But the newly named Empress Dowager Cixi quickly ousted them ... under a new Han general, defeated the Taiping army in 1864. Cixi knew that China's long isolation had made it backward and vulnerable.

The photographs of the Empress Dowager Cixi taken by Xunling ... put down the Boxer rebellion in a matter of months. Cixi survived, but with a reputation for cruelty and treachery.

He is likened to Empress Dowager Cixi, who in 1900 effectively declared war on the Western powers in China, a disastrous move that helped accelerate the collapse of imperial China To many Chinese ...