Li’s words about the Japanese threat turned out to be prophetic. In 1894, Japan went to war with China over control of Korea in the First Sino-Japanese War. By the late 1880s, the Empress Dowager had returned to her goal of rebuilding the Summer Palace, and had diverted important government revenues into the project. The… Read more »
Cixi stepped down from the regency in favor of her teenage son, the Tongzhi Emperor, in 1873. Cixi retired to other projects, devoting herself to building a sumptuous new Summer Palace to replace the one destroyed by the British. But when her son died suddenly in 1875, Cixi quickly maneuvered to put herself back in… Read more »
With the aid of Li Hongzhang (1823-1901), Feng was finally able to take back his hometown of Suzhou from the Taiping Rebels. Li immediately made Feng his top advisor, and began promoting and enacting many of Feng’s ideas on self-strengthening from Dissenting Views from a Hut near Bin. In 1865, following Feng’s guidance, Li also had the… Read more »