Excuse me: What kind of person was Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty?

The Empress Dowager Cixi was one of the few women who had been in power for a long time in the imperial era of Chinese history. Her political skills were very capable, and she was especially good at manipulating the balance of power among her relatives and courtiers in order to maintain her absolute authority. The Qing Dynasty Because of her ability, she lived for decades.

During Cixi's reign, the centralization of the Qing court and China's sovereignty faced various threats from internal and foreign sources. From the standpoint of defending the authority of the Qing empire and its own power, the measures she took were not entirely successful. , but in the context of history, most people would say it is reasonable.

In response to the challenges from European and American powers since the Opium War, and to suppress civil resistance forces such as the Taiping Rebellion. Cixi reused Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong and other important Han ministers to launch the Westernization Movement at the local level, which was the beginning of China's development of modern chemical industry.

With the support of the achievements of the Westernization and Self-Strengthening Movement, the Qing government was able to quell internal rebel forces, maintain China's relatively stable situation under the imperial system, and build modern army and navy armaments, creating the "Tongzhi Zhongxing" meteorological.

Cixi’s reform methods were actually very clever. The Hundred Days Reform reform was too fast and was simply a farce and could not succeed. After a catastrophe in the Gengzi Year, the Empress Dowager Cixi realized that the current situation no longer allowed her to adhere to the imperial tradition. The so-called "ancestral law" allowed the Qing court to implement various new policy measures.

Extended information

The main heroine of the Qing Dynasty was Cixi. Yehenala Xingzhen was born in the fifteenth year of Daoguang (1835) and died in the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908). . After the Xianfeng, Tongzhi, and Guangxu dynasties, he controlled the late Qing Dynasty. His time in power was second only to Kangxi and Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, ranking fourth in Chinese history. During the Tongzhi and Guangxu dynasties, she listened to politics behind the curtain three times.

The first time he was in power was from the 11th year of Xianfeng to the 12th year of Tongzhi, a total of 13 years; the second time was from the 13th year of Tongzhi to the 15th year of Guangxu, a total of 15 years; The first time he was in power was from the 24th year of Guangxu to the 34th year of Guangxu, which lasted for 10 years. During his reign, he launched two coups and established the crown prince twice.