Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang

Prince Gong, and sometimes initiate debates among the top echelon. Her orders were then given verbally to the Grand Council, and the Councillors or their secretaries would write them up as decrees. Having approved them, she and Empress Zhen would stamp them with the seals. Following Qing rules, Grand Councillors (Prince Gong included) were prohibited from adding or changing anything in a decree.
    As a check to its policies, the dynasty had the traditional institutionalised watchdog, the Censors, yu-shi , who were the official ‘criticisers’. In addition to these, Cixi encouraged critical comments from other officials, starting a trend that led to the involvement of the literati in state affairs, a sharp break from the tradition that discouraged their political participation. These informal ‘opposers’ became a substantial force in the land and acquired a collective name, qing-liu , or ‘clear stream’, signifying that they were above self-interest. Their targets included Cixi herself. Over the years, members of the government would complain that these attacks hindered their work, but Cixi never tried to silence them. Instinctively she seems to have known that a government needs dissenting voices. Among those voices she spotted outstanding people and promoted them to high office. One such man was Zhang Zhidong, who became one of the most eminent reformers. Cixi took care not to go against majority opinion, but the final decision was always hers.
    Running the empire needed more language skills and more knowledge of the classics than Cixi possessed. So she studied with educated eunuchs.Her lessons were like bedtime readings and took place before her after-lunch siesta or at night. She would sit cross-legged on her bed, with a book of poetry or one of the classics in her hand. The eunuchs would sit on cushions on the floor at a low table. They would go through the texts with her, and she would read after them. The lesson would go on until she fell asleep.
    Under Cixi, China entered a long period of peace with the West. The British government, for instance, noted that‘China is now prepared to enter into intimate relations with foreigners instead of . . . endeavouring to prevent all intercourse whatever with them’. And ‘since the policy of China is to encourage commerce with the nations of the world, it would be suicidal on our part not to endeavour to assist the enlightened Government of China . . .’ Britain and other powers therefore adopted a ‘co-operative policy’. ‘Our present course,’ said Lord Palmerston, now British Prime Minister, ‘was to strengthen the Chinese empire, to augment its revenues, and to enable it to provide itself with a better navy and army.’
    Prince Gong, leading China’s first Foreign Office as well as the Grand Council, got on well with Western diplomats. He was a charming man. The Mitford grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford, observed that he was ‘full of jokes and fun’, even appearing to ‘have a flippant manner’: ‘My single eyeglass was a real boon to the Prince. Whenever he was getting the worst of an argument, and was at a loss for an answer, he would stop short, throw up his hands in amazement, and pointing at me cry out, “A single eyeglass! Marvellous!” By thus creating a diversion at my expense he gave himself time to consider his reply.’
    The immediate benefit that Cixi gained from this new friendly relationship was the help of the Western powers in defeating the Taiping. At the time, in 1861, these peasant rebels had been waging ferocious battles in the heartland of China for a decade, and were holding large swathes of the country’s richest land along the Yangtze River, together with some of the wealthiest cities, including Nanjing, their capital, next door to Shanghai. Because the rebels claimed to be Christians, Westerners had at first been rather sympathetic towards them. But disillusion eventually set in, when it became all too clear that