Yuxian (1842–1901) was a Manchu high official of the Qing dynasty who played an important role in the violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion, which unfolded in northern China from the fall of 1899 to 1901.

[2][3] After Allied armies seized control of North China, Yuxian was blamed by both foreign and Chinese officials for having encouraged the Boxers, and at their insistence, he was beheaded.

[8] Buoyed by government support, the Big Swords Society grew dramatically and started to clash with Chinese who had recently converted to Christianity.

[10] When the Big Swords turned violent, Yuxian, who had recently become Shandong judicial commissioner (anchashi 按察使), was put in charge of suppressing them.

He had their leader, Liu Shiduan, and his main lieutenant arrested and beheaded, putting an end to Big Swords activity in southern Shandong.

[8] In mid-October 1899, a band of armed men calling themselves the "Militia United in Righteousness" – known in English as the "Boxers" – clashed with Qing government troops at the Battle of Senluo Temple.

[17] The Qing declaration of war on foreign powers on June 21 of that year allowed the Boxer movement to expand freely from Shandong into northern China.

[20] The events that followed are difficult to document, because unlike the Siege of the International Legations in Beijing in the summer of 1900, no Westerners survived to recount them and even some of the official record was clearly altered.

[21] The usual account states that Yuxian called 18 Western missionaries and their families – a total of 44 or 45 people, including women and children – to Taiyuan under the false pretense of protecting them, and that he had them all executed on July 9 in the compound of the provincial government.

[22][23] This longstanding account of the "Taiyuan massacre" is based on a detailed document first published on 29 April 1941 that purported to be by an eyewitness: a Chinese convert named Yong Zheng.

[28] In addition to imposing heavy indemnities on the Qing government, the Boxer Protocol signed on 7 September 1901 mandated that Yuxian should be beheaded for his role in killing foreign missionaries during the rebellion.