The Seymour Expedition was an attempt by a multi-national military force to march to Beijing and relieve the Siege of the Legations and foreign nationals from attacks by Qing China's government troops and the Boxers in 1900. The Chinese army and Boxer fighters defeated the Seymour armies and forced them to return to Tianjin (Tientsin). It was followed later in the summer by the successful Gaselee Expedition.

Nie Shicheng was a Chinese general of the Qing dynasty who served the imperial government during the Boxer Rebellion. Rising from obscure origins from Hefei, Anhui Province, in the early 1850s, Nie Shicheng managed to pass the county examinations for bureaucratic positions, but due to the Taiping rebellion he was forced to abandon a bureaucratic career and become a soldier.