Zaiyi himself created the unit in 1899, but it was decimated at the Battle of Peking in 1900 when the Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing to lift the Chinese siege of the foreign legations during the Boxer Uprising.

[3][4] Zaiyi, also known as Prince Duan, created the Hushenying in June 1899, for which he gained the praise of Empress Dowager Cixi.

[1] Some Chinese sources claim that Zaiyi chose the name Hushenying to convey his dislike of foreigners – since "tiger eats lamb (Yang, a pun on foreigners), and the divine tames the devil (Gui)" – but this claim cannot be verified in the documents of the time.

During the Boxer Uprising (1899–1901), the Hushenying was among the troops that besieged the Beijing Legation Quarter, where most foreigners lived.

During that siege (summer 1900), the Hushenying led by the harshly anti-foreign Zaiyi often clashed with the Peking Field Force, which was commanded by the more moderate Yikuang (Prince Qing).