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Monday, February 25, 2013

The Dowager Empress Cixi



      The Dowager Empress Cixi is an example of dragon lady. Here is an short introduction of The Dowager Empress Cixi

The most famous dragon lady, however, is the Dowager Empress Cixi, an outsider who rose in the late 19th century through sexual exploits from an emperor's concubine to the one person running -- and, many would argue, ruining -- the Qing dynasty. Although there's no more actual evidence of Cixi's homicidal tendencies than there is of Gu's, that hasn't stopped historical soap operas on Chinese television from claiming that Cixi murdered the Guangxu Emperor to preserve her legacy after her death.

      The Dowager Empress Cixi is an perfect example of dragon lady. She was Tongzhi Emperor's mother. Because of Tongzhi was young to become emperor, he was largely overshadowed by the rule of his mother Empress Dowager Cixi. After Tongzhi was dead, she selected Guangxu who was Cixi's nephew to become emperor. When Guangxu became emperor, she also controlled all of the dynasty. She used extremely strict and gave a lot of pressure to manipulate and  control  to Tongzhi Emperor and Guangxu Emperor because she wanted to maintain her autocratic power. Even until she was dead, she also ordered someone used poison to let Guangxu Emperor died and ordered doctors to say that Guangxu Emperor was natural death. She had a lot of negative evaluations to her. For instance, She spent a lot of money rebuilding Yuanmingyuan and her living expenses, causing people and government did not have enough money to pay debt. Even though every ministers tried their best to stop her, it still did not work. Hence, causing the lately Ching dynasty was people living in destitution  running short of ways in dealing with the finance's problem, to  become worse. She was cruel and did not have any values about life. She could maintain her autocratic power to kill anyone who tried to stop her or did not listen to her, she even wanted to live perfectly and coveted her high position and great wealth to let all of Ching dynasty's people were hardly to live their life and also cause Ching dynasty to be destroyed. She was just like a disaster to Ching dynasty. Even though she also had some positive evaluations, the negative evaluations were more than positive evaluations. She was a dragon lady and no one would be doubt because her cruel actions and power.


Work cited:
      French, Paul. "Foreign Policy Magazine." Foreign Policy. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2013.


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