1. The Guangxu Emperor, known by his temple name Emperor Dezong of Qing, personal name Zaitian, was the eleventh emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1875 to 1908.
55 Facts About Guangxu Emperor
1. 2.
Guangxu Emperor's succession was endorsed by dowager empresses Ci'an and Cixi for political reasons after Emperor Tongzhi died without an heir.
3.
Guangxu Emperor engaged intellectuals like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao to develop the Hundred Days' Reform program of 1898 to reverse the decline.
4.
Guangxu Emperor lost ruling powers and was placed under virtual house arrest at the Yingtai Pavilion of Zhongnanhai until his death.
5.
Guangxu Emperor was buried in the Chongling at the Western Qing tombs.
6.
The Guangxu Emperor was born on 14 August 1871, receiving the name Zaitian, and was the second son of Yixuan, and his primary spouse Yehenara Wanzhen, a younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi.
7.
Guangxu Emperor was the nephew of Cixi and the grandson of the Daoguang Emperor.
8.
On 12 January 1875, Zaitian's cousin, the Tongzhi Guangxu Emperor, died without a son to succeed him.
9.
The other proposed candidates besides Zaitian were the two sons of Prince Gong, Zaicheng and Zaiying, but they were of the same age group as the Tongzhi Guangxu Emperor and were seen as having been a negative influence on him, so they were distrusted.
10.
Guangxu Emperor ascended to the throne at the age of four, on 25 February 1875, and adopted "Guangxu" as his regnal name, therefore he is known as the "Guangxu Emperor".
11.
The Guangxu Emperor seemed to become a self-disciplinarian early on.
12.
Guangxu Emperor said that he considered the Tao to be more important than his own views.
13.
In 1881, when the Guangxu Emperor was nine, Empress Dowager Ci'an died unexpectedly, leaving Empress Dowager Cixi as sole regent for the boy.
14.
In Weng's diaries during those days, Guangxu Emperor was reportedly seen with swollen eyes, had poor concentration and was seeking consolation from Weng.
15.
The Guangxu Emperor had reportedly begun to hold some audiences on his own as an act of necessity in the early 1880s, though this stopped in 1883 when Cixi recovered from her illness.
16.
Guangxu Emperor's reign saw the outbreak of the Sino-French War in 1884 over influence in Vietnam.
17.
The Guangxu Emperor had not given an audience to foreign diplomats in Beijing up to this point, though in August 1886 his father Prince Chun hosted a dinner for the diplomatic corps.
18.
Guangxu Emperor felt a sense of responsibility for following the example set by the Qianlong Emperor.
19.
Meanwhile, Prince Chun and the Grand Council prepared for the Guangxu Emperor to begin ruling directly by taking measures to make sure that the system that existed during the regency effectively remained intact.
20.
Guangxu Emperor selected a pair of sisters, who became Consorts Jin and Zhen, to be the emperor's concubines.
21.
Guangxu Emperor decided on appointments to the Grand Council and the Six Ministries.
22.
The audience took place on 5 March 1891, with the Guangxu Emperor receiving the foreign ministers to China at an audience in the "Pavilion of Purple Light," in what is part of Zhongnanhai, something that had been done by the Tongzhi Emperor in 1873.
23.
The audience of foreign diplomats with the Gaungxu Guangxu Emperor became more frequent after that.
24.
Guangxu Emperor received the new Austro-Hungarian minister in a special audience in October 1891, the British minister in December 1892, and the German and Belgian ministers in 1893.
25.
The Guangxu Emperor followed his principle of frugality in early 1892, when he tried to implement a series of draconian measures to reduce expenditures by the Imperial Household Department, which proved to be one of his few administrative successes.
26.
The Guangxu Emperor inherited the system of the Qing dynasty that had emerged in 1861, at the start of the Tongzhi Emperor's reign.
27.
When Empress Dowager Cixi retired, Guangxu Emperor had control over the administration of the empire and she did not interfere with his actions, but the princes and ministers advised him to bring back the old system in 1894, at the start of the tensions with Japan.
28.
The Guangxu Emperor was reportedly eager for the war against Japan and became associated with the pro-war faction in the imperial court, which believed that China would easily win.
29.
Guangxu Emperor used the term "dwarfs" for the Japanese, an ancient Chinese derogatory term, reflecting the widespread contemptuous view of Japan that many Qing officials had.
30.
The Guangxu Emperor was angry and wanted to immediately leave the capital to personally take command of the troops at the front, but he was later talked out of it by his advisors.
31.
Guangxu Emperor signed edicts calling for the execution of generals who were defeated.
32.
In February 1895, as peace negotiations with the Japanese were underway, the Guangxu Emperor spoke with his top negotiator before he met with the Japanese, Li Hongzhang, and allegedly told him during their conversation that China needed large scale reforms.
33.
Guangxu Emperor tried to shift the responsibility in an edict by asking two officials, Liu Kunyi and Wang Wenshao, to give their opinion on whether to agree to the treaty, because they had told him that the Chinese military was capable of achieving victory.
34.
Luke Kwong wrote that this was part of what drove the Guangxu Emperor to begin the Hundred Days' Reform in the summer of 1898, because he saw taking radical action to revitalize the Qing dynasty as the only way to make up for his perceived failure.
35.
Guangxu Emperor presented the emperor with a plan to create a Western-style army for the Qing in August 1895, and was appointed by him that December to establish and lead a unit that would become the basis for the future Beiyang Army.
36.
The Guangxu Emperor was impressed with Yuan, and he had been recommended to the monarch by many other senior officials.
37.
The Guangxu Emperor then issued edicts for a massive number of far-reaching modernizing reforms with the help of more progressive officials such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao.
38.
Many officials, deemed useless and dismissed by the Guangxu Emperor, begged her for help.
39.
Yang claimed that Guangxu Emperor had done this on the advice of Kang Youwei and the wanted revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
40.
Guangxu Emperor was unable to effectively defend himself to Cixi from Yang's accusation.
41.
Guangxu Emperor then left the emperor to meet with Ronglu and told him about the plot by the reformers, telling him the emperor had nothing to do with it.
42.
Lei Chia-sheng, a Taiwanese history professor, proposes an alternative view: that the Guangxu Emperor might have been led into a trap by the reformists led by Kang Youwei, who in turn was in Lei's opinion tricked by British missionary Timothy Richard and former Japanese prime minister Ito Hirobumi into agreeing to appoint Ito as one of many foreign advisors.
43.
Guangxu Emperor discharged his ceremonial duties, such as offering sacrifices during ceremonies, but never ruled alone again.
44.
In 1898, shortly after the collapse of the Hundred Days' Reform, the Guangxu Emperor's health began to decline, prompting Cixi to name Pujun, a son of the emperor's cousin, the reactionary Prince Duan, as heir presumptive.
45.
Guangxu Emperor was examined by a physician at the French Legation and diagnosed with chronic nephritis; he was discovered to be impotent at the time.
46.
Guangxu Emperor read widely and spent time learning English from Cixi's Western-educated lady-in-waiting, Yu Deling.
47.
The Guangxu Emperor died on 14 November 1908, a day before Cixi's death, at the age of 37.
48.
China Daily quoted a historian, Dai Yi, who speculated that Cixi might have known of her imminent death and worried that the Guangxu Emperor would continue his reforms after her death.
49.
The medical records kept by the Guangxu Emperor's physician show the emperor suffered from "spells of violent stomachaches" and that his face had turned blue, typical symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
50.
The Guangxu Emperor was succeeded by Cixi's choice as heir, his nephew Puyi, who took the regnal name "Xuantong".
51.
Some historians believe that the Guangxu Emperor was the first Chinese leader to implement modernizing reforms and capitalism.
52.
The Guangxu Emperor had one empress and two consorts in total.
53.
However, the Guangxu Emperor detested his wife and spent most of his time with his favourite concubine, Consort Zhen.
54.
Rumours allege that in 1900, Consort Zhen was drowned by being thrown into a well on Cixi's order after she begged Empress Dowager Cixi to let the Guangxu Emperor stay in Beijing for negotiations with the foreign powers.
55.
In 1644, the Shunzhi Guangxu Emperor began to rule over China proper, replacing the Ming dynasty.