Who was the Empress Dowager Cixi? - Part 2

With another 5-year old Emperor in the throne, Cixi once again played the role of regent. With the 1st regency running from 1875 – 1879, while the 2nd regency saw its course from 1898 – 1908. Her regency during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor earned her the notoriety her name became synonymous with.

Guangxu Emperor Regency

First Regency

The regency of Empress Dowager Cixi and Empress Ci’an remained stable until 1881. On that year, Empress Ci'an passed away. By 1884, Cixi dismissed Prince Gong making her the most powerful figure in China.

1884 and 1885 saw China’s foreign affairs challenged. First, China fought against the French for Annam in Vietnam. Against a powerful French military, China lost the province. Second, in Korea, pro-Chinese and pro-Japanese factions within the court raised tensions. Chinese troops under Yuan Shikai went to the Peninsula to defend Chinese interest in the Kingdom. Luckily, in 1895, Japan and China agreed to demilitarize the Peninsula under the Tianjin Convention.

Yuan Shikai

Cixi’s first regency of the Guangxu Emperor saw several achievements. Electricity and coal mining began to develop. Modernization of the Chinese navy also continued under the supervision of Li Hongzhang and Zheng Guofan.

In 1886, the Empress Dowager ordered the construction of a new Summer Palace outside Beijing. It became the focus of so much controversy credited to her. Many described the palace as lavish and excessive, while the rest of China suffered from poverty, and the country always under threat of western incursion. The Palace included a huge lake, the Kunming Lake, dug by hand  Many speculated that the budget for the marble boat in the Palace came from funds for the modernization of the navy. It became Cixi's retirement home in 1889 after relinquishing her powers to the Guangxu Emperor who reached the age majority.

Second Regency

For almost a decade, Cixi retired in her Summer Palace until 1898 when the Guangxu Emperor embarked on an ambitious modernization effort of China. Her second regency further degraded her image more than her first. Her decisions during the second regency sealed the faith of the dynasty and her role in it.

Guangxu Emperor

The Guangxu Emperor planned to reform the country from top to bottom. In 1895, China once again suffered a defeat against Japan leading to the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki which severed Korea as its vassal among other territorial concessions. The defeat convinced the Emperor the necessity of radical reform. Intellectuals such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao encouraged the Emperor to follow the likes of Meiji Japan and Peter the Great's Russia. As expected conservatives in the court opposed the plan. Many also blamed Cixi for the strong conservative opposition, but modern assessment suggested she did not oppose the reform. She only opposed the brazen plot by the reformist Tan Sitong. Tan plotted to have the Empress Dowager besieged in her Summer Palace with the assistance from the commander of the modern Beiyang Army Yuan Shikai. Yuan betrayed Tan and reported the plan to Prince Ronglu who relayed it to the Empress Dowager. Cixi gathered her allies, mostly conservatives, and staged a successful coup. She stripped the Emperor of real power and restored her position as a regent ruling once again behind a silkscreen. The coup also resulted in the execution of 6 reformists including Tan Sitong. Intellectuals such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao fled to Japan where they continued their campaign for reform. Hence, the Hundred Days’ Reform came to its abrupt and tragic end.

The coup also had an implication in the trend among reformists. With reforms from the top crushed by the coup, many intellectuals began to turn to more radical means of restoring China’s pride. Many began to think of deposing the foreign Manchu Qing Dynasty and replacing it with a Republic. Men like Sun Yat-sen and Liang Qichao began to cry for such change.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen

Next to the crushing of the reform, Cixi’s handling of the Boxer Rebellion garnered greater scrutiny. By the late 1890s, China suffered from a great drought that resulted in famine. Peasants blamed the foreigners and Christian converts for such misgivings. They saw the so-called foreign devils and Chinese Christians disrupting feng shui, thus angering the heavens and bringing disasters. These peasants then began to form societies specializing in martial arts calling themselves as Fist Fighters for Righteous Harmony, but the westerns simply labeled them as Boxers.

In 1900, Cixi gave in to the suggestions of Conservatives to support the Boxers in their fight against the foreigners and declared war. In June 1900 Boxers and Chinese imperial forces besieged the legation quarters in Beijing where the embassies of 8 nations (Great Britain, United States, France, Germany. Italy, Austria-Hungary. Russia and Japan) resided. The Eight-Nation Alliance then attacked the Dagu Forts in the mouth of the Hai/Peiho River before proceeding to Tianjin and finally Beijing. After 55 days, the Chinese military and the Boxers suffered enormous casualties losing to the advanced weaponry of the Great Powers. Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled the Forbidden City while the Alliance relieved the Legation Quarters and finally entering the Forbidden City. The ransacking of the Palace city destroyed once again the Palace’s aura and also the prestige of the Qing Dynasty and China. In 1901, China signed the Boxer Protocol that slapped the celestial kingdom with huge indemnities and hampering its capacity to build up its military.

Qing Military During the Boxer Rebellion

The Boxer Rebellion discredited the Conservatives and Cixi allowing reforms of the country to proceed. She agreed to the abolition of the foot-binding in 1902 along with the excruciating execution method of Li Ching or Death by Thousand Cuts. She also began to welcome foreigners even taking photographs with them and posing for paintings. She nodded the legalization of marriages between Han Chinese and Manchu. She also agreed to infrastructure developments such as railways and telegraph lines as well as other industrial developments. She relaxed censorship and allowed modern education with western subjects. She supported women’s education through the founding of schools and the publication of the 1907 Decree on the Regulation for Women’s Education. Finally, ideas of a constitutional monarchy also began to be discussed within the government.

Later Years

In 1908, the Guangxu Emperor passed away said to be due to arsenic poisoning with rumors once again pointing to Cixi as the culprit. Just a day after the Emperor, Cixi followed due to amoebic dysentery, but not before appointing yet another infant Emperor in form of Aisin-Gioro Puyi who became the Xuantong Emperor. 39 representatives from 14 countries expressed their condolences.  Her remains laid to rest in the Eastern Qing Tombs, but in 1928, her tomb fell victim to the pillaging and looting of soldiers of the warlord Sun Dianying alongside the resting place of Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong.

As soldiers’ fury descended into Cixi’s tomb, so as the fury of many towards her legacy. Many blamed her for the downfall of the Qing Dynasty and the country as a whole. Her name smeared by stories of naivety, vanity, cruelty, and greed to the likes of Cersei Lannister. Negative stories such as Cixi punishing her ladies-in-waiting for accidentally plucking her hair, being in love with her favorite eunuch An Dehai, or during fishing having eunuchs swim into the lake to attach jewels in her bait spread. Her stories of excessive vanity being called the Old Buddha gave further dark color to her name. Works such as China under the Empress Dowager by John Otway Percy Bland and Edmund Blackhouse fared no better in spreading terrible stories about her. Luckily for Cixi, works that defended her or at least lessen her negative perception came out such as Two Years in the Forbidden City by Princess De Ling published in 1911 and modern works such as Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China by Sterling Seagrave. Nevertheless, old stories die-hard, thus Cixi remains a controversial figure.

Summing Up

Cixi went into history as a contemporary of Queen Victoria. However, as Queen Victoria presided over the greatest expansion of the British Empire, Cixi worked to preserve a decaying Qing Empire. From a mere concubine, she rose up as a powerful figure in politics. She held all powers becoming Emperor in all but name joining the ranks of Empress Wu Zentian. She might not be a reformist, but she was also not an ultraconservative as many portrayed and saw her. She strove for political stability but still failed to reverse the Qing Dynasty’s and China’s fortune. In the end, she became a target of hatred and anger for such descent being painted as a villain rather than a stabilizing force.

See also:

Empress Dowager Cixi - Part 1 

Bibliography:

Book:

Fairbank, John King. China: A New History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Websites:

"Cixi (1835–1908)." Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia.com. (July 14, 2020). https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cixi-1835-1908

Casals, Josep Maria. “Cixi, the Controversial Concubine who became Queen, Led China into the Modern Age.” National Geographic. Accessed on August 1, 2020. URL: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-12/profiles-china-empress-dowager-cixi-emperor-guangxu/

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Cixi.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed on May 26, 2020. URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cixi 

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Gong Qinwang.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed on May 26, 2020. URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gong-Qinwang

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Mitra, Anusuya. “10 Facts on Cixi — The Empress Who Ushered in Modern China.” China Highlights. Accessed on August 1, 2020. URL: https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/china-history/empress-cixi-facts.htm