Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu 慈禧太后与光绪皇帝 Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu

Empress Dowager Cixi

慈禧太后 慈禧太后(1835年11月29日~1908年11月15日) was an very ambitious and cruel woman. She became Emperor Xianfeng’s junior wife of a very low level, but gave birth to the emperor’s only son and became the empress dowager after her husband’s death. Her son, Emperor Tongzhi, was only 6 when he became the new emperor. All power went to his mother. Emperor Tongzhi died at the age of 19 without any son. Cixi made her son’s 3 year old cousin the new emperor and her purpose was clear: to keep the power in her hands. When Cixi was the real governor, China was attacked by many western countries and Japan. Cixi’s policy was to give whatever these countries want, including money and land, just to keep her own position. She even appropriated money which was supposed to build a navy to build a garden for her birthday celebration. In short, Cixi was very notorious in Chinese history.

光绪皇帝 The most unlucky emperor? Was mistreated by Cixi for many years.

戊戌政变 The Change of Wuxu Emperor Guangxu tried to rebel and work with several officials to overthrow Cixi’s ruling, and they planned to introduce democracy after they succeed. But one official was afraid and told Cixi their plot. Cixi was very angry and sent people to arrest these officials. Most of them escaped, but Tan Sitong was different. Although he had time to escape, he said: “In every democratic country, there were many people died before democracy was realized. There wasn’t any Chinese died for democracy yet, let it start from me.” So he waited for Cixi’s people to come to arrest and executed. Emperor Guangxu was imprisoned afterwards and died very unhappily at the age of 38 and one day before Cixi – some scholars say he was murdered by Cixi ;

谭嗣同 Tan Sitong

珍妃 (Zhen Fei), Emperor Guangxu’s favorite woman was ordered by Cixi to be thrown into a water well and died.

Zhen Fei Well