But the newly named Empress Dowager Cixi quickly ousted them on fabricated charges of incompetence. She then issued imperial edicts "from behind the curtains" that she and Dowager Empress Cian ...

Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi arrogated all powers onto herself. This period, called the Guangxu Xuantong Reign, was China's darkest and most corrupt political period.

Best-selling author Jung Chang’s newest work, Empress Dowager Cixi, upends the stereotypes of China’s last Empress, who ruled for nearly five decades until her death in 1908. Instead of a cruel, ...