Empress Dowager Cixi Quotes
Decree of Self-Reproach
During her adult life, she was the de facto, all powerful ruler of China. This is one of the very rare times in history that an absolute ruler, issued an official document showing their errors and mistakes with respect to some government policies. To some, this is an indicator of how powerful a hold that she had on the empire, that she could afford to do this with no fear for her prestige and power. To others it was an example of honest acceptance of responsility.
Tzu-Hsi, 1834-1908, [Cixi], Empress Dowager of China, Quoted in Jung Chang, Empress Dowager Cixi
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Empress Dowager Cixi was a Chinese empress dowager and regent who was the de facto supreme ruler of China in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. Of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, she was elected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence and gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, the young boy became the Tongzhi Emperor, and she became the Empress Dowager. Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed regency, which she shared with Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875, contrary to the traditional rules of succession of the Qing dynasty that had ruled China since 1644.
