Royals › Empress / Consort
Empress Dowager Cixi
Consort of the Xianfeng Emperor and mother of the Tongzhi Emperor who, as empress dowager, controlled the Qing court for most of the half-century after 1861
Mural of the event “Hundred Days' Reform”, which this person took part in.
Defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War ignited the imperialist scramble for concessions; Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao mobilized scholars in the 'Gongche Petition' demanding radical reform.
Also known as Yehe Nala · Xitai Hou
- Roles
- Empress / Consort
Cixi, of the Yehe Nara clan and daughter of the official Huizheng, entered the palace in 1852 as Noble Lady Lan and in 1856 bore the Xianfeng Emperor's eldest son, Zaichun, which raised her to Consort Yi and then Noble Consort. When the emperor died at Rehe in 1861, she joined Empress Dowager Ci'an and Prince Gong to remove Sushun and the other regents; the Tongzhi reign began, and the two empresses dowager ruled from behind a screen. After her son's death she enthroned her nephew Zaitian as the Guangxu Emperor and resumed the regency, and in 1898 she ended the Hundred Days' Reform with a coup and confined him on Yingtai island. In 1900 she declared war on the foreign powers and fled to Xi'an when their armies took Beijing; after the Boxer Protocol she backed the New Policies, which abolished the examinations. She died in 1908, a day after the Guangxu Emperor, and was named Empress Xiaoqinxian. In 1928 troops under Sun Dianying looted her tomb.
Life and times
Dates 1835 CE–1908 CE
- 1898Hundred Days' ReformTook partage 63
- 1898Hundred Days' Reform (1898 CE)age 63