It has not been established who committed the killings, although it is most commonly assumed that the attack was launched by members of the Big Swords Society[3]:52, a decentralized network of peasant groups formed for the purpose of self-defense against local threats, e.g., from bandits. Like the identities of the perpetrators, their specific motivations also remain unknown.[4]:126 However, it is clear that the German missionaries had gotten themselves involved in a number of local conflicts, for example by indiscriminately taking the side of Chinese Christians who were party to a dispute.[5]. Stenz blamed the attack on the warden of a neighboring village (Cao Jia Zhuang, spelled "Tsaotyachuang" by Stenz and located about 10 km to the south of Zhang Jia Village).[6] Stenz had denied the warden admission to the Catholic church as he had been accused of stealing an ox from a neighboring village.[7] Stenz had, however, allowed comparatively wealthy families from the same village to convert to Catholicism.[8] He believed that the attack was motivated by the ensuing dispute between the warden and the converts who had refused to pay for local temple feasts on the basis of their newly-adopted religion.[9]
Attack
The mission compound where the incident took place was located in Zhang Jia Village (simplified Chinese:张家庄; traditional Chinese:張家莊; pinyin:Zhāng Jiā Zhuāng, spelled "Tshantyachuang" in writings by Georg M. Stenz),[10] about 10km northeast of the town of Juye and about 25km northwest of the city of Jining. Georg M. Stenz was the priest stationed in Zhang Jia Village and the other two missionaries, Henle and Nies, had come to visit him.[11] Stenz describes the events of the incident as follows:[12] Before they went to bed shortly before midnight, the missionaries had practiced the Requiem Mass (Miseremini mei) for the following All Souls' Day. Stenz had given his room to his guests for the night and had moved into a vacant porter's room himself. Believing the area to be peaceful, the missionaries did not take any precautions and Stenz left the door to his room unlocked. A band of twenty to thirty armed men[13] broke into the mission compound shortly after the missionaries had gone to bed. They broke the door to the room where Henle and Nies were staying and killed the two missionaries. Both victims were found to have suffered numerous wounds from stabbing and both were dead shortly before midnight. The attackers searched for Stenz, but could not find him. They retreated when the local Chinese Christians arrived at the scene to help.
Investigation
The Chinese authorities portrayed the attack on the mission station as an act of robbery - despite the mismatch between the lethal violence used and the observation that only a few clothing items had been taken from Stenz's quarters.[14]:124 A total of about 50 people were arrested by the authorities and seven of the arrested were convicted for the attack.[15]:215 Two were sentenced to death and beheaded; the other five were sentenced to life in prison.[16]:215 Stenz himself believed that none of the convicted were guilty of the attack.[17]:214
Impact
Less than two weeks after the Juye Incident, the German Empire used the murders of the missionaries as a pretext to seize Jiaozhou Bay on Shandong's southern coast. Under German threats, the Qing government was also forced to remove many Shandong officials (including Shandong governor Li Bingheng) from their posts and to build three Catholic churches in the area (in Jining, Caozhou, and Juye) at its own expense.[18] The mission that had been attacked also received 3,000 taels of silver in compensation for stolen or damaged property, and received the right to construct seven fortified residences in the area, also at government expense.[19] This settlement strengthened missionary work in southern Shandong province and was part of the events that led to the Boxer Uprising (1899–1900), a movement directed against the Christian and foreign presence in northern China.[20] Imitating Germany, other powers (Russia, Britain, France, and Japan) began a "Scramble for China" (or "scramble for concessions") to secure their own spheres of influence in China.[21]
Historian Paul Cohen has called the Juye incident "the opening wedge in a process of greatly intensified imperialist activity in China"[22] and Joseph W. Esherick comments that the Juye killings "set off a chain of events which radically altered the course of Chinese history."[23]
Tiedemann, R. G. (2007a), "The Church Militant: Armed Conflicts between Christians and Boxers in North China", in Robert Bickers; R.G. Tiedemann (eds.), The Boxers, China, and the World, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, pp.17–41, ISBN978-0-7425-5395-8 .
Further reading
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Juye Incident.
Tiedemann, R. G. (2007b). "Not Every Martyr is a Saint! The Juye Missionary Case of 1897 Reconsidered." In Noel Golvers and Sara Lievens (eds.), A lifelong dedication to the China mission: essays presented in honor of Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, CICM, on the occasion of his 75th birthday and the 25th anniversary of the F. Verbiest Institute, K.U. Leuven. Leuven Chinese studies, 17. Leuven, Belgium: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, K.U. Leuven. ISBN978-90-801833-8-4, ISBN90-801833-8-5.
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