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Big Sword Society
The Big Swords Society () or Great Knife Society was a traditional peasant group most noted for the killing of two German Catholic missionaries at the Juye Incident in 1897 at Zhang Jia Village where the missionaries were ambushed in their sleep by about 30 armed men. The Big Swords Society was widespread in North China during the Qing Dynasty and noted for its reckless courage. Rather than one large overarching organization, the Big Swords were local groups of small-holders and tenant farmers organized to defend villages against roaming bandits, warlords, tax collectors or later the Communists and Japanese. Early history The Society was founded in the early 1890s by Liu Shiduan, who lived in Caozhou prefecture in southwestern Shandong. The Grand Masters of these societies claimed to make the members invulnerable to bullets by magic. Both the Big Swords and Red Spears societies took part in the Boxer Rebellion in North China in 1900. During the first three decades of the 20th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juye Incident
The Juye Incident (, german: Juye Vorfall) refers to the killing of two German Catholic missionaries, Richard Henle and Franz Xaver Nies, of the Society of the Divine Word, in Juye County Shandong Province, China in the night of 1–2 November 1897 (All Saints' Day to All Souls' Day). A third missionary, Georg Maria Stenz, survived the attack unharmed. The mission compound where the incident took place was located in Zhang Jia Village (, spelled "Tshantyachuang" in writings by Georg M. Stenz), about 10 km northeast of the town of Juye and about 25 km northwest of the city of Jining. Georg M. Stenz was the priest stationed in Zhang Jia Village and the other two missionaries, Henle and Nies, had come to visit him. Stenz describes the events of the incident as follows: Before they went to bed shortly before midnight, the missionaries had practiced the Requiem Mass (Miseremini mei) for the following All Souls' Day. Stenz had given his room to his guests for the nigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
