EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI
Empress Dowager Cixi (1835 – 1908) was a Chinese empress dowager and regent who effectively controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. A member of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, she was selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence and gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, the young boy became the Tongzhi Emperor, and she became the Empress Dowager. Cixi secured power by ousting a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed regency, which she shared with Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875, contrary to the traditional rules of succession of the Qing dynasty that had ruled China since 1644. [Source: Wikipedia]
In 1861, when a powerful leader could have turned the country around, the Chinese throne was taken over by a succession of child emperors who were controlled by a former concubine known as the Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi is the title of honor for the Empress Dowager in late Qing dynasty. Her real name was Yulan, but people (except her husband and parents) were forbidden to call her Yulan, according to the complex rules of feudal system.
Less than five feet tall and known to ordinary Chinese as "that evil old woman," the “dragon lady” and “old master Buddha”, Cixi rose from the position of a third-level concubine to become the ostensible ruler of China for nearly half a century by bearing the Emperor of China his only son. Isabel Hilton wrote in The Guardian, “One of Emperor Xianfeng's 3,000 concubines, Cixi rose through the ranks by producing an heir, Tongzhi, and when Xianfeng died in 1861 she ousted other contenders and installed herself as sole regent for her son, ruling China for 47 years.. [Source: Isabel Hilton, The Guardian, October 25, 2013]
Early Life of Empress Dowager Cixi
The girl that would later become the Empress Dowager Cixi was born Lan Kuei ("Little Orchid") on November 29, 1835 into a family of Manchu government officials. Her family was a member of the Yehe-Nara Manchu tribe. The daughter of a minor Manchu official, she taught herself to read and may have been engaged to a handsome general named Jung Lu. In 1852, at the age of 16, she became a concubine of the Qing Emperor Hsein Feng (Xianfeng) and entered the Forbidden City and was given the name Cixi. She gave birth to the emperor’s son – the future Emperor Tongzhi – in 1856 and went on to live an extravagant and privileged life in the imperial court.
Isabel Hilton wrote in The Guardian, "Xianfeng faced enormous problems: the Taiping rebellion was to last 10 years and take millions of lives, the treasury was bleeding, foreign powers were rudely knocking down the empire's closed doors. Cixi began to offer the emperor unwanted advice, inspiring in him the prophetic fear that she might interfere in state affairs after his death. To keep her under control, on his deathbed he set up an eight-man regency to run China."
Xianfeng was not the best of leaders. He reportedly spent much of his time smoking opium and chasing after transvestites and girls with three-inch "lily feet." While he indulged himself, Cixi studied Confucianism and dabbled with Buddhist and shamanist mysticism.
சியான்ஃபெங் சிறந்த தலைவர்கள் அல்ல. அவர் தனது பெரும்பாலான நேரத்தை ஓபியம் புகைப்பதிலும், மூன்று அங்குல 'லில்லி கால்கள்' கொண்ட திருநங்கைகள் மற்றும் சிறுமிகளைத் துரத்துவதிலும் செலவிட்டதாகக் கூறப்படுகிறது. சிக்ஸி கன்பூசியனிசத்தைப் பயின்றார். பௌத்த, ஷாமனிச மறைஞானத்தில் ஈடுபாடு கொண்டிருந்தார்
After sleeping with Cixi, the emperor raised her status one rank. On April 27, 1856 at the age of 20, she gave birth to a son, Tsai Ch'un (Tongzhi), and her rank was raised again to an inner circle concubine. After producing a son, she and the emperor became closer and she assisted him with some decision-making while his health declined.
Cixi's Extravagant Lifestyle and Pampered Pooches
Cixi as the Goddess of Mercy
The Empress Dowager spent much of her time in the outskirts of Beijing in the Summer Palace, a huge complex with a marble boat built in 1888 with money that was supposed to be spent on building a modern navy. See Summer Palace, Places The cost of running her court was $6.5 million a year (an astronomical sum at that time). She celebrated her birthdays with the release of 10,000 caged birds, and banquets with 128 courses with 30 kinds of desert and dishes like fried magnolia and lotus flowers, ducks tongues and stuffed melons.
The Empress Dowager reportedly entertained herself by ordering her maids to engage in slapping contests and by playing a game of her own invention called "Eight Fairies Travel Across the Sea." She rested her head on a pillow stuffed with tea leaves and rose petals, slept on a 10-foot-long, fire-heated brick bed, and took medicines made from crushed pearls. Once when a hairdresser accidentally plucked two hairs from her head she ordered the hairdresser to put them back. At parties she used to clap her hands to draw everyone's the attention and then asked if anybody needed to pee. She didn't ride in a train until she was 67.
Laramie Mok wrote in the South China Morning Post: Keeping a dog as a pet was a popular hobby in the palace. According to Imperial Incense, written by Der Ling – a Manchu nobleman's daughter and one of Cixi’s court attendants – the empress kept more than 20 dogs and loved, in particular, a Pekinese. Instead of keeping the pets in cages, Cixi allowed her dogs to stay inside a villa made of bamboo, with four eunuchs assigned the task of taking care of them. [Source: Laramie Mok, South China Morning Post, November 15, 2017]
“The imperial palace also prepared a large number of clothes for the dogs to wear each year. The clothes were made from satin and adorned with special floral Malus spectabilis and chrysanthemum patterns, embroidered with silk and gold thread. In 1905, Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, visited Beijing’s Forbidden City. She met the ailing Empress Dowager Cixi, who presented her with a black Pekinese dog named Manchu.
Cixi's Eating Habits: 120 Dishes a Meal and 150,000 Apples a Year?
The Empress Dowager spent much of her time in the outskirts of Beijing in the Summer Palace, a huge complex with a marble boat built in 1888 with money that was supposed to be spent on building a modern navy. See Summer Palace, Places The cost of running her court was $6.5 million a year (an astronomical sum at that time). She celebrated her birthdays with the release of 10,000 caged birds, and banquets with 128 courses with 30 kinds of desert and dishes like fried magnolia and lotus flowers, ducks tongues and stuffed melons.
The Empress Dowager reportedly entertained herself by ordering her maids to engage in slapping contests and by playing a game of her own invention called "Eight Fairies Travel Across the Sea." She rested her head on a pillow stuffed with tea leaves and rose petals, slept on a 10-foot-long, fire-heated brick bed, and took medicines made from crushed pearls. Once when a hairdresser accidentally plucked two hairs from her head she ordered the hairdresser to put them back. At parties she used to clap her hands to draw everyone's the attention and then asked if anybody needed to pee. She didn't ride in a train until she was 67.
Laramie Mok wrote in the South China Morning Post: Keeping a dog as a pet was a popular hobby in the palace. According to Imperial Incense, written by Der Ling – a Manchu nobleman's daughter and one of Cixi’s court attendants – the empress kept more than 20 dogs and loved, in particular, a Pekinese. Instead of keeping the pets in cages, Cixi allowed her dogs to stay inside a villa made of bamboo, with four eunuchs assigned the task of taking care of them. [Source: Laramie Mok, South China Morning Post, November 15, 2017]
“The imperial palace also prepared a large number of clothes for the dogs to wear each year. The clothes were made from satin and adorned with special floral Malus spectabilis and chrysanthemum patterns, embroidered with silk and gold thread. In 1905, Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, visited Beijing’s Forbidden City. She met the ailing Empress Dowager Cixi, who presented her with a black Pekinese dog named Manchu.
Cixi's Eating Habits: 120 Dishes a Meal and 150,000 Apples a Year?
The Empress Dowager drank human’s mother’s milk as part of effort to stay young. Her favorite dish reportedly was Mandarin sweet and sour dish. She also reportedly had a big sexual appetite. Laramie Mok wrote in the South China Morning Post: In addition to the palace’s “Imperial Kitchen”, which catered to the many concubines serving the emperor, Cixi had her own exclusive kitchen built within the Forbidden City, known as the “Western Kitchen”. It was subdivided into five areas – the meat section, vegetarian section, rice, bun and noodle section, snack section and pastry section. [Source: Laramie Mok, South China Morning Post, November 15, 2017]
“Staff of the Western Kitchen were capable of making more than 400 different kinds of pastry, 4,000 dishes and also rare delicacies, which included bird’s nest, shark’s fin and bear’s paw. According to the biography, Empress Dowager Cixi, written by Xu Che, a scholar and Qing dynasty expert, she would be served 120 different dishes for each meal. However, she would eat only two or three bites of some of the dishes because of fears that would be poisoned. Cixi usually gave permission for the other concubines, officials and eunuchs to eat the unfinished dishes – something that was regarded as a huge honour.
“However, stories that Cixi consumed more than 150,000 apples each year are false. It would have meant that she ate more than 400 apples a day. In fact, she did not actually eat them, and instead smelled the apples instead. Cixi also favoured the smell of other fruits, including pears and peaches. The fruit was replaced once their ripe fragrances had faded.
Cixi’s Private Railway in Her Private Royal Park
Laramie Mok wrote in the South China Morning Post: “To win Cixi’s support for developing the country’s railway network, Li Hongzhang – a prominent politician, general and diplomat – suggested building an exclusive royal railway in the Western Garden, the royal park located in the west of the Forbidden City. “The Western Garden, consisted of Beihai (Northern Sea) and Zhongnanhai (Middle and Southern Sea), was the place where the Empress Dowager often lived after 1888. [Source: Laramie Mok, South China Morning Post, November 15, 2017]
“Construction work on what would become the first imperial railway in China began in 1886 and was completed in 1888. The 1,510-metre-long railway started near Cixi’s residence, the Hall of Ceremonial Phoenixes (Yiluandian) in Zhongnanhai, and ran to her dining hall, the Place of the Quiet Heart (Jingxinzhai) in Beihai.
The line also featured a halfway station, at the Pavilion of Purple Light (Ziguangge; ), after which the railway was officially named the Ziguangge Railway. “To emphasise her imperial authority, the carriages of the train were decorated with different colours of curtains – yellow for Empress Dowager Cixi and the Emperor Guangxu, and red and blue for the members of the royal clan and officials, respectively. Unfortunately, the railway was destroyed by the army of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900.
Fashion and Images of the Empress Dowager
The Empress Dowager covered her face with white cake make-up and placed patches of cherry rouge on her cheeks and lower lip. According to Manchu custom, she didn't cut her hair, her feet remained unbound and the nails of her third and forth fingers were over four inches long. Her wardrobe required 160 bolts of silk, satin and gauze each year to make. A $5 million exhibit in Kong Hong called "Empress Dowager Cixi — Her Art of Living," included displays of the empress's facial creams, soaps and skin bleach, her stone massage roller, hairpins, headdresses and gold nail casings.
Cixi’s English Lover?
The were rumors or dubious origin that Cixi had Englishmen brought into her chambers to satisfy her sexual demands. There also stories that she fell in love with the eunuch Li Lienying Kent Ewing wrote in the Asia Times, In his memoirs "Decadence Mandchoue", the British reporter and scholar Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, “claimed that, at the age of 32, even though by nature he was homosexual - indeed, ravenously so - he became the favorite lover of the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908), then 69, whose oversized clitoris she would deftly employ to his pathic delight. And, when Sir Edmund wasn't frolicking with the "Old Buddha", as she was affectionately known, he was giving it to just about any young, attractive eunuch in her service. Sex with eunuchs - and with catamites in the "bathhouses" of Peking (now Beijing) - was Backhouse's preferred form of eroticism. [Source: by Kent Ewing, Asia Times, June 18, 2011]
“As Decadence Mandchoue begins, it is an April afternoon in 1899, and Backhouse is about to meet the love of his life - whom he dubs "Cassia Flower" - in one of the city's male brothels, but their passionate love-making will be cut short a year later by Boxer Rebellion riots that force the establishment to shut down. Backhouse will never see Cassia Flower again, but the memory still burns bright in the memoirs he wrote at the end of his life, 45 years later. “
“His true heart may have been with Cassia Flower, but when the empress called, Backhouse was nevertheless dutifully and erectly present, even if a powerful aphrodisiac was required to get him through prolonged nights requiring three to four orgasms with his insatiable, near-septuagenarian royal partner. This exacting sexual schedule continued until shortly before Cixi's death, at 73, in 1908 - or so these memoirs attest.”
“By the way, did you know that Cixi, de facto ruler of China for 47 years, did not die of natural causes, as history records? No, she was murdered - with three brutal, point-blank shots to the abdomen - by none other than Yuan Shikai, one of the eight regional viceroys during her reign who was later to become second president of the Republic of China. All that's according to Cixi's chief eunuch, Li Lien-ying, who happened to be Backhouse's best friend and so gave him the exclusive scoop, not to mention his personal diaries detailing all of his years of service to the empress. Unfortunately, those diaries are nowhere to be found; nor can any of the other corroborating "papers", claimed but conveniently "lost" by the author, be located. There is also no reason to believe in an affair Backhouse alludes to with the famously gay Irish novelist, poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Add to the long list of tall tales the meeting he recounts with iconic Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. “
Book "Decadence Mandchoue" by Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (Earnshaw Books, 2011).
Lurid, Erotic Descriptions by Cixi’s Lover?
Credibility Problems of Cixi’s Lover
Kent Ewing wrote in the Asia Times, “What readers are left with is, quite probably, the steamy, self-aggrandizing fiction of a lonely, dying old man - once celebrated for his scholarship and linguistic genius - who wrote to comfort and distract himself during the final year of his life, 1943-1944...In his time, Backhouse was highly regarded in Peking for his ability as a researcher and translator. He worked for The Times of London and, in collaboration with another Times correspondent, JOP Bland, wrote two best-selling books on China: China Under the Empress Dowager (1910) and Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking (1914). These two works were pivotal in shaping Western perceptions of the Qing court under Cixi. [Source: by Kent Ewing, Asia Times, June 18, 2011]
“Backhouse was accused of forgery, however, by another Times correspondent, Dr George Ernest Morrison, for his heavy reliance in China Under the Empress Dowager on the diary of a high court official, Ching Shan, a source later proved to be a fabrication. The accusations against Backhouse were never fully substantiated during his lifetime, but in 1976, 32 years after his death, British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote a damning biography, Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse, which revealed the once-revered sinologist to be an inveterate fraud, a licentious homosexual and, even worse, anti-British. “
Trevor-Roper characterized Backhouse as a hermit because of his tendency to avoid other foreigners in Peking and expressed disdain for his loss of faith in British constitutional monarchy and his apparent attraction to the fascism that had taken hold in Europe and Japan in the run-up to World War II. As for his bawdy memoirs - which had been gathering dust on a shelf at Oxford University's Bodleian Library since Backhouse's death - Trevor-Roper wrote: "No verve in writing can redeem their pathological obscenity." Trevor-Roper himself was later implicated in the Hitler Diaries hoax.
Laramie Mok wrote in the South China Morning Post: The empress was known to enjoy dressing up and also she loved to be photographed. The Palace Museum in Beijing has preserved more than 100 surviving photographs showing Cixi dressed in more than 30 different lavish robes and dresses. Her silk clothing was embroidered with high-quality pearls, while she wore jewels, jade and gold hairpins threaded through her hair. Arranging her hair proved to be a slow painstaking process. A set of hair styling tools used in the palace typically featured 25 different tools for arranging and styling the hair of Cixi and other imperial concubines. [Source: Laramie Mok, South China Morning Post, November 15,
2017]\
Graham Earnshaw, publisher of "Decadence Mandchoue" wrote: “ The issue of whether or how much of it is a fantasy is of course important... There is now no way to know how much was real and how much made up. But at the very least I believe his descriptions of homosexual brothels and behaviour in that place and era are accurate and a first-hand job. Beyond the veracity/fantasy question is the fact the writing is very good, and the sex scenes hilariously over-the-top, the stories recounted with wonderful intellectual pixieness. I enjoyed spending time with this fascinating, over-educated and over-sexed man. He deserved to be given the chance to respond to Hermit, even if from beyond the grave. I am proud to have published it.
“My mentor Gareth Powell had the following comments on Backhouse and Kent Ewing's review which I think worth passing on: It is a well written criticism but the writer fails to grasp the importance of the book. For all his manifest faults Backhouse was an educated man who had access to a court that was pretty much totally closed to all foreigners. That we have an eccentric, a man much given to boasting and often a liar there is no doubt. But his writings have great value simply because of their rarity.
We have the same situation with Anna Leonowens. Yes, we can prove that some of what she wrote was bollocks. And yes, her life after the period in Thailand takes some strange twists and turns. But although she was a liar, and although her depiction of the king left much to be desired she is worth reading and publishing because we have no one else. A distorted view through a telescope is better than no view at all.
Decisions and Eunuchs in the Empress Dowager's Court
Describing the decision making process of Empress Dowager Cixi, one courtier said, "In the morning an order is issued; in the evening it is changed. Unavoidably outsiders will laugh, But there is nothing that can be done about it." Another court member said: "She is very changeable; she may like one person today, tomorrow she hates the same person worse than poison."
Describing her temper on official said, her eyes "poured out straight rays; her cheekbones were sharp and the veins on her forehead projected; she showed her teeth as if she were suffering from lockjaw." Another court member said, "It was characteristic of Her Majesty to experience a keen sense of enjoyment at the troubles of other people."
With the exception of the Emperor, the 6,000 residents of the Forbidden City were eunuchs or women. Much of the day to day operation of the imperial court was taken care by Li Liyang, the Empress Dowager's favorite eunuch. He headed an imperial staff that oversaw thousands of cooks, gardeners, laundrymen, cleaners, painters and other eunuchs that were ordered around in a complex hierarchy with 48 separate grades.
"Each eunuch was apprenticed to a master," wrote Marina Warner, biographer of the Empress Dowager, "and his eventual success or promotion depended on the favor in which his master was held. On his master's death, a young eunuch might be forgotten...until the day he himself died but if he was apprenticed to the chief he might rapidly acquire influence."
Owen Edwards wrote in Smithsonian magazine: Though not a charmer, even by the somber photographic portrait standards of the day, the empress dowager seemed to like the camera and imagined that the camera liked her, says David Hogge, head of archives at the gallery and curator of an exhibition of photographs of Cixi by Xunling, the son of diplomats . ‘she thought about self-representation, and — out of the norm for Chinese portraiture’she sometimes posed in staged vignettes that alluded to famous scenes in court theater. Sometimes she looked like a bored starlet.” [Source: Owen Edwards, Smithsonian magazine, October 2011]
Last Years Death of the Empress Dowager
Isabel Hilton wrote in The Guardian, “The last few years of Cixi's career were no less dramatic and mirror the contradictions in her record. Her biggest mistake was to encourage the disastrous Boxer rebellion, a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement that culminated in a bloody siege of the foreign legations in Beijing. That ended in a punitive foreign rescue and huge indemnities to the countries concerned. China, and Cixi, paid a heavy price for what she later admitted was a mistake. She herself had to flee the capital, pausing only to order the killing of Guangxu's favourite concubine. When she returned to the capital she was chastened, and set about making friends with the ladies of the Legation quarter, the wives of the resident diplomats, in a belated effort to restore her reputation in the world. She launched her own reform programme within two years, using the exiled Kang Youwei's blueprint. [Source: Isabel Hilton, The Guardian, October 25, 2013]
The Empress Dowager Cixi died at the age of 72 on November 15, 1908. Three years later the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) came to its end with the Revolution of 1911. The day after she died, court officials announced that the death of imprisoned Emperor Guangxu. The cause of his death remains a mystery. One rumor has it he was poisoned with arsenic on the empress dowagers orders. According to a Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, she "almost certainly ordered the simultaneous death by poisoning of the young emperor and empress the day before she died in 1908."
Near the end of her life the Empress Dowager said, "I have often thought that I am the cleverest woman that ever lived and that others cannot compare with me. Although I have heard much about Queen Victoria...still I don't think her life is half as interesting and eventful as mine. Now look at me, I have 400 million people all dependent on my judgment."
Just before she died Cixi arranged for Guangxu’s nephew — her grandnephew Puyi — to be named the last emperor of China. On February 12, 1912, the 6-year-old child emperor of the Qing Dynasty abdicated, ending more than 2,000 years of imperial rule in China. The Qing Dynasty was brought down by a highly organized revolutionary movement with overseas arms and financing and a coherent governing ideology based on republican nationalism.
Funeral and Tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi
Laramie Mok wrote in the South China Morning Post: “Cixi was laid to rest with jewellery and other luxury items worth 1.2 million taels of silver Cixi died in the Hall of Ceremonial Phoenix on November 15 1908, one day after the death of Emperor Guangxu. Her funeral was a lavish occasion. “The funeral activities continued for almost 12 months. According to an essay published by the Imperial Museum in 2002, she was buried with jewellery and other luxury items worth about 1.2 million taels of silver. [Source: Laramie Mok, South China Morning Post, November 15, 2017]
“The various activities held to mark her death included the burning of a giant funeral boat on August 30, 1909. The boat, which was 72 metres long and seven metres wide, was made of high-quality wood and covered in expensive silk fabric. The boat was also filled with numerous paper effigies of towers, chambers, pavilions, and dozens of life-size servants dressed in clothes. “It was set on fire near the East gate of the Forbidden City, in a ceremony that was believed to grant Cixi a better afterlife.
The Tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi inside the Eastern Qing tombs features a lavish complex of temples and pavilions and was demolished and reconstructed 12 years before her actual death. Her tomb was looted by the warlord Sun Dianying and his army in 1928 under the KMT (nationalist) government. Her grave was dynamited and desecrated by graverobbers who pulled her pants down and stole her jewels and her teeth and left her body exposed.
Ci Xi's tomb was exquisitely constructed in a unique style. It ranks as the best for building details among the tombs of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). Railings around Long'en Palace are replete with carved motifs of roaring waves, floating clouds, dragons and phoenixes symbolizing auspicious omens. The stone steps in front of the palace are carved with three-dimensional phoenixes and dragons playing with pearls appearing as living dragons and phoenixes moving and dancing in fleecy clouds. Motifs of phoenixes are purposefully arranged above those of dragons. According to tradition, dragon symbolizes emperor while phoenix stands for empress so dragon should be put above phoenix.
Carved on walls are intricate designs marking happiness, prosperity, and longevity. On the arch beams and ceilings are gilded golden paintings such as a golden dragon coiled around all exposed pillars. These kinds of designs are not seen in other mausoleum palaces. The underground palace of Ci Xi's tomb has been opened to visitors. This is the first underground tomb of an empress to be excavated in China, so far.
The empress dowager probably directed the photographer, not the other way around. Archivist Hogge says she may have taken the camera-friendly Queen Victoria as her role model. Sean Callahan, who teaches the history of photography at Syracuse University, agrees: “Xunling’s pictures bear little evidence of his having much feeling for Chinese art history traditions — but resemble those of the court of Queen Victoria, “to whom...Cixi bore a certain physical resemblance.”
Cixi used the portraits as gifts for visiting dignitaries — Theodore Roosevelt and his daughter Alice received copies. But soon, Hogge says, they showed up for sale on the street, which happened more commonly with photographs of prostitutes and actresses. How the portraits leaked is not known. If their intent was to rehabilitate Cixi’s reputation, they failed. In the Western press, she was portrayed as something like the mother of all dragon ladies, and the impression remained long after she died in 1908, having appointed China’s last emperor, Puyi.
சியான்ஃபெங் சிறந்த தலைவர்கள் அல்ல. அவர் தனது பெரும்பாலான நேரத்தை ஓபியம் புகைப்பதிலும், மூன்று அங்குல 'லில்லி கால்கள்' கொண்ட திருநங்கைகள் மற்றும் சிறுமிகளைத் துரத்துவதிலும் செலவிட்டதாகக் கூறப்படுகிறது. சிக்ஸி கன்பூசியனிசத்தைப் பயின்றார், பெளத்த, ஷாமனிச மறைஞானத்தில் ஈடுபாடு கொண்டிருந்தார்.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi's "dark secret" often refers to the circumstances surrounding the death of the Tongzhi Emperor, and the subsequent selection of the Guangxu Emperor. These events involved political maneuvering and consolidation of power by Cixi, who ousted regents and ultimately installed her nephew on the throne. Some sources also mention the circumstances surrounding the death of Empress Dowager Ci'an, her co-regent, which remains a subject of historical debate.
Here's a breakdown of the key aspects:
The Tongzhi Emperor's Death:
The Tongzhi Emperor, Cixi's son, died in 1875 without an heir. This created a succession crisis.
Political Maneuvering:
Cixi, along with Empress Dowager Ci'an, ousted the regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed regency.
Installation of the Guangxu Emperor:
Cixi then installed her nephew, the Guangxu Emperor, as the next ruler, effectively consolidating her power and ensuring her continued influence.
The Death of Ci'an:
Ci'an died in 1881. While her death was officially attributed to illness, some historical accounts suggest foul play, potentially orchestrated by Cixi.
These events, coupled with Cixi's reputation for ruthlessness and ambition, contribute to the "dark secret" narrative, suggesting a calculated and strategic use of power to maintain her position.
Empress Dowager Cixi (Mandarin pronunciation: [tsʰɹ̩̌.ɕì]; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who effectively but periodically controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. Selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence, she gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, his five-year-old son became the Tongzhi Emperor, and Cixi assumed the role of co-empress dowager alongside Xianfeng's widow, Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed the regency along with Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875. Ci'an continued as co-regent until her death in 1881.
Cixi supervised the Tongzhi Restoration, a series of moderate reforms that helped the regime survive until 1911. Although Cixi refused to adopt Western models of government, she supported technological and military reforms and the Self-Strengthening Movement. She supported the principles of the Hundred Days' Reforms of 1898, but feared that sudden implementation, without bureaucratic support, would be disruptive and permit the Japanese and other foreign powers to take advantage of China. She placed the Guangxu Emperor under virtual house arrest for supporting radical reformers, publicly executing the main reformers. After the Boxer Rebellion led to invasion by Allied armies, Cixi initially backed the Boxer groups and declared war on the invaders. The ensuing defeat was a stunning humiliation, ending with the occupation of Beijing and the Qing regime on the brink of collapse. When Cixi returned from Xi'an, she backtracked and began to implement fiscal and institutional reforms aimed to turn China towards a constitutional monarchy. Upon Guangxu's death in November 1908, Cixi installed the two-year-old Puyi on the throne, but she herself died shortly after. Her death left the court in the hands of Manchu conservatives governing a restless, deeply divided society.
Historians both in China and abroad have debated Cixi's legacy. Historians have argued that she was a ruthless despot whose reactionary policies – although successful in managing to prolong the ailing Qing dynasty – led to its humiliation and eventual downfall in the 1911 revolution.
Historians both in China and abroad have debated Cixi's legacy. Historians have argued that she was a ruthless despot whose reactionary policies – although successful in managing to prolong the ailing Qing dynasty – led to its humiliation and eventual downfall in the 1911 revolution.
In 1851, Lady Yehe Nara participated in the selection for wives to the Xianfeng Emperor alongside 60 other candidates. Lady Yehe Nara was one of the few candidates chosen to stay. Among the other chosen candidates were Noble Lady Li of the Tatara clan (who became Consort Li, eventually Imperial Noble Consort Zhuangjing) and Concubine Zhen of the Niohuru clan (who became empress consort, eventually Empress Dowager Ci'an). On 26 June 1852, Lady Yehe Nara left her widowed mother's residence at Xilahutong and entered the Forbidden City and was placed in the sixth rank of consorts, styled "Noble Lady Lan".
On 28 February 1854, Noble Lady Lan was elevated to the fifth rank of consorts and granted the title "Concubine Yi". In 1855, she became pregnant, and on 27 April 1856, she gave birth to Zaichun, Xianfeng's first and only surviving son. On the same day, she was elevated to the fourth rank of consorts as "Consort Yi".[5] In 1857, when her son reached his first birthday, Consort Yi was elevated to the third rank of imperial consort as "Noble Consort Yi". This rank placed her second only to Empress Niohuru among the women within Xianfeng's harem.
Unlike many of the other Manchu women in the imperial household, Noble Consort Yi was known for her ability to read and write Chinese. This skill granted her numerous opportunities to help the ailing emperor in the governing of the Chinese state on a daily basis
Tongzhi era
In September 1860, during the closing stages of the Second Opium War, the British diplomatic envoy Harry Parkes was arrested along with other hostages, who were tortured and executed. In retaliation, British and French troops under the command of Lord Elgin attacked Beijing, and by the following month they had burned the Old Summer Palace to the ground. Xianfeng and his entourage, including Noble Consort Yi, fled Beijing to Rehe Province (around present-day Chengde, Hebei).[7] On hearing the news of the destruction of the Old Summer Palace, Xianfeng, who was already showing signs of dementia, fell into a depression. He turned heavily to alcohol and other drugs and became seriously ill.[8] He summoned eight of his most prestigious ministers, headed by Sushun, Zaiyuan and Duanhua, and named them the "Eight Regent Ministers" to direct and support the future emperor. Xianfeng died on 22 August 1861 at the Chengde Mountain Resort in Rehe Province.
Xianfeng's heir was his five-year-old son with Noble Consort Yi. It is commonly assumed that on his deathbed, Xianfeng summoned his empress and Noble Consort Yi and gave each of them a stamp. He hoped that when his son ascended the throne, the two women would cooperate in harmony and help the young emperor to grow and mature together. This may also have been done as a check on the power of the eight regents
Upon the death of the Xianfeng Emperor, his empress was elevated to the status of empress dowager. Although her official title was "Empress Dowager Ci'an", she was popularly known as the "East Empress Dowager" because she lived in the eastern Zhongcui Palace. Noble Consort Yi was also elevated to "Empress Dowager Cixi". She was popularly known as the "West Empress Dowager" (西太后) because she lived inside the western Chuxiu Palace.
Xinyou Coup: Ousting Sushun
Tensions grew between the two empresses dowager and the eight regents, who were led by Sushun. The regents did not appreciate Cixi's interference in political affairs, and their frequent confrontations with the empresses dowager left Ci'an frustrated. Ci'an often refused to come to court audiences, leaving Cixi to deal with the ministers alone. Secretly, Cixi had begun gathering the support of talented ministers, soldiers, and others who were ostracized by the eight regents for personal or political reasons. Among them were two of Xianfeng's brothers: Prince Gong and Prince Chun. Prince Gong had been excluded from power, yet harboured great ambitions. While Cixi aligned herself with the two princes, a memorial came from Shandong asking for her to "rule from behind the curtains" or "listen to politics behind the curtains" (垂簾聽政), i.e., to assume power as de facto ruler. The same memorial also asked Prince Gong to enter the political arena as a principal "aide to the Emperor".
By the time of Xianfeng's death, Empress Dowager Cixi had become a political strategist. In Rehe Province, while waiting for an astrologically favourable time to transport the emperor's coffin back to Beijing, Cixi conspired with court officials and imperial relatives to seize power. Cixi's position as the lower-ranked empress dowager had no intrinsic political power attached to it. In addition, her son, the young emperor, was not a political force himself. As a result, it became necessary for her to ally herself with other powerful figures, including Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi suggested that they become co-reigning empress dowagers, with powers exceeding the eight regents; the two had long been close friends since Cixi first came to the imperial household.[
When Xianfeng's funeral procession left for Beijing, Cixi took advantage of her alliances with Princes Gong and Chun. She and her son returned to the capital before the rest of the party, along with Zaiyuan and Duanhua, two of the eight regents, while Sushun was left to accompany the deceased emperor's procession. Cixi's early return to Beijing meant that she had more time to plan with Prince Gong and ensure that the power base of the eight regents was divided between Sushun and his allies, Zaiyuan and Duanhua. In order to remove them from power, history was rewritten: the regents were dismissed for having carried out incompetent negotiations with the "barbarians" that had caused Xianfeng to flee to Rehe Province "greatly against his will", among other charges
To display her high moral standards, Cixi executed only three of the eight regents. Prince Gong had suggested that Sushun and others be executed by the most painful method, known as slow slicing ("death by a thousand cuts"), but Cixi declined the suggestion and ordered that Sushun be beheaded, while the other two also marked for execution Zaiyuan and Duanhua, were given pieces of white silk for them to hang themselves with. In addition, Cixi refused outright the idea of executing the family members of the regents, as would be done in accordance with imperial tradition of an alleged usurper. Ironically, Qing imperial tradition also dictated that women and princes were never to engage in politics. In breaking with tradition, Cixi became the only empress dowager in the Qing dynasty to assume the role of regent, ruling from behind the curtains.
Ruling behind the curtain
In November 1861, a few days following the Xinyou Coup, Cixi was quick to reward Prince Gong for his help. He was appointed prince regent and his eldest daughter was made a first rank princess, a title usually bestowed only on the empress's first-born daughter. However, Cixi avoided giving Prince Gong the absolute political power that princes such as Dorgon exercised during the Shunzhi Emperor's reign. As one of the first acts of "ruling behind the curtain" from within the Hall of Mental Cultivation, the political and governmental hub during this era, Cixi, nominally along with Ci'an, issued two imperial edicts on behalf of the boy emperor.[11] The first stated that the two empresses dowager were to be the sole decision-makers "without interference," and the second changed the emperor's regnal title from Qixiang (祺祥; "auspicious") to Tongzhi (同治; "collective stability").
both Ci'an and Cixi were forced to rely on the Grand Council and a complex series of procedures in order to deal with affairs of state. When state documents came in, they were to be first forwarded to the empresses dowager, then referred back to Prince Gong and the Grand Council. Having discussed the matters, Prince Gong and his colleagues would seek the instruction of the empresses dowager at audiences and imperial orders would be drawn up accordingly, with drafts having to be approved by the empresses dowager before edicts were issued. The most important role of the empresses dowager during the regency was to apply their seals to edicts, a merely mechanical role in a complex bureaucracy.[
Cleaning up the bureaucracy
Cixi's ascendancy came at a time of internal chaos and foreign challenges. The effects of the Second Opium War were still hovering over the country, and the Taiping Rebellion continued its seemingly unstoppable advance through China's south, eating up the Qing Empire bit by bit. Internally, both the national bureaucracy and regional authorities were infested with corruption. 1861 happened to be the year of official examinations, whereby officials of all levels presented their political reports from the previous three years. Cixi decided that the time was ripe for a bureaucratic overhaul, and she personally sought audience with all officials above the level of provincial governor, who had to report to her personally. Cixi thus took on part of the role usually given to the Bureaucratic Affairs Department (吏部). Cixi had two prominent officials executed to serve as examples for others: Qingying, a military shilang who had tried to bribe his way out of demotion, and He Guiqing, then Viceroy of Liangjiang, who fled Changzhou in the wake of an incoming Taiping army instead of trying to defend the city. A number of reforms were implemented, such as the development of the Zongli Yamen, an official foreign ministry to deal with international affairs, the restoration of regional armies and regional strongmen, modernization of railroads, factories, and arsenals, an increase of industrial and commercial productivity, and the institution of a period of peace that allowed China time to modernize and develop.
Another significant challenge Cixi faced was the increasingly decrepit state of the Manchu elites. Since the beginning of Qing rule over China in 1644, most major positions at court had been held by Manchus. Cixi, again in a reversal of imperial tradition, entrusted the country's most powerful military unit against the Taiping rebels into the hands of a Han Chinese, Zeng Guofan. Additionally, in the next three years, Cixi appointed Han Chinese officials as governors in all southern Chinese provinces, raising alarm bells in the court, traditionally protective of Manchu dominance.
Regarding the reforms of the Tongzhi Restoration, Mary C. Wright suggested that "Not only a dynasty but also a civilization which appeared to have collapsed was revived to last for another sixty years by the extraordinary efforts of extraordinary men in the 1860s."[13] John K. Fairbank wrote, "That the Qing managed to survive both domestic and international attacks is due largely to the policy and leadership changes known as the Qing Restoration.
Guangxu Emperor (1875–1908)
on Feb. 25, 1875, the young prince ascended the throne, taking the reign name of Guangxu.
During the reign of emperor guangxu, the two most notable events were the Anti-Japanese War and the 1898 reform. In the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, he resolutely opposed compromise and repeatedly forced the qing army to fight with the Japanese. However, he was overwhelmed by the weak and corrupt qing government, which was defeated in the sino-japanese war. After learning a painful lesson, emperor guangxu began to think about the reform to adjust the imperial order and prevent the decline of the whole country.In 1898, together with a group of reform advocates, he promulgated the state policy and began the reform. Unfortunately, this fierce reform movement lasted only 103 days and . After that, emperor guangxu lost his imperial power again and was placed under house arrest by cixi.In 1900, the so-called eight-power allied forces invaded China. Facing a deadly crisis, emperor guangxu had decided to stay in the capital to calm people, but before Beijing fell he was taken to xi ‘an by the empress dowager cixi.
the future Guangxu Emperor was born with the name Zaitian. His elevation to the imperial throne was engineered by Cixi, his aunt, in contravention to the usual rules of succession. In 1875, Zaitain was selected to replace the Tongzhi emperor, who had died childless. Cixi became the four-year-old emperor’s co-regent.Although the emperor came of age in 1887, he had to wait two more years before taking over the government from Cixi, who continued to influence policy. In 1898, at the age of 27, he finally tried to assert himself. During what has come to be known as the “Hundred Days of Reform,” he collected a group of progressively oriented officials around him and issued a broad series of reform edicts.imperial military commander, Ronglu, Cixi returned to the capital, confined the emperor to his palace, and spread rumours that he was deathly ill. Foreign powers, who let it be known that they would not take kindly to the emperor’s death or dethronement, saved his life, but thereafter he had no power over the government.
On Nov. 15, 1908, Cixi died, and, under highly suspicious circumstances, the theretofore healthy Guangxu emperor was announced as having died the previous day. Cixi’s final decree passed the throne to Puyi, the emperor’s three-year-old nephew, who reigned as the Xuantong emperor. From the beginning it was widely believed that the emperor had been poisoned, but there was no evidence to support this theory until a century after his death.
Xuantong Emperor (1909–1911)
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