Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi 1 (慈禧太后  Tz'u-Hsi T'ai-hou) An English-language story of her life was done by the BBC. episode 1: . A Chinese-speaker told the story, and pronounced her name as "Sershee". Note that the standard transcription of her name into alphabetic text is not similar to this actual pronunciation. (November 29 1835 – November 15 1908), often known in China as the West Dowager Empress Chinese: 西太后 was from the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan.

Cixi was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing dynasty and ruled over China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908. She was one of the wives of Emperor Xianfeng and also the mother of Emperor Tongzhi. She quickly took power after the death of Emperor Xianfeng. Though her exact origins are unclear it is very likely that she came from an ordinary Manchu family. She was chosen by Emperor Xianfeng as a concubine. She gained almost total control over the court at the start the rule of her son, Emperor Tongzhi,. He and her nephew, Emperor Guangxu, attempted to rule in their own right.

As onesource tells it,Chang, Jung 2013. Empress Dowager Cixi: the concubine who launched modern China. London, Jonathan Cape.  Cixi had a partnership with the top concubine, Zhin, who had been raised to Empress. The two women ruled together, with Cixi being the dominant personality.

She was in charge during the Opium Wars, the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Boxer Rebellion. She was largely conservative during her rule, and some historians consider her reign despotism and think it might have been responsible for the fall of the Qing dynasty and therefore Imperial China.


 References 

 Chung, Sue Fawn. 1979. The much maligned Empress Dowager: a revisionist study of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-Hsi (1835-1908). Modern Asian Studies 13, 2, 177-96.
 Hummel, Arthur William, ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644-1912). 2 vols. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1943.
 Warner, Marina. 1972. The Dragon Empress: life and times of Tz'u-his 1835-1908. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972.

 Other websites 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/favourites/b03bdpl9
 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
 Cixi: The Woman Behind the Throne -- Smithsonian.com

Category:1835 births
Category:1908 deaths
Category:Emperors and Empresses of China
Category:19th century in China