false practices. You have rashly resisted your mandarins, you have massacred them, you have assassinated foreigners, and then you have been the cause of unprecedented calamities, which above all else have plunged your Sovereign and your fathers in grief.
We can not think of what has been done without feeling a still deeper resentment. We have already formally ordered the Commanders in Chief of all the regions to exert their sincerest efforts to destroy these societies. The thing is to do away with the evil, even in its roots; therefore the Princes and Ministers who have lent their support to the Boxers will suffer the heaviest penalties according to their crimes, and in order to inspire fear, all civil and military examinations will be suspended for five years in all cities where foreigners were massacred or suffered cruel treatment.
Fearing lest the ignorant rural populations may not hear (of these punishments), new and severe measures will be taken for the special purpose of preventing the execution of those who have not been notified.
You, soldiers and people, must know that it is formally forbidden by law to organize or belong to secret societies. Our ancestors have never shown the slightest indulgence in the repression of societies of malefactors.
Moreover, the foreign Powers are all friendly countries, the Christians are children of our blood whom the Court regards with the same benevolence, and It could not admit having toward them sentiments of a different sort. All Chinese, whether Christians or not, who may be ill treated, should complain to the authorities and wait until a fair and equitable judgment is rendered. How can you lightly believe all the rumors which have been spread? How can you disregard the penal laws?
Then, when all is lost, those who are sharp save themselves by flight and the simple are put to death. The law is slow to pardon, and all that has happened is in truth most regrettable. From the publication of this present edict, each one must reform and repent him of the teaching he has received.
If hardened and incorrigible malefactors should again secretly organize anti-foreign societies, they will be punished by death, as well as anyone belonging to these societies. They shall not be shown the slightest mercy.
The Tartar Marshals, the Governors-General, Governors, and High Provincial Authorities whose duty it is to guide the population, must give explicit instructions to their subordinates to publish severe proclamations and to have printed on yellow paper the present decree, which shall be posted up everywhere. It is important that all families be notified, that they all be exhorted to good conduct and that none be ignorant of the will of the Court for all to be well aware that punishment will be meted out, in order to avoid the necessity of inflicting other punishments.
Let this edict be made known to all in the Empire.
Respect this!
