Empress dowager cixi biography summary worksheet
•
Abstract
Empress Dowager Cixi was a ruthless and selfish lady who had an unlimited greed for power. After the death of her husband, Emperor Xianfeng, Empress Cixi was the primary actor to run China. She entered the Forbidden City as the lowest-ranking concubine but has a good fortune of giving birth to the only heir to the throne. Through her son, Emperor Tongzhi, she became Empress Cixi and ruled behind the curtain. She would listened to government reports and told her son what to response. After the death of her son, she placed her nephew on the throne and again ruled behind the curtain. Empress Dowager Cixi ruled China for nearly fifty years.
Historical Background
Empress Dowager Cixi was born Lan Kuei (also known as Yehonala), meaning Little Orchid, on November 29, 1835 in Beijing, to a minor Manchu official. Lan Kuei was the oldest of four children. She had
•
Empress Dowager Cixi
- REDIRECT Template:Infobox royalty
Empress Dowager Cixi[1] (November 29 1835 – November 15 1908), often known in China as the West Dowager Empress[2] 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,[3] Cixi had a partnership with the top concubine, Zhin, who had been raised to Empress. The two women ruled toge
•
Arguably the most powerful empress in kinesisk history, Empress Dowager Cixi dominated the court and policies of China’s gods imperial dynasty for nearly 50 years. She entered the court as a low-ranking consort, or wife, of the Xianfeng kejsare and bore his heir, the Tongzhi emperor. When Tongzhi ascended the throne as a child, Cixi became an empress dowager and an unusually powerful joint ruler. After Tongzhi died without an heir, Cixi installed her 4-year-old nephew as the Guangxu emperor. This consolidated her power, and she served as the de facto leader of the vast Qing Empire from 1861 until her death in 1908.
This portrait of Cixi captures some of the complexities of her story. Her benign face contradicts Western newspaper reports that declared she had “the soul of a tiger in the body of a woman.” Cixi gained this reputation after supporting a violent uprising that took control of the foreign legations in Beijing in 1900 (the Boxer Rebellion). Two years later, she efternamn