Empress Dowager Cixi "and The Beginning Of The New Deal In The Late Qing Dynasty

On July21, in the26th year of the reign of Qing Emperor Guangxu, under the attack of the Eight-Power Allied Forces, Empress Dowager Cixi, together with Emperor Guangxu and several princes and ministers fled westward to escape, until November28, in the27th year of the the reign of Qing Emperor Guangxu, Guangxu returned to Beijing, an incident lasting a total of511days, spanning across the Xinchou Year of1901and the Gengzi Year of1900, and thus called by official historians euphemistically as "Western Imperial Tour in the Gengzi Period". Shortly after their arrival in Chang’an, the Empress promulgated the Imperial Edict to implement the New Deal, launching the New Deal years of the late Qing Dynasty, and promoting China’s modernization process. Why at this time did the Manchu rulers consent to the New Deal as promoters? How did the Empress play her role in this, as the highest authority? After personally experiencing the Gengzi Incident, how did she take the initiative to promote political reform from a passive person and even a killer of political reform? All these and many others will be briefly combed in this paper.This paper is divided into five chapters, in addition to the Appendix and conclusion parts:The first chapter provides a comparative analysis of the history and realistic background of the "Western imperial tour" of the party of Empress from a novel perspective. Traditional historians tend to view the Boxer Rebellion and the Siege of the International Legations as the background, while this article positions the background in the Hundred Days Reform after the Sino-Japanese War, and the folk’s and official’s hatred for foreign powers that had been pent up for too long since the late Qing Dynasty. On the one hand, it is pointed out that the Boxers were used by the Qing government, especially because, the Empress, as the highest authority, was reputed for her hatred of foreign powers, and any of her decisions had a decisive effect, her role in launching the New Deal should not be denied; on the other hand, in the context of the Year of Wuxu (1898), in the angle of the changes of the central staff, the drivers of the Empress’waging of war against the six countries are sorted out.The second chapter introduces the situations at the beginning of the Western imperial tour and the Empress’decision to pay an imperial visit to Xi’an. This chapter is generally divided into three parts by order of time:The first part presents several problems the party of the Empress in the beginning of their fleeing away, highlighting the their panic-stricken situation; the second part briefly describes the breaks of the party in their tour from Zhili Huailai County to Taiyuan, as well as the Empress’psychological distressed feelings; the third part is the prelude to the third chapter of this thesis, that is, the decree of the Empress to pay an imperial visit to Xi’an, and the reason of making Xi’an as a temporary place to visit during the Gengxin period.The third chapter reviews the Empress’dining and clothing and expense during their "Western Imperial Tour" in Chang’an, as well as the local policies for Shaanxi and other items. This part contains contents recorded sporadically in some official and unofficial historical documents. Considering the author’s lack of knowledge and capacity limitations, only the Empress’dining, clothing, transportation and housing in this period are induced and sorted out and according to historical records, the disaster reliefs made by the Empress during this period for Shaanxi Province are documented, together with the awards given by the Empress to some local people, which can be described as a rare People First move of the Empress. Thus she truly felt the plight of the people, and acquired a little sense of thrift.The fourth chapter explores the preparations of the Empress for her return and supplies for the journey. The first part of the preparatory work includes compromise to foreign powers, suppression of the Boxers, punishment for the culprits, claims conferences and Southeast mutual protection, etc. As historians have studied these aspects in many other perspectives, this is only mentioned briefly in this case, and the focus is on the Empress’ shirking of her responsibility for self-protection, and her effort to maintain their own rule at a higher price. This reflects that she, although evil, is still the highest authority of the Qing government. The second part of this chapter discusses uses a heavier ink to describe Empress’ luxury way back, which is in a stark contrast to their frenzied fled to the west, especially the huge changes in Empress’s attitude towards foreign powers over more than one year.The fifth chapter discusses the relationship between the Empress’ experiences of the Gengxin incident with the onset of the New Deal in the Late Qing dynasty. This is also a new focus of this article. Because historians have more or less discussed many backgrounds of the launch of the New Deal, such as conferences of Li Hongzhang with countries, Southeast mutual protection, ensemble of foreign ministers, Russia’s occupation of the Northeast, the suppression of the Boxers, punishment for the culprits, etc. This article does not intend to repeat the work, and coupled with the limited ability of the author, can not address such a large topic. It only focuses on the author’s personal feelings for the period of the Empress’western tour and return journey and treat this as one of many reasons for the launch of the New Deal. This section includes two parts:on the one hand, an analysis is made from the perspective of the human factors in the implementation of the New Deal, with Yuan Shih-kai as a case in point; on the other hand, it focuses on the Empress’decisive role in the launch of the New Deal in the Late Qing dynasty, and conducts a targeted and systematic analysis of the psychological reasons for her launch of the New Deal and the historical limitations.In short, by the conventional view of history, the Empress’ motivation for launching the New Deal was often skeptical, even negative, especially as the implementation of the New Deal does become a booster accelerating the demise of the Qing Dynasty from a certain historical perspective. However, with more deepened research in recent years of the New Deal, and of the Empress herself, the academia began to in an "understanding" attitude, delve into their social environment to look at Empress’s positive significance in the launch of the New Deal. It is undeniable that the Empress’launch of the New Deal is to maintain her reign as the fundamental starting point and it is a choice to make, but the Empress finally discovered from the bottom of her heart the most urgent demand for the New Deal after having experienced the "Gengxin western imperial tour", although this still has is largely limitated in itself. As commented by Xulu Chen, the New Deal is "a little blunt reflection of a stubborn person pushed by harsh times and a belated but perishable reflection."...