This woman was born into the house of the Taoist Huizheng. In the early years of Xianfeng, Emperor Wenzong of Qing elected her to the harem.
Cixi's fame was not beautiful long before her death, and it was remembered and hated by the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic.
At first, he was given the title of Lan Guiren, and later gradually upgraded. Xianfeng gave birth to Emperor Wenzong's only heir, Zaichun, in the sixth year, and was promoted to Concubine Yi on the same day, and was promoted to Concubine Yi the following year.
After Zaichun succeeded to the throne. Mothers are precious to their children. It became "Cixi Duanyou KangYi Zhao Yu Zhuang Chengshou Gongqin Present Chongxi Empress", referred to as Empress Dowager Cixi.
Her cruelty is well known. She used the Xiang Army and the Huai Army, but also to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and maintain the purpose of its rule, and did not voluntarily break the Manchu-Han boundary.
During the more than 40 years of her reign, the Qing government headed by her signed many unequal treaties that humiliated the country, such as the Treaty of Maguan and the Treaty of Xinugu.
In 1861, a coup d'état was launched to seize power, and three of the eight ministers who had previously controlled the power were executed. Compared to the previous similar treatment, it is not cruel.
In 1881, he poisoned Empress Dowager Ci'an of the Tongyouxun regime. (Whether Ci'an's death was caused by Cixi is still debated in history.)
In 1885, after the great victory at Zhennanguan, she actually asked the Qing government to still ask France for peace, so that China would be "undefeated and defeated" and France would "win without victory".
When the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, she still built a large number of civil engineering projects, spent a lot of money to build the Summer Palace to celebrate her 60th birthday, and left a famous saying: "Whoever makes me unhappy for a while, I will make him unhappy for a lifetime."
In 1895, she ordered the reconstruction of her mausoleum, a project that lasted 13 years and was not completed until her death, which was costly. The reconstructed Cixi Mausoleum became the most luxurious and unique royal mausoleum in the Qing Dynasty.
In 1898, she completely strangled the Penghu Reform Law and imprisoned Guangxu, so that China was still sunk in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society. She also killed Concubine Zhen, the favorite concubine of Guangxu who supported the Restoration And Reform, and was despised.
In the early winter of 1908, after forty years of listening to the government, Cixi, who controlled the national pulse of the Great Qing Dynasty, fell ill, for many days, and his temperament was quite poor, someone reported this situation to the Guangxu Emperor, and Guangxu, who had been played with by Cixi for a long time, showed his political immaturity, and his face leaked joy, and Cixi, who was in pain, was furious after hearing the reaction of the Guangxu Emperor, and scolded: "I can't die first!" ”
What is even more surprising is that the Guangxu Emperor really passed away before Cixi, and on November 14, 1908, his life was tortuous, named Emperor, and he was actually a puppet, the eleventh emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Guangxu, a strange death, and at 5 p.m. the next day, Empress Dowager Cixi also closed her eyes forever and left the turbulent Qing Dynasty, leaving infinite speculation for posterity.
How did the young and rich Guangxu Emperor suddenly die like this?
Later generations through the detection of arsenic elements on the surface of the bones of the Guangxu Emperor, the law of erosion of his funeral clothes and the distribution of arsenic content on the clothes and scientific calculations, the total amount of arsenic ingested by the Guangxu Emperor was obviously greater than the lethal amount, and it is obvious that from the medical analysis, the Guangxu Emperor died of arsenic poisoning.
So who was the murderer of this ill-fated emperor? Judging from the last days of the Guangxu Emperor, there is no doubt that Cixi's suspicion is the greatest, from the official records of the Qing Dynasty, Guangxu's onset was very sudden, when Guangxu was under house arrest in Yingtai, Zhongnanhai, and there was no record of illness, until cixi died, a eunuch brought Cixi "gifted" Guangxu yogurt into the court's Leshou Hall, and then there was a situation where "The Guangxu Emperor suddenly suffered from stomach pain and rolled on the bed", and then the news of the emperor's death came out.
So why did Guangxu, who had been fighting with Cixi all his life, spend decades in peace and die at this last moment? It is reasonable to say that Cixi has countless opportunities to get rid of Guangxu, why did she not do it until the last moment? Is it because the Guangxu face leaks joy?
Of course not, from the background of the time, the Reform Law supported by Guangxu was seriously hindered by Cixi and failed, mainly because there were too many radicals in the reform faction, and the hasty reform would provoke the rebellion of local ministers like Yuan Shikai who held military power, which in Cixi's view would be a disturbing element of the Qing Dynasty in the future, on the other hand, Cixi let Empress Longyu and Prince Zaifeng take power before her death, and she had great intentions to let her mother-in-law Yehenara take power, in the face of practical political reasons and selfishness. Guangxu's death seemed to Cixi to be something that had to happen.
A hundred years have passed since the smoke of the last political struggle of the Qing Dynasty, and Guangxu, the bitter son of heaven who was helped to the throne when the river fell, did not seem to have lived a day of stability, and there was no heir behind him, and the most beloved Concubine Zhen was sunk in a deep well by Cixi, which caused countless people to sigh.