Cover of Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi

The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

by Jung Chang

2013 464 pages eng ★ 3.3 (3 ratings)

In 1852, at age sixteen, Cixi was chosen as one of Emperor Xianfeng’s numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a coup against her son’s regents and placed herself as the true source of power—governing through a silk screen that…

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