Cixi

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Cixi (1835–1908) ( Tz'u His or Zi Xi) Empress Dowager of China. As mistress of the Emperor Xian Feng and mother of his only son, Cixi became co-regent in 1861 and remained in power until her death by arranging for the succession of her infant nephew in 1875, and displacing him in a palace coup in 1898. Ruthless and reactionary, she abandoned the modernization programme of the ‘Hundred Days of Reform’ and supported the Boxer Rebellion (1900).