1900 - Methodist Martyrs of the Kaiping Circuit

June 1900

Kaiping, Hebei

The English Methodist Mission had experienced great progress prior to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Churches reported more baptisms and inquirers. One of the key Methodist areas in China was known as the Kaiping Circuit, which took in a number of towns and villages in Hebei Province. Some of the most savage slayings of Christians occurred to the faithful believers in this region.

Li Shuzhi was a member of the Methodist church in Yongping. He was bound and carried to a nearby chapel where a mock trial was held. There “he boldly avowed his Christianity, and, although appealed to several times, absolutely refused to recant. He was beaten with 500 stripes, then thrown into city prison, where after two months of awful suffering, he passed away in the faith and hope of the Gospel.”[1]

Zhang Shouchen, a preacher from the town of Xiaoji, was burned alive in his home, along with his wife and seven other family members. Pastor Zhang was 60-year-old at the time of his death and his wife was 50. At Tangshan a young Christian teenage boy of just 17-years, Zhang Yuwen, was known for his earnest zeal for the Lord. He firmly resisted all offers to recant. Zhang’s body was “chopped in pieces, nailed to a wall, and offered for sale at 500 taels per piece.”[2] His father was asked three times if he would denounce Christ. “No, no, no, not even if you kill me!” was his response. He miraculously survived.

At Hezhuang, 23 Christians were killed for their faith. He Mingzhang was one of the elders at Hezhuang. He, his wife and child had fled to the hills, but the Boxers pursued and captured them. When they offered to let him go if he would not recant, He “refused to listen and was burned alive. His wife and child were thrown from the precipice by the brother of Mrs. He, who afterward descended and kicked mother and infant to death.”[3]

Yang Lin, his wife Yang Yiqing and daughter Yang Shou were captured together and hauled to a temple. They were kept there for a number of hours as the Boxers tried to induce them to denounce Jesus Christ. Unanimously refusing to recant, “they were murdered at midnight, their bodies being cut to pieces and flung apart.”[4]

Xu Yangxi and her daughter, although neither had yet been baptized, were sure of their faith in Christ at the time of the Boxer slaughter. Xu’s daughter was a 32-year-old widow. An uncle of her former husband held a grudge against her because she had refused to remarry after her husband’s death. This disgruntled man led the Boxers to their home. They stabbed the mother and daughter with knives, then dragged their bodies to the Lan River where they were drowned to death.

Chen Xigong, a respected scholar and teacher at Yongping, had been overwhelmed with joy once he understood the truth of the gospel. When the Boxers came to him, they hoped he would denounce his Christian faith because they felt he was a good man who did not deserve to die. Chen, however, refused to listen to the tempters. His calm demeanour and courage “so astonished his persecutors that after killing him they cut out his heart to see what had given him such fortitude. The heart was left for some days on a stone in the village.”[5]

Chen Renyi was an energetic young boy just ten-years-old. He had been baptized as an infant, but had nevertheless shown a true faith and understanding of Christ. The Boxers caught him and demanded to know if he was a Christian, threatening him with instant death if he replied in the affirmative. When “asked if he would forsake Jesus, he refused most boldly and was cut down there and then.”[6]

A Christian man named Tian was stoned to death and his body thrown into the river. Another man named Liu Li was captured by the Boxers, “stabbed with knives and swords, then chopped into small pieces. Not content with this, the murderers were proposing to burn the remains, but they were restrained by some old neighbours…who dared to gather the poor remains and bury them reverently.”[7]

In total, forty-five Protestant Christians were murdered in the towns and villages of the Kaiping Circuit during the Boxer Rebellion.[8] The methods of cruelty used against the victims were myriad. Some included

“Burning alive, beating to death, dismemberment, disembowelling, drowning, snipping to pieces under a straw-cutter, throwing from a precipice, saturating with oil and then burning, burying alive,—such were some of the cruel tortures through which our brethren and sisters entered into the glory of heaven.”[9]

1. A. H. Smith, China in Convulsion: Volume 2 (Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1901), 699.
2. Smith, China in Convulsion, Vol.2, 699.
3. Smith, China in Convulsion, Vol.2, 700.
4. Smith, China in Convulsion, Vol.2, 700.
5. Smith, China in Convulsion, Vol.2, 700.
6. Smith, China in Convulsion, Vol.2, 700-701.
7. Miner, China’s Book of Martyrs, 164.
8. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 366.
9. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 366.