Li Hongzhang
Viceroy and Qing plenipotentiary
"I am but a bricklayer, patching a house that is falling down."
Biography
The grand old statesman of the late Qing, Li Hongzhang had modernised China's armies and industry and conducted its foreign policy for decades. In 1900 he was viceroy in the south, and — along with other southern governors — he refused to obey the court's declaration of war, keeping the Yangtze provinces neutral in a pact with the foreign powers that spared half of China from the catastrophe. When the war was lost, the desperate court recalled the 77-year-old Li to Peking to negotiate with the victors, as he had so often before. He haggled the punitive terms of the Boxer Protocol down as far as he could — a staggering indemnity, the punishment of officials, foreign garrisons in the capital — signing the humiliating treaty in September 1901. Worn out by the ordeal, he died two months later, and China lost the one statesman the foreigners still trusted.
Did you know?
So indispensable was he to Qing diplomacy that the dynasty repeatedly called him out of disgrace to clean up its disasters — he negotiated the peace after the Sino-Japanese War as well as the Boxer Protocol.
Key Battles
The Sack of Peking and the Punitive Expeditions
Eight-Nation Alliance victoryAugust 1900 – 1901 · 15,000 total casualties
The sack of Peking and the brutal punitive campaigns embittered Chinese opinion for generations and stripped away the moral pretensions of the 'civilising' powers; the looting of imperial treasures scattered Chinese artefacts across the world's museums.
Life Journey
Timeline
February 15, 1823
🌅 Birth
Born in Hefei, Anhui
1900
📍 Posting
Keeps the southern provinces neutral
November 7, 1901
✝️ Death
Dies weeks after signing the Boxer Protocol