China's reforming emperor spent his last decade under house arrest, then was poisoned
The Guangxu Emperor took the throne at three, chosen by his aunt, the Empress Dowager Cixi. When he finally tried to modernise the failing Qing state in the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898, she staged a coup and confined him to a lakeside pavilion. He died there in 1908 of arsenic poisoning.
Born Zaitian on 14 August 1871, he was the son of Prince Chun and the nephew of Cixi through his mother. When his cousin, the Tongzhi Emperor, died without an heir in January 1875, the two dowager empresses broke convention by choosing a successor from the same generation, so that he could stand in as the son of the earlier Xianfeng Emperor. Rival candidates, the sons of Prince Gong, were distrusted as bad influences on Tongzhi. Zaitian was enthroned on 25 February 1875 under the reign name Guangxu, meaning continuation of splendour.
His tutor Weng Tonghe, who had also helped raise the ill-fated Tongzhi, taught him the Confucian classics along with Chinese, Manchu and Mongolian. The boy prized frugality over wealth and once insisted on walking through snow rather than having it cleared, though Weng also noted sharp mood swings. After the dowager Ci'an died suddenly in 1881, Cixi ruled alone. The Sino-French War of 1884 to 1885 cost China its fleet at Fuzhou and its tributary hold over Vietnam, and Britain soon ended China's claim over Burma too.
Cixi arranged his marriage in February 1889 to her own niece, whom he disliked, and retired from the regency on 4 March. Yet real power stayed with her: difficult cases still went to her, and she chose appointments to the Grand Council. Guangxu admired the Qianlong Emperor as a model ruler and scored one of his few administrative wins by cutting palace spending in 1892, a campaign that alienated senior Manchu officials. In 1891 he received foreign diplomats in person and ordered state protection for Christians after attacks on missionaries.
Defeat by Japan and the Boxer Rebellion further weakened the empire. Guangxu turned to reformers such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, whose programme aimed partly at removing Cixi. It proved too radical for the conservative elite and lacked army support. After the coup of late 1898 he lived under virtual house arrest at the Yingtai Pavilion in Zhongnanhai until his childless death, one of the last two Qing emperors.
Source: Guangxu Emperor
