“A natural conservative with scant knowledge of the Western world… never hesitated to act with ruthless opportunism… reputation for political ambition also became inextricably intertwined with a reputation for sexual depravity and cruelty.” She held power for 36 of the next 47 years, governing the nation of hundreds of millions of people through or despite two weak Emperors (her son Tongzhi and her nephew Guangxu) and in the face of greedy and often violent intrusions by European powers.Įuropean contemporaries were flummoxed by this strong and, to them, strange woman, comparing Cixi to “Jezebel of Samaria, who slaughtered the prophets of the Lord and rioted with the priest of Baal.” Another wrote, “When the ‘Venerable Buddha’ said ‘Off with his head,’ there was no Alice to retort ‘Stuff and nonsense.’ ”Ī century later, Diana Preston, the author of a 2001 history of the Boxer Rebellion, described Cixi as: Six years later, in 1861, the Emperor, at the age of 30, died, and Zaichun ascended to the throne as Emperor Tongzhi under an eight-man Board of Regents.Ĭixi and Zhen carried out a relatively bloodless coup (only one of the Regents was executed), and, with the acquiescence and help of Zhen, Cixi became the ruler of China. 2 consort (after Empress Zhen) when she gave birth to a male heir, Zaichun. And started her life in Emperor Xianfeng’s court as one of a great many concubines, so many that they were grouped into eight ranks, with Cixi assigned to the sixth rank.Ĭixi rose to Xianfeng’s No. She was born into a medieval nation, just two years before, a world away, Victoria assumed the throne in Great Britain. That’s probably because they operated within acceptable and understandable European parameters.Ĭixi, by contrast, maneuvered in the mysterious world of 19 th-century China, a place often seen by European eyes as, at best, weird, and, at worst, wicked, unnatural, sensual and corrupt.

In terms of historical reputation, those women had their gender working against them but somehow found ways to be loved or, at least, respected. As a world leader, Empress Dowager Cixi hasn’t had good press, nothing like, say, Queen Elizabeth I or Queen Victoria.

Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang