Posted by Johan
on 18/11/2008, 15:32:17, in reply to "Re: 100 years ago in China"
164.140.159.143
The Mantsjoe women did not tie their feet, like the Chinese.
They did wear shoes on heels looking like tied feet.
The long fingernails were a sign of not having to do fysical labour.
--Previous Message--
: Notice how long Empress Tzu Hsi's 4th &
: 5th fingernails are. Following a fashion for
: imperial Chinese women, she never cut those
: fingernails. They seem to be enclosed in
: some sort of decorated sheath, probably to
: protect them & keep them growing
: straight. She probably also has the tiny
: feet which were in fashion at that time for
: Chinese noblewomen, brought about by keeping
: them tightly bound throughout childhood in
: order to restrict their growth.
:
: --Previous Message--
: On November 15 1908,Cixi (or Tzu Hsi),the
: Dowager Empress of China and the last
: effective ruler of the 2,000 year-old
: Chinese Empire died in her palace in the
: Forbidden City in Beijing.She was almost 73
: years old and had ruled China (officially as
: Regent for her son and then her nephew) from
: 1861 to 1908,a period of 47 years.
: Her long reign marked the end of the
: millennia of dynastic rule over
: China,including a last-gasp attempt to repel
: Western invaders in the Boxer Rebellion of
: 1900 (subject of the 1963 Hollywood film
: epic, 55 Days at Peking ).
:
: An astute,conniving woman who exhibited both
: charm and ruthlessness whenever it suited
: her,Cixi rose from being a minor concubine
: to the Xian Feng Emperor by giving birth to
: his only son.After Xian Feng's early
: death,she then ruled as regent for her
: son,the Tong Xhi Emperor and when he too
: died young she managed to arrange the
: selection of a nephew to succeed him as the
: Guang Xu Emperor all the while maintaining
: real power in her own hands.Some historians
: and writers have believed that she
: deliberately caused the deaths of her
: husband and son in order to keep power in
: her own hands and then arranged for a puppet
: emperor,her nephew to succeed through whom
: she could continue to dominate and
: rule.Others believe she merely made the best
: out of circumstances that were beyond her
: control.You have to decide for yourself.
:
: Either way,she was the ultimate source of
: political power and authority in China for
: almost half a century and must be counted as
: one of the great female rulers of history.
: She certainly thought she should be.She
: survived the failure of the Boxer Rebellion
: (which she had ordered) with her customary
: guile and charm.As long as she lived,the 264
: year-old Xing dynasty and the 2,000 year-old
: imperial system remained intact.As she lay
: dying,she seems to have arranged for the
: death of yet another emperor,her puppet
: nephew Guang Xu (unless you choose to
: believe that this too was just a
: coincidence) and appointed a
: great-nephew,the infant Pu-Yi to succeed.But
: this child-emperor was to reign for a mere 3
: years.Once Empress Cixi was dead,there was
: nobody left who was strong enough to
: maintain the ancient monarchy and by
: 1911,China had become a republic.Cixi would
: have turned over in her grave and literally
: did so when,in 1928(20 years after her
: death),soldiers of one of the local warlords
: who were busy ravaging China at this time
: broke into her tomb and those of other
: imperial rulers and desecrated her
: remains.(Her body was later found lying face
: down and naked)!
:
: It could therefore be said that an entire
: political system,one that had endured for
: more than two millenia,came to an end after
: Cixi died.She was truly the last of the
: once-mighty emperors of China!
:
:
: Empress Dowager Cixi
:
:
:
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