The End of the Emperors

The Dowager Empress Cíxǐ (慈禧太后) was born in 1835, the daughter of a minor Qīng official, and was one of 28 Manchu girls selected for the Xiánfēng emperor (reigned 1851–61).

She was made a concubine of the fifth rank at the age of 17, eventually giving birth to a son, something the Empress Cí’ān (慈安皇太后) had failed to do, and so was raised to the second rank.

After the emperor’s death in 1861, Cíxǐ, Cí’ān, and the dead emperor’s brother perpetrated a coup that installed the six-year-old Tóngzhì emperor and named Cíxǐ Dowager Empress.

At first the two women both sat behind the screen to direct imperial audiences, but Cí’ān died in 1881 after eating some cakes sent to her by Cíxǐ, who then became sole puppet-mistress.

When the Tóngzhì emperor died in 1874 — a victim, it was said, of smallpox and other diseases resulting from the licentiousness in which she encouraged him, and rather conveniently just as he was attaining the majority which would have ended her regency — she manoeuvred her sister’s child onto the throne so that she could remain in power. The Tóngzhì emperor’s pregnant widow, who might have been carrying an heir, committed suicide shortly afterwards according to the official account, but unsurprisingly Cíxǐ is suspected of having had a hand in this, too.

The choice of the boy who became the Guāngxù emperor broke the Qīng house law that each emperor should be succeeded only by someone from the next generation (although each emperor chose which of his numerous sons seemed most fitting) and there was much dissent.

The new emperor was only four years old. He eventually came of age in 1888, 13 years after taking the throne, and took up his duties at the beginning of 1889.

With the encouragement of relatively forward-looking scholars, in 1898 he began a rapid series of political and administrative reforms now called the ‘Hundred Days’, which might have saved the Qīng but which were resisted
by Cíxǐ.

On coming of age, the Guāngxù emperor planned to deprive Cíxǐ of any further influence and asked general Yuán Shìkǎi, creator of a new and reasonably modern and efficient Chinese army, to arrest her. Instead Yuán betrayed him, and Guāngxù was imprisoned on an island in the Nán Hǎi (now part of the government compound of Zhōng Nán Hǎi).

Cíxǐ wrote an edict for him to sign claiming that on the grounds of illness and incompetence he had asked her to retake control, and she promptly reversed his reforms and put several of his supporters and advisers to death (see Nán Hǎi Huìguǎn). Guāngxù spent the rest of his life either locked up in the Nán Hǎi or in the Hall of Jade Ripples at the Summer Palace, forced to make regular obeisance to Cíxǐ. He met an early end in 1908 from various illnesses, possibly in the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Cíxǐ placed the two-year-old infant Pǔyí on the throne as the Xuāntǒng emperor, ensuring her continuing regency, but died herself a few hours later, aged 73. Some suspect that Cíxǐ decided to end the Guāngxù emperor’s life before her own, and others that the eunuchs who had supported his imprisonment administered a poison to prevent him from regaining power after her death, which would probably have ensured the end of their own lives when he took revenge.

In death Guāngxù and Cíxǐ remained separated, since he was buried in the Western Qīng Tombs, and she at the Eastern set.

Pǔyí’s reign was short, and it was in the Hall of Mental Cultivation on 12 February 1912 that the edict of abdication was issued recognizing the Republic of China.

Return to The Palace Museum or ‘Forbidden City’.

See other Forbidden City stories:
Monumental Mismanagement
The Two Palace Museums
Where are They Now?
A Storm in a Coffee Cup
The Last Occupant of the Forbidden City
Pride and a Fall
The Ends of the Eunuchs

Links below to neighbouring sights around the Imperial City and Tiān’ān Mén Square. Or see Main Index to A Better Guide to Běijīng.