Empress Dowager Cixi

Cixi redirects here. To see the city in Zhejiang, see Cixi City.

The Empress Dowager Cixi () (November 29, 1835 –November 15, 1908), popularly known in China as the Western Empress Dowager (西太后), and officially known posthumously as Empress Xiaoqin Xian (孝欽顯皇后), was a powerful and charismatic figure who was the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, ruling over China for most of the period from 1861 to her death in 1908.

Historians consider that she probably did her best to cope with the difficulties of the era but her conservative attitudes did not serve her well and the Western powers continued to take advantage of the country's relatively low level of technological development.

Cixi was a major concubine of the Emperor Xianfeng （咸豐皇帝）. Soon after Emperor Xianfeng died in 1861, Cixi along with Empress Ci'an （慈安太后）became regents for the deceased emperor's boy. The two Dowager Empresses, counseled by the late Emperor's brother, maintained this position until 1873 when Emperor Tongzhi （同治皇帝）came of age.

Two years later, the young man was dead. Cixi violated the normal succession and had her three year old nephew named the new heir. The two Dowager Empresses continued as regents until the death of Ci'an, the other Dowager Empress, in 1881, when Cixi became the de facto ruler of China.

When Emperor Guangxu （光緒皇帝）, the nephew, attained maturity, Cixi retired to the country, though she kept herself informed through a network of spies. After China lost the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Guangxu implemented many reforms in what came to be known as the "Hundred Days' Reform." In reaction, Cixi worked with the military and conservative forces to stage a coup d'etat and take power again as active regent, confining the emperor to his palace.

The next year, Cixi supported the forces behind the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-reform and anti-foreign rebellion. When foreign troops retaliated by entering the Forbidden City and capturing Peking (Beijing), Cixi accepted the offered peace terms. As appeasement, she eventually implemented the reforms that she had stopped her nephew from instituting. She continued to rule, her power much diminished, until her death in 1908. Emperor Guangxu died as she was dying, reportedly poisoned at her direction.

Her actual power surpassed that of another great Queen who was her contemporary, England's Queen Victoria. In addition to her part in the politics of her day, she's also remembered for her patronage of the arts including the opera, and the founding of the Peking Zoological Garden in 1906, later the first zoo to breed the giant panda.

Youth

Recent biographies of Cixi usually state that she was the daughter of a low-ranking Manchu official, Huizheng (惠征), of the Yehe-Nara (Yehonala) clan, serving in Shanxi province and then in Anhui province. Her mother, the principal wife of Huizheng, was the Lady Fuca, of the Manchu Fuca clan. Recent biographies are unable to decide where exactly Cixi was born. She is supposed to have spent most of her early life in Anhui (after a brief period in Shanxi), and then moved to Peking at an unknown age between her third and her fifteenth birthday. According to biographers, her father was sacked from civil service in 1853 (Cixi was already a concubine inside the Forbidden City at that time), allegedly for not resisting the Taiping Rebellion in Anhui province and deserting his post. Some biographers even state that her father was beheaded for his desertion.

Names

Cixi had different names at different stages of her life, which could be quite confusing. Moreover, most of her Western biographers, who in general do not read Chinese, frequently confuse these names.

The name of Cixi at birth is still unresolved (see Youth section above). Upon her entrance into the Forbidden City, Cixi was registered as "the Lady Yehenara, daughter of Huizheng" (惠征). Thus she was called by the name of her clan, the Yehe-Nara, as was customary for Manchu girls. Cixi was a secretive person, and she seldom talked about her childhood. After she came to power, the subject of her life before entering the palace was taboo, so it is no surprise that records of her original name as well as her youth were lost.

When she entered the Forbidden City in September 1851 (or June 1852, depending on the source), Cixi was made a concubine of the fifth rank (貴人), and she was given the name Lan (蘭 - meaning "orchid"). Her name was thus "Concubine of the fifth rank Lan" (蘭貴人). At the end of December 1854 or the beginning of January 1855, she was promoted to concubine of the fourth rank (嬪), and her name was changed to Yi (懿 - meaning "virtuous"). Her name then became "Concubine of the fourth rank Yi" (懿嬪). On April 27, 1856, she gave birth to a son, the only son of Emperor Xianfeng (the empress consort had been unsuccessful in producing an heir), and was immediately made "Concubine of the third rank Yi" (懿妃). In February 1857 she was again elevated and made "Concubine of the second rank Yi" (懿貴妃).

Towards the end of August 1861, following the death of Emperor Xianfeng, Cixi's five year-old son became the next emperor – Emperor Tongzhi, whose reign officially started in 1862). Cixi was made "Holy Mother¹ Empress Dowager" (聖母皇太后), though she was not the empress consort while Emperor Xianfeng was alive. She was privileged to become empress dowager only because she was the biological mother of Emperor Tongzhi. She was also given the honorific name (徽號) Cixi – meaning "motherly and auspicious". The former empress consort was made "Empress Mother Empress Dowager" (母后皇太后), a title giving her precedence over Cixi, and was given the honorific name Ci'an – meaning "motherly and calming". As she dwelled in the western section of the Forbidden City, Cixi became popularly known as the Western Empress Dowager, while Ci'an became known as the Eastern Empress Dowager for the same reason.

On seven occasions since 1861, Cixi was given additional honorific names (two Chinese characters at a time), as was customary for emperors and empresses, until by the end of her reign her name was a long string of 16 characters starting with Cixi (as empress dowager she had the right to nine additions, giving a total of 20 characters, had she lived long enough for it). At her death, her official name was:

The Current Holy Mother Empress Dowager Cixi Duanyou Kangyi Zhaoyu Zhuangcheng Shougong Qinxian Chongxi² of the Empire of the Great Qing

(大清國當今慈禧端佑康頤昭豫莊誠壽恭欽獻崇熙聖母皇太后)

The short form was:

The Current Holy Mother Empress Dowager of the Empire of the Great Qing

(大清國當今聖母皇太后)

At the time, Cixi was also addressed as "Venerable Buddha" (老佛爺) – literally "Master³ Old Buddha". This was not a title created for her, as is often but wrongly stated by Western biographers, but an official form of address used for all the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, who were devoted Buddhists. Cixi liked to be treated like a man, and insisted on her subjects using words reserved for men when addressing her. As the de facto ruler of China, she was revered with the phrase "Long Live the Empress Dowager for ten thousand years", by convention only used on Emperors, during official and ceremonial occasions. Empress dowagers usually enjoyed only "a thousand years" of long life.

At her death in 1908, Cixi was given a posthumous name which combined her honorific names with new names added just after her death. This posthumous name is:

Empress Xiaoqin⁴ Cixi Duanyou Kangyi Zhaoyu Zhuangcheng Shougong Qinxian Chongxi⁵ Peitian Xingsheng⁶ Xian⁷

(孝欽慈禧端佑康頤昭豫莊誠壽恭欽獻崇熙配天興聖顯皇后)

This long name is still the one that can be seen on Cixi's tomb today. The short form of her posthumous name is:

Empress Xiaoqin Xian

(孝欽顯皇后)

Road to power

The young Lady Yehenara was registered by her parents with the Imperial Court, as was required for all the Manchu girls of the empire, in order to keep track of potential concubines for the emperor. In September 1851 (or June 1852, depending on sources), she was summoned to the Forbidden City with other Manchu girls to undergo a selection process, in order to provide concubines for the new emperor Xianfeng, under the supervision of Concubine Dowager Kangci (康慈皇貴太妃) (1812-1855). Lady Yehenara was one of the few girls selected by Concubine Dowager Kangci on that occasion. Concubine Dowager Kangci was the highest ranking surviving concubine of the late emperor Daoguang, and so she was the woman with the highest status inside the Forbidden City. She was the de jure mother of Emperor Xianfeng, although not his biological mother. In 1840, at the death of Xianfeng's mother, Empress Xiaoquan Cheng (孝全成皇后), the then concubine of the first rank Jing (靜皇貴妃) had raised the 8-year-old boy, and when he had become Emperor Xianfeng in 1850 at the death of Emperor Daoguang, she had been made Concubine Dowager Kangci. She was thus in charge of selecting the empress and the concubines of Emperor Xianfeng. Concubine Dowager Kangci was also the biological mother of Prince Gong (恭親王), who would play an important role in the years to come.

On April 27, 1856, Lady Yehenara, then Concubine of the fourth rank Yi, gave birth to a son, the only son of Emperor Xianfeng, to be named heir, and later Tongzhi Emperor. Her status inside the Forbidden City thus dramatically changed, and she became the second highest ranking woman in the palace, just behind the empress consort (later known as Empress Dowager Ci'an).

On August 22, 1861, in the wake of the Second Opium War, the Xianfeng Emperor died at the Rehe Traveling Palace (熱河行宫) in Jehol (now Chengde), 230 km (140 miles) northeast of Beijing, where the imperial court had fled. His heir, the son of Lady Yehenara, was only 5 years old. Although many people believe that Lady Yehenara actually staged a coup to place her son on the throne, in fact, the Chinese Court system was so bound by rules and propriety that such would have been very difficult for anyone, and virtually impossible for a woman. Her husband and Emperor was on his deathbed, confined to his own quarters. By order of his advisors, mainly Su Shun, no one other than officials were allowed to see him, especially not women.

She went to fetch her son from his nanny and carried him into the Emperor's chambers. Had she been alone, she would not have been allowed inside. Since other officials were beside the Emperor, hoping that he would name an heir (as for Manchu it is not the first child, but appointment which inherits the throne), she placed her son beside his father and asked who would be the next Emperor. The dying Emperor appointed his son as heir and his two mothers as regents. Su Shun, along with other officials were extremely displeased, and nominated themselves and the empresses as regents. Officials had heard the emperor decree the Empresses as regents, but still Su kept one of the official seals and gave the other one to the Empresses. For the next few months, Su would face resistance from the Empresses, who were being advised by Prince Kung. At one point he even ordered food withheld from the Empresses quarters for 4 days. When all was over, the Empresses had Su Shun imprisoned and beheaded. She would now be known as Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi became co-regent along with the less politically involved Empress Dowager Ci'an, ruling behind the curtain (a court official required that the two co-regents, both women, attend imperial audiences behind a curtain). Cixi then ruled China for most of the period from 1861 until her death in 1908.

Regency under Tongzhi

For the next forty-seven years until her death in 1908, Cixi assumed the regency of the Empire of the Great Qing, along with co-regent Ci'an, first during the minority of the Tongzhi Emperor, then during the minority of the Guangxu Emperor after the premature death of Tongzhi in January 1875. Although in theory Ci'an had precedence over her, Cixi was the actual master of China. Ci'an seldom intervened in politics but inserted her will in what may have caused her death when she intervened in Cixi's politics in 1869. The most feared grand eunuch of the imperial court An Dehai (安德海), close confidant of Cixi, was on a trip south to buy some dragon robes for Cixi. While traveling in Shandong province, he used his power as an envoy of Cixi to extort money from people, which caused great trouble. The matter was reported to the court by the governor of Shandong, and Ci'an who heard about it ordered the immediate execution of An Dehai, who had been the all powerful figure at the imperial court until then. The execution of An Dehai is said to have greatly displeased Cixi.

Cixi was perceived by the majority in modern China to have sidelined the naive and candid Ci'an and ruled as a sole authority in her need for power. However, some historians have painted a very different reality, mainly that Cixi was a shrewd and intelligent woman who was ready to make sacrifices and work hard in order to obtain the supreme power, and who faced the complex problems that were besetting China at the time, while Ci'an was indulging in an easy life and did not care as much for government and hard work as she cared for her pleasures and sweet life inside the Forbidden City. As often, reality may lie in between these two extreme visions.

Securing absolute power

Empress Dowager Ci'an died suddenly on April 8, 1881, during an audience at the court. Rumors that her sudden death after a life of excellent health was a result of poisoning by Cixi started more than sixty years after the fact happened. At the time, Cixi herself was ill, with a liver condition that kept her in bed for 2 years. It is in court records that Cian died of viral flu. The death of Empress Dowager Ci'an gave sole power to Empress Cixi as remaining regent.

Crisis with Guangxu

Guangxu's coming of age when he was seventeen meant Cixi would relinquish her powers. The 1st Prince Chun, however, had continually insisted that Cixi continue the regency.

Overview of politics

While seeking China's "self-strengthening" through weak and regionalized industrial and military growth, she opposed attempts at political modernization, staging a coup d'etat (September 21, 1898) against the political influence of the Guangxu Emperor to end the Hundred Days' Reform. She opposed the creation of a national army or navy. Cixi's contribution to the self-strengthening movement, though, could be frustratingly two-sided. Whilst she supported economic and military modernization, approving the construction of railways and factories and encouraging use of Western weapons and tactics, she was capable of holding back the programme through relatively simple acts. For her 60th birthday in 1895, Cixi relocated the astronomical sum of 30 million taels of silver, which had been earmarked for the construction of ten new warships, to pay for her birthday party. The Chinese Navy had recently lost most of its modern warships in the 1894 First Sino-Japanese War, and urgently needed the money to rebuild a high-tech fleet. However, instead of using the money to safeguard China's military security, Cixi instead chose to use the money for a party.

In 1900, Cixi's support of the self-strengthening movement was again called into question when the Boxer Rebellion broke out in northern China. Eager to preserve traditional Chinese values, Cixi threw in her lot with the rebels, making an official announcement of her support for the movement. When the Westerners responded by dispatching the Eight-Nation Alliance, the Chinese military, badly underdeveloped due to Cixi's habit of filching military funds, was unable to prevent the high-tech Allied army from marching on Peking and seizing the Forbidden City. Determined to prevent another Chinese rebellion, the Western powers inposed a humiliating treaty on China, and Cixi, with no military forces capable of protecting even her own palace, was forced to sign. The treaty demanded the presence of an international military force in China and the payment of £67 million (almost $333 million) in reparations.

Cixi died on November 15, 1908, after having installed Puyi as the new emperor of the Qing Dynasty on November 14.

Tomb

Cixi was interred amidst the Eastern Qing Tombs (清東陵), 125 km (75 miles) east of Beijing, in the Dingdongling (定東陵) tomb complex (literally: the "Tombs east of the Dingling tomb"), along with Empress Dowager Ci'an. More precisely, Ci'an lies in the Puxiangyu Dingdongling (普祥峪定東陵) (literally: the "Tomb east of the Dingling tomb in the Vale of wide good omen"), while Cixi built herself the much larger Putuoyu Dingdongling (菩陀峪定東陵) (literally: the "Tomb east of the Dingling tomb in the Vale of Putuo"). The Dingling tomb (literally: the "Tomb of quietude") is the tomb of the Xianfeng Emperor, the emperor of Ci'an and Cixi, which is located indeed west of the Dingdongling. The Vale of Putuo owes its name to Mount Putuo (literally: the "Mountain of the Dharani of the Site of the Buddha's Enlightenment"), at the foot of which the Dingdongling is located.

Cixi, unsatisfied with her tomb, ordered its destruction and reconstruction in 1895. The new tomb was a lavish grandiose complex of temples, gates, and pavilions, covered with gold leaves, and with gold and gilded-bronze ornaments hanging from the beams and the eaves. In July 1928, Cixi's tomb was occupied by warlord and Kuomintang general Sun Dianying (孫殿英) and his army who methodically stripped the complex of its precious ornaments, then dynamited the entrance to the burial chamber, opened Cixi's coffin, threw her corpse (said to have been found intact) on the floor, and stole all the jewels contained in the coffin, as well as the massive pearl that had been placed in Cixi's mouth to protect her corpse from decomposing (in accordance with Chinese tradition). It was said that the large pearl on Cixi's crown was offered by Sun Dianying to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and ended up as an ornament on the gala shoes of Chiang's wife, Soong May-ling.

After 1949, the complex of Cixi's tomb was restored by the People's Republic of China, and it is still today one of the most impressive imperial tombs of China.

Historical opinion

The traditional view is that Cixi was a devious despot who maintained a deathgrip on what little power she had until that power faded out completely. Three years after her death, the Qing dynasty was itself overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution. However, some authors, such as Sterling Seagrave in his biography The Dragon Lady maintain a far more positive view of Cixi, arguing that she has been unfairly maligned and when seen more closely, her actions were reasonable responses to the difficulties that China faced. Another sympathetic account can be found in Anchee Min's historical novel Empress Orchid (2004). The China Central Television production Towards the Republic (走向共和) portrayed Cixi as a capable ruler, albeit not entirely positive -- for the first time in the history of Mainland Chinese television, although it also clearly demonstrated her political views as very conservative. While considering her frequent portrayal as a despot, one must bear in mind the traditional Confucian idea widely held in her day that women in general, and especially influential women, caused trouble and were not to be trusted (a similar demonisation has occurred with Empress Wu of the Tang Dynasty).

Pearl S. Buck's novel Imperial Woman chronicles the life of the Empress Dowager from the time of her selection as a concubine until near to her death. Cixi is portrayed as a stern, motivated woman who stands to the old ways of life and government and resists the changes brought by westerners. Cixi's actions on behalf of the two Emperors that she raised and her own actions are all accounted for and rationalized as being for the good of her people and her country.

Katherine Carl, a painter who spent some ten months with the Empress Dowager Cixi in 1903 to paint Cixi's portrait for the St. Louis Exposition, wrote a book about her experience, With the Empress Dowager, published in 1905. In the book's introduction, Carl says she wrote the book because "After I returned to America, I was constantly seeing in the newspapers (and hearing of) statements ascribed to me which I never made."

In her book, Carl describes the Empress Dowager Cixi as a kind and considerate woman for her station. Cixi, though shrewd, had great presence, charm, and graceful movements resulting in "an unusually attractive personality." Cixi loved dogs and had a kennel maintained by eunuchs at the Summer Palace where she had "some magnificent specimens of Pekingese pugs and of a sort of Skye terrier." She did not like cats and some of the eunuchs who had cats made sure to keep them "within rigid bounds, on no condition allowing them to come within Her Majesty's ken." Cixi enjoyed flowers and the staff of the Summer Palace ensured the rooms and courtyards were kept properly dressed with cut flowers.

The Empress Dowager understood loyalty and practiced it with her retinue. Carl while describing the Palace staff says: "Among these is a Chinese woman who nursed Her Majesty through a long illness, about twenty-five years since, and saved her life by giving her mother's milk to drink. Her Majesty, who never forgets a favor, has always kept this woman in the Palace. Being a Chinese, she had bound feet. Her Majesty, who cannot bear to see them even, had her feet unbound and carefully treated, until now she can walk comfortably. Her Majesty has educated the son, who was an infant at the time of her illness, and whose natural nourishment she partook of. This young man is already a Secretary in a good yamen (government office)."

Cixi enjoyed boating on the lake at the Summer Palace, walks through the gardens and grounds of the Palace (actually the Imperial family rode in sedan chairs so the eunuchs did the majority of the walking), and presentations of Chinese opera in the Summer Palace Opera house. Cixi smoked Chinese water pipes as well as European cigarettes through a cigarette holder. At an age of 69, Cixi was in sufficiently good physical shape that when providing a tour of the Summer Palace Opera House to Carl, Cixi "mounted the steep and difficult steps with as much ease and lightness as I did, and I had on comfortable European shoes, while she wears the six-inch-high Manchu sole in the middle of her foot, and must really walk as if on stilts."

She is said to have invented the board game Eight Fairies Travel Across The Sea, which is still popular today as "Eight Fairies Chess".

A film called Lover of the Last Empress (慈禧秘密生活, 1995) was made about her path to become the ruler of the Empire.

References

Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China by Sterling Seagrave, Vintage Books, New York, 1992 ISBN 0-679-73369-8 This book challenges the notion that the Empress-Dowager used the Boxers. She is portrayed sympathetically.
The Last Empress , The She-Dragon of China by Keith Laidler, Wiley 2003. The biography is based on a lot of anecdotal evidence and in some cases, pure speculation. Experts classify it as inacurate.
The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Envoy in Peking (1900-06) edited by Ian Ruxton in two volumes, Lulu Press Inc., April 2006 ISBN 141168804X (Volume One); ISBN 1411688058 (Volume Two). This book includes accounts of presenting credentials and Satow's personal views of the Empress-Dowager.

External links

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_cixi.htm?terms=cixi
http://www.royalty.nu/Asia/China/TzuHsi.html
http://www.kings.edu/womens_history/tzuhsi.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/headland-courtlife.html - Primary Source Information about Empress Dowager Cixi

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Empress Dowager Cixi