Prologue

December 30, 1897

These bastards, dare to attack us. We have been cheated and stabbed in the back by these unruly and uncivilized yellow people. We didn't expect that these natives would even dare to attack us as they all look all thin and small compared to us. if we have been very lenient and merciful to these people. They even dared to ambush the marines who should replace our group after the new year. The end of this year is truly unlucky for me, my tour of duty should end after a few days but now I'm stuck here fighting these barbarians.

January 1, 1898

The new year had just passed but for many of us, it is like time has stopped in 1897. The only explosions during the new year that happened are all gunshots and artillery or cannon shells. We can't even rest because the Chinese would launch an attack at any time of the day even at midnight or late afternoon. There is a lot of hearsay that the reinforcement would take weeks or months to arrive here, but the officers and the ambassadors assured us that the army would arrive soon as there is a large number of German soldiers in Northern China.

January 12, 1898

It has been already two weeks of being trapped in this godforsaken place. There are already a lot of casualties as the higher-ups decided to launch an attack to expand the area that we control. A lot of men died on both sides, especially those Christian convert Chinese who comprise most of our ranks. We are able to regain control of Chang An street and Customs street and secured both the Austrian and Italian Legate buildings that were abandoned during the start of the siege. There is an attempt to secure the Imperial City wall north of the International Legation but it ended in failure because of the overwhelming number of the enemy.

January 23, 1898

It is almost a month that we are trapped here in Peking and relief is still not in sight. The food ration has become smaller in order to be able to feed thousands of people trapped here. There are still a lot of skirmishes and attacks from the enemy but it is getting less and less as they realized that large-scale attacks are futile, instead, they launch harassment and small skirmishes attacks to keep us fatigued and restless. Against all odds, we are still lucky that the Chinese have stopped attacking large-scale attacks on us for we are running out of ammunition to repel their attacks.

January 27, 1898

All my friends - John, Peter, and Sam died when the Chinese launched a huge offensive against our position. Its already been weeks since the last time I have eaten a full meal, and now we are only rationing the fruits that the Qing Government had given us the past few days during the ceasefire. There are a lot of rumors that the Chinese would launch another huge attack on us.

I don't think I would survive the next attack if ever I have fallen and anyone was able to get this, I hope that you would give this back to my mother back home in Tennessee.

…An unknown American soldier's diary during the Righteous sons of Han Rebellion Siege of the Peking City International Legation…

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