Empress Dowager Cixi
Regent and effective ruler of the Qing Empire
"Let us use the Boxers to drive the foreigners into the sea."
Biography
The formidable Empress Dowager had ruled China from behind the throne for nearly half a century, dominating a succession of emperors and, in 1898, crushing her nephew the Guangxu Emperor's reform movement and placing him under house arrest. Deeply resentful of the foreign powers dismembering China, she gambled catastrophically in 1900 by throwing the empire's support behind the Boxers and declaring war on all the treaty powers at once. When the eight-nation army stormed Peking, Cixi fled the capital in a cart, disguised as a peasant, ordering (by tradition) the drowning of the emperor's favourite concubine as she went. She spent over a year in exile before returning to preside over the humiliating Boxer Protocol and a belated program of the very reforms she had once destroyed. Her death in 1908, a day after the mysterious death of the emperor she had imprisoned, left the dynasty leaderless; it fell three years later.
Did you know?
She entered the palace as a low-ranking concubine and, through the birth of an emperor's only son and decades of ruthless court politics, became the most powerful person in China for 47 years.
Key Battles
The Boxer Uprising
Boxers & Qing Empire victory1899 – June 1900 · 20,000 total casualties
The uprising grew from local anti-Christian violence into a mass anti-foreign movement, and the fateful decision of the Qing court to encourage rather than suppress it turned a rebellion into a war with the great powers.
The Relief of Peking
Eight-Nation Alliance victoryAugust 14, 1900 · 3,000 total casualties
The relief of the legations was the climax of the war and a sensation across the world, but the fall of the Chinese capital to a foreign army — and the flight of the Qing court — marked a profound humiliation for China.
Life Journey
Timeline
November 29, 1835
🌅 Birth
Born in Beijing
June 1900
📍 Posting
Declares war on the foreign powers
August 1900
📍 Posting
Flees Peking in disguise to Xi'an
November 15, 1908
✝️ Death
Dies in Beijing; the dynasty falls three years later