1900 - Zhang Zhenyu

July 31, 1900

Taigu, Shanxi

Zhang Zhenyu and his brother.

The missionaries massacred at Taigu did not die alone. The Chinese believers in the town loved them so much that they willingly laid down their lives alongside those who had sacrificially travelled from their own countries to bring the good news to them. One account said:

“If loving sympathy could sweeten the cup of death, the six missionaries of the American Board whose lives were offered in sacrifice on the last day of July, did not drink a bitter cup. Through the long weeks of agonizing suspense, about thirty Christians waited with them. When the end came, eight died with them in that mission compound, and a larger number escaped over the wall, some to meet martyrdom almost immediately.”[1]

Zhang Zhenyu was an 18-year-old student in the mission school. When the school closed for the summer, Zhang Zhenyu and his older brother Zhang Zhenfu refused to go home. They remained on the mission compound, serving the missionaries. Two weeks before the massacre, the elder brother told Zhenyu he was going to flee into the mountains before the Boxers arrived. “I shall not go,” the teenager replied. The two brothers knelt in prayer. Zhenyu could see that his brother was vexed and wanted to flee, so he told him, “Our father and mother are old, and one of us should be left to care for them. You go now; I’ve determined that, come what may, I’ll stay to the end with the teachers whom I so dearly love.”[2]

When the Boxers came swarming into the mission compound on July 31st, Zhang Zhenyu calmly stood at the gateway, guarding the compound as he had been instructed to do. He stood motionless with a calm smile on his face. Another Chinese believer urged Zhang to flee for his life. “I shall not go,” Zhang replied, and he lovingly laid down his life for his friends.