During the 19th century, the Catholic Church developed under the protection of Western guns, yet, the persecution kept occur- ring and the Church, in a way, was in direct confrontation with Chinese society. According to statistics, from 1856, when the missionaries came back to China after the Opium War until 1899, there were 1,500 reported incidents. The reason for this was that the Western imperialists had invaded China in the name of reli- gion, which offended the Chinese terribly. Meanwhile, some missionaries were arrogant and acted as the agents of the West- ern imperialist invasion. They did many things harmful to the Chinese: trying to collect vital military information, taking over lands, acting as upholders of the law and cheating people. When there were lawsuits involving Catholics, the local officials dared not to offend the foreign missionaries and took the side of the Catholics. Some people even became Catholics because they wanted to win their lawsuits. One saying calling the Catholic Church a "church of lawsuits‘ was rather popular. In Songjiang,Shanghai, another saying was widely spread among the people:"No one enters the church unless there is lawsuit involved.‘ Worst of all, some criminals continued to do bad things after they be- came Catholics and were still protected by the missionaries.
The Xi Lin Persecution in 1856 was caused by Chapdeleine, a priest from the Paris Foreign Mission, who broke the law by entering the inland territories. Using this as an excuse, the French and British governments started the second Opium War. After the signing of the Zhong Fa Tianjin Treaty, Zhang Mingfeng was dismissed from office for good ? All missionaries were al- lowed to go inland for religious purposes and were granted spe- cial favors. "They were permitted to purchase land for their own purposes.‘Some missionaries greatly offended local people with their violation of the rules. A case in Qingyan, Guizhou in 1861 pro- vides a perfect example. In April, after the bishop of Guizhou, Hu Fuli, received his passport issued by the French ambassador, he acted as a victor and was carried in a luxurious carrier along with many people to visit a local official. He forced people to sell land to him so that he could build a seminary and a printing press, causing great public offense. The officials, Xunfu He Guanying and Tidu (governor)Tian Xingshu sent a joint letterto the provincial government asking that the Catholic missionar- ies be expelled. On the feast of Duanwu (May 5th), the people set the seminary in Chaojiaguan on fire and killed four Catho- lics, one of whom was Zhang Ruyang. Bishop Hu Fuli reported to the French ambassador, resulting in another diplomatic con- frontation. On the feast of Yuanxiao in the following year, the people in Kaizhou Jiasha tried to collect money to build a dragon lantern as an offering to the dragon-god according to custom, but the French missionary Wen Naier asked Chinese Catholics not to participate in this action. The governor Dai Luzhi ordered the arrest of Wen Naier and other four Chinese Catholics and executed them without delay. Because of this, Bishop Hu Fuli reported to the French embassy and the ambassador asked the Qing government to discipline the local officials by firing them. After negotiations, the Qing government caved in and sent all related officials into exile and paid 12,000 pieces of silver in compensation.
Sichuan was another place where religious persecution hap- pened frequently, of which the "Youyang Persecution‘ was a par- ticular case. In 1865, Zhang Peichao and his son Zhang Yuguan were angry with some Chinese Catholics and burned down churches, killed missionaries and wrote slogans such as "destroyand uproot the foreign church‘? In 1869, another Catholic whose name was Long Xiuyuan forced a non-Catholic Zhu Yongtai to break a marriage vow and caused another fight between Catho- lics and non-Catholics. The local officials ordered the two par- ties to turn in their weapons to the government. The non-Catho- lics did so, but the Catholics refused to obey the order. Under the leadership of a Chinese priest Tan Fuchen, 200 non-Catholics were killed. The government, however, paid 30,000 pieces of silver to settle the case and then killed the leader of the non- Catholics and others; those who weren"t killed were expelled. Father Tan and the bishop left the country, while the lay people involved went free.
Shortly after that, the anti-church movement gained mo- mentum along both sides of the Yangtze River. Anti-church slo- gans appeared everywhere in Hunan province: "all the people, no matter the scholars, peasants, workers and the business people should be united to attack them.‘ Soon after, many churches were destroyed and the unrest spread as far as Yangzhou. Eventually, the French ambassador sent military gunboats to Hankou, and to Anqing to suppress the uprisings. Meanwhile, other anti-church movements broke out in many places: Yongning in Guizhou Prov- ince, Fuzhou in Fujian Province, Zhangpu, Luoyuan, Leizhou inngdong Provincefor exampleAnother religious persecution occulTed in Tiar in. In 187 ch missionaries built an orphanage called Ren Ci Tangthe East Gate of Tianjin. All the orphans in the orphanage were baptized. A suspected child-kidnaper whose name was Wu Lanzhen was arrested and admitted that the gatekeeper at the orphanage had asked him to do so. He went out to kidnap seven children during daytime. Immediately, the rumor spread that the church kidnapped the children to use their eyes for medicine, provoking riots.
