March 2026

LATE QING DYNASTY SERIES February 12, 1912: The Day Two Thousand Years of Imperial China Came to an End Empress Dowager Longyu, Yuan Shikai, and the Last Act of the Qing Dynasty On February 12, 1912, a six-year-old boy named Puyi signed away the throne his family had held for nearly three centuries. With that act, more than two thousand years of continuous imperial rule in China — a system that traced its origins to the First Emperor of Qin…

The Emperor Who Said He Didn’t Need Power The Guangxu Emperor and the 103-Day Revolution That Failed Late Qing Dynasty Series * * * “If it would save the country, I do not need to hold power.” No emperor in Chinese history was supposed to say this. Princes fought and bled for the throne. Empress Dowager Cixi — who could never be emperor herself because she was a woman — spent nearly half a century maneuvering, threatening, and outlasting everyone…