Cruelty of Empress Dowager Cixi, revealed in stories of her assassinating other concubines and royal family members for the desire of autocracy, made her the top three evil women in China’s history. Unfortunately, her achievements are often belittled by her brutality, and she was usually considered negatively by her descendants. Despite Dowager Cixi’s ruthless actions, she was a clever woman who remarked significant change in culture, politics and traditional value of China during her reign. Dowager Cixi should newly be renowned as a unusually intelligent empress who played important role in history.
Dowager Cixi had suffered from abject poverty before entering the palace. As if she were to show her success, she lived extravagant life as an empress and believed that she could express the power of empress through luxurious building. Reporter Kim Jungmi claims, “One of the examples that show Empress Dowager Cixi’s luxurious life is the Summer Palace also designated as a China’s cultural heritage.” (Kim, 1, my translation) Dowager Cixi had built the Summer Palace to fulfill her desire on riches, but the palace unexpectedly had ended up as one of the most beautiful place to visit in China. “The Summer Palace in Beijing – first built in 1750, largely destroyed in the war of 1860 and restored on its original foundations in 1886 – is a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design,” the UNESCO declared when adding the Summer Palace in World Heritage List on 1998. “The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value” (UNESCO,1) The world now recognize the Summer Palace as valuable present fro...
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...ole in the history. Although every aspect of Dowager Cixi cannot be morally justified, her success should not be put down for her evilness, but rather be praised for what she had done to her country and her people.
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"Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing." - UNESCO World Heritage Centre. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. .
Huang outlines to reconstruction of the court under Wan-li came into power at the death of his father and the seemingly insignificant actions taken by the emperor, from his marriage to the redecorating of the court. Within the scope of this discourse, Huang is able to disclose the excesses of the emperor, and consider the implications of the bureaucratic system that he devised as an extension of this excess (13).
Shortly after, Tzi-hsi was forced to give up her regency and retired to a summer palace, but she soon resumed rule over China. From that moment on until her death in 1908 she ruled China, instilling new policies and reforms into Chinese culture. There have been many assertions and assumptions about Tzi-hsi’s policies and their value to the history of China and her popularity among Chinese citizens (her tomb was raided and destroyed). Regardless of these opinio...
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During the 18th Century women in China continued to be subordinated and subjected to men. Their status was maintained by laws, official policies, cultural traditions, as well as philosophical concepts. The Confucian ideology of 'Thrice Following'; identified to whom a women must show allegiance and loyalty as she progressed throughout her life-cycle: as a daughter she was to follow her father, as a wife she was to follow her husband, and as a widow she was to follow her sons. Moreover, in the Confucian perception of the distinction between inner and outer, women were consigned to the inner domestic realm and excluded from the outer realm of examinations, politics and public life. For the most part, this ideology determined the reality of a woman's live during China's 'long eighteenth century?'; This is especially true for upper class women.
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Jonathan D. Spence creates a memoir to show K’ang Hsi from the first person narration. This technique immediately brings the reader into this remarkable emperor’s world. K’ang Hsi (1654-1722) was the third emperor in Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and he ruled China for 61 years (start from 1661 and end at 1722), which was the longest period throughout Chinese history. Han Chinese was the majority ethnicity in China and they ruled over China since the start of Chinese history. However, until Yuan D...
No other woman in the Early Han held the same amount of influence as Empress Lü throughout her various titles as Empress, Empress Dowager, and then Grand Empress Dowager. Stories recounting her manipulative nature paint a picture of a scheming empress using her imperial power to bestow favors and political positions to her own clan. This essay argues that Empress Lü used the lack of precedence for her position as Empress Dowager to manipulate court officials into granting power to her clan, which caused political unrest late in her life and resulted in the destruction of the Lü clan. To support this claim, this essay will discuss the exceptional nature of Empress Lü's power and the extent of her ability to manipulate the court, and then this paper will provide evidence of a Lü clan extermination after the death of the empress that held power for fifteen years after her husband died – in a nation with no precedence for this kind of rule.
Since the beginning of early Confucianism, women in early China suffered oppression. Unfortunately, the religion holds much responsibility for the sexism. Confucius’s answers for the Chinese people’s way of living consisted of sexual discrimination and segregation towards females. Women in China were urged to meet the expectations outlined in Confucian ideals. Such concepts were mainly limited to the men. Thus, Confucianism defined gender expectations. Confucianism stimulated the inequality of women in Chinese culture.
Wu Zhou’s childhood was educated but short as she became a junior concubine at a short age. “Wu was given a good education [and] was taught to read, write, and to play music” (“Empress Wu Zetian”). In that time, it was not common for women to gain an education. Her father urged her to gain an education, and living in a wealthy family, Wu could become well educated. “Wu Zhou entered he palace of the Tang Emperor Taizong, at the age of 14, as a junior concubine” (FitzGerald). Being very beautiful in her youth, Wu caught the eye Emperor
Man, John. The Terra Cotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2008. Print.
After working as a local government official for nearly 20 years, Wang concluded that the unlimited annexation of land weakened the economy. In 1058 Wang Anshi traveled to the capital, Kaifeng, from his home province of Jiangxi to present what would be his most famous memorial to the Emperor Renzong (1023-1064)(For more information please check 宋仁宗 ). Wang’s “Ten Thousand Word Memorial” outlines his general political philosophy while giving a brief preview of the...
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