Empress Dowager Ci'an
Dowager empress of China
Died when: 43 years 300 days (525 months)Star Sign: Gemini
Empress Xiaozhenxian (12 August 1837 – 8 April 1881), of the Manchu Bordered Yellow Banner Niohuru clan, was a posthumous name bestowed to the wife and empress consort of Yizhu, the Xianfeng Emperor.
She was Empress consort of Qing from 1852 until her husband's death in 1861, after which she was honoured as Empress Dowager Ci'an.
As empress dowager and one of the most senior member of imperial family, she and Empress Dowager Cixi became co-regents during the reign of two young emperors: Zaichun, the Tongzhi Emperor and later Zaitian, the Guangxu Emperor.
Although in principle, she had precedence over Cixi, Ci'an was in fact a self-effacing person and seldom intervened in politics, but she was the decision-maker in most family affairs.
Instead, Empress Dowager Cixi was the decision-maker in most state affairs. A popular view of Empress Dowager Ci'an is that she was a highly respectable person, always quiet, never hot-tempered, and that she treated everybody very well and was highly respected by the Xianfeng Emperor.
However, some historians have painted a very different reality, mainly that of a self-indulgent and idle Empress Dowager Ci'an, who did not care as much for government and hard work as she cared for the pleasures and sweet life inside the Forbidden City.
