Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying and I am Tracy V. Wilson. And
Speaker 1: today we're talking about an area of history that I
Speaker 1: super love, which is any Chinese history. I really love it.
Speaker 1: It's such a rich, rich tapestry. It's been going on
Speaker 1: for so long and there have been so many interesting
Speaker 1: dynasties and cultural things that it's just I love Chinese history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. So today we're talking about Um Chinese
Speaker 1: Empress Dowager c G, who has been characterized with a
Speaker 1: great deal of gossip and speculation. She's often described as
Speaker 1: pure evil UH and her story includes some sexual scandals,
Speaker 1: UM poisoning scandals, and without a doubt she was exceptionally
Speaker 1: powerful and she actually ruled the Ching dynasty for more
Speaker 1: than for five years. But in all of these characterizations,
Speaker 1: they kind of come down to archetypes and they're not
Speaker 1: really a full picture of a human being, which she was. UM.
Speaker 1: So I thought it would be interesting to examine a
Speaker 1: little bit her life and some of the UH things
Speaker 1: that we do know, things that have been theorized and
Speaker 1: probably the truth which is somewhere in the middle. So
Speaker 1: she was born on November twenty ninety five, and she
Speaker 1: was actually the daughter of a low ranking military officer.
Speaker 1: She became a concubine for Emperor shal Fun's harem at
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen, and this was really a great honor.
Speaker 1: It might sound unpleasant to be sent off to to
Speaker 1: a harem when you're a teenage girl, but this was
Speaker 1: a swank appointment. Yeah, she was chosen because you know,
Speaker 1: they thought she was beautiful and lovely and had many gifts. Right,
Speaker 1: shal Fung was pretty new to being emperor at that point.
Speaker 1: He had reigned for less than two years when this happened,
Speaker 1: and the story goes that her beautiful singing voice actually
Speaker 1: drew the emperor's attention and she quickly became one of
Speaker 1: his favorites, and her popularity really paid off with the
Speaker 1: emperor really paid off in a big way. She bore
Speaker 1: Shaofung his only son, Uh Princess Itun in eighteen fifty six,
Speaker 1: and at this point she was given the title of
Speaker 1: Virtuous Imperial Concubine, which is like third in rank. So
Speaker 1: for anyone that doesn't know about how that works in
Speaker 1: Chinese history you. There were many wives and they each
Speaker 1: had a ranking order, and she was getting promoted based
Speaker 1: on being a favorite and then bearing a son, and
Speaker 1: the next year she moved up to the second rank
Speaker 1: and was given the title Virtuous honorable Concubine. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: while her personal life and child bearing and relationship with
Speaker 1: the Emperor was going on, the Second Opium War was
Speaker 1: also underway, and that could ease Lee be its own
Speaker 1: podcast episode. It's very involved, but the cliffs Notes version
Speaker 1: is this um Britain, France, Russia, and America were fighting
Speaker 1: for diplomatic embassies and access to Chinese ports and foreign
Speaker 1: travel rights in China so that foreigners could actually travel
Speaker 1: through the country. And they also wanted to legalize the
Speaker 1: opium trade. And there were other elements um of their
Speaker 1: war that they wanted that that those aren't the only things,
Speaker 1: but those were the big primary ones. And the war
Speaker 1: actually ended in eighteen sixty with the ratification of the
Speaker 1: Treaty of Tiensen under the Convention of Pay King. In
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, Shao Fung fell ill and died at
Speaker 1: the Imperial Summer Resort, where he had gone after fleeing
Speaker 1: Pa King during the war. So when Shao Fung died,
Speaker 1: that left, of course the emperor position open, and he
Speaker 1: had an air he did because because this relations had
Speaker 1: borne him this son, and that son was only five
Speaker 1: at the time, and he became Emperor tong Ji, which
Speaker 1: made s G the honored Mother Empress dowager. But shortly
Speaker 1: before he had died, Shao Fung had actually appointed eight
Speaker 1: ministers to assist the young emperor as a as ruler,
Speaker 1: and those eight ministers were headed up by Sushun. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: CD had been handling some state affairs for shal Fung
Speaker 1: while he was sick, uh, and was not really interested
Speaker 1: in handing over this power to anybody else. But this
Speaker 1: is not really well well substantiated, right, I Mean, we
Speaker 1: can't know what was really going on in her mind.
Speaker 1: We don't even know really how much she was or
Speaker 1: was not handling. It's all. This is one of those
Speaker 1: parts of it that's really kind of based on rumor
Speaker 1: and speculation of the people around her. Right. A lot
Speaker 1: of what was going on in the Forbidden City was
Speaker 1: just not transparent do anyone else, right, Uh? And they were,
Speaker 1: you know, at the the Imperial Summer Resort at this
Speaker 1: point but yeah, their whole inner workings were very isolated,
Speaker 1: and they kind of projected outward what they wanted people
Speaker 1: to see. But the interior we really don't know all
Speaker 1: that much about. But what we do know is that
Speaker 1: either through an agreement on their part or through an assignment,
Speaker 1: I have seen it characterize both ways in historical texts.
Speaker 1: She formed an alliance with the Empress Dowager Chan, who
Speaker 1: was the one wife that outranked her um, and this
Speaker 1: alliance together gave them more power than if either of
Speaker 1: them had tried to stand alone. They actually could make
Speaker 1: some decisions and hold some um sway in court and
Speaker 1: in the political decisions with the two of them united.
Speaker 1: And she also allied with two of the imperial princes,
Speaker 1: Gong and Chun So. Those were brothers of the deceased
Speaker 1: Emperor and uh Si g and the now emperor her
Speaker 1: son preceded the funeral procession that went back to Beijing,
Speaker 1: picking since it's changed names many times in the Western
Speaker 1: characterization of the city, and in the time before the
Speaker 1: ministers could arrive, since they had proceeded the procession at
Speaker 1: that point, she colluded with those two princes to charge
Speaker 1: the regent ministers that Jaufang had appointed with incompetency in
Speaker 1: that Second Opium War that we talked about. Just a
Speaker 1: moment ago, Uh Shiji and Prince Gong penned an accusatory
Speaker 1: document entitled eight Guilts of the Regent Ministers, and basically
Speaker 1: they just set up this thing that like they were
Speaker 1: poor advisors, they really allowed other countries to walk all
Speaker 1: over us. Um you know, they weakened the Emperor's position.
Speaker 1: And as a consequence of all of this intrigue, all
Speaker 1: of those regents were dismissed, all of the eight that
Speaker 1: Jaufang had appointed from his deathbed. Uh but three of
Speaker 1: them were actually executed. And that's another area where things
Speaker 1: get a little um gossipy in historical record and speculative.
Speaker 1: Some people think that she g wanted to make an
Speaker 1: example out of them. Others say that she wasn't really
Speaker 1: involved in that decision, but we do know that they
Speaker 1: were no longer in power, and basically now she had
Speaker 1: all the power. This put the duo of Empress Dowagers
Speaker 1: in power as regents. But Empress Dowager Chan didn't really
Speaker 1: have a lot of interest in political matters, so cg
Speaker 1: assumed the role of leader, and Prince Gong was appointed
Speaker 1: in a position as the Emperor's aid. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that she became so powerful because women held a lower
Speaker 1: position both socially and politically than men at this point,
Speaker 1: So shej was basically running the country from behind a screen,
Speaker 1: like literally, when people would come to court and they
Speaker 1: would have discussions, she would be sitting behind a screen
Speaker 1: listening to everything, but she couldn't actually be seen by
Speaker 1: the people she was having a direct, powerful impact on.
Speaker 1: She ruled as regent for twelve years until her son,
Speaker 1: Emperor Tongsi, turned seventeen in eighteen seventy three, CD stepped
Speaker 1: down as a regent to let her son rule on
Speaker 1: his own, but he died two years later at the
Speaker 1: age of nineteen. Officially he had smallpox, but there are
Speaker 1: lots of rumors that he may have died of a
Speaker 1: sexually transmitted disease. Those, as with many of the things
Speaker 1: that are coming up in this episode, that's never been substantiated. Yeah, there,
Speaker 1: they issued their official proclamation from the palace, but we
Speaker 1: don't know. But what we do know is that when
Speaker 1: Uh Tongsi died, she's nephew and the son of Prince Chun,
Speaker 1: so it's Shed's nephew by marriage. Um Guangshu became the emperor,
Speaker 1: but he was only three years old at the time,
Speaker 1: and this once again UH put she G in a
Speaker 1: position of power because she actually adopted Guangshu as her
Speaker 1: son is part of this whole like power structuring for
Speaker 1: the new emperor. There's some controversy about how glad she
Speaker 1: became the emperor when tongs He died without an air
Speaker 1: one of his concubines was pregnant. The concubine died while
Speaker 1: the debate about who would be the next emperor was
Speaker 1: still going on, and so the possible air was never born,
Speaker 1: so we don't really know if this would have been
Speaker 1: a boy or a girl. We don't really know whether
Speaker 1: this child he wasn't born would have really been the
Speaker 1: next in line, which means of course that there was
Speaker 1: suspicion that this was possibly murder. Yeah, and this feeds
Speaker 1: into some of the stories of c G being really,
Speaker 1: you know, an evil, evil woman, that she colluded with
Speaker 1: others to create this UM to ensure that her power
Speaker 1: remained intact, and that she actually Um was involved in
Speaker 1: the murder of this woman. UH. Even though the death
Speaker 1: was announced publicly. Again, the proclamation from the palace was
Speaker 1: that it was a suicide. Uh. She remains a historical suspect,
Speaker 1: but so do the other princes that were involved. Um
Speaker 1: Ja Fang's brothers that had not come to power when
Speaker 1: he passed away, c G continued to rule from behind
Speaker 1: her screen, and even once the new emperor came of age,
Speaker 1: she still held the reins of power. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is where things became a little contentious. She and Uh
Speaker 1: and Guang Sho diverged in their political views about what
Speaker 1: they wanted wanted to do. During the First Sino Japanese War,
Speaker 1: Guangshi wanted to engage the enemy, but CG was you know,
Speaker 1: she wanted to compromise, and she blocked his efforts. So,
Speaker 1: after China was defeated, Guangsho started to recognize and think
Speaker 1: about the ways that he thought China needed to reform. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he Uh really realizing that the old ways were
Speaker 1: not going to carry the country forward. And so on
Speaker 1: June eleven, Guangsho started what is called the Hundred Day Reform,
Speaker 1: and that was a series of proclamations that he issued
Speaker 1: that were intended to modernize China and revitalize the dynasty.
Speaker 1: He wanted to change and evolve the country's education, their industry,
Speaker 1: their foreign affairs, and all of his proclamations were indirect
Speaker 1: opposition to the conservative Manchu nobility and especially Shiji. Because
Speaker 1: CIG still held power over the loyal military, it was
Speaker 1: really easy for her to stage at coup. At this point,
Speaker 1: CV re established her role as regent. She got assistance
Speaker 1: from other people who did not like the reform plans,
Speaker 1: and she sent the emperor to confinement and yan Tai
Speaker 1: terrorists for ten years. The public announcement was that the
Speaker 1: emperor was sick to the point of being incapacitated, when
Speaker 1: in fact he had really just been shoved off his
Speaker 1: throne uh and then so he basically stayed there the
Speaker 1: rest of his life, which didn't last a whle lot longer.
Speaker 1: Obviously it was ten years, and we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit in the moment. But as this point
Speaker 1: of the story and these reformation reformation efforts have happened,
Speaker 1: she starts to make some missteps. Um during the Boxer
Speaker 1: Rebellion of nineteen hundred, which was led by the righteous
Speaker 1: fists of Harmony. But they kind of get called the boxers,
Speaker 1: and translation, she sided with the insurgents, and she was
Speaker 1: against foreign diplomats and the Chinese Christians. She didn't really
Speaker 1: want change. She thought that they should protect their heritage
Speaker 1: in their history and their old ways of doing things.
Speaker 1: And some historians have theorized that this was actually just
Speaker 1: a play to minimize damage on the Chang dynasty, but
Speaker 1: and that she was trying to, you know, create as
Speaker 1: little damage as possible from the rebellion. But it really
Speaker 1: really did nothing for her image on the global stage.
Speaker 1: She was basically saying, no, foreigners were not interested in
Speaker 1: you uh. And so when the coalition troops had stamped
Speaker 1: out the rebellion, she was really left to the ugly
Speaker 1: reputation as being you know, unwelcoming and stubborn and close minded.
Speaker 1: She really wanted to improve her image at this point,
Speaker 1: so she commissioned a photographer to create portraits of her
Speaker 1: in nineteen o three. The portraits are staged similarly to
Speaker 1: ones of Queen Victoria, and they were intended to be
Speaker 1: given as gifts to visiting dignitaries, but before long copies
Speaker 1: are being sold in the street as souvenirs and as
Speaker 1: for helping her reputation. This was not exactly successful. She
Speaker 1: was still seen as a dangerous dragon lady by westerners
Speaker 1: and then Uh. Five years after that, on November fourteenth
Speaker 1: and nineteen o eight, Emperor Guangshu died at the age
Speaker 1: of thirty seven. Empress Dowager she died the next day,
Speaker 1: just Shy of the age of seventy four, and this
Speaker 1: became another part of the intrigue. At the time, there
Speaker 1: were suspicions that he had been murdered. Uh. But then
Speaker 1: a hundred years later, in two thousand eight, a five
Speaker 1: year research study actually concluded that had examined samples of
Speaker 1: the emperor's remains, I think seven of his bones were sampled,
Speaker 1: both the interior and exterior of his tomb garments that
Speaker 1: he had been wearing, and the analysis revealed that the
Speaker 1: emperor had actually been poisoned with arsenic more than triple
Speaker 1: the amount that would have been a fatal dose. And
Speaker 1: for a while there was before this study was finalized,
Speaker 1: people had suspected that it was one of those things
Speaker 1: where people sometimes take poison as a medicine um and
Speaker 1: then it was accumulative poisoning. But because of the way
Speaker 1: the evidence played out, it was obviously like a one
Speaker 1: huge dose situation. It was an acute onset poisoning, not
Speaker 1: a cumulative one. Of course, Empress Dowager CV is one
Speaker 1: of the people suspected in the poisoning because she might
Speaker 1: have known that she was dying and she didn't want
Speaker 1: gland Shoe and his reforms to take over China. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: and that rumor persists. I mean, there's um there was
Speaker 1: actually a story that came out around the same time
Speaker 1: where some of the people that worked on this analysis
Speaker 1: are pretty confident she was the one who poisoned him. Well,
Speaker 1: and there's kind of a trail of possibly mysterious deaths
Speaker 1: in her wake earlier in her life. Yes, and there
Speaker 1: is one account that someone mentions of a close friend
Speaker 1: of hers who was supposed to be a Unich. There's
Speaker 1: also some rumor that maybe he wasn't really a unique
Speaker 1: and they had a sexual relationship, but someone saw him
Speaker 1: carrying food into the emperor right before he died. Uh So,
Speaker 1: there are there is some evidence that suggests that, however,
Speaker 1: we don't know for certain, very circumstantial. Uh. Sheik was
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful and politically strong, but unfortunately her anti foreign
Speaker 1: conservatism and some pretty bad administrative missteps. In her later reign,
Speaker 1: Uh really really caused some problems. For example, she spent
Speaker 1: naval funds on a summer palace, which weakened the military
Speaker 1: and precipitated the defeat in the Sino Japanese War, and
Speaker 1: her mausoleum, which is built prior to her death, is
Speaker 1: actually filled with precious materials in amounts that exceed most
Speaker 1: emperors tombs. She really like demanded that she have only
Speaker 1: the best things, and in numbers that were just sort
Speaker 1: of ridiculous at the time. You know, It's like, I want,
Speaker 1: I think I saw a thing that said that most
Speaker 1: tombs had like three golden pillars and hers has something
Speaker 1: like sixty four. I mean, she really wanted only the
Speaker 1: best and most immaculate and most amazing UH. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: all of that kind of behavior, and particularly her conservatism
Speaker 1: and unwillingness to kind of open uh China's doors to
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, really were direct contributors to
Speaker 1: the demise of the Ching dynasty. There's also an interesting
Speaker 1: footnote in all of this, which is that the accounts
Speaker 1: of her Uh intrigues in her life have actually caused
Speaker 1: their own sort of story of drama amongst biographers. Early
Speaker 1: accounts were mostly written by George Morrison and linguist reporter
Speaker 1: Edmund Backhouse, who wrote reports for Westerners from taking in
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. UH. In
Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties, Sterling Seagrave wrote a biography of
Speaker 1: Shiji called The Dragon Lady, and in his book he
Speaker 1: really discredits Morrison and back House. Uh. Several sources have
Speaker 1: shown that back House fabricated some of his stories, and
Speaker 1: even Morrison's diary mentions that he had discovered that the
Speaker 1: back House was writing fake stories, presumably to further his career,
Speaker 1: but that at that point Morrison was so deep in
Speaker 1: that he would have discredited himself had he blown the whistle.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting. Uh. I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a story that we continue to hear today sometimes when
Speaker 1: people fabricating craziness and then get it published. But there
Speaker 1: is also resistance to see graves version of the story
Speaker 1: because he really paints a much more sympathetic um picture
Speaker 1: of s g and characterizes her as a fearful figurehead
Speaker 1: and you know, she knows that she's trapped in an
Speaker 1: impoverished dynasty. And she's really struggling with everything around her.
Speaker 1: But as often is the case, the truth is probably
Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle, because there are things like evidence
Speaker 1: that she misspent naval funds making herself a beautiful summer home,
Speaker 1: and that she had this, you know, insane mausoleum built
Speaker 1: for herself, and so those are not really the things
Speaker 1: that I would normally associate with a fearful person who
Speaker 1: is very you know, scared and trapped. Though she may
Speaker 1: have had I'm sure she was a human, she probably
Speaker 1: had fears and concerns. But I think somewhere between those
Speaker 1: two is really where we get the reality. Right. Plus
Speaker 1: the trail of bodies, I mean, that could entirely be coincidence,
Speaker 1: but at the same time that seems a little unlikely
Speaker 1: that there was not something. There's a lot of death
Speaker 1: and intrigue, and that's story. You also have some listening
Speaker 1: mail I do, indeed. Uh. This is actually from our
Speaker 1: Facebook page and it's from our listener, Lily And and
Speaker 1: she says, I was wondering if you could encourage your
Speaker 1: listeners to give blood. My answer, absolutely, Uh. There was
Speaker 1: recently a major tragedy in my area, A fertilizer plant
Speaker 1: explode exploded, leaving many people injured, and the blood banks
Speaker 1: are in desperate need of donations. This service is a
Speaker 1: reminder that a tragedy can happen at any moment, and
Speaker 1: the best way to deal with it is to be prepared.
Speaker 1: People are so willing to flood blood banks after a
Speaker 1: major incident, but that leaves every other day lacking. If
Speaker 1: we could set up a great supply before something like
Speaker 1: this happens, then we wouldn't be in such dire need
Speaker 1: when we need blood the most. So true. I would
Speaker 1: also encourage people to give platelets if that is something
Speaker 1: they are interested in. That is another thing that is
Speaker 1: much needed and needed all the time. Platelets kind of
Speaker 1: leaks is for five days I think once they're donated,
Speaker 1: so they need a constant supply. Huh, much like blood,
Speaker 1: these things go lacking in tragedies something And if you
Speaker 1: cannot do either thing for whatever reason, Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: many other ways to contribute, either with money or time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we highly encourage that. I'm not usually a candidate for
Speaker 1: any of that whause I don't have enough fire in
Speaker 1: my blood no matter how much steak I eat, So
Speaker 1: I'm trying desperately, but so I try to someons volunteer.
Speaker 1: I'll help do patient check in. If you would like
Speaker 1: to write to us, you may do so. You can
Speaker 1: email us at History podcast at discovery dot com. We're
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