Ministers › Statesman / Official
Zai Xun
Manchu prince who commanded the Beijing gendarmerie and Boxer bands in 1900, put a bounty on foreigners and was ordered to kill himself in 1901
In the courtyard of a district government hall, a line of petitioners waits before a raised bench with a long table and document boxes; a blue umbrella stands beside it, a large drum stands at the gate where a few people wait, and a lake with sailboats lies beyond.
- Roles
- Statesman / Official
Zaixun was the son of Yiren, Prince Zhuang; born in 1854, he succeeded to the title of Prince Zhuang in 1875. In 1900 he joined Prince Duan, Zaiyi, in urging the court to use the Boxers to drive out the foreigners, became commander of the Beijing gendarmerie, was placed in charge of the Boxer bands around Beijing and Tianjin, and offered rewards for the capture or killing of foreigners. When the allied armies entered Beijing he followed the court westward. In the peace talks the powers named him among the chief culprits, the court stripped him of his rank, and in February 1901 he was ordered to take his own life at Puzhou in Shanxi.
Life and times
Dates 1854 CE–1901 CE