Empress Dowager Cixi: A Complete Biography

Empress Dowager Cixi: A Complete Biography is a monumental work by the Taiwanese historical novelist Gao Yang, who paints a panoramic portrait of late Qing society in novel form. The complete work comprises six volumes in ten books: The Early Years of Cixi; The Pearl Curtain (Parts 1 and 2); An Unofficial History of the Qing Court (Parts 1 and 2); Mother and Son, Sovereign and Minister; Rouge Well (Parts 1 and 2); and Sunset over Yingtai (Parts 1 and 2), totaling roughly 2.84 million characters. The narrative centers on the activities of the Empress Dowager Cixi: from the death of the Xianfeng Emperor at Rehe and Cixi's alliance with Prince Gong Yixin to launch the Xinyou Coup, seizing power from the eight regent ministers led by Sushun and inaugurating the reign behind the curtain; through the joint veneration of the two empresses dowager, Tongzhi's coming of age and assumption of rule, the mystery of Ci'an's sudden death, the struggle between the Qingliu faction and the self-strengthening modernizers, Guangxu's accession and the undercurrents between mother, son, sovereign and minister, the First Sino-Japanese War and the Hundred Days' Reform, the Boxer Crisis during which she fled west with Guangxu in haste, the return of the two courts and the late Qing reforms—all the way to Cixi's death and Puyi's accession, spanning more than forty years. Gao Yang was deeply versed in Qing court lore, institutions, and official protocol; he drew freely on notebooks, unofficial histories, miscellaneous writings, poetry and prose, and folk legend, weaving them into the novel's situations. While strictly adhering to the historical sequence, he excelled at depicting the warmth and coldness of human relations, rendering the tangled and volatile late Qing political scene with dramatic ups and downs. He creates a flesh-and-blood Cixi who is both ruthless in intrigue and marked by loneliness and helplessness, alongside a vivid ensemble including Prince Gong, Li Hongzhang, Guangxu, and Yuan Shikai. The work has been called a "storybook version of the Draft History of the Qing" and an encyclopedia of late Qing political life.