More Arts Than Martial

While the western world was weaponizing their artists, they were not going to out do the Chinese. The west certainly turned to a very high tech approach but, just because someone did not have a movie camera, telegraph, printing press, telephone, or other such modern conveyances it did not mean that there was a lack of mass media. The Chinese did have all of the aforementioned technology but, it was not common enough to be an effective tool for use by the general populace. The reason for this seems to be that the Chinese take the old saying to heart, that if something is not broke then don’t fix it.

In the modern world we take the television, radios, the internet, and our phones for granted. We think of them as great wonders of communications and we scarcely give any thought to the days before any of this existed. We go so far as too just assume that nothing we do could have been done before our electronic toys were around. As far back as 1901 seems to us now, the truth is that it was not that long ago, and to look at China of the period gives us a very good glimpse in how mass media existed before faster than light communications. The Chinese were still doing things the old way and proved exactly how effective it was.

The video screen of the time was the local market. These were not just places where people went to buy things. They were full of everything that we associate with modern communications and that included commercials, news shows, and let us not forget the big thing, entertainment. For those of you that doubt these markets were any different from social media, a very common practice to get your opinion out was to write a handbill and stick it on a post in the market. There were almost no spaces, in any market, where you would see bald wood. It was a very common practice to write on the bottom of these handbills, “copy and repost ten times or you will have as many years bad luck.” Sound familiar?

By 1901, the Chinese government had never been more fragmented. The Dowager Empress, Cixi, had made her play to unify the country and had failed miserably. Her stand against the foreign invaders had been a ploy to bring the de facto independent governors back under her authority. It was a play that was aimed at the elites of China and, in the process, Cixi had managed to loose control of her army, the capital, and the throne with it. After that fiasco, the governors had, naturally, stopped listening to her at all and the country was growing ripe for yet another civil war. Even so, Cixi was down but not out. She had one last card to play and she started no sooner than she stopped her headlong retreat from Peking and settled far up the Yangtze River, in the interior.

One has to remember that Cixi was technically considered a Manchu and, to the average guy on the street, her dynasty might as well have been American, Russian, or British. She was every bit as foreign a ruler as any other invader and there had been a growing backlash against the Manchu’s that predated any serious incursions by the Europeans. One also has to remember that Cixi was not the legal head of state and maintained her power by manipulation. She was obviously very good at it and turning an anti Manchu movement into an anti European one was child’s play for her.

The average Chinaman had seen the systems, that existed for their protection, either failing or being turned against them. This was never more visible when the Chinese populace went shopping for groceries. Flood and then drought had created a serious shortfall in food production but, the Chinese farms were still producing enough, only, for the average person, this food was not reaching them or was very over priced when it did. The war had created a high demand for food and the English and Americans paid with hard currency so most of what China needed was getting sold off to the Europeans. Hong Kong actually had surplus food stocks during the war so, what did the British do with it? They shipped it to Shang-hi where it was resold, back to the Chinese, at inflated prices. Naturally, this food was never the best.

So far, the various Chinese governments had showed themselves to be hopelessly corrupt and, in general, only interested in games of intrigue with each other. The Army had proven itself impotent and Europeans were taking China, one city at a time. The people of China became desperate and turned to the only thing they had left, that being their entertainers in the market place. Cixi was well aware of this and turned on her propaganda machine, backing these entertainers, and effectively weaponizing the peasants of China to do her bidding despite the fact that they were unaware that this is what was really happening.

One might ask what kind of entertainment would be useful in this situation but, China had something that almost seemed custom made for such a crisis. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the west became all too aware of this, once it was paired with the technology of motion pictures but, this was not the first glimpse that west would have. In 1901, no European really knew what to make of it and applied the name of the closest western analog, that being boxing. This was how the rebels of the uprising became known as ‘Boxers.’ It seemed appropriate since their stated weapon of choice was the human fist and their market shows, something that westerners were familiar with, showed an uncanny skill in using human limbs as almost magical weapons.

The term ‘Martial Arts’ would later be applied to this but, the truth of it is that what the west has come to see as a form of fighting has far more in common with ballet dancing than with prize fighters in the ring. No one knows exactly where Martial Arts comes from but, one thing is obviously clear, given what we know of it, it is far more productive in entertaining the masses than in actual combat. This is why we have many records of entertainers performing elaborate choreographed scenes and almost none of these techniques winning battles. What few uses are stated as evidence of their worth, in battle, almost always fall into the category of unconfirmed myth once they are examined by scholars.

I do realize that there are many defenders of this art form, who have made many claims, and would debate this, however, the historical record has shown conclusively that, given a choice, people always pick up weapons when marching off too war and that the blade trumps skin and bones while bullets trump blades. What has come to be known as the Boxer Rebellion proves this beyond a doubt. The one thing that the peasants of China lacked were weapons and, in particular, firearms. Entertainers, being what they are, solved this problem with a bit of fiction.

The fight dancers of the market would convince many that if you only believed in the cause, you would be immune to enemy bullets. This, of course, quickly proved to be false. Those who spread the propaganda would combat this reality by claiming that those killed by enemy fire were simply not true believers. It might also be worthy to note that when the fighting erupted even the masters of the market place fights never failed to arm themselves with weapons, even if it were only with sticks. There are no reports, by anyone, of magical super soldiers fighting with their bare hands, not even in Chinese records. All of this goes to prove a few very relevant points. The first is that the pen may not be, ultimately, mightier than the sword but, it is still mighty. The second is that it showed that what the Boxers were truly masters of was not fighting but, propaganda instead. No one can dispute that their circus acts were effective tools at recruiting a hungry and desperate populace.

It is of no great surprise that the uprising failed, of course, one has to consider that the civil disturbances had no real aims to begin with. There seem to be have been none beyond venting frustration on the most obvious of targets and, considering this, one could say it was successful since that is exactly what happened. Beyond that, it did not alter China’s situation with the western world in any way that helped the average Chinese.

The ‘rebellion’ was largely an urban one and there were attacks by Boxers in most Chinese cities. It could not have been more poorly timed if it had actually been planned which, it does not seem to have been. The war had brought more foreign soldiers into China than had ever been before and, due to the war, none of them were too worried about the diplomatic repercussions of shooting Chinese citizens en mass. The Europeans also had help from the Imperial Army in all three of her military districts. The governors were far more fearful of the rebels than were the Europeans and, as a consequence, they were far more brutal in putting down the rebellion.

Needless to say, Cixi did not need the rebellion to overthrow the Europeans. There is no evidence that she ever believed that it would. It did several things for her, not the least of which was to get rid of many of her own trouble makers while killing the invaders at the same time. She also managed to weaken her internal political opposition and it is reasonable to believe that this was her primary goal. Still, the aftermath of the rebellion did not exactly go her way. It might have strengthened the hold that Cixi had on her own exiled court but, it did not drive the regional Governors into her arms.

What the rebellion did do was alter the political situation on the ground and force the Western belligerents to act. Up till this point they had been content to let the Chinese theater of operations remain static since they had more pressing concerns elsewhere but, now, they found China impossible to ignore. The weakened regimes inside of China, both military and political, had been sitting on the fence but, they no longer could. As they sought European alliances they changed the balance of forces in the region and, now, active military operations would become required. There was no one who was happier about this than a certain American General by the name of George Armstrong, Custer.