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 19 The Ronnings Return to China, 1901 Something told us that the return of the Court to Peking was a turning point in history, and in our breathless interest we forgot our resentment against the woman who was responsible for so much evil. That little bow, and the graceful gesture of the closed hands, took us by surprise. From all along the wall there came, in answer, a spontaneous burst of applause. The Empress Dowager appeared pleased. —italian diplomat after the siege of peking In 1901, shortly before the dowager Cixi returned with her royal court to Peking from her exile in Sian, the Ronnings returned to China to continue their work in the mission. While the family was traveling by train from Iowa to board a ship in Vancouver, an extraordinary coincidence occurred. At the station in Calgary , Halvor recognized John Anderson, a fellow classmate from the Red Wing Lutheran Seminary, who was talking with some other men about homesteads they had just purchased southeast of Edmonton. Anderson encouraged Halvor to invest in a half section, 320 acres, of Canadian Pacific Railroad land in Bardo, Alberta, since someday he would surely need to settle in a home of his own. The land was available at three dollars an acre, with twenty years to pay and at a very low interest rate. Halvor said he was interested but could not buy land in Canada because he was an American. At this point Anderson introduced Halvor to “the Honorable Frank Oliver,” an impressive elderly gentleman wearing a stovepipe hat. Oliver patted Halvor on the back and generously declared, “Reverend Ronning , if you vote for me in the next election, I will make you a Canadian.” They sailed back on the Canadian Pacific Empress of China, which was even more luxurious than the SS Oceanic that Halvor, Hannah, and Thea had taken ten years earlier. Hannah missed the romantic sails. All the way to China they discussed the possibility of buying land in Canada. Nelius and Chester grew more enthusiastic every day, dreaming about a ranch where they could ride the range like their uncles in Iowa. In Yokohama, Halvor made a decision that would change their lives and the lives of their descendants. He sent a cable to Anderson 170  home leave and return to buy land in Canada. (Seven years later, Halvor would take advantage of Frank Oliver’s promise: he voted for Oliver, and the Ronnings became Canadians.) When they reached Shanghai, Halvor learned from the Shanghai Daily Mail that the Allied Powers in Peking had agreed to a peace agreement among themselves called the Boxer Protocol. There had been no Chinese government officials with whom to negotiate. The dowager had left an aged official, Li Hongzhang , to salvage China’s damaged foreign relations, but after prolonged negotiations and much wrangling among the powers, he died of a heart attack before the settlement was signed. Its terms were drastic. Indemnities Ronning found the Chinese smarting from the indemnities demanded by the Boxer Protocol signed on September 7, 1901. He was relieved that the Americans had at least exercised a moderating influence but was troubled to read that “Punishment and Indemnity” topped the list of the fourteen points agreed on. China had agreed to punish all those involved except the main culprit, the empress dowager herself, who had betrayed the Boxers by claiming to be their victim. Her first victim was her co-conspirator in murder, Shandong’s Governor Yu Xian, who, after denouncing the empress, was allowed to strangle himself with the white scarf. The dowager’s irrational actions resulted in four decades of humiliation for China. The country was forced to pay an indemnity of 450 million so-called haiguan taels—about $333 million—at 4 percent interest, in thirty-nine annual installments ending in 1940, to be distributed among twelve of the powers, with Russia receiving the largest share, about 30 percent. The others were to get amounts progressively smaller in this order: Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States, Italy, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. Halvor was glad to note that the Norwegians were not involved. The Allied Powers immediately engaged in indiscriminate punitive expeditions against the Boxers that revealed a shocking lack of concern for innocent Chinese lives. It was commonly accepted that for the death of one real Boxer, many innocents were slain as the “accidents of war.” This was borne out in a letter...

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