
secret societies to plot against corrupt officials and to drive foreigners and their special
privileges out of China. And all over China, landlords and peasants, joined by students and
mandarins, supported each other in their hatred of Christian missionaries who encouraged
their converts to flout traditional marriage ceremonies, denounced concubines and multiple
wives, and railed against ancestor worship and worship of traditional gods and spirits.
THE BOXER REBELLION
The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 brought to a boil the widespread fear of foreigners (“foreign
devils”) and hatred of Chinese converts to Christianity. Railroads (constructed by foreign
engineers) snorting steam and rumbling over iron roads were widely believed to unleash
evil spirits. [199]
Telegraph lines were similarly feared. Wind moaning through the high telegraph poles
sounded like spirits in torment …. By the end of the 19 th Century there were over
700,000 Catholic converts ministered to by more than 850 Nuns and priests. There
were also about 85,000 Protestant Chinese. [200]
 
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