Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi (Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi; 慈禧太后) (29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908.

Empress Dowager Cixi

Sourced

• Had the foreign legations being subjected to the full force of bombardment, would those buildings still be intact today? (Original Chinese:設使火轟水灌，豈能一律保全？)

Source:Imperial Decree on events leading to the signing of Boxer Protocol.

• Your tail, is becoming too heavy to wag.
  • Peter Fleming (1959). The Siege at Peking. NEW YORK 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y: HARPER & BROTHERS. p. 226. "One account describes an audience which Tung had of the Empress Dowager on 23 June, the third day of the Siege, at which he complained that 'Jung Lu has the guns which my army needs; with their aid not a stone would be left standing in the whole of the Legation Quarter.' The Empress Dowager, who had been painting a design of bamboos on silk when the warrior was announced, dismissed him with contumely. 'Your tail,' she said elliptically, 'is becoming too heavy to wag.' Ching-Shan mentions Tung's grievance about guns a week later." 

• Perhaps their magic is not to be relied upon; but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people? Today China is extremely weak. We have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts, what can we use to sustain the country? (original quote in Chinese: 法術不足恃，豈人心亦不足恃乎？今日中國積弱已極，所仗者人心耳，若並人心而失之，何以立國?)
  • Joseph Esherick (1988). The origins of the Boxer Uprising. University of California Press. p. 289. ISBN 0520064593. Retrieved on 2010-6-28. 
  • Keith Laidler (2003). The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China. John Wiley & Sons. p. 221. ISBN 0470864265. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "Yehonala interrupted from her dominant position on the dais. 'If we cannot rely on the supternatural formulas, can we not rely upon the heart of the people? China is weak: the only thing we can depend upon is the heart of the people. If we lose that, how an we maintain our country?'" 
  • Victor Purcell (3 June 2010). The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study. Cambridge University Press. pp. 250–. ISBN 978-0-521-14812-2. 

• Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?
  • Keith Laidler (2003). The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China. John Wiley & Sons. p. 221. ISBN 0470864265. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "the courage and fighting spirit were at once evident: 'Now they have started the aggression,' she declared, 'and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?'2" 
  • Nat Brandt (1994). Massacre in Shansi (illustrated ed.). Syracuse University Press. p. 181. ISBN 0815602820. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "Tz'u Hsi was enraged: "Now the Powers have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death."' The Peking Field Force — made up of five armies — was ordered to surround the legations supposedly to protect the diplomats but effectively sealing them off from the rest of the city." 
  • Richard O'Connor (1973). The Boxer Rebellion (illustrated, reprint ed.). Hale. p. 85. ISBN 0709147805. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "3. All military operations were to be controlled by the foreign ministers. . . As she listened, her majesty's face was congested with rage. . . .With firm and vehement emphasis she then told the Grand Council: "Now they have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?" 
  • Richard O'Connor (1973). The spirit soldiers: a historical narrative of the Boxer Rebellion (illustrated ed.). Putnam. p. 85. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "3. All military operations were to be controlled by the foreign . . .Council: "Now they have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death? She then elaborated on the great benefits the Manchu dynasty had conferred upon China and predicted that the grateful Chinese" 
  • Peter Fleming (1990). The Siege at Peking: The Boxer Rebellion (illustrated ed.). Dorset Press. p. 97. ISBN 0880294620. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "'Now,' she is reported to have exclaimed, 'the Powers have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death." 
  • Peter Fleming (1959). The Siege at Peking. NEW YORK 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y: HARPER & BROTHERS. p. 97. "The Empress Dowager reacted in the way that the authors of the document presumably hoped she would. 'Now,' she is reported to have exclaimed, 'the Powers have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?' A Decree (which was widely ignored) went out to the provinces ordering them to send troops to Peking." 
  • Chester C. Tan (1967). The Boxer catastrophe (reprint ed.). Octagon Books. p. 73. ISBN 0374977526. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "affairs to be committed to their hands. The fourth point was not mentioned. She then made the following statement: " Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If" 
  • Columbia University. Faculty of Political Science (1955). Columbia studies in the social sciences, Volume 583. Columbia University Press. p. 73. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "metnioned. She then made the following statement: " Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death? " Finally Hsü Yung-i," 
  • Marilyn Blatt Young (1969). The rhetoric of empire: American China policy, 1895-1901. Volume 36 of Harvard East Asian series. Harvard University Press. p. 147. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "a surrender of sovereignty: (1) a special place to be assigned to the emperor for residence; (2) all revenues to be collected by the foreign ministers; (3) all mmilitary affairs to be committed to their hands. . .After reading them out the empress dowager declare, "Now they [the powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?" 
  • Marina Warner (1974). The dragon empress: life and times of Tz'u-hsi, 1835-1908, Empress dowager of China (illustrated, reprint ed.). Cardinal. p. 227. ISBN 0351186573. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "'Now,' she cried, 'now they have started the aggression and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we must fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death.'18 Quoting" 
  • Symbolic war: the Chinese use of force, 1840-1980. Volume 43 of Institute of International Relations English monograph series. Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University. 1993. p. 132. ISBN 9579368236. Retrieved on 1-9-2011. "Council issued a decree recruiting Boxers to the army, attacking the advance of Seymour, pacifying the Boxers and ordering local troops to march northward to protect the capital. The next day the Empress Dowager declared that, "Now they have started the aggression and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death."44 In the words of the imperial decree" 

• 曾令其将忠君爱国合为一事，勿徒欲保中国四万万人而置我大清国於度外，康有为亦似悔之
  • 《清史稿》

• （一）生而父为中国人者。（二）生於父死后而父死时为中国人者。（三）母为中国人而父无可考或 无国籍者第二 条，若父母均无可考或均无国籍而生於中国地方者亦属中国国籍。其生地并无可考而在中国地方发现 之弃童同。第 二章 入籍。第三条，凡外国人具备左列各款愿入中国国籍者准其呈请入籍
  • 《大清国籍条例》

• I have often thought that i am the most clever woman that ever lived, and others cannot compare with me.... Although I have heard much about Queen Victoria...I don't think her life was half so interesting and eventful as mine.... she had... really nothing to say about the policy of the country. Now look at me. I have 400,000,000 people dependent on my judgement.
  • As attributed in Hannah Pakula (2009). The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China. Simon and Schuster. p. 391. ISBN 1439148937. Retrieved on 2010-06-28. 
  • This is redacted from the account of Princess Der Ling, Two Years in the Forbidden City (1911), p. 356

Misattributed

• "寧贈友邦,不與家奴." or 宁予於外盗, 不予於家贼. (We would rather give our state to "neighboring friends" (foreigners), not to our household slaves ̈(Han Chinese).)
  • The anti-Qing reformer Liang Qichao accused Gangyi of saying this after the failure of the 1898 Hundred Days Reform, not Cixi. This was never attributed to Cixi by any historian or person until anti-Qing Han nationalists started posting this on internet forums and attributing it to Cixi.

Quotes about

• Beautiful, cunning and cruel, Empress Dowager Cixi was the archetypal ‘dragon lady’. She rose from obscurity to become the effective ruler of China for 47 years, during which time she presided over a humiliating decline in the country’s fortunes. In the second half of the 19th century, the Qing dynasty that had ruled China for more than 250 years struggled to cope with the challenges posed by modernization and increasing pressure from the European powers. Having suffered military defeats at the hands of its foreign rivals, and faced with growing internal unrest, China’s last imperial dynasty finally fell in 1911. No one had contributed more to this collapse than the empress dowager herself.
  • Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), pp. 209-210