A Concubine Rises to Rule China

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

April 27, 1856. In Beijing’s Forbidden City, one of the emperor’s consorts, a woman named Cixi, has given birth to a son – the emperor’s first heir. This landmark event is met with mass celebration. But in just five years time, the emperor will be dead and Cixi will be planning a coup to take power for herself. How will she ever succeed?

Special thanks to our guests: Jung Chang, author of Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China and Professor Ying-chen Peng, author of Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi's Image Making in Art.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The History Channel, Original Podcast.
0:04.7	History this week, April 27, 1856.
0:13.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:15.9	There is a pregnancy in the imperial palaces of Beijing's forbidden city,
0:21.2	and preparations have been underway for months.
0:24.5	Not because of the mother, she's a low-ranking concubine named Sishi.
0:31.6	But because of the father, Qing Emperor Xianfeng.
0:36.3	He's a sickly man who has not yet produced a son.
0:41.2	So he and the royal court have done everything they can think of to ensure the birth of a healthy boy,
0:47.9	who will one day beat the leader of the Qing dynasty.
0:51.8	Sishi's mother has been summoned to the forbidden city to care for her daughter.
0:56.4	The court astrologer is leaving nothing to chance.
0:59.9	He's arranged for a ceremony to be held behind the concubine Sishi's apartment.
1:05.2	Someone has dug a hole in the ground and placed inside a pair of chopsticks wrapped in red silk.
1:11.6	The word for chopsticks sounds similar to the phrase, to produce a son quickly.
1:17.5	And today, April 27, it all pays off.
1:23.2	Sishi gives birth to a baby boy.
1:26.8	The emperor finally has an heir.
1:31.0	The birth also changes Sishi's fortunes, dramatically.
1:36.1	As the mother of the emperor's only son, she's immediately awarded a higher rank.
1:41.7	In the list of imperial women at the forbidden city,
1:44.8	Sishi is now second only to the Empress.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The HISTORY® Channel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The HISTORY® Channel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.