It can be said that in the first Opium War and the Second Opium War, China was already very humiliated, and this second British and French coalition army even entered Beijing, so that the emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Xian Feng, had no choice but to find a reason to flee in a hurry, and let Yi Chen negotiate with foreigners in Beijing, which was also a very humiliating thing to a certain extent. So in a strict sense, the Qing Dynasty was already like this before Cixi came to power, let alone after that?
Returning to the original topic, let's leave anything else aside, let's just say that if the Xianfeng Emperor followed the example of Emperor Wu of Han and removed Cixi, then where would the Qing Dynasty go? Personally, I think that maybe the situation will be much better, but as for which step to take, I think this is something that no one can say for sure.
In fact, the Xianfeng Emperor also understood Cixi's ambition for power, so he asked the eight ministers to assist the new king Tongzhi before his death, and was worried that the eight ministers would hold power and respect themselves and bully Tongzhi's young age, so he handed over his two private seals "Royal Reward" and "Tongdaotang" to Ci'an and Tongzhi respectively, and stipulated that only by stamping these two impressions on the government decree could they take effect, so as to further restrain the power of the eight ministers, and also allowed this orphan and widowed mother to have the ability to protect themselves, and Cixi was not within Xianfeng's consideration. He only felt pity and did not emulate Emperor Wu of Han.
Therefore, Cixi did not have any power at this time, but the mother became the empress dowager by virtue of her son Guirongrong, here I will say that the eight ministers did not juxtaposed Cixi and Ci'an as empresses, but put Cixi to be called empress dowager the next day, which also had the factor of Ci'an's intolerance, but despite this, the eight ministers understood Cixi's ambitions, so they respected Ci'an bi and chose to suppress Cixi, so Cixi especially hated the eight ministers.
When people have clouds, "the East Palace is better than The Virtue, and the West Palace is better than the Talent". That is to say, Ci'an was a person of high moral standing and respected by hundreds of officials, and Cixi was reflected in her meticulousness and cunning, which was why she was able to have such a remarkable performance in the Coup d'état of Xin You. However, I personally feel that it is not necessarily a good thing to have talent and no morality, especially for those in power in a country, the so-called hooligans are not terrible, and they are afraid that the hooligans have culture, so later Cixi insisted on carrying out garden projects for his own enjoyment, regardless of the state's financial constraints.
Ci'an is different, although Ci'an is inferior in governing the country, but what she shows is the strength that the mother of the country should have, it can be said that it is precisely because of Ci'an's inhibition that Cixi did not dare to indulge her own selfishness in terms of policy guidelines, but handed over most things to the capable Yixuan, and later there was the so-called Tongguang Zhongxing, and only then did she have the so-called Tongguang Zhongxing, and only then did she have the foreign affairs movement, which brought some of the vitality that a big country should have to the Qing Dynasty. Even if there was no Cixi, no Coup d'état of Xin You, and the ability to govern the country was not under Yi Xun, I believe that he would reuse Zeng, Zuo, Li and others, and he would also be able to create Tongzhi Zhongxing.
We look at it the other way around, after Ci'an's death, there was no one to suppress Cixi's head, so her desire for power sprang up like a flood, supporting her own power, and then in the tenth year of Guangxu, she directly came to a Jiashen Yishu and replaced the military ministers who were originally headed by Yi Chen into their own cronies, but it should be known that the ability of these people was completely inferior to that of the original group of people, so some people also regarded this as "Yi Zhongxin with a horse, and a reed with chai hu" to bring the Qing Dynasty, which had not improved easily, into the abyss again , on the road to death, go farther and farther.
Therefore, based on the above analysis, I personally believe that if Xianfeng does the affairs of Emperor Wu of Han, the fate of the Qing Dynasty will inevitably be able to continue, and as for how long it can last, it still needs specific analysis of specific problems, after all, the domino effect is not a joke