Chinese and Taiwanese History: Biographies

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Cixi

A Dictionary of World History | 2000 | Copyright

Cixi (or Tz'u-hsi) (c.1834–1908) Empress dowager of China (1862–1908). A Manchu, she became a concubine of the emperor Xianfeng (ruled 1851–61), giving birth to a son in 1856 who came to the throne in 1862 as the emperor Tongzhi. Cixi acted as Regent for twelve years and, after Tongzhi's death, resumed her position after the elevation of the latter's four-year-old cousin to the throne as the emperor Guangxu. She maintained her power through a combination of ruthlessness and corruption, until the last decade of the century, when the emperor attempted to reverse her conservative policies (Hundred Days Reform). Cixi responded by imprisoning Guangxu and encouraging the BOXER RISING. Forced by foreign military forces to flee the capital, she returned in 1902, conceding some reforms, but still tried to delay the establishment of a constitutional monarchy.

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Cixi

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | Copyright

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).

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