Status Updates From Empress Dowager Cixi: The C...

We’re onto Part Two, and Cixi and Zhen decide to adopt the son of Prince Chun (the man who executed Cixi’s first and only love, Little An) — except after another good reign as Empress Dowager, the Emperor Guangxu proves to be another inept ruler with the war against Japan in the 1890s as the greatest evidence (loved the chapter detailing Cixi’s daily life in retirement)…

Gotten through towards the end of Part One while on my 15 minute break, and in spite of Cixu’s attempts to westernise, Prince Chun keeps throwing wenches in both starring rumours against Christian missionaries and getting Cixi’s lover (Little An) executed — and in spite of all her efforts, her son dies two years into his rule from smallpox (or sylphis — how they treated it through worship is fascinating)…

Onto the story of how a concubine called Lan and a consort called Zhen, in the middle of the Opium War and through the help of court stamps, became the Dowager Empresses Ci’an and Cixi; and already, Cixi is making good progress with relations between China and Britain (to think that the Pekingese dog was the result of the burning of the Old Summer Palace!).