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Xu Yongyi
Long-serving Zongli Yamen minister and grand councillor who opposed war with the powers in 1900 and was beheaded with Lishan and Lianyuan
In a council hall, a long table holds an unrolled map scroll, a brass-cornered chest and a brush pot, with tall-backed chairs around it and a bronze lamp at the left; a figure stands with their back turned on the balcony at the right, with palace roofs beyond.
Also known as Zi Jifu · Zi Xiaoyun
Xu Yongyi, courtesy name Jifu, styled Xiaoyun, came from Haiyan in Zhejiang and, holding the provincial degree, began as a secretary of the Grand Council. He spent many years at the Zongli Yamen, the foreign affairs office, and entered the Grand Council in 1894, where he favoured a negotiated end to the war with Japan; he was removed from the council the next year. In 1899 he became minister of war and returned to the Zongli Yamen. When the court debated using the Boxers against the foreign powers in 1900, he argued with Xu Jingcheng and Yuan Chang that the Boxers should be suppressed and that war must be avoided, and on 11 August he was beheaded at Caishikou together with Lishan and Lianyuan. His ranks were later restored, and in 1909 he received the posthumous name Zhongmin; he is counted among the five ministers killed in 1900.
Life and times
Dates 1826 CE–1900 CE