Red robe photo girl

This photo was taken by Cixi in her later years. She sat on the throne in a traditional gorgeous robe of the Qing Dynasty and a dragon. The wrinkles on the face and the fatigue of the skin give people a heavy feeling of years.

This photo was taken by American missionary William Mosley at 1903. William Mosley, a photographer deeply loved by Cixi, and William johnstone Mosley, a British photographer and botanist in the19th century, once worked in 1873 to 1874 and 1876.

During his trip, he took many photos of people, scenery and buildings in China and recorded many plant species in China. From 1874 to 1875, Mosley was invited to Beijing, where he had the opportunity to take photos of Empress Dowager Cixi and other court members. These photos became one of the earliest photos of Cixi in history, and also one of the important reference materials for studying the image of Cixi later.

Anecdotes of characters:

Emperor Tongzhi had a harmonious relationship with the filial piety queen Arut before his death, but he was not satisfied with Cixi. It is said that during the illness of Emperor Tongzhi, Xiaozhe later went to the Qing Palace to see a doctor and complained bitterly that she could not stand the abuse of Cixi. Emperor Tongzhi comforted her and said, "Your patience is over." . I didn't expect Cixi to find out, so she was furious. "Take it, send it, help it with pain, and spread it to the court as a big stick."

This incident made the condition of Emperor Tongzhi worse. After the death of Emperor Tongzhi, Cixi did not make an heir for him, but took Zai Tian as the heir to the throne. After filial piety, she lived in the palace as a widow, which was very embarrassing. Coupled with the cynicism of Cixi, she kept crying after her filial piety. Once, after filial piety, my father Chongqi entered the palace and heard about it. Cixi actually said: "The queen is so sad, you can go with the emperor."

So shortly after Chongqi left the palace, Xiaozhe swallowed gold and died (some people say that she died by taking opium paste or other poisons). Although the specific circumstances of the death of filial piety and philosophy recorded in various materials are different, the same thing is that Cixi did not give him an heir after the death of Emperor Tongzhi, which made the queen feel very uncomfortable and finally died as a martyr.

However, people at that time and later researchers also had many different views on the cause of death after filial piety. For example, they think that the death of filial piety is due to pessimism about the future, or influenced by the tradition of being a good wife and a good mother at home, or the death of the Tongzhi emperor after a long illness aggravated the illness.

As Pan Dunyan, the imperial envoy at that time, said: "After the collapse, within 100 days after Mu Zongsheng's death, there were rumors on the road, either grief caused illness or cloud died." In short, various studies generally believe that the death of filial piety is related to Cixi.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Empress Dowager Cixi