Monday, December 29, 2025

China's great empire before religion


(Audio Point) How ancient China survived without a single holy book. Can a human society survive Freedom from Religion?
A woman was able to rise to supreme power?
Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara Clan who had de facto but periodical control of the Chinese government in the late Qing Dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 years, from 1861 until her passing in 1908. Selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence, she gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's passing in 1861, his 5-year-old son became the Tongzhi Emperor, and Cixi assumed the role of co-empress dowager alongside Xianfeng's widow, Empress Dowager Ci'an. Empress Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed the regency along with Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875. Ci'an continued as co-regent until her death in 1881. More

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