Vulgar History - International, part 37： China's Empress Cixi (pt 1⧸2)

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history of feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is anne

00:00:17.280 foster and we're starting to wrap up the internationale season aka the season that

00:00:23.460 truly never ends and has gone on several months longer than i had thought it would but like i'm

00:00:29.600 having a good time. We're all having a good time. And there's still so many stories that I have yet

00:00:33.900 to share with you. So today we are talking about Daoja Empress Sushi, who is a figure from Chinese

00:00:43.200 history. I got, this is recommended ages ago by Titswood Brigade member Abigail, a friend of the

00:00:49.480 podcast, Lana Wood Johnson also suggested this would be a good story to look at. And I am really

00:00:55.680 excited to share this story with you. Like this is like heads up. This is going to be more than

00:01:01.100 part one. There is a lot to talk about, but like get your bingo cards out. We're going to be

00:01:06.540 marking off a lot of squares. This story really hits on a lot of the things that come up time

00:01:11.800 and time again on Vulgar History. So the main resources I used for this was there's a biography

00:01:17.300 that's really, really good. Recent-ish called Empress Dowager Sushi, the concubine who launched

00:01:23.160 Modern China by Zhang Chang. I just looked at Wikipedia, got information from Women in World

00:01:28.440 History, a biographical encyclopedia. And before we dive into this episode, I just want to say if

00:01:37.060 you're interested, we talked before about Queen Min from the Chosan Empire. If you want to learn

00:01:43.380 more about Asian history from Asian people, some podcasts I recommend are Asian American History

00:01:50.980 101 which is a really fun podcast hosted by a father and daughter team they do deep dives in

00:01:56.900 history and they also interview people there's also a podcast called with chinese characteristics

00:02:01.880 also really good really interesting and there's also a podcast called asian enough which is

00:02:12.000 mostly interviews with people like contemporary asian people anyway there's lots to learn and

00:02:17.900 today. I'm just, even though this is going to be like, again, more than a one episode

00:02:22.360 story, there's so much more to talk about all this stuff. And I encourage you to go learn about

00:02:28.900 it from other people. So we're getting into it. What are we talking about? What era is this? So

00:02:37.000 first we're going to get into like the era we're getting into is similar to the era we've been

00:02:40.640 talking about in a lot of episodes lately, which is the mid to late 19th century. But to explain

00:02:47.180 kind of what was China up to, we're going to dive back slightly. So this is the Qing dynasty,

00:02:55.140 which is spelled Q-I-N-G. And this was a dynasty founded by the non-Chinese Manchu minority.

00:03:03.920 So that's like, well, I'll explain. So Manchu people constituted only one or two percent of

00:03:11.480 the population of China. And in this era, when I'm saying China, the borders aren't exactly what

00:03:17.740 modern day China is, but similar and in that same region. In order to consolidate Manchu minority 0.81

00:03:25.080 power, after they took over the conquerors, the Manchu represent themselves as defenders of

00:03:32.320 Chinese culture and adopted a banner system of hereditary military establishment that favored

00:03:37.320 themselves. So the Manchus were a people who originally lived in Manchuria. So the way that

00:03:44.060 they took over was in 1644. So the previous dynasty was the Ming dynasty. They were overthrown

00:03:49.740 by a peasant rebellion, and that was not the Manchus. But the Manchus saw this happen and

00:03:54.580 saw that was an opportunity, and they took over following this peasant rebellion. So the name of

00:04:00.180 dynasty, the Qing dynasty, means great purity. They took over Beijing as their capital, and

00:04:07.660 under them, the empire became three times the size of the previous Ming empire. So at its height, 0.56

00:04:14.900 Qing dynasty, China, was 13 million square kilometers compared to modern China, which is

00:04:20.580 9.6 million. So modern China is a bit smaller from the height of Qing dynasty. So the Manchus

00:04:28.580 were a minority. Again, the indigenous Chinese people were the Han. And so the Han actually 0.52

00:04:34.700 numbered the Manchu something like 100 to 1. And so to like to stay in charge, the Manchu set up 0.99

00:04:40.720 very strict rules that had to be followed. And this is where that hairstyle comes from that you

00:04:47.440 see sometimes in oldie times movies where there are Chinese characters. So the Manchu enforced 0.92

00:04:54.360 that haircut where men had like a long ponytail, but they had to like shave the outer part of their

00:04:59.160 hair. And if the Han men, or I guess if the Manchu men, if any man didn't do that, they would be 0.91

00:05:04.300 beheaded. Like Manchu were just like very strict rules for everything. And that is similar to what 0.96

00:05:10.720 we talked about in Korea in the same time. Chen was also guided by the Confucian philosophy. So

00:05:18.480 we talked about that in the Queen Min episode a bit. So again, what that means on a practical

00:05:23.620 day-to-day level was there were very, very strict social hierarchies. Everybody had a place and

00:05:29.380 there's kind of striations of society. A lot of things were really binary, like you either this

00:05:34.520 or this. And in the binary, one thing was often kind of better than the other thing. So in this

00:05:41.440 sense, what was better was the Manchu were treated better. So they were the only ones to acquire top 1.00

00:05:46.620 jobs, asterisks. I'll talk about that in a bit. So the Manchu regarded themselves as Chinese and

00:05:52.540 referred to their empire as the Chinese empire or China, as well as the Qing. So the whole apparatus

00:05:59.500 was ruled over by an emperor who had basically a supreme power. Like there wasn't also a prime

00:06:05.640 minister or whatever. It wasn't a ceremonial role. It was like a very active political role.

00:06:10.440 And they had advisors who were the grand council. And the seat of the throne was in my favorite

00:06:16.340 named place, the Forbidden City, which was at the time the largest imperial palace complex

00:06:22.360 in the world. So the person we're talking about, this is like, how often has this come up this

00:06:28.560 season? What name do we call them? So I was interrogating this in myself. And to me,

00:06:34.420 names are really important. I like to know people's names. I like to know what name they

00:06:41.280 went by, what name they called themselves. Like that is important to me. It's a way to really

00:06:47.140 hone in on to me, like the humanity of the person, really seeing the person as a person.

00:06:52.100 Like on this podcast, I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to call people by their first names and

00:06:55.360 not by their titles or by their last names. That is my taste, but also I'm somebody who grew up

00:07:01.640 in Canada in a culture where names do have an importance. But like with the Queen Min episode,

00:07:09.660 like Harem Sultan, like Sayyid al-Hura, like we don't actually know the name that Sushi was given

00:07:18.180 at birth. And that's because this was a culture where knowing the names of women was not that

00:07:22.720 important. So Sushi later on, and that's named by what she's best known. So I'm going to call her 0.99

00:07:28.560 that throughout, even though that was not a name that she had in the first place. We don't actually

00:07:32.720 know what her name was before then, but we do know that it was under the name Sushi that she

00:07:37.640 did a lot of really impressive things that we'll get into probably in part two. This is just very

00:07:43.060 much just like setting the scene this week. So Sushi was born the 10th day of the 10th lunar

00:07:49.680 month in 1835, aka November 29th. So in terms of people we've talked about on this podcast,

00:07:56.300 that's about 10 years after Lola Montes was born in Ireland, two years before Empress Sisi was born

00:08:02.860 in Bavaria. So living at the same time as other people we've talked about on this podcast.

00:08:10.720 So she was from one of the oldest and most illustrious Manchu families. So again,

00:08:14.640 the Manchu had been in charge of things for about 200 years by then. So her family had 0.99

00:08:22.100 been government employees for generations and they were well off. So she was raised

00:08:25.840 comfortably. And because she was from a Manchu family, like other Manchu families, 0.99

00:08:33.020 she and her sister, I think she had one sister, like all Manchu girls and women,

00:08:38.420 they did not have to do the foot binding. So foot binding is a thing. I forget when I learned 0.88

00:08:44.260 about it, but it's one of those historical things that just really stuck with me. So this was a

00:08:47.840 traditional Han practice, like the indigenous people of China did this, where as a young girl,

00:08:52.840 um their feet were effectively crushed and bound like wrapped up so they wouldn't grow and so

00:08:58.680 girls and women had these really tiny like just broken just like really tiny little feet if you

00:09:07.080 ever get to uh toronto in canada there's my one of my favorite museums i mean i've not been to

00:09:12.480 museums much outside of canada but one of my favorite canadian museums is the badass shoe

00:09:18.100 Museum in Toronto, where they have all kinds of historical shoes, which is really interesting to

00:09:23.380 see and to imagine what people are like, but they do have shoes on display there from the period

00:09:28.580 where the Han women and girls in China did foot bindings and you see how small they are. And it's 0.86

00:09:35.380 just like pretty horrifying and awful. Sushi was not culturally expected to do that. So, I mean,

00:09:42.220 luckily for her, I guess. So because of the Confucian society situation, 0.99

00:09:48.340 there was a very strict gender binary, men and women were kept apart. And I think,

00:09:54.600 I don't know how atypical this is for her, but it was pretty unusual based on when she starts 0.65

00:10:00.600 hanging around other Manchu young girls that so she was as educated as she was. So she learned

00:10:06.640 to read and write a little. In Chinese, she learned to draw, to play chess, to embroider,

00:10:11.560 and to make dresses. Later in her life, people mentioned how skilled she actually was at sewing

00:10:15.980 and making dresses, like cutting patterns and things. So her knowledge of written Chinese was

00:10:21.320 basic. That comes up later. So I just wanted to mention it here. So it's not that she wasn't

00:10:27.820 skilled and intelligent and curious and wanted to learn. It's just that at this time,

00:10:33.680 written texts were completely divorced from the spoken form of the Chinese language. So you

00:10:38.360 couldn't write down what you spoke or thought. Like it was very complicated to learn how to read

00:10:43.120 and write in Chinese. Like it took something like a decade of really intensive studying. And you had

00:10:49.900 to do that. You had to study these Confucian books, which like this is the 1800s, like books

00:10:54.460 weren't as common then as they are now. So it's hard to get your hands, especially these rare

00:10:58.400 Confucian texts. So something at this time, less than 1% of the population was able to read or

00:11:03.740 write the bare minimum. So she was not in that 1%. Like she could read and write a bit. So as a

00:11:10.980 child, she was a young girl when the first opium war broke out. And I just want to give a heads

00:11:18.860 up to people who know a lot about Chinese history. Like this is a very sushi based discussion. We're

00:11:25.100 really looking at like, who is, what was she dealing with specifically as a person? I don't,

00:11:29.200 and there's so much to talk about. I can't get into all the details of all the wars that were

00:11:32.440 happening. But effectively, the opium war was started by Britain in reaction to Beijing clamping

00:11:39.460 down on the illegal opium trade conducted by British merchants. And this was something like,

00:11:44.400 this is not in my notes. This is just me remembering what Lana told me.

00:11:48.440 But it was something like, Britain really liked tea. Remember we talked about in the Hortense

00:11:53.120 Mancini episode how tea made its way to Britain through, I think it was Catherine of Braganza,

00:11:58.560 who's the Portuguese princess and tea made its way to Portugal because Portugal had invaded India.

00:12:03.960 So like tea was a thing in like India, China, like that region of the world and then got to

00:12:08.600 Britain and they're like, oh my God, I love this. Tea is great. And so they wanted tea from China,

00:12:12.600 but China was like, okay, but like, there's nothing we want from you. Like we're good.

00:12:16.960 So there was nothing that China needed. And that was why Britain started getting people in China 0.99

00:12:23.580 addicted to opium so that they would need opium from them. And that's the opium war. 0.65

00:12:29.460 So China was defeated in this, the first opium war, and that sent them into sort of a financial

00:12:35.360 or economic crisis. So the emperor at that time enforced strict budgetary measures on everyone.

00:12:42.640 So that included canceling, you know, celebrations, you know, like New Year's parties and things,

00:12:47.460 and demanded that people repay funds that the emperor claimed their ancestors had owed.

00:12:53.960 So given that Sushi's family had been government employees for like 200 years,

00:12:57.680 the emperor claimed that they owed some money.

00:12:59.740 Maybe they did. I'm not sure.

00:13:00.800 So her grandfather was put in jail until they paid this like huge fee.

00:13:05.600 So aged 11, Sushi jumped in to help out her family.

00:13:10.200 So she took, she was good at sewing.

00:13:11.660 Or this is maybe where she became really good at sewing. 0.98

00:13:13.740 She took in sewing jobs to earn extra money for her family.

00:13:17.460 And she was really astute and really clever and thoughtful.

00:13:21.780 Her father consulted with her about ways that they could raise more money to pay off this ancestral debt

00:13:27.960 because he saw that she was like really, she got it.

00:13:31.280 She was really smart and had good instincts for this sort of thing.

00:13:35.340 She proposed various helpful suggestions and with her help, they raised 60% of the required debt

00:13:40.760 or some which was enough to get their grandfather out of Deirdre's prison.

00:13:44.660 Her father was so impressed with her, like, and how she really stepped up in the situation.

00:13:49.940 He apparently said something like, this daughter of mine is really more like a son, which is like

00:13:54.560 the Artemisia of Caria again, where it's just like, oh my God, like the women are as good as men.

00:13:59.520 Like that's, you know what, if that's the ultimate compliment you have to give,

00:14:03.160 that speaks about what society is like, but it speaks to what Sushi was like, because this wasn't

00:14:09.360 a society where girls and women were thought to be as good as sons. So the fact that her father

00:14:15.600 said that, you know, it's not my favorite compliment I've ever heard, but it speaks

00:14:20.720 well of her. And also it speaks of how her father saw, like smartly saw how much of an asset she

00:14:28.020 was and how intelligent she was. So like out of this, like he trusted her to talk about business

00:14:33.240 matters in a way that other girls and women weren't turned to for advice at this time,

00:14:37.340 because he was open-minded enough to realize that she was really helpful.

00:14:40.860 Like, he had a son, at least one son,

00:14:42.700 but he saw that, like, sushi was, like, the brains of this operation.

00:14:46.520 So when she was around 15 years old,

00:14:48.680 the emperor died and was succeeded by his son, Zhang Feng,

00:14:52.880 who was around her age.

00:14:56.860 And so he had an empress, but his, or a wife, Zhang Feng had a wife,

00:15:01.580 but she died just before he became the emperor.

00:15:03.960 So he needed a new wife.

00:15:05.380 And so Chinese emperors were permitted to have one empress and as many concubines as they wanted. 0.85

00:15:11.620 So like, again, in a Queen Min situation and a harem Sultan situation, like we're going to have like a harem of concubines going on here.

00:15:20.580 And how he chose a new empress and his concubines was in a really sort of like, really like a Cinderella situation crossed with the bachelor, crossed with like American Idol.

00:15:33.900 a nation crossed with that book, The Selection by Kira Cass, if you've read those. So a nationwide

00:15:39.980 selection was held. So all the eligible Manchu girls were presented to the emperor, like in 0.59

00:15:45.360 person, like they came and like stood in front of him and he was like, okay, who's this? So he could

00:15:51.140 decide who he liked, who he liked the looks of. So again, Jean Feng, the emperor was about four

00:15:56.500 years older than Sushi. So she was like 15, 16. He's like 19, 20. Jean Feng had been in poor

00:16:02.340 health all of his life. He had a limp, a permanent limp that after he had an accident falling off a

00:16:07.960 horse. So people refer to the emperor as the dragon, like that was just whoever the emperor

00:16:12.420 was, but they called him the limping dragon because he had this limp and he was just kind

00:16:16.640 of like not in great health. So the selection wasn't, it wasn't a beauty pageant. Like what

00:16:24.000 with Harem Sultan also, it's not just like, oh, who is the prettiest person? No, it's like you

00:16:28.840 wanted personal characteristics that would be good for an empress. So they were looking for 0.85

00:16:34.620 somebody with character. So dignity, courteousness, graciousness, gentleness, and modesty. Looks were

00:16:41.460 secondary, though they had to be pleasing. And in terms of the empress, their main job as empress 0.99

00:16:47.440 was going to be managing the household, managing the concubines. So you wanted somebody with good 0.98

00:16:51.980 managerial skills, some with good people skills. You didn't want it to devolve into a place like

00:16:57.740 on the bachelor where the women are all fighting with each other and they're all catty. Like you 1.00

00:17:00.740 want somebody who just could bring them together and make it work harmoniously. So there was

00:17:07.220 hundreds of candidates. Um, one of them was of course, so she, and one of them was also a girl

00:17:13.120 two years younger than her, whose name was Zen of the Niohuru clan. And she's going to become

00:17:20.740 important later. And I don't know if they met each other at this point, if they became friends

00:17:26.460 at this point but like she's important so both girls were selected so he didn't choose an empress

00:17:31.920 yet he kind of chose everybody as concubines and then from them he was going to later choose which 0.91

00:17:36.820 one would be the empress so there were eight ranks of concubines like you know rank one is like the

00:17:42.720 best one and then rank eight is like the lowest one so that just depends on how many um i don't

00:17:47.200 know how many servants you get how many the manchu women they had um milk and dairy products so it's

00:17:53.360 like, how many cows do you have access to? So Zhen was put in the fifth rank and Sushi was in

00:18:00.040 the sixth rank. So not like super high up. And so I guess all the country minds were there and

00:18:05.040 the emperor or his people, not him, because men can go there, but people reported back to him

00:18:11.400 what was going on and who was like, what? And after four months, Zhen was selected to be his

00:18:16.480 wife, the empress. And so later on, like with Sushi, so Zhen is renamed Sa'an, and we're just

00:18:23.460 going to start calling her that now, just for a continuity of names, because there's a lot of

00:18:28.100 names we're going to be going through. But please know that Sa'an is super important. And she was

00:18:35.420 chosen as empress because, frankly, she was the coolest and best one there. Sushi, the smartest,

00:18:41.180 Sa'an, the coolest.

00:18:43.500 So she was allegedly not super glamorous.

00:18:47.020 She was plain. 0.99

00:18:48.560 And she had some sort of, I don't know if it's her posture or something about her physique 0.97

00:18:52.080 made people nickname her. 0.87

00:18:54.040 So the empress, the same way the emperor is like the dragon, the empress is the phoenix.

00:18:57.760 And so he's the limping dragon and people called her the fragile phoenix.

00:19:02.020 So maybe she, you know, she didn't look super, I don't know, strong or whatever.

00:19:08.680 But whatever, who cares? 0.57

00:19:10.100 She was Miss Congeniality of the situation. 1.00

00:19:13.140 She got along well with all of the other concubines and she was able to manage them and the servants. 1.00

00:19:19.480 And again, like her whole role was to manage people.

00:19:23.460 And that is like me as a person who has had jobs in the past where I supervise people, like that's so challenging.

00:19:30.280 Not everybody is good at that.

00:19:32.220 So the fact that she was speaks very highly of her and like she was her whole life, like they chose well under her.

00:19:38.040 the harem was free of backstabbing and rivalries so like if you can imagine somebody coming into

00:19:43.480 like literally like the bachelor like the way that the women in that well i mean the producers 0.90

00:19:48.860 there are doing the opposite of what saan was doing they're stoking the rivalries and stuff 0.97

00:19:54.100 but just imagining all these women they just got along fine like they got along fine the her whole

00:19:58.680 tenure like she has got the superpower and she and sushi were friends within the harem um but

00:20:05.940 So she was struggling because, you know, since she was 11, she had been used to offering helpful advice and being listened to by her father.

00:20:15.000 She had these skills.

00:20:16.640 Her skills were like, I'm going to say scheminess. 0.99

00:20:21.440 Not in like, it will be schemey later.

00:20:25.120 But just like she came up with a plan.

00:20:26.580 She was smart.

00:20:27.140 She could look at a problem and solve it.

00:20:29.100 And she used to people respecting her for that. 1.00

00:20:30.680 But the emperor and this whole imperial harem was not looking for girls who did that.

00:20:37.560 So there was various political upheavals, which I won't get into, but there was some

00:20:43.300 real dramatic stuff happening in China and those other podcasts I mentioned, I'm sure.

00:20:48.800 We'll talk about that stuff. There's like, there's a cult being run by a guy who claims to be Jesus's

00:20:55.060 younger brother, tried to take over the country. Things are happening. But again, we're just

00:20:59.700 looking at sushi and what she was doing is she like like with harem like she's she's in this 1.00

00:21:05.100 imperial palace with the other concubines she can't go anywhere she's like the political stuff 0.86

00:21:09.120 is happening but like that's not what her life is revolving around so um she tried to advise 0.77

00:21:15.600 jean fang about how like maybe how he could act in these political situations and this annoyed

00:21:21.260 him because concerts weren't supposed to have anything to do with politics let alone talk to 0.96

00:21:25.560 him like their job was to when they were chosen by him like to go to like have sex with him to

00:21:31.780 maybe have children but like they weren't supposed to like talk about stuff so he complained to his

00:21:38.340 wife saan about sushi and was like you know sushi like she get her back in line like you're the

00:21:45.560 manager of her like could you please tell her to stop giving me advice and in fact like for speaking 1.00

00:21:50.780 out of turn like so she could have faced deadly punishment for having done this like she could

00:21:54.620 have been executed for doing this, but she and Sa'an were friends. Sa'an like saw everybody's

00:22:01.300 potential and what they were good at. And she didn't want to like, she's just such a good

00:22:05.840 manager. I feel like I just really respect the way that she was able to, to help out here.

00:22:12.960 She had her girls back. Like Jean Feng, the emperor was concerned enough about sushi and

00:22:19.440 how smart she like clearly was. He was worried that she would meddle in politics after he died.

00:22:24.000 And so he wrote like an official document saying that after he died, Sa'an should have Sushi put to death.

00:22:31.360 Later on, he is going to die, at which point Sa'an shows this paper to Sushi and they burn it because she's got her girl's back.

00:22:41.580 And so because of this, Sa'an saved Sushi, like she saved her from being executed, but also kind of like smooth things over with the emperor.

00:22:50.820 And because of this, Sushi was always loyal to Sian.

00:22:54.140 They were like devoted besties.

00:22:57.400 So like later, just because of what Sushi gets up to, there's lots of people writing

00:23:02.280 lots of stuff about her, making up stories or just exaggerating things she did, trying

00:23:05.980 to make her sound like this kind of cruel person who's mean to people all the time.

00:23:11.420 But even her worst enemies never even suggested that she was anything less than devoted to

00:23:16.080 Sian.

00:23:17.200 They were best friends.

00:23:19.240 Even though Sian was a bit younger, she referred to Sushi as younger sister, like that was her nickname for her, because it just shows their closeness. They were like, ultra best friends. And who knows, maybe Sian was able to put in a good word for her girl, because Sushi got promoted from level six concubine to level five.

00:23:39.240 five. And five years after joining the Imperial Harem, Sushi gave birth to the Emperor's son,

00:23:46.220 which was his first son and her whole life changed. The son was named Zaishun and Sushi

00:23:54.900 then got elevated again. So now she was like the number two consort. Like the only person

00:23:59.860 ahead of her was Sa'an. And in fact, now that she had a bit more power, she had more influence,

00:24:05.600 but also she was able to ask for a favor because, like, being the woman who, or girl, the teen mom

00:24:11.840 who gave birth to the emperor's son gave her some political sway at this point. So she

00:24:18.120 convinced the emperor. So remember, she had a sister. So the emperor agreed that Sushi's younger

00:24:24.700 sister could marry one of the emperor's younger half-brothers, Prince Chun. He becomes important

00:24:29.600 later on. So let's throw that info away. Prince Chun married to Sushi's sister. So yeah. So

00:24:35.940 because of this whole like imperial harem situation, Sushi had like given birth to

00:24:40.880 Zaishun, the little baby emperor's son. But because Sa'an was the wife of the emperor,

00:24:48.540 she was officially the mother of the baby. So what this meant in practice was basically

00:24:54.040 had two cool moms who were also best friends. And the same year that he was born, the second

00:25:00.840 opium war broke out. So this time it was China versus England and France. The war went on for

00:25:07.740 years and years. And when the baby was four, French forces occupied Beijing and they burned

00:25:13.980 the old summer palace, which was, I don't think it was part of the forbidden city. It was like a bit

00:25:18.740 further away, but it was like a beautiful place. So she had visited there at least once. And she

00:25:23.300 had been so impressed with how beautiful it was. So when it burned, like later on, when she gets

00:25:27.560 the ability to, she really, um, it was important to her to rebuild it anyway. So all this was

00:25:33.940 happening. And so, so she, so Anne, baby Zai-shin and the emperor all fled the city to go hide out

00:25:40.820 somewhere where it was safer. And so important introduction of another character in the story,

00:25:46.580 who's going to become very important. Well, they were all hiding outside of Beijing,

00:25:50.620 like which had been occupied by the french the emperor's other younger half-brother prince gong

00:25:56.080 so prince chen was his younger half-brother who married sushi's sister prince gong is a different

00:26:02.060 guy prince gong so when the emperor dies this is going to become important later on so much

00:26:09.720 foreshadowing so the way it's not just like the oldest son of the emperor becomes the new emperor

00:26:14.500 it's the emperor gets to choose which of his sons he's going to choose and he like writes down the

00:26:20.120 name with a special pen and puts it in a piece of paper and a special box and this whole thing.

00:26:24.420 And so Zai Shun had been chosen to be the new emperor by his father. One of the reasons why

00:26:30.100 his half-brother Prince Gong was not chosen was because Gong was, frankly, I'm going to say too

00:26:36.580 cool. So he did not have as much of an intense hatred of Westerners as Zai Shun and some other

00:26:42.480 people did. And their dad really wanted the new emperor to be somebody who was very anti-Westernization.

00:26:48.320 Gong was also good at diplomacy. He was sometimes willing to compromise with other people. So

00:26:56.580 anyway, for those reasons, he was not chosen to be the next emperor. And I don't think he ever

00:27:00.680 wanted to be. He wasn't mad about it. He liked, I don't know, I like in the story how people are

00:27:05.420 just being put in a role that suits their skill set. So Prince Gong was kind of working as a

00:27:11.260 diplomat on behalf of his brother. He was also, just so you know, very hot. He has a really

00:27:18.920 smoldering sort of look. And I will share a picture of him on Instagram, for sure. Instagram,

00:27:23.860 vulgarhistorypot. But anyway, so because of these qualities, this is why Zashin kind of left him

00:27:29.760 there in Beijing. And he was able to sort things out with the French who had like just invaded 0.99

00:27:32.960 Beijing, but he was so hot and so good with diplomacy. The French were like, okay, we'll 0.54

00:27:38.140 settle the score. Anyway, so yeah, just put that in your pocket that the emperor has this younger 0.90

00:27:44.200 brother who is both hot, but also like politically astute and kind of cool. So anyway, so like all

00:27:49.840 this stuff had happened. The summer palace was burned, Beijing was invaded, and emperor Zai

00:27:54.500 Xin had been sick his whole life, and this just like kind of exacerbated everything by adding on

00:28:00.220 some depression. He turned to alcohol and drugs in his depression, and maybe like, I don't know,

00:28:07.600 pain or whatever he was going through. So he's becoming not especially effective as emperor.

00:28:12.960 And so she was like, oh, how about a little bit? So as he was just kind of like not doing great.

00:28:19.080 Healthwise, so she stepped up to help with governing related business because unlike 0.96

00:28:23.240 many of the other Manchu women in the imperial household, she knew how to read and write in 0.94

00:28:27.860 Chinese. Like even though it wasn't a perfect capability, it was more than a lot of other

00:28:32.740 people had. So on various occasions, Jean Feng had Sushi read palace memorials for him and leave

00:28:38.360 instructions on the memorials according to his will. As a result of this, she became more or

00:28:43.800 better informed about state affairs and the art of governing from her husband. And he was like dying

00:28:50.520 and he knew he was dying. So he summoned eight of his most prestigious ministers and named them the

00:28:55.980 eight regent ministers and said that their job was going to be to direct and support the future 0.96

00:29:00.380 emperor, Baby's Aishin. And then Zhang Feng died from what Wikipedia calls a short life of

00:29:08.620 overindulgence. So I would say just a lot of illnesses all got together. Alcohol and drugs

00:29:15.260 didn't help. And he died. And so Sushi was like, these eight guys, I don't think they're the best

00:29:23.820 choice to take over. And in fact, Sushi was like, I am going to take over me and my bestie Saan

00:29:29.820 and they did and here's how they did that so i do want to emphasize that the guys

00:29:36.320 eight regents they're very much they remind me of there's been so many groups of men who are so

00:29:45.280 bad at being in charge of stuff there was the demoras with ronnie didda there was like every

00:29:52.100 man who was around fredigand ever the guys who were just like and jinga are we sure we want her 0.72

00:29:57.200 in charge just like they're they're the same like these just these useless guys but also 0.56

00:30:03.000 whatever today for all of human history there's been groups of useless guys who are bad at leading

00:30:09.360 who are put in charge of stuff and sushi and saan really saw that like okay like this now is not the 0.70

00:30:16.380 time for these useless guys to be in charge of specifically like china because there's all these 0.69

00:30:22.440 like we've been through two opium wars there was this whole thing i didn't really talk about with 1.00

00:30:25.860 the like Christian cult who tried to take over the country. Like they're just like, no, like this is 0.99

00:30:31.040 our baby son because they're best friends who are both moms of the baby son. Yes. Hello. Um,

00:30:37.520 they just wanted, they were loyal to their country. They want to make a good country for

00:30:41.880 their son to be the new emperor. And they knew that these guys were not going to do that. The

00:30:47.680 only people who could do that was them. So I also enjoy them as a duo. I've been trying and trying

00:30:53.400 to think of a better example than this but my own pop cultural understanding can only draw a

00:31:00.120 comparison to the extraordinarily problematic book and movie gone with the wind scarlet o'hara

00:31:08.100 and melanie i don't know if you know the story and if you don't good it's like a really racist 1.00

00:31:13.920 story but um the characters uh so scarlet is like this badass bitch very tits out vibes 1.00

00:31:19.580 and she's full of ideas and she's got a lot of um character and personality but not a lot of soft 1.00

00:31:26.240 skills she's not good in groups of people because she's so stubborn and herself um melanie is like 1.00

00:31:32.500 all soft skills so at first you're like so at first scarlet like hates melanie well because 0.96

00:31:36.340 melanie likes the guy who scarlet likes anyway but there's a scene where melanie really proves

00:31:40.160 herself that she's actually so strong but it's just in a quiet way and the two of them is like

00:31:46.600 a double act they become good friends and that's how i see sushi and saan where they have such a

00:31:52.540 different energy like sushi is just like she's got a jane gray almost level of just like i am so much

00:31:57.560 smarter than everybody and that makes people mad but saan is the one who's like oh this is nice

00:32:03.160 everything's okay and she can like smooth things over so they're like the ideal partnership the

00:32:07.860 best best friends like i love them i love their friendship and i love that they're taking their

00:32:13.720 friendship to the next level in the sense of a coup so and so she had this all figured out and

00:32:20.340 the thing about the eight guys who were in charge is they had well so she knew all their weaknesses

00:32:25.960 because she's just like smart and can figure that out but a main weakness of theirs was that they

00:32:30.120 underestimate her and people learn to not do that but at this point people don't know about that yet

00:32:35.800 so so one of the things that they they do and it's sort of similar to the thing in the jane

00:32:42.600 Grey story where like she actively put a crown on her head and that was treason because like the

00:32:47.120 crown has all the significance. Or in the Queen Min story where her arch nemesis Daewangun took 0.87

00:32:53.240 this special seal and because he had the special seal that meant his son could be the emperor

00:32:57.160 because the seal had all this power to it in a similar sort of like an object has importance way.

00:33:03.420 So Zhang Feng, the emperor who had just died. Well, the thing that emperors had to write their

00:33:08.200 own will in their own hand because remember they have to write down here's who my heir is going to

00:33:11.800 be and they were in the special paper and put in the special box but he was too sick when he was

00:33:16.160 dying to do that so one of the eight men wrote it for him but they're like we just did this because

00:33:20.940 he couldn't like this is very much it is in his own hand in a sense if he told us what to write

00:33:26.060 this is a loophole just bear that in mind so yeah um anyway these guys were the worst

00:33:31.640 and they'd made some bad calls during the opium war during the whole thing with the like cult

00:33:37.220 trying to take over so she knew they were bad and she knew that things were getting really

00:33:41.380 intense in china because this was the same time period ish as when we're talking about with queen 0.59

00:33:46.460 min where it's just like russia the u.s like all these countries are just like really trying to

00:33:51.900 stake a claim in this part of the world she knew it was just going to be a real struggle and there

00:33:56.640 had to be a strong leadership e.g herself so she had no political power because she was a woman 0.99

00:34:02.940 like even as the mother of the new emperor she didn't get a title because technically she even 0.99

00:34:08.560 though she gave birth, she was not like, Sa'an was officially the mother, right? So Sa'an got

00:34:13.160 the title of Dowager Empress. And unless she could get that title also, she was officially like just

00:34:19.880 a concubine, like concubine number two. So she got to researching. I love her research montage.

00:34:26.400 They went through all the old books and documents and they found like 200 years ago, a similar thing

00:34:30.880 had happened where like the new emperor was the son of a concubine, but the mother is still around,

00:34:35.800 like the Empress is still around too. And in that instance, both women got to be called Dowager

00:34:40.400 Empress. So, you know, in that sort of how lawyers do, they're like, well, there was this precedent

00:34:44.440 was already set. So Sa'an brought this to the council and she's like, can Sushi be Dowager

00:34:49.680 Empress also? Please, we're totally not trying to do a coup. And they were like, sure. Okay.

00:34:54.280 And it was at this point that they took on their names that I've been calling them this whole time,

00:34:57.560 Sa'an and Sushi. And that was so they could be distinguished, like told apart from each other,

00:35:02.500 because they were both the dowager empress um so an means kindly and serene and so she means

00:35:09.260 kindly and joyous and i do want to mention there are some photos of sushi from later in her life

00:35:14.540 and she always looks very serious in all the photos there's one photo in the book um that

00:35:19.540 i think it was in the book the biography read by jung chang that shows her smiling and apparently

00:35:23.740 she was very like she liked to have a good time she was smiling and laughing but she just wanted

00:35:27.820 to look very serious in photos so even though you're like really like her name means kindly

00:35:32.500 and joyous it's like yeah people can be multiple things you can be kindly and joyous and you can

00:35:36.740 also be a badass person doing a coup and now we're just going to take a break for a word from our

00:35:42.000 sponsors the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies

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00:38:53.200 and we're back so also bear in mind like at this point so she was like 25 and 24 they're like young 0.99

00:39:03.080 women and they were going to attempt a coup which if unsuccessful meant that they would be not only

00:39:08.520 put to death but they would be put to death in this thing that was done in the Qing dynasty

00:39:13.240 called death by a thousand cuts where a person is just like um they end up sort of looking like

00:39:18.900 they have fish scales because there's so many cuts all over their body and they slowly die

00:39:22.620 and it's awful. But they knew that they had to do this because they wanted to save the kingdom for

00:39:27.480 their son. And because they didn't want to live the rest of their lives as imperial widows just

00:39:31.720 trapped in the harem, like not having any power control. So they plotted together and I love this

00:39:37.500 detail. So there was like a water tank. I'm not sure if it's like a fountain or something. So

00:39:42.020 they pretended to just be like admiring their own reflections or just like doing girl talk. And 0.79

00:39:46.760 all the men didn't know to be worried about this and they were like oh look at them they're just

00:39:51.220 like looking at the reflections those like harmless women totally not planning a coup

00:39:55.600 but i guess the men wouldn't see them because men and women were separate anyway this was the plan 0.99

00:40:01.300 like sushi was the brains of the operation um so ann was the one who could like talk to people

00:40:07.020 like they both had the roles but sushi was of course planning this so part another part of

00:40:13.040 plan was. So their new emperor was their joint six-year-old son, who couldn't write yet because

00:40:19.380 he was six. And as I explained, it takes like 10 years for an adult to learn how to

00:40:25.400 write Chinese language. The emperor was supposed to write all the decrees in their own hand,

00:40:31.440 but he was a baby emperor and he couldn't write. So Sushi was like, well, the previous emperor,

00:40:36.600 my husband, Jean Feng, had given a special seal to me and one to Sa'an. And they were supposed

00:40:43.680 to be stamps that the two of them could use to put on decrees to make them official.

00:40:47.720 Now, we don't know what's true or what's not. But like, just bear in mind that a lot of people

00:40:52.560 gave stamps as gifts, as just like cute artistic things. The emperor probably had given,

00:40:58.840 among other things, like a seal to Sushi and to Sa'an, but he had never meant for them to be in

00:41:03.120 church but so she was like well we both have these royal seals like that is proof that our dead

00:41:07.780 husband wanted us to be the ones with magic seals and i guess that means that we should have some

00:41:14.460 role as regents and the men were like okay because they like again just like could not

00:41:19.400 begin to imagine that these women were doing anything sneaky so this is all phase one phase

00:41:25.020 two involves hot prince gong so he was the hot one who's good at diplomacy and stuff not the one

00:41:31.280 married to Sushi's sister. So he was held in high esteem as the foremost nobleman in the land.

00:41:36.580 Lots of people thought he should have been made regent, but he was like, I'm cool. Don't worry

00:41:40.080 about it because he's also cool. So she liked his way. So remember his thing was he did not

00:41:47.580 hate the Western nations as much as some other people did. And so she saw that one of the like

00:41:52.680 failures of the eight guys was they were never willing to compromise with like Western nations.

00:41:59.180 And she was just like, I think we're going to have to do that.

00:42:01.600 So she's like, Gong, he's on that page.

00:42:03.580 Like, let's get him on our team.

00:42:05.700 So, yeah.

00:42:07.660 And also, he's just like a really upfront, ethical, trustworthy guy.

00:42:10.860 And she's like, we need someone like that on our team for the coup because nobody will

00:42:14.300 expect it from him.

00:42:15.020 But also, if he's on their side, they'll all like be OK with it if there's like a powerful

00:42:18.700 man who supports them.

00:42:20.620 This is all happening really quickly.

00:42:21.740 So bear in mind, Sushi, Sa'en, their baby emperor son, they're all still out of town

00:42:26.840 because France had invaded Beijing, but that had all been sorted out. 0.89

00:42:31.820 Hot Prince Gong was still in Beijing.

00:42:34.220 And so they had to be like, how can we communicate to him?

00:42:36.940 Especially given the fact that their dead husband had left a decree saying,

00:42:40.400 like, Prince Gong has to stay in Beijing.

00:42:42.040 Please don't let him come here.

00:42:43.280 So they're like, how can we have him come here?

00:42:46.600 So she, the women, they convinced the regents to allow Gong to come for a visit.

00:42:53.140 Even though the emperor had said, please don't do this because they were persuasive. 0.81

00:42:56.840 and so gong showed up and while he was there sushi and saan summoned him to come and talk to them

00:43:02.680 and they had to like use a eunuch to send the message because like they couldn't talk to him

00:43:06.300 directly to invite him we're going to talk next time more about the role of eunuchs in this

00:43:11.340 situation but please know that those are the male servants who are around at this time and

00:43:18.700 sushi was friends with lots of them so they were on her side or at least this guy was

00:43:24.060 so he was summoned and he came to talk to them and then they talked for like two hours i think

00:43:29.740 the two women were behind a screen a lot of stuff happens in the story where they're behind a screen

00:43:34.320 because like men and women can talk to each other or like women couldn't be in charge of stuff but 0.69

00:43:38.440 anyway after two hours so they didn't like come right out of the gate be like we're doing a coup

00:43:43.220 join us but they were like it would be nice if like the two of us could have a bit more

00:43:48.780 responsibility in decision making if you could like suggest that thanks and he was like okay

00:43:54.720 so next phase three was so she schemed a way to make the regions look so awful

00:44:01.260 that hot prince gong would have no choice but to turn against them and so okay so there's a rule

00:44:08.540 where like you can't shout and behave disrespectfully in front of the emperor so they

00:44:14.800 tricked Sushi and Sa'an tricked them into doing that. So she summoned the regents into a room

00:44:19.540 with them. They were there with the baby emperor. I'm calling him the baby emperor, but he's like

00:44:23.200 six, whatever. Anyway, and then she got into an argument with him. The men started yelling. It

00:44:28.980 all got really heightened and emotional. And the baby emperor was so distressed by the yelling that

00:44:33.060 he cried and wet his pants. So she had really set up the regents to just act disrespectfully in

00:44:40.900 front of the baby emperor and to frighten him. So she was like, all right. Like after they yelled,

00:44:46.040 she's like, okay, we'll go. Don't worry about it. But like they had this evidence now and there's

00:44:50.860 like other people in the room too who saw it. She wrote to her brother-in-law. So the other prince,

00:44:55.920 Prince Chun, the one who married her sister, asking him to dismiss the regents for this

00:45:00.480 offensive behavior. And he was like, oh my God, like they like scared the emperor and made him

00:45:05.420 pee his pants like of course i'll fire them so he wrote a letter oh i love this detail i love this

00:45:11.360 detail so he wrote a letter and then he had it sent to saan who sewed the letter inside of her

00:45:18.340 robe so nobody could see it yes like chef's kiss so she had this letter but she was just waiting

00:45:26.860 for the right time to like deploy it until then it was hidden inside of saan's robe sewn inside

00:45:32.140 i love when sewing skills like help with your coup planning so she had this letter and so then

00:45:38.440 so she went to gong again to be like the regions suck prince chun supports maybe dismissing them

00:45:44.680 and gong was like all right i'm in again everybody is now like not in beijing everybody is out of

00:45:53.040 town well gong had returned to beijing but everybody else is out of town and so so she

00:45:57.860 made a plan where she was going to travel a different, faster route to get to Beijing. So

00:46:02.200 she got there before the eight regents did. So when she got there, she presented Gong with the

00:46:08.280 letter from inside the robe. The letter was stamped with the two royal stamps, Sushi's stamp

00:46:13.580 and Sa'an's stamp. And Gong was like, well, this couldn't be more official. I am on board

00:46:18.280 with your coup. So then in a public speech, Sushi and Sa'an tearfully revealed how the Asians had 0.99

00:46:25.280 bullied the child emperor. And everyone was like, oh my God, that's terrible. I mean,

00:46:29.000 asterisks, please know that the eight guys sucked. It wasn't like they're trying to overthrow eight 0.88

00:46:33.180 guys who everybody was fond of. Like everyone knew they were awful. Anyway, so they gave this

00:46:38.580 speech in Beijing and then the regents arrived. Remember they had gone like a longer route

00:46:42.800 and everyone was like, arrest them. And the regents were like, you can't arrest us.

00:46:46.280 We're the ones who write the rules to say who arrests who, but then Prince Gong put up the

00:46:51.020 letter from the rope. And he was like, but this one has the two magic seals on it. So fuck you,

00:46:56.220 I guess. And the regents were arrested. And because especially this one guy, I think his 1.00

00:47:02.520 name is Sushin, was just like, especially shitty. People hated them. And so he was executed, 0.96

00:47:10.720 Sushin, because he was just like a nasty guy. He was just mean to everybody. And they're like, 0.95

00:47:15.280 execute him. Two more, like they're all arrested. The other two of the others were 0.96

00:47:19.820 put in a room by themselves. And then they were given a, um, like a silk scarf was like

00:47:25.340 passed along to them. And that was sort of like code for being like, use this to kill yourself 0.96

00:47:30.280 to avoid execution. And so they did. Um, and then the others were all dismissed and I guess 0.93

00:47:35.320 sent in exile or whatever. So thus two months after the emperor's death, 25 year old Sushi,

00:47:43.280 24-year-old Sa'an had completed their coup with only three people dying. It was extremely

00:47:51.200 impressive. The British envoy in Beijing wrote at the time, quote, it is certainly singular that

00:47:57.000 men long in power should not have fallen without a shot of resistance and without a voice or hand

00:48:01.660 raised in their defense. And this is because the eight guys just really sucked. And because 0.98

00:48:06.020 Sushi and Sa'an had gotten the allies that they needed on their side, like Chun was on their side,

00:48:10.800 hot prince gong was on their side like they had this they had the seals like it was their son was

00:48:16.760 the emperor like they had done this so beautifully and so almost entirely bloodlessly and remember

00:48:22.600 they this could have not gone well they could have themselves have been executed but instead

00:48:27.140 they executed this plan perfectly yeah so word got out that so she had been the mastermind behind

00:48:32.640 this whole scheme and she lots of people admired her and thought that was so cool like her dad

00:48:38.140 they're just like oh wait she's like really smart and good at stuff the famed military chief zeng

00:48:44.140 guofan wrote in his diary i am bowled over by the empress dowager's wise decisive action which even

00:48:50.500 great monarchs in the past were not able to achieve i'm much stirred by admiration and awe

00:48:55.780 hot prince gong was also really impressed by her um he called for her to take charge of the country

00:49:02.340 which was unprecedented in the Qing dynasty in the sense of like having a woman be in charge

00:49:08.740 as a regent for a baby king. So this had happened a few times in previous dynasties where adelgid

00:49:13.900 empresses ruled for their young sons, but never in the Qing dynasty. So that was not in the last

00:49:17.680 like 200-ish years. And so she, like, again, like she's just like, I like that she doesn't

00:49:24.240 hold things against people. Like when people, or she's never jealous of other people or shies

00:49:28.740 away from giving them credit. She loved and respected Sa'an. They were never rivals ever.

00:49:35.240 And then Prince Gong helped out and she was so grateful. She gave him the title of Grand Advisor.

00:49:40.900 So on the ninth day of the 10th moon, 1861, the eve of her 26th birthday, it was proclaimed to 0.89

00:49:46.920 the whole empire that from now on, Su Shi and Sa'an were in charge. Their son, Zai Xin, was given 0.83

00:49:53.120 the name Emperor Tongzi, which means order and prosperity. But so there's a whole coronation

00:49:59.840 situation that went on and everyone was saying how she's so great. Everyone knew what she did,

00:50:03.900 but so she was not even permitted to attend her son's coronation because it was in the part of

00:50:09.960 the Forbidden City where women couldn't go. And like to be continued, basically, this is where

00:50:18.100 i'm gonna leave us for part one next week in part two we're gonna learn about what is sushi like

00:50:24.020 when she is in control i mean spoiler alert legendary so next week we will get to talking

00:50:33.260 about what happens when sushi is in charge and trust me there's a lot because everything i just

00:50:38.960 told you is like the first two chapters of like a 500 page biography that i read also some really

00:50:45.400 strong contenders for the lady jane seymour memorial award for outstanding supporting

00:50:49.180 performance we'll see how that goes next week and also eventually we'll get to scoring so i just

00:50:55.460 want to let you know as well because you're listening to this at the time of year well i

00:50:58.920 don't know when you listen to this but if you listen to it live when it first came out um i

00:51:03.200 have a couple things to let you know about re gift giving so if you want to get an audio recording

00:51:08.420 of me to give to somebody as a gift uh use a contact form at vulgarhistory.com to get in

00:51:14.700 touch with me about that. If you want to have like a cute little audio message of me saying

00:51:18.580 tits the season or whatever, we can talk. You can also message me on Instagram where I'm at

00:51:25.260 vulgar history pod, but also that's where I'm going to post important pictures because after

00:51:30.520 Artemisia of Caria, a person who lived so long ago, there's not really any images of them. There's a

00:51:35.640 lot of images of sushi and all the people from the story, including hot Prince Gong. So I'm going to

00:51:41.140 post all that stuff at vulgar history pod and i'm also at tiktok at vulgar history where i'm still

00:51:45.760 figuring things out but i think a nice time so far and the people on tiktok are so nice and i like

00:51:51.200 so far i just am saying like little short history things there with pictures not of me so far anyway

00:51:58.900 tiktok at vulgar history and in terms of christmas and other gift giving occasions that are coming

00:52:05.160 up. The merch store is at vulgarhistory.store where you can always use promo code TITSOUT

00:52:11.100 for free US shipping or TITSOUT10 for 10% off. There's some seasonal merch that I've added there

00:52:17.180 as well. These are the same things we had their last gift giving December. So there's TITS this

00:52:24.640 season, TITSOUT for the holidays. These are mugs and they kind of look like an oldie time embroidered

00:52:30.780 sampler, but that is what they say. And then also a cute t-shirt with a design that says

00:52:36.520 Candelicious, which is for Hanukkah. Anyway, if you're going to buy some stuff, I recommend

00:52:41.420 ordering as soon as possible to ensure your stuff arrives by Christmas or whatever gift-giving

00:52:46.680 occasion you're celebrating. And then also if I recommend books all the time on this podcast,

00:52:52.180 and you can always find those at bookshop.org slash shop slash vulgar history. That link is

00:52:56.860 in the show notes, but also for this time of year, I've put up a gift guide, which is basically just

00:53:02.400 books I've mentioned on the show, but other books that I think might be good gifts if you like

00:53:06.300 giving books as gifts. And when you buy things through my bookshop.org link, a little bit of

00:53:11.360 money goes to support me and the show. So yeah, bookshop.org slash shop slash vulgar history,

00:53:18.900 but the link will be in the show notes as well. And I guess that's everything. There's going to

00:53:25.920 me an episode next week, leave me an episode the week after that. We'll see how things go,

00:53:29.900 but the season is going to end by the end of calendar year 2022. So just, we can all prepare

00:53:35.620 ourselves. Anyway, until then, keep your pants on and your tits out, and I'll talk to you all next 1.00

00:53:41.660 time. Folger History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina 0.99

00:53:48.500 Lumagi.

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Vulgar History - November 30, 2022

International, part 37： China's Empress Cixi (pt 1⧸2)

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