In June 1900, due to the Gengzi Rebellion, Nie Shicheng, the president of the direct subordinate (equivalent to the current commander of the theater), led the Armed Guards to fight jointly with the Boxers to resist the attack of the Eight-Power Alliance. Although this combination of enemies and friends served to a certain extent to combat foreign invaders, over time, the political trends revealed by the Qing rulers stimulated internal contradictions in the Chinese army. Eventually, the Wu Guards and the Boxers were on fire, Nie Shicheng was killed by the Boxers, and the Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing.
As early as June 21, 1900, Empress Dowager Cixi promulgated the Edict declaring war on the outside world, before the formal declaration of war on eight countries, including (Britain), (The United States), (France), (Germany), (Russia), (Japan), (Italy), and (Austria). The southern ministers, led by Li Hongzhang, the governor of Liangguang, and Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, repeatedly dissuaded the matter and opposed the declaration of war on the Eight Kingdoms. Seeing that Empress Dowager Cixi was bent on going her own way, these feudal officials privately chose to unite for self-preservation and did not organize an army to go north to participate in the war. Therefore, after the war broke out, China's main combat troops were the Armed Guards, the Eight Banner Army, and the nearly one million Yihe boxers stationed in the north, especially the Directly Subordinate Area, and the nearly one million Yihe boxers who responded to Empress Dowager Cixi's "annihilation of the Yang Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty". Judging from the historical data declassified by modern military history experts, the large number of Boxers and Boxers was also one of the main reasons why Empress Dowager Cixi made up her mind to declare war on the Eight Kingdoms. Because in terms of numbers and momentum, the civilian armed forces of more than one million people, coupled with the regular army that has undergone modern military reforms, still have a great chance of victory against the Western powers that have gone to the ocean to invade China.
However, Empress Dowager Cixi overlooked a problem- the Boxers had a bloody feud with the Qing Dynasty's armies. A few months ago, Nie Shicheng led his troops to kill thousands of nominal and boxers, and the imperial court also praised him for his merits in suppressing the "boxers" and rewarded him for wearing yellow coats. Now, in the blink of an eye, Nie Shicheng's troops should jointly fight with these "boxers" and jointly deal with the Eight-Nation Alliance, which is difficult for Nie Shicheng, who has led troops for more than 40 years and has a deep strategy, to accept. For this reason, Nie Shicheng repeatedly went to his old superior Rong Lu (then the governor directly subordinate) to express his dissatisfaction and concern. Whether Rong Lu had asked Empress Dowager Cixi is unknown, but he instructed Nie Shicheng not to trust either the Yihe Fist nor the foreigners, and to be prepared with both hands (that is, to deal with the Boxer Fist and the Eight-Nation Alliance at the same time).
In late June 1900, Nie Shicheng's troops marched to Tianjin and joined forces with the Boxers to attack the embassy district of the Eight Kingdoms. At first, China's combined forces proceeded smoothly, and several times they invaded the embassy district heavily guarded by the Eight-Power Alliance. Soon, the Eight-Nation Alliance, which came to support from the sea, rushed to Tianjin one after another, and the war situation took a sharp turn for the worse. At the behest of Rong Lu and other court ministers who were hostile to Yihe and Fist, Nie Shicheng began his own performance. He first sent the Righteous and Boxers to take the lead and act as cannon fodder, and then set up heavy machine gun positions in the rear to frantically slaughter the retreating Boxers, numbering more than 1,000 people.
Although The Boxers claimed to be invincible, they were not fools, and immediately fell out with the Armed Guards (stabbed in the back, who did not turn their faces), retired from the front line of the battle, and burned and smashed everywhere in tianjin. The Qing Dynasty was at war with the Eight Kingdoms, and as a front-line general, fratricide provoked infighting was not the result that the imperial court wanted. In order to stabilize the Yihe Fist, Duan Wang, a scholar, and others who had a great weight in the imperial court, ordered Nie Shicheng to be severely reprimanded, and demanded that Rong Lu, the governor of Zhili, deal with it immediately.
As a result, Nie Shicheng was dismissed from his post and retained, and played a role in temporarily stabilizing the Yihe Fist. Nie Shicheng's grievances were full of grievances and had nowhere to tell, and he sighed to his cronies: "The upper part does not forgive the imperial court, and the lower sees the boxers and bandits, and there is no way to explain oneself unless one dies." From then on, every battle was personally present at the front line and led by example, in order to express loyalty to the Manchu Qing court. However, it is a pity that Nie Shicheng did not die on the battlefield against the foreigners, but died at the hands of the Boxers, which is a great irony for him.
How did Nie Shicheng die? In July 1900, when the Eight-Power Alliance captured most of Tianjin and the Chinese army was gradually defeated, Empress Dowager Cixi regretted her decision to declare war on the Eight Kingdoms by relying on the Boxer Fist, and ordered the suppression of the "Boxer Bandits" in order to negotiate peace with the Eight Kingdoms. Nie Shicheng, who had always been fierce against Yihe Fist, naturally resolutely carried out the instructions of the supreme leader and turned the muzzle of the gun to the friendly army. The result was that the Chinese armies killed each other and cheapened the Eight-Power Alliance. It is good to help Qing Qing destroy the yangs now, and the imperial court will rebel and unite with the foreigners to destroy themselves.
The Boxers rushed into Nie Shicheng's hometown in Tianjin on July 9, 1900, and tied up his wife, daughter, and old mother and left as revenge. When Nie Shicheng received the report, he was commanding the Armed Guards to engage the Eight-Nation Alliance, and before he could think about it, he handed over the command to the deputy general and led hundreds of his relatives to rescue his family. There were soldiers in the Wu Wei Army who sympathized with Yihe Fist, and they had long wanted to kill Nie Shicheng and then quickly, but when they saw Nie Shicheng and Yihe Fist exchange fire, they shouted: "Nie Shicheng rebelled!" Shooting at Nie Shicheng, the soldiers of the Armed Guards who were unaware of him followed the rebels and opened fire on Nie Shicheng fiercely. Tang Tang was directly subordinate to the president of the Armed Guards, was shot several times in the body, and was hit by artillery fire and died on the spot.
After Nie Shicheng's death, the Righteous Boxers were particularly resentful and wanted to crush the executioner who slaughtered his compatriots into ten thousand pieces. At this moment, the Eight-Power Alliance came to fight. Hearing that the supreme commander of the Chinese army was killed in battle, these beast-faced invaders wrapped Nie Shicheng's broken body in a blanket and later handed it over to the Chinese army.
Nie Shicheng was a military general from Yipin and a commander-in-chief of the front line, who died on the battlefield, and how could the imperial court also give a reward and a pension. However, at this time, Empress Dowager Cixi's goal of using Nie Shicheng to suppress the Yihe Fist to negotiate peace with the Eight-Nation Alliance was not achieved, and the Eight-Nation Alliance was attacking the city of Beijing, and the imperial court had to use the Boxer Fist to resist the foreigners. In this way, Nie Shicheng not only had no merit, but also had to bear the black pot for Empress Dowager Cixi's decision-making mistakes. After the advice of Zai Yi, Gang Yi, and others, the Qing court issued an edict saying that Nie Shicheng "lost his life by mistake, and he was really hated, and he remembered his previous achievements and granted him a compassionate ceremony." Without commendation, a burial fee of several hundred taels of silver was paid.
On August 15, 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance army approached the Forbidden City, and Empress Dowager Cixi coerced the Guangxu Emperor to flee in the direction of Shaanxi. On August 19, the Forbidden City was breached, and three ministers, Rong Lu, fled to Baoding, where the university cadets committed suicide by hanging themselves and martyrdom. The Guangxu Emperor was forced to issue a copy of the "Edict of Sin" in a small county town 100 kilometers from Beijing.
On January 15, 1901, through arduous negotiations, the Manchu Qing court and the eight countries signed the "Xinugu Treaty" that humiliated the country, which was considered to have ended the war.
In 1902, Yuan Shikai, a relative of Nie Shicheng's young compatriots, served as the governor and minister of Beiyang, and made a request to the imperial court to repay Nie Shicheng. Yuan Shikai was in power, and Empress Dowager Cixi had to give him three points of face. He was posthumously awarded nie shi the title of prince shaobao, and was given a pension according to the example of the death of the viceroy, and was given a grace and a loyal title. And in Tianjin and other places to set up a shrine for it, four o'clock worship.