Page 43 - A Re-examination of Late Qing Dynasty Porcelain, 1850-1920 THESIS

to women, Cixi would send her most loyal and trusted male counterparts to carry out such

tasks. As a result of these actions, Cixi effectively controlled imperial China.

During this period of time, Cixi revived areas of China that had been affected by

the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the Nian Rebellion (1853–1868). She instituted

schools that taught foreign languages and organized China’s first foreign service office.

These actions were widely accepted and considered revitalizing to China, because they

moved China further into modernity. Even though Cixi bettered the country in some

respects, Tongzhi no longer wanted to work under the control of the empress dowager.

Despite Tongzhi’s efforts to remove Cixi from dominating his reign, he was

unsuccessful. The young ruler supposedly incurred Cixi’s wrath when he selected an

empress Cixi did not approve of. The tension between Tongzhi and Cixi was short-lived:

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the emperor died in 1875. Shortly after, in 1881, the eastern empress dowager also died
suddenly, leaving Cixi as the sole political power in China. She chose her nephew

Guangxu 光緒(r. 1875–1908), as Tongzhi’s successor, allowing her to maintain complete

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control as the new empress dowager.
Over the course of Cixi’s reign, the Qing dynasty began to deteriorate. The

earlier Taiping Rebellion had already left imperial rule on precarious ground. This

instability combined with frequent uprisings which required constant government

intervention. Despite these constant problems, Cixi was able to maintain control in China

and restore order to many of the areas that had been overwhelmed by fighting due to the

18 After Tongzhi’s death it was discovered that the widowed Empress was pregnant. The
Empress killed herself shortly after Tongzhi’s death. Many scholars speculate the level of Cixi’s
involvement in the suicide, citing her desire to continue ruling rather than relinquish power to
another individual.
19 Fang Chao-ying, “Hsiao-Ch’in,” in Eminent Chinese of the Chʻing Period (1644-1912), ed.
Arthur W. Hummel (Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1943), 295–296.
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