The events that followed are difficult to document , because unlike the Siege of the International Legations in Beijing in the summer of 1900 , no Westerners survived to recount them and even some of the official record was clearly altered . The usual account states that Yuxian called 18 Western missionaries and their families a total of 44 or 45 people , including women and children to Taiyuan under the false pretense of protecting them , and that he had them all executed on July 9 in the compound of the provincial government . See for instance , , and . This longstanding account of the " Taiyuan massacre " is based on a detailed document first published on 29 April 1941 that purported to be by an eyewitness : a Chinese convert named Yong Zheng . Historian Roger R. Thompson has questioned this document because it appeared nine months after the events , contains an unusual amount of detail on the individual fate of each victim , and is similar in style and details to '' Foxe 's Book of Martyrs '' , a book that was highly influential in British evangelical circles at the time . Using Chinese official documents and missionary accounts written between June and September 1900 , he concludes that the " weight of evidence " indicates that the missionaries had been killed by a violent mob rather than on Yuxian 's orders
Taiyuan massacre
Taiyuan massacre
Yuxian (Qing dynasty)