In Bernardo Bertolucci's movie The Last Emperor (1987), emperor-to-be Puyi, 2 years old, faced Cixi at her deathbed, when she announced that he would become the next emperor of China. The scene holds historical truth, depicting the last political act of a woman who had held the reins of the country for half a century.To get more news about last empress of china, you can visit shine news official website.

Born in 1835, she stemmed from a noble family of Manchurians, the ethnic group that had been ruling China for nearly two centuries. As a teenager, she was chosen as a concubine to Emperor Xianfeng, who took notice of her because of her cleverness. In 1856, she and her husband had their only son and heir Tongzhi, and she was elevated from concubine to consort.

By that time, the mighty empire of China had begun its downfall. Internally, the Manchurian power was eroded by famines, natural disasters, financial problems and revolts.From the outside, China was under fire as well, as exemplified by the disastrous opium wars against Great Britain (1839-1842) and France (1856-1860), ending with the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing.

Moreover, China was forced to sign the so-called Unequal treaty, to open up its harbours to foreign merchants and to give Hong Kong to Great Britain.At the time, his rightful heir Tongzhi was just 5 years old, thus a regency was established. His mother Cixi seized the opportunity along with Xianfeng's official wife to take control.

Henceforth, she would be known as 'Empress Dowager Cixi' (慈禧) and, throughout the next decades, ruled China as a co-regent, taking decisions and using the imperial seal on behalf of her son.When Tonghzi finally succeeded to the throne in 1873, his reign would prove to be exceptionally short, succumbing to illness just 2 years later.

Cixi elected her nephew Guangxu, who was only 3 at the time, as the next emperor. After the death of Empress Dowager Ci'an, Cixi became China's sole regent. She continued to use the underaged emperor as her puppet until he married and was installed on the throne in 1889.

The Empress Dowager retired shortly after, yet there would be no smooth sailing for Cixi just yet.

When the emperor attempted the Hundred days' Reform in 1898, the conservatives and Cixi reacted with a coup. The emperor was put under arrest for the rest of his life.When Guangxu eventually died in 1908, Cixi chose the son of her nephew's brother, little Puyi, as a successor. By appointing a child once again, she thought she could continue to rule China. Yet she passed away only 24 hours later.

The glorious tale of the Chinese empire was now nearing its end as four years later Qing dynasty officials forced the abdication of Puyi. The end of the Chinese imperial era opened a new chapter in the history of the country: the Republic of China.Cixi not only left her mark on China's political history but also on the country's culture and society.

One of her passions was Peking opera: a mix of theatre, music, song and incredible acrobatics, that was in the midst of its golden age during her reign. In the imperial palaces, Cixi had special theatres built with complex machinery. One of the greatest honours a courtier could experience was to receive an invitation to attend a performance there.

The above quote was spoken to curious strangers by a small street sweeper in Beijing in 1959. The street sweeper was telling the truth. He really was the last Emperor of China!To get more news about gobulo wanrong, you can visit shine news official website.

China is on my mind, what with the Winter Olympic Games with no snow, and China's repression of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group in Northwest China's Xinjiangan region. There is also its "Male Feminization" problem. That's not some throwaway line on social media, it is the Chinese communist government's actual policy which plans to strengthen physical education for the nation's adolescent boys to combat the perceived phenomenon.

China, officially the People's Republic of China, is the world's most populous country, with a more than 1.4 billion people. China spans five geographical time zones and borders 14 different countries. It is the second most of any country in the world after Russia. It has an ancient history; which goes back to at least 2100 BC.

In 1909, Puyi was named emperor of China when he was three years old by his aunt, the dying dowager Empress Cixi. His parents found out about their son's ascension to the throne when palace officials, servants and eunuchs arrived at their home to take him away. The screaming toddler was bundled into a carriage and driven away to the massive Forbidden City palace complex in the center of Beijing.
Puyi lived a life of immense privilege in the Forbidden City, where he was treated as a living god. He was attended to by his many servants, including eunuchs who were required to wear their pickled genitals in jars hung from their necks. They catered to his every whim. This led the young emperor to develop a cruel streak. He was particularly fond of having his eunuchs flogged and making them get down on their knees and eat dirt.

Puyi continued to indulge in his cruelties as he grew older, free from parents that would have ordinarily restrained a youngster. Not even a revolution in 1911, when he was forced to abdicate, changed anything. The newly formed Republic of China government decided to treat him as a foreign monarch, allowing him to continue residing in the Forbidden City, still able to enjoy all his privileges.

After a failed attempt to restore the monarchy in 1917, it was decided that the 16-year-old former emperor should take a bride. He examined photographs of teenage girls, picking one at random. His choice was dismissed, and he was instead told he would be marrying pretty Gobulo Wanrong, but his original choice could still be his concubine.

The pair were married in 1922. The marriage was never consummated. Yet, they got along at the beginning, riding their bicycles around the Forbidden City, and having wacky Chinese fun. But when the relationship eventually soured, it brought disastrous consequences for poor Wanrong.

The couple's time in the Forbidden City ended suddenly when the fierce warlord General Feng Yuxiang captured Beijing in 1924 and ordered Puyi and his wife to leave the palace. Fearing for his life, Puyi took refuge at the Japanese embassy, and later he made it to the Japanese controlled city of Tianjin, where a small court was set up for him in a house known as the Garden of Serenity.
Life in the Garden of Serenity was boring for the young couple. Wanrong began smoking opium to relieve the tedium of being an empress who was expected to do nothing. Meanwhile, Puyi wanted more out of life than being an exile. He wrote a letter to the Japanese Minister for War, asking to be restored to his throne.

Puyi was then relocated to the Japanese colony of Manchukuo in northeast China, where he was crowned emperor in 1934 and installed at the Salt Tax Palace in the city of Changchun. But, he was just a puppet monarch who was expected to defer to the Japanese emperor. He would remain emperor of the colony until it was conquered by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.

As the Soviets closed in on Changchun, Puyi's court was packed up and the emperor, his opium-addicted wife, eunuchs, concubines, and servants left the city by train. Sadly, they had nowhere to go. The Soviets had bombed all the train stations in the surrounding area. Puyi and the male members of his court escaped the city by plane, only to be caught by the Soviets in the city of Shenyang.