Archive: Empress Dowager Cixi

An awful lot's going on in China's [laughs] history about the period we're talking about.

So the one constant through all this is Cixi, the empress dowager who remains this constant power behind the throne throughout the period, but various of the most important events of modern Chinese history happened during her lifetime.

In 1842, the First Opium War ends.

Then in 1850, you have the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion, which many people have called the world's most bloody civil war.

Thank you very much.

Rongbo, um, can you tell us what impact that had on the imperial court?

The Taiping Rebellion was a massive civil war in southern China that last for 14 years altogether, so that's between 1850 and 1864.

It is definitely one of the most drastic and dreadful crisis, I mean, that the Qing Empire had to counter and deal with at that time because it exposed the vulnerabilities of the Qing Empires in many ways, including its- Uh, military and, and political structures, I mean, they, which symbolize, I mean, the weakening of power of the Manchu administrations over China.

And the war, the rebellion itself also caused numerous loss of lives, according to some statistic, between 20 millions and 30 million.

Wow.

Yeah.

And actually-

20 million.

Indeed, it was quite scary, the number.

Mm.

And actually, some historians in mainland China, they even claimed that, that the, the numbers, I mean, should reach, mean something closer to 100 millions.

Um, but not everybody died-

Mm

...

in battles because the rebellions also, like, have some direct consequences, such as famine and plague, everything combined together, so it increases the death toll.

So it was very sad story.

Yeah, so in respond to, to this particular rebellion, so the Qing Empire has to do something, and in fact, I mean, they were forced to decentralize, I mean, the, the military powers to suppress these rebels.

The reason that they have to decentralize the milit- military power is because the Green Standard Army, which is the army that they used to train up, was no longer capable of suppressing, I mean, these, like, Taiping rebels.

And the other armies, which was called the Bannermen-

Mm

An awful lot's going on in China's [laughs] history about the period we're talking about.

So the one constant through all this is Cixi, the empress dowager who remains this constant power behind the throne throughout the period, but various of the most important events of modern Chinese history happened during her lifetime.

In 1842, the First Opium War ends.

Then in 1850, you have the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion, which many people have called the world's most bloody civil war.

Thank you very much.

Rongbo, um, can you tell us what impact that had on the imperial court?

The Taiping Rebellion was a massive civil war in southern China that last for 14 years altogether, so that's between 1850 and 1864.

It is definitely one of the most drastic and dreadful crisis, I mean, that the Qing Empire had to counter and deal with at that time because it exposed the vulnerabilities of the Qing Empires in many ways, including its- Uh, military and, and political structures, I mean, they, which symbolize, I mean, the weakening of power of the Manchu administrations over China.

And the war, the rebellion itself also caused numerous loss of lives, according to some statistic, between 20 millions and 30 million.

Wow.

Yeah.

And actually-

20 million.

Indeed, it was quite scary, the number.

Mm.

And actually, some historians in mainland China, they even claimed that, that the, the numbers, I mean, should reach, mean something closer to 100 millions.

Um, but not everybody died-

Mm

...

in battles because the rebellions also, like, have some direct consequences, such as famine and plague, everything combined together, so it increases the death toll.

So it was very sad story.

Yeah, so in respond to, to this particular rebellion, so the Qing Empire has to do something, and in fact, I mean, they were forced to decentralize, I mean, the, the military powers to suppress these rebels.

The reason that they have to decentralize the milit- military power is because the Green Standard Army, which is the army that they used to train up, was no longer capable of suppressing, I mean, these, like, Taiping rebels.

And the other armies, which was called the Bannermen-

Mm