She arrived at Hong Kong on 8 May and Scott mounted four 12-pounders on field carriages later that month, once he became aware that "Terrible" and her crew would be ordered north to assist British forces against the anti-foreigner movement known as the Boxers. Orders arrived on 15 June that Terrible was to load three companies of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and sail to Taku where she arrived on the 21st. A single 12-pounder gun accompanied the relief force that reached the foreign quarter of Tientsin on 24 June. The other three guns accompanied the expedition that defeated the Chinese forces in the city of Tientsin in mid-July. All four guns were part of the second relief expedition to Peking in August and her crewmen returned to the ship on 7 September. After hostilities ceased Scott focused to working up his ship's gunnery capabilities, devising various training aids, and her crew shot a very respectable score of 78.8% in the 1900 prize firing. "Terrible" arrived in Hong Kong on 17 December after a typhoon had struck the city, and Scott volunteered to salvage the capsized dredger "Canton River". Work began the following month and Scott succeeded two months later. In the Navy's 1901 prize firing "Terrible" achieved a score of 80%, the best of any ship in the Navy.