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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