Former Site of Qiqihar Boxer Women’s Society and Mabudai Square

A visitor looking for the former training grounds of the Qiqihar Boxer Women’s Society must wade through the accumulated debris of a century. On East First Street in the Jianhua District, three tall, green-brick buildings emerge from a cluster of haphazardly constructed bungalows. Tangled electrical wires wrap around the old masonry. Piles of winter coal, stacked firewood, and rusted bicycles crowd the exterior walls. The heavy scent of cooking oil and woodsmoke fills the air. Beneath this ordinary domestic clutter, the roof ridges display patches of peeling red and green paint—the last visual echoes of a desperate uprising.

In the summer of 1900, this 190-square-meter courtyard served as the headquarters for the "Red Lanterns," the female wing of the Boxer Rebellion in Qiqihar. Driven by a severe drought and the encroachment of Russian forces, local martial arts masters established training altars across the city. Men, boys, and women drilled separately in the dusty streets. Here, young women bound in red garments and wielding red fans gathered to learn combat. Qing society placed these women at the bottom of the social hierarchy, yet the crisis temporarily elevated them to the status of immortals. Observers claimed they could walk on water and summon fire. This localized mysticism offered psychological armor against the modern artillery of foreign armies.

The mobilization of these women belonged to an older Qiqihar tradition of border defense. A few streets away sits the Guojia Residence, a classic Qing courtyard awarded to a military family who helped expel Russian forces during the Albazin campaign two centuries earlier. The city had long absorbed the shockwaves of imperial collisions. By July 1900, the Boxers and Qing soldiers marched together to confront Russian troops at the Jiguyuan warehouse, and later fought hand-to-hand in the swamps near Aihun.

The alliance between the mystics and the state collapsed quickly. Under pressure from foreign powers, the Qing court reversed its stance and issued decrees to execute the Boxer leaders. Master Zhang, the local founder, fell to the government he sought to defend. Officials ordered the Women’s Society to disband. The young women shed their red garments and dissolved back into the anonymous flow of the city. Today, the sanctuary of the Red Lanterns functions as a subdivided dwelling for six families. The architectural remnants—a sculpted roofline, a sturdy brick facade—anchor the neighborhood's daily routines.