The Last Empress - Anchee Min [130]
The Emperor stopped. He turned to me and gave back the draft. His eyes filled with sorrow.
I continued. "The throne has made every effort to avoid war. We have issued edicts enjoining protection of legations and pity toward converts. We declared Boxers and converts to be equally the children of the state. It is the Western powers who forced us into this war."
The minister of foreign affairs, I-kuang, was sent to give the legations' residents twenty-four-hour notice to leave Peking, under the protection of Yung Lu's troops. The foreign affairs office in Tientsin and Sir Robert Hart's Chinese customs service were ordered to receive the residents and make arrangements to escort them to safety.
But the legations refused to abandon their rightful places in China. The Times's George Morrison told legation residents, "If you leave Peking tomorrow, the death of every man, woman and child in this huge unprotected convoy will be on your heads. Your names will go down in history and be known forever as the wickedest, weakest and most pusillanimous cowards who have ever lived!"
On June 20, a German minister, Baron von Ketteler, was murdered.
Klemens August von Ketteler was a man of strong views and had a flaming temper, according to those who knew him. Only a few days before his death, he beat a ten-year-old Chinese boy with his lead-weighted walking stick until he was unconscious. The beating took place outside the German legation in full view of witnesses. Ketteler had suspected that the boy was a Boxer. After the beating, the boy was dragged into the legation. By the time the boy's family was informed and went to retrieve him, the boy was dead. The incident infuriated thousands of Chinese, who soon gathered outside the legation looking for revenge.
I never understood why Ketteler chose to set off in his palanquin at that particular moment, knowing the danger. He and his interpreter were heading toward the Board of Foreign Affairs. Ketteler had told his house staff that he had waited long enough for China's response to the ultimatum and intended to check on the progress himself.
A crowd of Boxers spotted Ketteler while he jolted toward the Foreign Affairs building. Within moments Ketteler was shot dead at pointblank range. His interpreter was wounded in both legs but was able to drag himself back to the German legation.
The murder of the German minister marked the beginning of what future historians would call the Siege of the Legations. Amid the mounting violence, the various legations united, and daily their guards fired their rifles, indiscriminately killing innumerable Chinese. Four times the legations' security guards attacked the East Gate of the Forbidden City, but were repulsed by General Tung's troops. Armed legation residents occupied the perimeter walls, which made it harder for Yung Lu's forces to maintain a defensive stance and carry out his mission—to prevent the Boxers from succeeding with the siege.
It was midnight when I woke to the burning of the Imperial front gate. The fire had been set by the Boxers as a result of a confrontation with Yung Lu's troops, which had been blocking the three "ring" assaults on the legations.
Next, the vast triple-tiered gateway to central Peking blazed in the darkness, engulfing in its flames the richest quarter of Peking. The Boxers had meant to burn only the shops that sold foreign goods, but in that dust-dry season, everything had been consumed.
I ordered the palace kitchen to make mounds of dumplings, for