A few months later, Cixi, along with the late emperor’s brother Prince Gong, gathered enough supporters to engineer a coup: they executed three of the eight regency council members and assumed power. Upon Emperor Xianfeng’s death, the six-year old Tongzhi became emperor via a regency council of eight elder officials. Upon learning this, Emperor Xianfeng, who was already showing signs of dementia, fell into a deep depression and died. In September 1860, towards the end of the Second Opium War, British and French troops under the command of Lord Elgin attacked Beijing and burned down the magnificent Old Summer Palace. Cixi therefore began to offer Emperor Xianfeng advice. In addition, foreign powers began to take an interest in the empire. Godefroy Durand in L’Illustration, 22 December 1860.īy the mid-19th century, the once-mighty empire of China was declining: the country had suffered famines, a bleeding treasury and natural disasters, while the Taiping Rebellion, started in 1850, would go on for more than 10 years and cost millions of lives. Looting of the Yuan Ming Yuan of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French forces in 1860.

Though she was graded third rank amongst the court concubines, her standing improved to consort when she gave birth to the emperor’s only son, future Emperor Tongzhi, in 1856. As a result, she became well-informed about state affairs. Unlike the other Manchu women in the imperial household, Cixi could read and write Chinese, which granted her numerous opportunities to support the emperor in the governing of China. When she was 16, she was selected from a small group of candidates to become the wife of Emperor Xianfeng, who reportedly chose her for her cleverness.

She was born into nobilityĬixi was born in 1835 to a family of Manchu government officials.

Here’s the story of Empress Dowager Cixi. She would go to great lengths to maintain her political influence: she staged coups, ousted many of her opponents and may have even poisoned her nephew, Emperor Guangxu, just before she died herself.Ĭixi is also remembered as a powerful and at times open-minded ruler, who was willing to open China to new ideas from the West, and in doing so, helped to usher the country into the modern age. She remains one of the most powerful women in Chinese history.Īs the mother and adoptive mother of two underage Chinese emperors, Cixi acted as regent to them and later continued to exert significant influence over China after they had formally assumed power as emperor. Active from the 1860s into the 1900s, Cixi was a formidable figure in imperial China, effectively ruling the Qing dynasty’s government for almost half a century. While Queen Victoria ruled half the world on the British throne, another powerful woman reigned on the other side of the world: Empress Dowager Cixi.

Empress cixi book