During which Chinese dynasty did this Chinese general, statesman and warlord had great influence, who was suspected of spreading rumours about infant-kidnapping by westerners in the late 19th century Korea?
The Baby Riot of 1888 The Baby Riots of 1888 took place in the summer of 1888 in Joseon Korea. Rumours circulated that foreigners in Seoul were kidnapping young Korean infants and children, gouging out their eyes for use as camera lenses, grinding their internal organs for use in medicine, and eating them. These rumours implicated both the western powers that were present in Korea at the time, as well as the Japanese. These riots saw Koreans gathering outside hospitals, schools and churches run by foreigners to rail against the 'baby-snatchers' inside. Many in the foreign community were alarmed by the ferocity of the riots and made preparations to leave Korea, and diplomatic representatives of the foreign legations pressed the Joseon government to repudiate the rumours, which they did reluctantly. While it was initially speculated that the Heungseon Daewongun instigated the incident in a manner similar to the Imo Incident, or the combination of Catholic zeal and local anti-Christian sentiment, many began to speculate that these rumours were deliberately spread by the order of Yuan Shikai, the ambassador and representative of the suzerain Qing dynasty in China, either to scare off foreign investment in Korea or provoke a military intervention. For his part, Yuan emphatically denied this to his superior, Li Hongzhang.
Zhang Zuolin Zhang Zuolin () (1875–1928) was the warlord of Manchuria from 1916-28, during the Warlord Era in China. He successfully invaded China proper in October 1924 in the Second Zhili-Fengtian War. He gained control of Peking, including China's internationally recognized government, in April 1926. The economy of Manchuria, the basis of Zhang's power, was overtaxed by his adventurism and collapsed in the winter of 1927-28. He was defeated by the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek in May 1928. He was killed by a bomb planted by a Japanese Kwantung Army officer on 4 June 1928. Although Zhang had been Japan's proxy in China, Japanese militarists were infuriated by his failure to stop the advance of the Nationalists.