Outrage at Lincheng: China Enters the Twentieth Century

In the dark hours of May 6, 1923, a thousand brigands swooped down from the "mountains where the bandits live" attacking the luxurious Blue Express, and forced thirty Europeans, Americans, and more than one hundred Chinese captives into the Shantung wilderness. This "outrage" was quickly called the worst incident between China and the west since the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Follow the hostages including John B. Powell, publisher of the Chinese Weekly Review; Lucy Truman Aldrich, daughter of Senator Nelson Aldrich and sister-in-law to John D. Rockefeller Jr.; and Commodore Guiseppe Musso, a wealthy and influential Italian Lawyer. Understand the frustrations of the recently discharged Chinese soldiers who had no place to go and few viable means to earn a living short of banditry. Follow the slow pace of international diplomacy with U.S. Minister to China Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman playing a leading role in the negotiations as the western powers struggled to gain the release of the hostages. The negotiations moved between an emotional desire for military intervention and a judicial concern for the sovereignty of a China attempting to emerge from centuries of isolation into the modern world of the twentieth century. Outrage At Lincheng is a gripping story.