Lianyuan

Also known as Zi Xianheng

Lianyuan, of the Cuigiya clan, courtesy name Xianheng, belonged to the Manchu Bordered Red Banner. He passed the metropolitan examination in 1868 and entered the Hanlin Academy, then served in Anhui as prefect of Taiping and of Anqing and as provincial judge before returning to Beijing as a subchancellor of the Grand Secretariat. Appointed to the Zongli Yamen in 1900, he told the court conferences that popular feeling might be used but the Boxer bands could not, and warned that a lost war with the powers would endanger the dynasty itself. On 11 August that year he was beheaded at Caishikou together with Xu Yongyi and Lishan, and with Xu Jingcheng and Yuan Chang he is counted among the five ministers killed in 1900. His ranks were later restored and he received the posthumous name Wenzhi.