Cixi dowager biography examples

She was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty when her son ascended the throne at the age of five, ruling over China for 47 years from to her death in Born in an ordinary Manchu family and selected as a concubine for the Xianfeng Emperor, she exercised almost total control over the court under the nominal rule of her son the Tongzhi Emperor and her nephew the Guangxu Emperor, both of whom attempted unsuccessfully to rule in their own right.

During the last decades of the Qing Dynasty, the government was split between a liberal faction that favored reform and modernization, and a conservative faction that was strongly attached to tradition.

Empress dowager cixi death

Empress Dowager Cixi was largely conservative and represented the conservative political faction at court. Many historians have considered her reign despotic, and attribute the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and therefore Imperial China, to Cixi's inability to understand the challenges posed to traditional China by the modern world. Other historians and biographers point out that she acted as might have been expected under the circumstances in which she lived, and believe that she has been unfairly blamed for problems that were beyond her control.

Edward Behr suggests that Cixi was born in as Lan Kueu Little Orchid [1] , while Genzheng Yehenara, one of Cixi's brother's descendants, insists the name was Xing'er, and the name she used during schooling was Xingzhen. There are various stories about the early background of Cixi, none of which are in historical records. The most popularly circulated tales, some of which have made their way into Chinese historical fiction, suggest that Cixi was from one of four places: the Yangtze Region; Changzhi, Shanxi this version says Cixi is actually a Han Chinese adopted by a Manchu family ; Suiyuan now Hohhot , Inner Mongolia ; and Beijing.

It is generally accepted that she spent most of her early life in Anhui Province before moving to Beijing sometime between her third and fifteenth birthday. According to biographers, her father was dismissed from the civil service in , two years after Cixi entered the Forbidden City , for allegedly not resisting the Taiping Rebellion in Anhui Province and deserting his post.

In September, , Cixi participated, with 60 other Manchu girls, in the selection process for concubines for the new Xianfeng Emperor.