Under the command of General Dong Fuxiang (1839–1908), they were transferred to the Beijing metropolitan area in 1898, where they officially became the Rear Division of the Wuwei Corps, a modern army that protected the imperial capital.

The Braves, who wore traditional uniforms but were armed with modern rifles and artillery, played an important role in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion.

Late in the afternoon it transpired that the Empress Dowager was not in the Imperial city at all, but out at the Summer Palace on the Wan-shou-shan--the hills of ten thousand ages, as these are poetically called.

Tung Fu-hsiang, whose ruffianly Kansu braves were marched out of the Chinese city--that is the outer ring of Peking--two nights before the Legation Guards came in, is also with the Empress, for his cavalry banners, made of black and blue velvet, with blood-red characters splashed splendidly across them, have been seen planted at the foot of the hills.

Tung Fu-hsiang is an invincible one, who stamped out the Kansu rebellion a few years ago with such fierceness that his name strikes terror to-day into every Chinese heart.But it is grave notwithstanding the laughter.

The guards are now no more, but it is curious that the men they came mainly to protect us against— Tung Fu-hsiang's Mohammedan braves from the savage back province of Kansu who love the reactionary Empress Dowager—are still encamped near the Northern capital.Following the killing of two German missionaries in Shandong in November 1897, foreign powers engaged in a "scramble for concessions" that threatened to split China into several spheres of influence.

[29] In late September and early October 1898, several minor clashes between the Gansu troops and foreigners heightened tensions in the capital.

[17] Soldiers from the United States Marine Corps were among the new guards called from Tianjin to protect the Beijing Legation Quarter from possible assaults.

Men of this force attacked, on September 30th, a party consisting of members of the British and American legations, and the next day the foreign representatives decided to send for a guard of marines from each of their fleets.

The viceroy at Tientsin refused to allow them to pass, but, as the envoys [67] Sir C. MacDonald to Lord Salisbury, April 15th, 1898, China, Xo.

On the 25th of October Minister MacDonald cabled to London: "A serious menace to the safety of Europeans is the presence of some 10,000 soldiers, who have come from the Province of Kansu, and are to be quartered in the hunting park, two miles south of Peking.

A party of these soldiers made a savage assault on four Europeans (including Mr. C. W. Campbell, of this Legation), who were last Sunday visiting the railway line at Lukou Chiao.

They have declared their intention to drive all Europeans out of the north of China, and have cut the telegraph wires and destroyed portions of the railway line between Lukouchiao and Paoting Fu.

This state of affairs, I may say, existed in the capital during the first days of June, from which time I began to jot down the following diary of events as they occurred before my own eyes and were personally experienced by me.

At noon, my friend Yang Ch'ao-chió, a Military Chüjén graduate, sent a servant over to my house suggesting that we should join our families together and escape from Peking in company from the dangers threatening all, and fixing to-morrow morning as our time of departure.

I had also heard that the road to T'ungchou was greatly infested by marauding bands of outlaws, that the railway to Tientsin had been destroyed, and the telegraph lines cut.

Shortly afterwards, flames were bursting from our neighbour's premises, so I made up my mind to remove my family to a friend's house in the north of the city.

In spite of these deeds of violence, even intelligent people still believed that the Kansu soldiery were a tower of defence for China, and would be more than able to repel any number of foreign troops.

The main body of Tung Fuhsiang's savage Kansu braves—that is, his whole army-—re-entered the capital and rapidly encamped on the open places in front of the Temples of Heaven and Agriculture in the outer ring of Peking.

[51][52] In late May, the anti-Christian Boxers took a broader anti-foreign turn, and as they became more organized, they started to attack the Beijing–Baoding railway and to cut telegraph lines between Beijing and Tianjin.

[58] Fearing the worst, Sir Claude MacDonald immediately sent a telegram calling for Admiral Seymour to send help from Tianjin.

Instead of doing so the ruffian merely ordered the Japanese Chancellor's head to be struck off as a sacrifice to their war banner, and stuck near the gate, "for trying to break out of Peking."

Finally the official seal of approval from the highest quarter for this dastardly murder was made by Prince Tuan, who, when he met General Tung Fu-hsiang the next morning, slapped the latter on the back and raising his right thumb called out "Hao" (good!)

[65][66] The Kansu Muslim troops seized him from his cart near the Yongding Gate, hacked him into pieces, decapitated him, and left his mutilated body and severed head and genitals on the street.

[65][72] The Japanese legation lodged a formal protest at the Tsungli Yamen, which expressed its regrets and explained that Sugiyama had been killed by "bandits".

[91] Early on Sunday morning, 17th June, a week after we had started, the Taku Forts were taken by U the Allied Forces in order to relieve Tientsin.

But the Court in Peking must have received instant news of the fact, for on the afternoon of the 18th Captain von Usedom, the German officer in command of the troops left at Langfang, was attacked by the Imperial forces belonging to General Tung-fuh-siang's division.

The latter had been unexpectedly attacked about half past 2 in the afternoon of June 18, by a force estimated at 5,000 men, including cavalry, large numbers of whom were armed with magazine rifles of the latest pattern.

They were said to be well armed, but indifferently drilled.The Muslim troops led by Dong Fuxiang defeated the hastily assembled Seymour Expedition of the 8 nation alliance at the Battle of Langfang on 18 June.

The Caliph agreed to the Kaiser's request and sent Enver Pasha (not the future Young Turk leader) to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time.