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Empress Dowager Cixi

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Empress Dowager Cixi [1] (November 29 1835 – November 15 1908), often known in China as the West Dowager Empress [2] was from the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan.

Cixi was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing dynasty and ruled over China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908. She was one of the wives of Emperor Xianfeng and also the mother of Emperor Tongzhi. She quickly took power after the death of Emperor Xianfeng. Though her exact origins are unclear it is very likely that she came from an ordinary Manchu family. She was chosen by Emperor Xianfeng as a concubine. She gained almost total control over the court at the start the rule of her son, Emperor Tongzhi,. He and her nephew, Emperor Guangxu, attempted to rule in their own right.

As onesource tells it,[3] Cixi had a partnership with the top concubine, Zhin, who had been raised to Empress. The two women ruled together, with Cixi being the dominant personality.

She was in charge during the Opium Wars, the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Boxer Rebellion. She was largely conservative during her rule, and some historians consider her reign despotism and think it might have been responsible for the fall of the Qing dynasty and therefore Imperial China.

Noble Consort Yi's portrait of Ci-Xi, when she was still Imperial Concubine

Empress Dowager Cixi Media

  • Consort Dowager Kangci, foster mother of the Xianfeng Emperor. She hosted the selection of Xianfeng's consorts in 1851, in which Lady Yehe Nara participated as a potential candidate.

  • Portrait of a young Empress Dowager Cixi

  • Empress Dowager Ci'an, with whom Cixi staged the Xinyou Coup. They were co-regents until Ci'an's death in 1881.

  • Prince Gong, Cixi's crucial ally during the Xinyou Coup. He was rewarded by Cixi for his help during her most difficult times, but was eventually eliminated from office by Cixi for his ambition.

  • Princess Rongshou (center seated), Prince Gong's daughter. As a way to show gratitude to the prince, Cixi adopted his daughter and elevated her to a first rank princess (the highest rank for imperial princesses).

  • Ceremonial headdress likely worn by Cixi. The small phoenixes emerging from the surface represent the empress. The Walters Art Museum

  • Empress Xiaozheyi, the Tongzhi Emperor's wife, who had the approval of Empress Dowager Ci'an but never Cixi's. It is widely speculated that Empress Xiaozheyi was pregnant with Tongzhi's child and that Cixi orchestrated the empress's demise.

  • Tongzhi doing his coursework. Cixi's high expectations of him may have contributed to his strong distaste for learning.

  • Empress Dowager Cixi (front middle) poses with her court attendants and the Guangxu Emperor's empress (second from left), who was also her niece.

References

  1. ↑ 1 (慈禧太后 Tz'u-Hsi T'ai-hou) An English-language story of her life was done by the BBC. episode 1: [1]. A Chinese-speaker told the story, and pronounced her name as "Sershee". Note that the standard transcription of her name into alphabetic text is not similar to this actual pronunciation.
  2. ↑ Chinese: 西太后
  3. ↑ Chang, Jung 2013. Empress Dowager Cixi: the concubine who launched modern China. London, Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9780224087445
  • Chung, Sue Fawn. 1979. The much maligned Empress Dowager: a revisionist study of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-Hsi (1835-1908). Modern Asian Studies 13, 2, 177-96.
  • Hummel, Arthur William, ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644-1912). 2 vols. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1943.
  • Warner, Marina. 1972. The Dragon Empress: life and times of Tz'u-his 1835-1908. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972.

Other websites

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