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A review by cloudrecesses
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang
challenging
informative
medium-paced
2.0
This is the history of a lot of men, and sometimes Cixi. An in-depth feature on all the (western) men who dragged an unwilling country into their idea of modernity. To the author, Qing China - it seems - was a torrid, backwards place and the disdain she has for it (and what it represented) is palpable throughout.
Disappointing lack of cited sources, for a personal history that is told here with a lot of certainty - it comes across as woeful conjecture, instead of careful evaluation of likelihood. The scholarship is poor. Quotations are numerous but unsubstantiated (there is, at least in my version) a section of citations post-script, but these are grouped by chapter (no page numbers) and would have been infinitely better had they been worked into the pages themselves (bc, truly, who’s going to go back and check 600 pages’ worth of citations after the fact). So, this book only works if you suspend all disbelief in order to take the author’s word at face value.
It’s fast paced at times, with really excellent and engaging scene setting (particularly memorable were the original coup, An Dehai’s voyage beyond the Forbidden City, the court’s flee of 1900). But it does feel very dramatised - laced with conjecture and claims that could not (or at least, are not) evidenceable, e.g. Dowager Empresses Zhen/Ci’an and Cixi having “an emotional row for the first time in their relationship,” or, “the eunuchs would lewdly ridicule the duchess [Guixiang, Empress Longyu’s mother] amongst themselves.” The question is always an emphatic: how! How does the author come to know this? Letters? Punishment records? Assumption? The lack of scholarly engagement with the available sources would be laughable, if not for the fact that tenets of this book have already found themselves as the de facto source-of-truth for many of these events (An Dehai’s Wikipedia page, for example, is significantly lifted from Jung Chang’s work).
Aside, from the above - there’s a really interesting, distinct and ironic way that the author sidelines Cixi for advancement of men’s stories. The book meanders into talking about Duke this or Prince that for large swathes of it - and whilst, obviously the historical context is necessary and illuminating, it’s a little glaring against some pretty large omissions. Empress Ci’an is nothing but a footnote, an investigation into Cixi’s hold over the harem is similarly non-existent. You come away not knowing who Cixi is, exactly, but what she has done for the political careers of other.
The book is further chock full of simpering Cixi’s sentimentalities, which are meant to endear one to Cixi but just continually exposes the huge gaping gluttony of a monarchy, the way that her government was ultimately flawed by a deep selfishness:
e.g.“It has been claimed that […] Cixi stole from the navy […] The truth about the cost and her diversion of funds is rather different. […] The navy was undergoing a period of modernisation, headed by Prince Chun, and was allocated a colossal budget of four million taels a year. Could not a small slice of this sum - perhaps a portion of the interest derived from the money deposited in a (foreign) bank - be used to help build her Summer Palace, a slice that would make no difference to the navy?”
There are also some incredibly bold contradictions, chief of which consisted of lauding congratulations on Cixi’s reign of reform “without engaging in violence” (conveniently forgetting millions of gruelling peasant lives shunned, lost, and harmed) and then talking about her “political killings” literally two paragraphs following. More egregiously, the author forgets her own previous stances, including with unsubstantiated rumours.
For example, of Empress Xiaozheyi’s death, chapter 9 posits “According to some eunuchs,” the Empress’ father (Chongqi) induced her to follow the late Emperor into the grave via starvation. In chapter 23, Chongqi is “the man who almost certainly told his daughter to starve herself to death after her husband died.” No further evidence (at least in the immediate narrative) is given to the strength of this assertion.
Similarly,she casts aside the “baseless rumour that was charged with sexual innuendo)” between Cixi and her head eunuch, Lianying. But unequivocally states that she was in love with An Dehai, also a eunuch, several decades earlier. This is despite the fact that, in the author’s own depiction, the order of effects were the same. She showered both with gifts, lavish liberties, and access to court life not usually afforded to other members of staff - the difference between romance and friendship is not at all qualified by the author.
In all, it was an enjoyable read - and took so long because of googling and reading up on the various characters and incidents. What Jung Chang truly needed was a stronger editor - one who could challenge her position and ensure rigour in the way sources were approached.
Disappointing lack of cited sources, for a personal history that is told here with a lot of certainty - it comes across as woeful conjecture, instead of careful evaluation of likelihood. The scholarship is poor. Quotations are numerous but unsubstantiated (there is, at least in my version) a section of citations post-script, but these are grouped by chapter (no page numbers) and would have been infinitely better had they been worked into the pages themselves (bc, truly, who’s going to go back and check 600 pages’ worth of citations after the fact). So, this book only works if you suspend all disbelief in order to take the author’s word at face value.
It’s fast paced at times, with really excellent and engaging scene setting (particularly memorable were the original coup, An Dehai’s voyage beyond the Forbidden City, the court’s flee of 1900). But it does feel very dramatised - laced with conjecture and claims that could not (or at least, are not) evidenceable, e.g. Dowager Empresses Zhen/Ci’an and Cixi having “an emotional row for the first time in their relationship,” or, “the eunuchs would lewdly ridicule the duchess [Guixiang, Empress Longyu’s mother] amongst themselves.” The question is always an emphatic: how! How does the author come to know this? Letters? Punishment records? Assumption? The lack of scholarly engagement with the available sources would be laughable, if not for the fact that tenets of this book have already found themselves as the de facto source-of-truth for many of these events (An Dehai’s Wikipedia page, for example, is significantly lifted from Jung Chang’s work).
Aside, from the above - there’s a really interesting, distinct and ironic way that the author sidelines Cixi for advancement of men’s stories. The book meanders into talking about Duke this or Prince that for large swathes of it - and whilst, obviously the historical context is necessary and illuminating, it’s a little glaring against some pretty large omissions. Empress Ci’an is nothing but a footnote, an investigation into Cixi’s hold over the harem is similarly non-existent. You come away not knowing who Cixi is, exactly, but what she has done for the political careers of other.
The book is further chock full of simpering Cixi’s sentimentalities, which are meant to endear one to Cixi but just continually exposes the huge gaping gluttony of a monarchy, the way that her government was ultimately flawed by a deep selfishness:
e.g.
There are also some incredibly bold contradictions, chief of which consisted of lauding congratulations on Cixi’s reign of reform “without engaging in violence” (conveniently forgetting millions of gruelling peasant lives shunned, lost, and harmed) and then talking about her “political killings” literally two paragraphs following. More egregiously, the author forgets her own previous stances, including with unsubstantiated rumours.
For example, of Empress Xiaozheyi’s death, chapter 9 posits “According to some eunuchs,” the Empress’ father (Chongqi) induced her to follow the late Emperor into the grave via starvation. In chapter 23, Chongqi is “the man who almost certainly told his daughter to starve herself to death after her husband died.” No further evidence (at least in the immediate narrative) is given to the strength of this assertion.
Similarly,
In all, it was an enjoyable read - and took so long because of googling and reading up on the various characters and incidents. What Jung Chang truly needed was a stronger editor - one who could challenge her position and ensure rigour in the way sources were approached.