Qing · Consort and Ruler

Empress Dowager 太后

Taihou

Attested AD 1898 - AD 1900

Passages: 5
Chapters: 1
Histories: 1

Overview

Empress Dowager was a consort and Ruler.

Life and dates

Attested activity

AD 1898 二十四年
Dated from the passage context · Draft History of Qing 473, passages 73, 88
AD 1900 拳匪起
Dated from the passage context · Draft History of Qing 473, passage 104

Source notes

Historicity historical
Directly stated · Draft History of Qing 473, passage 56

References in the histories

Draft History of Qing, Chapter 473Volume 473 Biographies 260: Zhang Xun, Kang Youwei · 5 passages

上雖親政，遇事仍承太后意旨，久感外侮，思變法圖強，用有為言，三月維新，中外震仰。 Although the emperor personally ruled, in affairs he still followed the empress dowager's intent; long feeling foreign humiliation, he thought to reform and strengthen the state, adopted Kang's words, and for three months carried out the Hundred Days' Reform, astonishing court and country alike.

時傳將以兵圍頤和園劫太后，人心惶惑。 At the time it was rumored that troops would surround the Summer Palace to seize the empress dowager, and hearts were alarmed and unsettled.

於是太后复垂簾，盡罷新政。 Thereupon the empress dowager again ruled from behind the curtain and abolished all the new policies.

初，太后議廢帝，稱病徵醫，久閉瀛台，旦夕不測。 At first the empress dowager considered deposing the emperor. Physicians were summoned on the pretext of illness; he was long confined on the Ocean Terrace, with his fate uncertain day by day.

拳匪起，以滅洋人、殺新黨為號，太后思用以立威，遂肇大亂，凡與有為往還者，輒以康黨得奇禍。 The Boxers rose under the banner of destroying foreigners and killing reformers. The empress dowager hoped to use them to assert her authority, and great chaos followed. Anyone who had dealt with Kang was labeled a Kang partisan and met extraordinary punishment.