The empress dowager's food expense was 60 taels ... that took 10 people all day to prepare. Every year Cixi spent the summer at the Summer Palace, the Three Lakes area (now Beihai Park and the ...

That was Empress Dowager Cixi’s life story; the woman who ruled China in the 19th century and arguably the most important Chinese woman in history. Born in 1835, Cixi was brought in as a ...

Best-selling author Jung Chang’s newest work, Empress Dowager Cixi, upends the stereotypes of China’s last Empress, who ruled for nearly five decades until her death in 1908. Instead of a cruel, ...