Empress Dowager Cixi: The Woman Who Ruled an Empire

Celebrating Women's History Month with a badass a day.

There’s a story that feels like a storm, one of a woman who looked at a world that wanted to silence her and said, “No.” Her name was Empress Dowager Cixi, and she wasn’t just a ruler. She was a force of nature.

Cixi was born in 1835 into a modest Manchu family in China. At 16, she was selected as a concubine for the Xianfeng Emperor, a role that should have relegated her to the shadows of history. But Cixi wasn’t the kind of woman who stayed in the shadows.

When the emperor died in 1861, Cixi seized her moment. She orchestrated a coup, placing her young son on the throne and naming herself regent. It was a bold move, one that shocked the imperial court and set the stage for her decades-long reign.

Cixi wasn’t just a figurehead. She was a ruler in every sense of the word. She navigated the complexities of a crumbling empire, balancing tradition and modernization in a time of immense change. She supported reforms in education, industry, and the military, but she also resisted changes that…