Gao Zhannian (1865-1900), whose ancestral home was Ganlan County, Shanxi Province, was born in Erdao Trench Village, Saraqi Twenty-four Acres Township, and loved martial arts since childhood, practicing a hard kung fu. As an adult, he was tall and strong, and once made a bet with the villagers to lift a mill with one arm.
In the sixth year of Guangxu (1880 AD), Belgian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary used various means to occupy the surrounding land in the name of missionaryism in the area of twenty-four hectares, and to lure and force the villagers to convert. Within a few years, however, the area became the most developed area for academic affairs. In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898 AD), the bishop's palace of the Southwest Mongolian Diocese was moved from Sansheng Gong to twenty-four hectares. Under the manipulation of Bishop Hammerie (a Dutch national), he plundered the land even more frantically and oppressed the people.
Gao Zhannian hated the misdeeds of foreign priests. Around the Erdao Trench and Xingyi Lou, which is 10 kilometers away from the 24-hectare land, the church land is bounded by flower arrangements on the land of the Mongolian and Han chinese outside the church. Outsiders are often punished for trampling on the church's land or taking the church's path. To this end, Gao Zhannian led the villagers of the second trench to build a special road. Once, when Gao Zhannian saw the church carriage driving on the sidewalk they had built, he was furious and flew over and threw the church carriage into the trench on the side of the road.
In the spring of the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (1900 AD), the bishop of the twenty-four prefectures colluded with the King's Mansion of The King of Jungar to forcibly purchase the Zhang Gui circle with Gao Zhannian's neighboring villages. The land advocated that noble widows should not sell, and the church said wildly: "Zhang Gui's circle sells to us, we want to cultivate the land and farm, and if we don't sell it, we will also cultivate the land and farm." Gao Zhannian stepped forward and sternly reprimanded: "The widow Zhang does not sell this land, why do you force it to buy?" Besides, the house is nearby, the ground is at the end, my land is next to Zhang Gui's circle, I want to sell, I buy it, and I can't get your turn. The church said domineeringly: "We have bought this piece of land in Zhang Gui's circle!" "
The matter was deadlocked to such an extent that Gao Zhannian estimated that the church would not give up, so he consulted with his brother and the villagers on countermeasures, hired more than a dozen foreign "master craftsmen" who were proficient in martial arts, and raised some weapons to prepare to attack the inmates. The church also expected that Gao Zhannian would not give in, and often sent detectives to investigate Gao Zhannian's movements, but did not dare to act rashly for a while. After two or three months, those hired "craftsmen" had to eat meat, drink alcohol and smoke a lot of cigarettes every day, and they were unable to support themselves, so they had to dismiss the "craftsmen". When the church learned of this situation, it immediately bribed these "craftsmen" with high remuneration to act as thugs against Gao Zhannian.
One day in late April of that year, at the instigation of Bishop Han Moli, jia Mingyuan and Wu Xingguo, two young foreign missionaries, Shi Zong, the president, and Ren Xicai, the missionary, led the church's armed personnel, "master craftsmen," and more than 3,000 believers, armed with weapons, carrying plows, rakes, rakes, and shovels, pulling livestock, and driving cars, marching in a menacing manner, surrounding the Xingyi Building and launching an attack. In the face of rampant church forces, Gao Zhannian and others were not afraid and bravely resisted. With a good martial art, Gao Zhannian wielded a white wax rod and slammed into it, invincible. He broke out of the siege three times and entered the siege three times to rescue the besieged brothers and villagers. When he entered the siege for the third time, the white wax rod was cut by the enemy's sword to only 1 meter long, but he still fought hard. Seeing that there were no villagers around, he jumped on the roof and was preparing to rush out again when a person next to him shouted at him: "Gao Zhannian, are you leaving?" Whatever your brothers and folks? Gao Zhannian turned around and looked in the direction the man was pointing, only to see that Gao Genxiao, Gao Wuxiao, Po Deng, and others had been caught by the enemy, and immediately jumped from the room again, brandishing a white wax pole to rescue their relatives. The enemy swarmed and surrounded Gao Zhannian, he rushed left and right, accidentally tripped by the loosened belt, fell into the cellar hole, and the enemy captured him with a scratching hook. The enemy insulted Gao Zhannian, and he rebuked the foreign priest with great righteousness: "Grandpa is 36 years old this year, and in another 36 years he will be so big!" When grandpa dies, he will pour out your sheep(foreign) belly and drink your sheep (foreign) offal! The ferocious enemy cut off Gao Zhannian's tongue, and Shi Zong, Ren Xicai, and others personally tied the stick to him and threw it into the Yellow River. At the same time, 8 people were thrown into the Yellow River, including Gao Genxiao, Gao Wuxiao, Po Deng, and Wu Yiwu.
The news that Gao Zhannian and 9 others were killed by foreign priests soon spread throughout the Tumo River. The families of the victims and the broad masses of the Mongol and Han people demanded that the Qing government punish the murderers, but Bishop Han Moli ignored the righteous demands of the Chinese people, hid the murderers, and refused to hand them over. The lawsuit went all the way to the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty, and the Guangxu Emperor felt that "the dilemma of resistance" was suppressed and did not deal with anything.
Faced with the aggressive acts of imperialist missionaries and the weakness and incompetence of the Qing government, the vast number of Mongolian and Han people in Tumochuan were enraged. In the summer of that year, they organized the Boxer Rebellion, which was dedicated to combating the imperialist forces of aggression. On the 24th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, the Boxers chanted "Avenge Gao Zhannian!" "Avenge the dead!" "Marching forward courageously, he broke through the Twenty-four Prefecture Bishop's Palace, captured Han Moli, Shi Zong, Ren Xicai and other murderers alive, executed them in Tuo County, avenged gao Zhannian and other anti-imperialist warriors, and greatly increased the morale of the people in the anti-imperialist struggle."
Source: Baotou City Chronicle, Volume 1, June 2007. Huang Xiang (Yin Shan Worm) was sorted out in January 2022
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