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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying and I am Tracy V. Wilson. And

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Speaker 1: today we're talking about an area of history that I

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Speaker 1: super love, which is any Chinese history. I really love it.

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Speaker 1: It's such a rich, rich tapestry. It's been going on

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Speaker 1: for so long and there have been so many interesting

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Speaker 1: dynasties and cultural things that it's just I love Chinese history. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love it. So today we're talking about Um Chinese

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Speaker 1: Empress Dowager c G, who has been characterized with a

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Speaker 1: great deal of gossip and speculation. She's often described as

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Speaker 1: pure evil UH and her story includes some sexual scandals,

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Speaker 1: UM poisoning scandals, and without a doubt she was exceptionally

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Speaker 1: powerful and she actually ruled the Ching dynasty for more

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Speaker 1: than for five years. But in all of these characterizations,

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Speaker 1: they kind of come down to archetypes and they're not

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Speaker 1: really a full picture of a human being, which she was. UM.

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Speaker 1: So I thought it would be interesting to examine a

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Speaker 1: little bit her life and some of the UH things

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Speaker 1: that we do know, things that have been theorized and

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Speaker 1: probably the truth which is somewhere in the middle. So

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Speaker 1: she was born on November twenty ninety five, and she

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Speaker 1: was actually the daughter of a low ranking military officer.

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Speaker 1: She became a concubine for Emperor shal Fun's harem at

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Speaker 1: the age of sixteen, and this was really a great honor.

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Speaker 1: It might sound unpleasant to be sent off to to

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Speaker 1: a harem when you're a teenage girl, but this was

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Speaker 1: a swank appointment. Yeah, she was chosen because you know,

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Speaker 1: they thought she was beautiful and lovely and had many gifts. Right,

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Speaker 1: shal Fung was pretty new to being emperor at that point.

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Speaker 1: He had reigned for less than two years when this happened,

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Speaker 1: and the story goes that her beautiful singing voice actually

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Speaker 1: drew the emperor's attention and she quickly became one of

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Speaker 1: his favorites, and her popularity really paid off with the

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Speaker 1: emperor really paid off in a big way. She bore

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Speaker 1: Shaofung his only son, Uh Princess Itun in eighteen fifty six,

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Speaker 1: and at this point she was given the title of

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Speaker 1: Virtuous Imperial Concubine, which is like third in rank. So

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Speaker 1: for anyone that doesn't know about how that works in

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Speaker 1: Chinese history you. There were many wives and they each

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Speaker 1: had a ranking order, and she was getting promoted based

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Speaker 1: on being a favorite and then bearing a son, and

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Speaker 1: the next year she moved up to the second rank

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Speaker 1: and was given the title Virtuous honorable Concubine. And meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: while her personal life and child bearing and relationship with

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Speaker 1: the Emperor was going on, the Second Opium War was

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Speaker 1: also underway, and that could ease Lee be its own

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Speaker 1: podcast episode. It's very involved, but the cliffs Notes version

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Speaker 1: is this um Britain, France, Russia, and America were fighting

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Speaker 1: for diplomatic embassies and access to Chinese ports and foreign

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Speaker 1: travel rights in China so that foreigners could actually travel

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Speaker 1: through the country. And they also wanted to legalize the

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Speaker 1: opium trade. And there were other elements um of their

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Speaker 1: war that they wanted that that those aren't the only things,

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Speaker 1: but those were the big primary ones. And the war

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Speaker 1: actually ended in eighteen sixty with the ratification of the

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Speaker 1: Treaty of Tiensen under the Convention of Pay King. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, Shao Fung fell ill and died at

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Speaker 1: the Imperial Summer Resort, where he had gone after fleeing

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Speaker 1: Pa King during the war. So when Shao Fung died,

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Speaker 1: that left, of course the emperor position open, and he

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Speaker 1: had an air he did because because this relations had

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Speaker 1: borne him this son, and that son was only five

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Speaker 1: at the time, and he became Emperor tong Ji, which

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Speaker 1: made s G the honored Mother Empress dowager. But shortly

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Speaker 1: before he had died, Shao Fung had actually appointed eight

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Speaker 1: ministers to assist the young emperor as a as ruler,

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Speaker 1: and those eight ministers were headed up by Sushun. Allegedly,

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Speaker 1: CD had been handling some state affairs for shal Fung

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Speaker 1: while he was sick, uh, and was not really interested

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Speaker 1: in handing over this power to anybody else. But this

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Speaker 1: is not really well well substantiated, right, I Mean, we

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Speaker 1: can't know what was really going on in her mind.

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Speaker 1: We don't even know really how much she was or

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Speaker 1: was not handling. It's all. This is one of those

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Speaker 1: parts of it that's really kind of based on rumor

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Speaker 1: and speculation of the people around her. Right. A lot

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Speaker 1: of what was going on in the Forbidden City was

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Speaker 1: just not transparent do anyone else, right, Uh? And they were,

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Speaker 1: you know, at the the Imperial Summer Resort at this

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Speaker 1: point but yeah, their whole inner workings were very isolated,

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Speaker 1: and they kind of projected outward what they wanted people

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Speaker 1: to see. But the interior we really don't know all

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Speaker 1: that much about. But what we do know is that

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Speaker 1: either through an agreement on their part or through an assignment,

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Speaker 1: I have seen it characterize both ways in historical texts.

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Speaker 1: She formed an alliance with the Empress Dowager Chan, who

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Speaker 1: was the one wife that outranked her um, and this

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Speaker 1: alliance together gave them more power than if either of

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Speaker 1: them had tried to stand alone. They actually could make

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Speaker 1: some decisions and hold some um sway in court and

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Speaker 1: in the political decisions with the two of them united.

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Speaker 1: And she also allied with two of the imperial princes,

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Speaker 1: Gong and Chun So. Those were brothers of the deceased

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Speaker 1: Emperor and uh Si g and the now emperor her

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Speaker 1: son preceded the funeral procession that went back to Beijing,

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Speaker 1: picking since it's changed names many times in the Western

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Speaker 1: characterization of the city, and in the time before the

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Speaker 1: ministers could arrive, since they had proceeded the procession at

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Speaker 1: that point, she colluded with those two princes to charge

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Speaker 1: the regent ministers that Jaufang had appointed with incompetency in

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Speaker 1: that Second Opium War that we talked about. Just a

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Speaker 1: moment ago, Uh Shiji and Prince Gong penned an accusatory

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Speaker 1: document entitled eight Guilts of the Regent Ministers, and basically

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Speaker 1: they just set up this thing that like they were

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Speaker 1: poor advisors, they really allowed other countries to walk all

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Speaker 1: over us. Um you know, they weakened the Emperor's position.

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Speaker 1: And as a consequence of all of this intrigue, all

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Speaker 1: of those regents were dismissed, all of the eight that

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Speaker 1: Jaufang had appointed from his deathbed. Uh but three of

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Speaker 1: them were actually executed. And that's another area where things

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Speaker 1: get a little um gossipy in historical record and speculative.

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Speaker 1: Some people think that she g wanted to make an

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Speaker 1: example out of them. Others say that she wasn't really

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Speaker 1: involved in that decision, but we do know that they

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Speaker 1: were no longer in power, and basically now she had

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Speaker 1: all the power. This put the duo of Empress Dowagers

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Speaker 1: in power as regents. But Empress Dowager Chan didn't really

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Speaker 1: have a lot of interest in political matters, so cg

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Speaker 1: assumed the role of leader, and Prince Gong was appointed

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Speaker 1: in a position as the Emperor's aid. And it's interesting

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Speaker 1: that she became so powerful because women held a lower

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Speaker 1: position both socially and politically than men at this point,

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Speaker 1: So shej was basically running the country from behind a screen,

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Speaker 1: like literally, when people would come to court and they

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Speaker 1: would have discussions, she would be sitting behind a screen

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Speaker 1: listening to everything, but she couldn't actually be seen by

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Speaker 1: the people she was having a direct, powerful impact on.

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Speaker 1: She ruled as regent for twelve years until her son,

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Speaker 1: Emperor Tongsi, turned seventeen in eighteen seventy three, CD stepped

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Speaker 1: down as a regent to let her son rule on

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Speaker 1: his own, but he died two years later at the

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Speaker 1: age of nineteen. Officially he had smallpox, but there are

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Speaker 1: lots of rumors that he may have died of a

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Speaker 1: sexually transmitted disease. Those, as with many of the things

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Speaker 1: that are coming up in this episode, that's never been substantiated. Yeah, there,

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Speaker 1: they issued their official proclamation from the palace, but we

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Speaker 1: don't know. But what we do know is that when

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Speaker 1: Uh Tongsi died, she's nephew and the son of Prince Chun,

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Speaker 1: so it's Shed's nephew by marriage. Um Guangshu became the emperor,

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Speaker 1: but he was only three years old at the time,

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Speaker 1: and this once again UH put she G in a

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Speaker 1: position of power because she actually adopted Guangshu as her

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Speaker 1: son is part of this whole like power structuring for

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Speaker 1: the new emperor. There's some controversy about how glad she

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Speaker 1: became the emperor when tongs He died without an air

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Speaker 1: one of his concubines was pregnant. The concubine died while

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Speaker 1: the debate about who would be the next emperor was

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Speaker 1: still going on, and so the possible air was never born,

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Speaker 1: so we don't really know if this would have been

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Speaker 1: a boy or a girl. We don't really know whether

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Speaker 1: this child he wasn't born would have really been the

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Speaker 1: next in line, which means of course that there was

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Speaker 1: suspicion that this was possibly murder. Yeah, and this feeds

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Speaker 1: into some of the stories of c G being really,

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Speaker 1: you know, an evil, evil woman, that she colluded with

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Speaker 1: others to create this UM to ensure that her power

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Speaker 1: remained intact, and that she actually Um was involved in

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Speaker 1: the murder of this woman. UH. Even though the death

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Speaker 1: was announced publicly. Again, the proclamation from the palace was

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Speaker 1: that it was a suicide. Uh. She remains a historical suspect,

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Speaker 1: but so do the other princes that were involved. Um

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Speaker 1: Ja Fang's brothers that had not come to power when

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Speaker 1: he passed away, c G continued to rule from behind

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Speaker 1: her screen, and even once the new emperor came of age,

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Speaker 1: she still held the reins of power. Uh. And this

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Speaker 1: is where things became a little contentious. She and Uh

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Speaker 1: and Guang Sho diverged in their political views about what

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Speaker 1: they wanted wanted to do. During the First Sino Japanese War,

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Speaker 1: Guangshi wanted to engage the enemy, but CG was you know,

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Speaker 1: she wanted to compromise, and she blocked his efforts. So,

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Speaker 1: after China was defeated, Guangsho started to recognize and think

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Speaker 1: about the ways that he thought China needed to reform. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he Uh really realizing that the old ways were

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Speaker 1: not going to carry the country forward. And so on

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Speaker 1: June eleven, Guangsho started what is called the Hundred Day Reform,

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Speaker 1: and that was a series of proclamations that he issued

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Speaker 1: that were intended to modernize China and revitalize the dynasty.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to change and evolve the country's education, their industry,

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Speaker 1: their foreign affairs, and all of his proclamations were indirect

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Speaker 1: opposition to the conservative Manchu nobility and especially Shiji. Because

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Speaker 1: CIG still held power over the loyal military, it was

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Speaker 1: really easy for her to stage at coup. At this point,

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Speaker 1: CV re established her role as regent. She got assistance

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Speaker 1: from other people who did not like the reform plans,

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Speaker 1: and she sent the emperor to confinement and yan Tai

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Speaker 1: terrorists for ten years. The public announcement was that the

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Speaker 1: emperor was sick to the point of being incapacitated, when

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Speaker 1: in fact he had really just been shoved off his

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Speaker 1: throne uh and then so he basically stayed there the

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Speaker 1: rest of his life, which didn't last a whle lot longer.

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Speaker 1: Obviously it was ten years, and we'll talk about that

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Speaker 1: a little bit in the moment. But as this point

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Speaker 1: of the story and these reformation reformation efforts have happened,

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Speaker 1: she starts to make some missteps. Um during the Boxer

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Speaker 1: Rebellion of nineteen hundred, which was led by the righteous

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Speaker 1: fists of Harmony. But they kind of get called the boxers,

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Speaker 1: and translation, she sided with the insurgents, and she was

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Speaker 1: against foreign diplomats and the Chinese Christians. She didn't really

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Speaker 1: want change. She thought that they should protect their heritage

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Speaker 1: in their history and their old ways of doing things.

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Speaker 1: And some historians have theorized that this was actually just

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Speaker 1: a play to minimize damage on the Chang dynasty, but

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Speaker 1: and that she was trying to, you know, create as

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Speaker 1: little damage as possible from the rebellion. But it really

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Speaker 1: really did nothing for her image on the global stage.

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Speaker 1: She was basically saying, no, foreigners were not interested in

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Speaker 1: you uh. And so when the coalition troops had stamped

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Speaker 1: out the rebellion, she was really left to the ugly

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Speaker 1: reputation as being you know, unwelcoming and stubborn and close minded.

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Speaker 1: She really wanted to improve her image at this point,

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Speaker 1: so she commissioned a photographer to create portraits of her

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o three. The portraits are staged similarly to

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Speaker 1: ones of Queen Victoria, and they were intended to be

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Speaker 1: given as gifts to visiting dignitaries, but before long copies

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Speaker 1: are being sold in the street as souvenirs and as

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Speaker 1: for helping her reputation. This was not exactly successful. She

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Speaker 1: was still seen as a dangerous dragon lady by westerners

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Speaker 1: and then Uh. Five years after that, on November fourteenth

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Speaker 1: and nineteen o eight, Emperor Guangshu died at the age

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Speaker 1: of thirty seven. Empress Dowager she died the next day,

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Speaker 1: just Shy of the age of seventy four, and this

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Speaker 1: became another part of the intrigue. At the time, there

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Speaker 1: were suspicions that he had been murdered. Uh. But then

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Speaker 1: a hundred years later, in two thousand eight, a five

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Speaker 1: year research study actually concluded that had examined samples of

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Speaker 1: the emperor's remains, I think seven of his bones were sampled,

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Speaker 1: both the interior and exterior of his tomb garments that

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Speaker 1: he had been wearing, and the analysis revealed that the

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Speaker 1: emperor had actually been poisoned with arsenic more than triple

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Speaker 1: the amount that would have been a fatal dose. And

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Speaker 1: for a while there was before this study was finalized,

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Speaker 1: people had suspected that it was one of those things

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Speaker 1: where people sometimes take poison as a medicine um and

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Speaker 1: then it was accumulative poisoning. But because of the way

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Speaker 1: the evidence played out, it was obviously like a one

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Speaker 1: huge dose situation. It was an acute onset poisoning, not

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Speaker 1: a cumulative one. Of course, Empress Dowager CV is one

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Speaker 1: of the people suspected in the poisoning because she might

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Speaker 1: have known that she was dying and she didn't want

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Speaker 1: gland Shoe and his reforms to take over China. Yes, so,

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Speaker 1: and that rumor persists. I mean, there's um there was

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Speaker 1: actually a story that came out around the same time

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Speaker 1: where some of the people that worked on this analysis

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Speaker 1: are pretty confident she was the one who poisoned him. Well,

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Speaker 1: and there's kind of a trail of possibly mysterious deaths

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Speaker 1: in her wake earlier in her life. Yes, and there

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Speaker 1: is one account that someone mentions of a close friend

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Speaker 1: of hers who was supposed to be a Unich. There's

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Speaker 1: also some rumor that maybe he wasn't really a unique

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Speaker 1: and they had a sexual relationship, but someone saw him

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Speaker 1: carrying food into the emperor right before he died. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: there are there is some evidence that suggests that, however,

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Speaker 1: we don't know for certain, very circumstantial. Uh. Sheik was

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Speaker 1: incredibly powerful and politically strong, but unfortunately her anti foreign

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Speaker 1: conservatism and some pretty bad administrative missteps. In her later reign,

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Speaker 1: Uh really really caused some problems. For example, she spent

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Speaker 1: naval funds on a summer palace, which weakened the military

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Speaker 1: and precipitated the defeat in the Sino Japanese War, and

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Speaker 1: her mausoleum, which is built prior to her death, is

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Speaker 1: actually filled with precious materials in amounts that exceed most

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Speaker 1: emperors tombs. She really like demanded that she have only

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Speaker 1: the best things, and in numbers that were just sort

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Speaker 1: of ridiculous at the time. You know, It's like, I want,

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Speaker 1: I think I saw a thing that said that most

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Speaker 1: tombs had like three golden pillars and hers has something

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Speaker 1: like sixty four. I mean, she really wanted only the

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Speaker 1: best and most immaculate and most amazing UH. And unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: all of that kind of behavior, and particularly her conservatism

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Speaker 1: and unwillingness to kind of open uh China's doors to

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Speaker 1: the rest of the world, really were direct contributors to

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Speaker 1: the demise of the Ching dynasty. There's also an interesting

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Speaker 1: footnote in all of this, which is that the accounts

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Speaker 1: of her Uh intrigues in her life have actually caused

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Speaker 1: their own sort of story of drama amongst biographers. Early

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Speaker 1: accounts were mostly written by George Morrison and linguist reporter

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Speaker 1: Edmund Backhouse, who wrote reports for Westerners from taking in

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Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. UH. In

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties, Sterling Seagrave wrote a biography of

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Speaker 1: Shiji called The Dragon Lady, and in his book he

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Speaker 1: really discredits Morrison and back House. Uh. Several sources have

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Speaker 1: shown that back House fabricated some of his stories, and

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Speaker 1: even Morrison's diary mentions that he had discovered that the

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Speaker 1: back House was writing fake stories, presumably to further his career,

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Speaker 1: but that at that point Morrison was so deep in

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Speaker 1: that he would have discredited himself had he blown the whistle.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting. Uh. I feel like that's

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Speaker 1: a story that we continue to hear today sometimes when

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Speaker 1: people fabricating craziness and then get it published. But there

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Speaker 1: is also resistance to see graves version of the story

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Speaker 1: because he really paints a much more sympathetic um picture

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Speaker 1: of s g and characterizes her as a fearful figurehead

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Speaker 1: and you know, she knows that she's trapped in an

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Speaker 1: impoverished dynasty. And she's really struggling with everything around her.

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Speaker 1: But as often is the case, the truth is probably

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Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle, because there are things like evidence

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Speaker 1: that she misspent naval funds making herself a beautiful summer home,

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Speaker 1: and that she had this, you know, insane mausoleum built

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Speaker 1: for herself, and so those are not really the things

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Speaker 1: that I would normally associate with a fearful person who

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Speaker 1: is very you know, scared and trapped. Though she may

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Speaker 1: have had I'm sure she was a human, she probably

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Speaker 1: had fears and concerns. But I think somewhere between those

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Speaker 1: two is really where we get the reality. Right. Plus

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Speaker 1: the trail of bodies, I mean, that could entirely be coincidence,

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Speaker 1: but at the same time that seems a little unlikely

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Speaker 1: that there was not something. There's a lot of death

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Speaker 1: and intrigue, and that's story. You also have some listening

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Speaker 1: mail I do, indeed. Uh. This is actually from our

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Speaker 1: Facebook page and it's from our listener, Lily And and

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Speaker 1: she says, I was wondering if you could encourage your

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Speaker 1: listeners to give blood. My answer, absolutely, Uh. There was

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Speaker 1: recently a major tragedy in my area, A fertilizer plant

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Speaker 1: explode exploded, leaving many people injured, and the blood banks

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Speaker 1: are in desperate need of donations. This service is a

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Speaker 1: reminder that a tragedy can happen at any moment, and

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Speaker 1: the best way to deal with it is to be prepared.

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Speaker 1: People are so willing to flood blood banks after a

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Speaker 1: major incident, but that leaves every other day lacking. If

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Speaker 1: we could set up a great supply before something like

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Speaker 1: this happens, then we wouldn't be in such dire need

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Speaker 1: when we need blood the most. So true. I would

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Speaker 1: also encourage people to give platelets if that is something

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Speaker 1: they are interested in. That is another thing that is

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Speaker 1: much needed and needed all the time. Platelets kind of

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Speaker 1: leaks is for five days I think once they're donated,

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Speaker 1: so they need a constant supply. Huh, much like blood,

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Speaker 1: these things go lacking in tragedies something And if you

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Speaker 1: cannot do either thing for whatever reason, Yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: many other ways to contribute, either with money or time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we highly encourage that. I'm not usually a candidate for

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Speaker 1: any of that whause I don't have enough fire in

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Speaker 1: my blood no matter how much steak I eat, So

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Speaker 1: I'm trying desperately, but so I try to someons volunteer.

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Speaker 1: I'll help do patient check in. If you would like

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Speaker 1: to write to us, you may do so. You can

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Speaker 1: email us at History podcast at discovery dot com. We're

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at misston History, and we're on Facebook at

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Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash history class Stuff. We're also on

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Speaker 1: tumbler at misst in history dot tumbler dot com, and

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00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:43,440
Speaker 1: you can find us on interests UH. If you would

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Speaker 1: like to learn more about what we talked about today,

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00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:47,000
Speaker 1: you can go to our website and type in the

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00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:49,159
Speaker 1: words Chinese traditions and you will come up with an

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Speaker 1: article called how Chinese Traditions Work. If you like to

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Speaker 1: learn more about that, or anything else your mind can conjure,

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00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:57,600
Speaker 1: you can do so at our website, and that website

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00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:03,520
Speaker 1: is house to works dot com. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, does it hostaff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Audible dot com is the leading provider of downloadable digital

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