http://repository.tufs.ac.jp/bitstream/101...jaas072005.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Ku-t'ien incident (1895), occurred August 1 in Fujien (ç¦å»º) province in China, caused a great loss of life. Including missionaries and sisters, eleven foreigners were killed. As the number of the death, it is the large incident next to the Tienjin Massacre (1870). The members of the attacking group had belonged to the sect said Tsai Hui (èä¼, ææ vegetarians), one of the popular religious sects which had been called White Lotus Sect during the Ming and Qing periods. Although the former studies have pointed some causes of this incident, yet could not explain the true origin except its antiforeigner feelings. This vegetarian group was a blanch of Yao-Men Sect (å§éæ). The head of this sect called Yao Fu-jing (å§æ®æ ¶) is said to be in Jiu Jiang (ä¹æ±) in Jiang Xi (æ±è¥¿) province. This Yao-Men Sect had a long tradition from the late Ming dynasty to now. It is said that the founder was Lao zi (ç¾ ç¥), and its successor, the second head was Yin Ji-nan (å¿ç¶å), the third head was Yao Wen-yu (å§æå®). But eventually Yao himself was the founder of this sect, its teachings had belonged the tradition of the Huang Tien Dao (é»å¤©é). In 1880's this sect had spread its influence in Ku-t'ien district, because it prohibited the opium and placed themselves against the regional practice of polvandry or "the farming out" of wives. Tsai-Hui's influence begun to spread more widely, as the Sino-Japanese War brought Fujien society the disorder and the unrest, At the same time it begun to function as the police and the trial judge to mediate the troubles in the country yard, because the local office increasingly had lost the powers of the government. So the troubles between Tsai-Hui and the Chinese peoples in Chinese Missionary Society (CMS) also began to occur. But the incident was not a religious struggle between the two. The officials of Ku-t'ien county would like to control their activities, but they are not strong enough to do so. Tsai Hui members resisted the orders of the county government. This conflict and disturbances enrolled the missionaries in Ku-T'ien district. At last the provincial officials at Foochow made a mind up their mind to suppress these rebellious activities, and sent a troop. In this critical situation the leaders of Tsai Hui gathered their followers at the fort in the mountains and decided to act rebelliously toward the officials. At first they would attack the summer house of CMS in Hua Shan (è¯å±±) in the south east of the city, because they thought the troop were dispatched to here by the direction of foreign missionary. After the massacre the local officials caught more than two hundreds criminals with all their energies. In the attendance of the British and American consuls, the trials were held at Ku-T'ien and Foochow. These consuls required an indemnity and submitted many demands to the officials. In accordance with the resolution of the Chen-tu riots (æé½ææ¡) which occurred in May, British and American ministers in Peking sent several warships to Foochow and gave a pressure to the viceroy. Seventeen persons of the Tsai Hui were immediately executed. Through the Chen-tu riots and Ku-T'ien incident, Britain and the USA's missionary diplomacy had changed to protecting her native protestant missionaries by using the military powers. In historical retrospect the incidents in 1895 are much significant to indicate the starting of American jingoism, and as the first incidents in series of antiforeigner breaks before the Boxer uprising. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?...aRKMg&user=&pw=
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->H-ASIA
December 7, 2004
Acknowledging assistance in query on Ko Lao Hui (Gelaohui)
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From Ian Welch ian.welch@anu.edu.au
My thanks to Kristin Stapleton, J Boltz, Raymond Lum, Shih-Chieh Lo and
Ming-te Pan for their responses. I would value any other suggestions.
The name of the particular society I am chasing up was written at the time
of a massacre of missionaries in Fujian Province in 1895. The British
Consul in Fuzhou, R W Mansfield, gave it as either the Ts'ai Hui or Shih
Ts'ai Jen (or Yen). In English, it is always referred to as the 'Vegetarian
Society' which is why I linked it back to the Buddhist tradition and White
Lotus. The influence of White Lotus or its ideology seems to have been
widespread among secret societies in 19C China. I am not suggesting a
literal connection.
The Veg Socy was widespread in Fujian although its headquarters are
described as being in Kiukiang (??), Chekiang Province. It certainly had a
temple headquarters in the Min River at Fuzhou and had a proclamation of
its merit from an earlier Viceroy pasted on the wall even after the
massacre at Huashan.
As specialist contributors will know 19th century China was awash in secret
societies. Being illiterate in Chinese, I rely on English-language
renderings and variant romanisations such as the above and, of course,
often work with archival mss in which handwriting can add to my normal
confusion.
Even if I was fluent in Chinese, a reality of secret societies is their
secrecy so it is unlikely that anything survives from the particular subset
I am pursuing. The archival sources indicate that no written records were
kept by the Gutian Vegetarians.
I have dug around the journal sites such as JSTOR etc and have downloaded
everything remotely relevant on the issue of 19th C Chinese secret
societies. Just as I despatched my Ko Lao Hui enquiry, I came across the
new Google academic engine - (a real plus) - and found three new items
using Dr Dunch's helpful modernisation - Gelaohui.
Reports from missionaries and diplomats (US as well as British), and from
various strands from time to time in JAS etc, indicate a substantial ethnic
Chinese anti-Manchu resistance movement in 19C China.
There are references to the Gutian subset having links with the Vegetarian
Society in Fuzhou, including requests for arms, etc. The leader used the
usual language of 'emperor' etc in a way reminiscent of other similar
movements, not least the Taiping. Diplomats were convinced, although their
knowledge of internal Chinese movements is very shaky, that there were many
senior officials in the Vegetarian Society.
One theory surrounding the Vegetarian Society in Fujian was that it was
planning a seizure of power using Gutian as a military base from which to
expand against the Manchu administration and its cooperators in the Province.
I tried attaching the character format but the message bounced so I hope
this gives enough information to prompt someone's knowledge.
[Ed. note: The H-Net listserver will not accept posts with attachments,
regardless of their language or script.  FFC]
Cheers
Ian
--
Dr Ian Welch, Departmental Visitor
Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Email: ian.welch@anu.edu.au
Postal Address: Dr Ian Welch, PO Box 7034, Farrer ACT 2607, Australia.
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[Ed. note: I'll add that Mary Backus Rankin wrote an article on this
particular event early in her career, in the Harvard graduate student
journal _Papers on China_. The citation is <b>Mary Backus Rankin, "The
Ku-t'ien Incident (1895): Christians Versus the T'sai-hui,"</b> in Papers on
China 15 (December 1961), pp. 30-61. RD]
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