Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/768

 578 General History of Europe The foreigners were by no means content with establishing trading posts in China ; they longed to develop the neglected natural resources of the empire, to open up communication by railroads and steamships, and to Westernize the orientals, in order that business might be carried on more easily with them and new opportunities be found for profitable investments. ' 1052. The Boxer Rebellion (1900). The Chinese at first op- posed the building of railroads, but several thousand miles of track were laid and many other lines planned. Telegraphs and post offices of the European type were established. In 1898, after the war with Japan, China began to remodel her army and to send her students to study in foreign universities. These changes aroused the violent opposition of a party known as the " Boxers," who hated the missionaries and business men from the Western countries. They declared that the new ideas would ruin China and that the European powers would tear China to pieces if given a chance. In June, 1900, the Boxers killed the German ambassador and besieged the Europeans in Peking, and appeared to be on the point of massacring them all. The foreign powers Japan, Russia, Great Britain, the United States, France, and Germany immediately collected a joint army which fought its way from the coast to Peking and brought relief to their imperiled fellow countrymen in the Chinese capital. The European troops looted the palace of the Chinese emperor, and China was forced to pay an indemnity of three hundred and twenty millions of dollars and pledge itself to suppress the Boxers and every society that was opposed to the presence of foreigners. After the trouble in Peking was over, the Chinese government took up the reforms once more, and in 1906 a proclamation was issued promising that a Chinese parliament should be established and the old system of absolute rule abandoned forever. 1053. Russia in Manchuria. Scarcely had the Boxer rising been put down when it became apparent that Japan and Russia were drifting into war. Russia refused to evacuate Manchuria and insisted on getting a hold in Korea, even sending Cossacks