Site of the Juye Missionary Case

Site of the Juye Missionary Case

The Site of the Juye Missionary Case is located in Mapanzhangzhuang Village, Qilin Town, Juye County, Heze City, Shandong Province. The church and its affiliated structures were rebuilt by the Germans using indemnity payments from the Qing government after the Juye Missionary Case. They were all demolished in 1966, leaving only one well remaining. According to measurements recalled by local residents, the church covered an area of 1,807 square meters, with a building area of 558 square meters, and included a worship hall, living room, bedrooms, dressing room, reception office, storage room, kitchen, and stable.

At that time, the German missionary Georg Maria Stenz in Mapanzhangzhuang acted tyrannically in the village, extorted money under false pretenses, seized land, meddled in lawsuits, abducted and sold women, which enraged the local people. On the night of November 1st in the 23rd year of the Guangxu reign (1897), twenty or thirty people armed with steel knives and red-tasseled spears broke into the church intending to kill Stenz. Coincidentally, the German missionaries Franz Nies and Richard Henle, who were preaching in Yanggu and Yuncheng at the time, were visiting. Stenz vacated the living room and bedroom for them and moved into the gatehouse himself, which led to him being mistakenly killed.

The German imperialists used this incident as a pretext to pressure the Qing government into signing the "Sino-German Treaty of Jiaozhou Bay Lease" in the 24th year of Guangxu (1898). Germany occupied Jiaozhou Bay, and Shandong fell under German influence. Other powers followed suit, sparking a frenzy to carve up China.

Further Reading:

· First Batch of Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units