Empress Dowager Cixi, was from the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan. She was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the "de facto" ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, ruling over China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908. Coming from an ordinary Manchu family and having been selected by the Xianfeng Emperor as a concubine, she exercised almost total control over the court under the nominal rule of her son the Tongzhi Emperor and her nephew the Guangxu Emperor, … Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Empress Dowager Cixi. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Cixi
