Last time we spoke about the battle of the Taku Forts and the siege of Tientsin. The allied admirals gave an ultimatum to the Qing to hand over the Taku Forts, which they declined. The western navies attacked the Taku Forts officially beginning a war with the Qing dynasty. The seizure of the Taku Forts led the Qing to fully support the Boxers who raised a siege against the foreign legations in Beijing and the foreign settlement in Tientsin. The foreign community at Tientsin found themselves surrounded by 30,000 Boxers and 15,000 Qing with only 2400 troops of various nationalities to defend them. The siege was grueling and the Chinese forces nearly overran them, but the allies were able to hold out until reinforcements arrived from Taku. Despite receiving extra troops and restoring communications to Taku, the allies were still greatly outnumbered and now those in Beijing were in more severe danger.    #64 The Boxer Rebellion part 4:Darkest Days before the Dawn in Peking   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Much of China’s national library, the Hanlin Academy and other buildings had been burnt down by the Boxers. The firefighter teams did their best to stop the fires, which threatened to spread towards the British legation. Countless, irreplaceable books had perished in the fires. Within the legation quarters, they all awaited Seymours rescue force eagerly, none knowing the truth that he had been forced to withdraw. On June 24th, Qing forces deployed a 3 inch krupp gun on the charred Chien Men, the gate opposite of the Forbidden city. They began firing shells into the legation quarters, some managing to hit the British legation. Then the Chinese turned their attention to the Fu Palace being guarded by Lt Colonel Goro Shiba with a small force of Japanese soldiers. A part of the Fu’s walls was breached allowed Boxers and Qing soldiers to swarm in. They were met with Japanese riflemen behind loopholed barricades who unleashed volleys upon them. The Japanese were vastly outnumbered, prompting Colonel Shiba to request urgent reinforcements as the Christian Chinese began fleeing the Fu in panic. The fleeing Christian Chinese soon realized it was even more dangerous outside the Fu than in and quickly scrambled back. A detachment of Americans and Germans dashed along the Tartar Wall behind their legations, scattering the enemy before them back towards the Cheinmen as they made their way to help the Japanese at the FU. The Americans under the command of Captain John T. Myers with aid from Christian Chinese managed to build a breastwork across the width of the wall while the Germans built their own fortification. There positions were 500 yards apart, a critical defense to deny the enemy access to the Tartar Wall. Just yards in front of them were Chinese barricades. Boxer corpses lay in heaps with the hot sun just feet away from most of the legation defensive lines. The stench was putrefying, gangs of Chinese laborers would risk their lives tossing corpses over walls when they could. During the evening of the 25th, as the sun was dying down, British author Bertram Lenox Simpson recalled this “The sun . . . was sinking down slowly towards the west, flooding the pink walls of the Imperial City with a golden l