In 1898, a millenarian group called the Righteous Harmony Society Movement formed in Shandong Province, calling for the expulsion of all foreign influence in China. They attacked Westerners especially missionaries and converted Chinese, and were called the "Boxers" by Westerners. The Qing court initially suppressed the Boxers but the Empress Dowager attempted to use them to curtail foreign influence and permitted them to gather in Beijing, then expelled the Boxers from the city after ransacking occurred and ordered the foreigners in the legations to leave to Tianjin, which they refused to do. In June 1900, the Qing forces including Manchu Bannerman and Muslim fighters from Gansu and the Boxers besieged the Legation Quarter, which sheltered several hundred foreign civilians and soldiers and about 3,200 Chinese Christians. The first attempt by the foreign Eight-Nation Alliance in the Seymour Expedition was defeated and forces to turn back. On the second attempt, eventually they defeated the Boxers and Qing troops and lifted the siege. The foreign armies looted the city and occupied Beijing and the surrounding area in Zhili. Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi'an and did not return until after the Qing government had signed the Boxer Protocol which compelled it to pay reparations of 450 million taels of silver with interest at four percent. The Boxer indemnities stripped the Qing government of much of its tax revenues and further weakened the state.