In June of 1900, the foreign diplomats in Beijing found themselves cut off from the outside world and increasingly threatened by the boxers, an anti-foreign militia of angry teenagers and young men flooding into the city.

Worse still, the soldiers sent to relieve them have themselves become trapped, surrounded by angry boxers and hostile Chinese soldiers and almost out of supplies in ammunition.

Eight governments order more soldiers to China while nervously waiting for news.

Something, anything, to tell them whether their people in Beijing are still alive.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century. Episode 15, Tales I Win.

We left off last time with the diplomats of 11 Western nations isolated in

the legation quarter in Beijing. After one Japanese diplomat was brutally murdered, the ambassadors

protested to the Chinese foreign ministry, but were told simply that he had been the victim of bandits.

At the same time, the multinational relief force of over 2,000 soldiers has gotten trapped itself,

between Beijing and Tianjin, almost out of supply, and with hundreds of wounded.

Neither of these groups can communicate with the other or with the

outside world. No one knows their fate. In Beijing, boxers began burning down Christian churches

and mission buildings. The Protestant missionaries and many of their Chinese converts converged on the Methodist mission,

as it was the largest and most easily defended.

The lead Methodist missionaries in Beijing at this time were Frank and Mary game well.

Frank had been a missionary in China for 20 years, and had already been besieged once before by a hostile mob in Chongqing.

Mary had lived in China for 30 years.

Now, I know this sounds like a bad Hallmark Channel movie,

but the Game Wells had actually had plans to leave China for a vacation trip on June 5th,

but that was the very day the boxers cut the train line to Tianjin,

and so they were forced to stay.

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