Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi (Mandarin pronunciation: [tsʰɹ̩̌.ɕì]; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who had de facto but periodical control of 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 oversaw the Tongzhi Restoration, during which she rejected Western political institutions but supported technological and military modernization. In 1898, she suppressed the Hundred Days’ Reform initiated by the Guangxu Emperor and placed him under house arrest for the remainder of his life, likely eventually having him murdered by arsenic poisoning. During the Boxer Rebellion, Cixi initially supported the Boxers and declared war on the foreign powers, a decision that led to the occupation of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance and her flight to Xi’an. After the humiliating Boxer Protocol pushed the Qing dynasty to the brink of collapse, she initiated reforms aimed at establishing a constitutional monarchy. Cixi died in November 1908, two days after the Guangxu Emperor, leaving power in the hands of conservative regents amid a deeply divided and unstable society.

Cixi’s legacy remains contested. Traditionally portrayed as a ruthless reactionary, she has been reassessed by revisionist historians who argue that she was scapegoated for structural problems beyond her control. These scholars credit her with pursuing pragmatic reform in contrast to the Guangxu Emperor’s radicalism, maintaining political order under intense imperialist pressure, and supporting institutions such as the Beiyang Army and Peking University.