The fundamental reason why Empress Dowager Cixi was able to hold great power was to blame the Xianfeng Emperor.
Cixi was the wife of the Xianfeng Emperor, and the two had a son, the Tongzhi Emperor, but the Xianfeng Emperor had a short life, and when he was 30 years old, he died. At this time, the Tongzhi Emperor who succeeded to the throne was only 5 years old, and before his death, the Xianfeng Emperor left eight Gu Zhi ministers to assist Tongzhi in managing state affairs, which was originally a very correct decision, but because the Xianfeng Emperor and prince Gong Yixuan were not compatible, Yixun was not among the eight guzhi ministers, and Yixun was a smart and capable person, which could lay a bomb.
The Xianfeng Emperor learned the lesson of the Kangxi period's worship of the dictatorship, in order to avoid the eight ministers of Gu Ming sitting on the monopoly and affecting the authority of the emperor, so he gave the Tongzhi Emperor a seal of "Tongdaotang", which was controlled by Empress Dowager Cixi, and gave Empress Dowager Ci'an a "royal reward" seal, and ordered that the holy will prepared by the minister of Gu Ming must be stamped with these two seals at the same time to be valid. This gave Cixi and Ci'an considerable power, and now it seems that the Xianfeng Emperor's operation is really a trick to die. The Qing Dynasty has always forbidden the harem to interfere in politics, so until the Xianfeng Dynasty, there were basically no women or anything. However, because his son Tongzhi was too young and his brothers could not believe it, the Xianfeng Emperor had no choice but to break this rule before his death and gave the harem rights.
The Tongzhi Emperor succeeded to the throne, and Cixi became the empress dowager, and because she held great power, she gradually became greedy and wanted to gain more rights. Therefore, he instructed Yushi Dongyuan to ask the empress dowager to listen to the government, which was strongly opposed by the eight ministers of Gu Ming, so the two sides became mortal enemies. Cixi saw that she could not fight the Minister of Gu Ming single-handedly, so she united with Ci'an, who also had great power, plus the bomb Yi Xun planted by Xian Feng, and now she was on an equal footing with the Minister of Gu Feng. Empress Dowager Cixi seized the opportunity, took the emperor on a small road back to Beijing in advance, directly issued a decree, stamped two seals, and ordered the eight ministers to escort the spirit on the road, and was dismissed before he officially took office. This was the famous Xin You's coup d'état, and from then on Cixi and Ci'an came to power at the same time, bowed to the government, and Yi Xi also became the king of the council. The Qing Dynasty also began the most humiliating period of history, the country was in turmoil, bullied by the great powers, and gradually went to extinction.
In 1865, Yi Chen, who had been the king of the Council for four years, was dismissed by Cixi, and the power was firmly held by the empress dowager of the two palaces, and Tongzhi almost became a puppet. In 1875, the 19-year-old Tongzhi Emperor also died and left no heirs, so the empress dowager of the two palaces set up a 4-year-old nephew Zai Xiang as the Guangxu Emperor and continued to listen to the government. Why do you want to set up a message? It was because he was young and the son of Cixi's own sister that it was easy to control, otherwise it would not be his turn in order.
In 1881, the 45-year-old Empress Dowager Ci'an died violently, most likely by Cixi, and from then on, Empress Dowager Cixi monopolized power and became the de facto ruler of the Qing Dynasty, and the Guangxu Emperor was also just a puppet. In 1884, Yi Zhi was dismissed from all posts and expelled from the military aircraft, and all the stones in Cixi's heart fell to the ground, and he ruled the Qing Dynasty for more than 20 years with peace of mind.
In short, all this was caused by the Xianfeng Emperor, and if he had not given Cixi great power before his death, Cixi's loach would not have been able to turn over the big waves. The rise to power of the Eight Ministers of Gu Ming may have been a different story at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The Xianfeng Emperor thought he had arranged it perfectly, but it brought disaster to China.