In China towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, around the later 1800’s to the early 1900’s was the boxer uprising, otherwise known as the Yihetuan movement. After the treaty of tientsin and convention of peking, signed at the end of a string of wars that weakened china including the second opium war in 1860, China was forced to grant foreign missionaries the freedom to preach and buy land anywhere in China. By the late 1890’s a secret and violent anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-christian group formed, called “the society of righteous and harmonious fists” that was carrying out regular attacks on foreign and chinese christians. The rebels took part in calisthenics rituals and martial arts believed to grant one the ability to withstand bullets and other forms of attack. These rituals were referred to by westerners as shadow boxing which lead to the boxers nicknames. The boxers were from various parts of the realm, though many were peasants, particularly from the shandong province which was experiencing natural disasters such as famine and drought. The boxers blamed the foreigners from several european nations, whom had recently been given territory and commercial concessions in this area, for the natural disasters and overall poor standards of living. The movement later spread in 1900 to the beijing area where the boxers killed chinese christians, christian missionaries, destroyed churches and railroad stations along with other property. The day after the boxers began a siege on where the official quarters of foreign diplomats were located called Beijing's Foreign Legation District, where many foreigners and christians had sought refuge, The Qing Empress Dowager Tzu’u Hzi declared war on all foreign nations that held diplomatic ties in China. The siege stretched into weeks as the western powers and japan organized a huge multinational army to end the rebellion, during this time the diplomats, their families and guards suffered hunger and debilitating conditions whilst attempting to keep the boxers at bay. On August 14, an international army of approximately 20,000 troops from eight nations arrived to take beijing and rescue the foreign and chinese christians being held captive. It is said by estimates that during this waiting time several thousand chinese christians and several hundred foreigners were killed. With the signing of the boxer protocol on september 7, 1901, the boxer rebellion formally came to an end under the terms of agreement that forts protecting beijing were to be destroyed, the boxer and chinese government officials were to be punished accordingly, foreign legislations were permitted to station troops in Beijing for their defense along with china being prohibited from importing arms of two years and agreeing to pay more than $300 million in reparations to the foreign nations involved. The Qing Dynasty, as the last dynasty, came to an end in 1912 when china became a republic.