Empress
Dowager Cixi
Jung Chang
Great Britain, Jonathan Cape,
Random House.
2013 436 pp
RRP $40
ISBN
9780224087445 (trade paperback edition)
As number six Concubine of Emperor Xianfeng of China,
Cixi should have had no influence in the court. However, the first concubine,
Empress Zhen, had no children. When Cixi (Si-Shee)
gave birth to the Emperor’s son, her status was elevated to mother of the
future Emperor. Throughout the following decades, she became a woman of
enormous influence and has been credited with bringing China into the modern world.
The author, Jung Chang, is well known for her
popular first book, Wild Swans,
(1991), a sweeping tale of three generations of Chinese women, and her second
book, Mao the Unknown Story, (2005).
Jung Chang knows the intrigues of the country
of her birth. For Empress Dowager Cixi
she was able to access ‘newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents
such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and
eye-witness accounts’ of the events recorded. From these she was able to
construct a fast-paced and gripping drama and an intimate portrait of an
extraordinary woman.
Empress Dowager Cixi managed to overcome her
powerlessness as a woman by knowing how to manipulate the men and systems
around her. At the time of Cixi’s story, 1835 to 1908, the throne was firmly in
the grasp of the Manchu minority, known as the Qing dynasty. In 1852, the
sixteen-year-old girl from a prominent family was among several chosen as
concubines for Emperor Xianfeng and was brought into the court.
Her husband was about 30 when he died in 1861
while in exile from Beijing.
His five-year-old son by Cixi was now named the new Emperor Tongzhi, with power
in the hands of a Board of Regents. Cixi and the Empress staged a coup and seized
the title from the Regents. Thus began Cixi’s long hold on power, conducted
from behind her silk screen. Out of the forty-seven years of her Regency, from 1861
until her death in 1908, she effectively ruled for thirty-six years (her son
for two and her adopted son for nine).
When he
reached the marriageable age of seventeen, Tongzhi became Emperor and Cixi had
to retreat to the harem and keep out of politics.
He died two years later. Cixi quickly adopted
her sister’s three-year-old son and named him the new Emperor, Guangxu, with
his father, Prince Chun, (her brother-in-law) as guardian. Cixi regained
control.
When the new Emperor reached late teens he
married and took power, relegating Cixi once again to the harem.
The new Emperor allowed many of Cixi’s reforms
to lapse. He hated Westerners and would
have nothing to do with them. He let the navy and army shrink so much that when
Japan
attacked they got an easy victory. After seeing his country almost overrun by
foreign powers he reluctantly let Cixi share power and for many years they
ruled together.
The court had to flee Beijing when it was besieged by the Japanese
in 1898. She made disastrous decisions about the Boxers who brought incredible
destruction on the population and countryside. Later, Cixi apologised profusely
and brought in several measures in an effort to make amends.
Before her death great changes were coming over
China
and the Han Chinese were agitating to wrest control from the thousand-year-old
Manchu dynasty. The weak Emperor was ready to hand the country over to the
Japanese who were waiting to pounce. Forward-looking as always, Cixi put in
place measures to ensure the survival of China as an independent country,
and the survival of her Manchu people.
The Emperor died on 14 November 1908 and Cixi
died the following day.
Cixi had been working towards changing the
governance of China
into a Constitutional Monarchy. On her death-bed she appointed her two-year-old
great-nephew, Puyi, as the next Emperor. When Emperor Puyi was five years old,
the people staged a coup and the country became a Republic. That story is told
in the movie The Last Emperor.
Jung Chang’s lively writing gives extraordinary
insight into this fascinating era. For those with an interest in China, or those
wanting an exciting tale of a strong and remarkable woman who was ahead of her
time, this book is highly recommended.
