Empress Dowager Cixi was a Chinese empress dowager and regent of the Qing Dynasty who through an exclusive group of corrupt and conservative officials controlled China for around half-a-century. An imperial concubine of Xianfeng Emperor, who gave birth to his only son Zaichun, she gradually emerged among the most powerful women in Chinese history. Following emperor’s death and enthronement of Zaichun as Tongzhi Emperor, she became Empress Dowager and assumed co-regency with Empress Dowager Ci'an ousting regents inducted by the late emperor. After demise of Tongzhi Emperor, she took full control over the Qing dynasty enthroning her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor. She backed the Self-Strengthening Movement and consented for the principles of Hundred Days' Reforms, however refused to suddenly implement it sans bureaucratic support. She put Guangxu Emperor under virtual house arrest for backing radical reformers and attempting to kill her. She initially backed the Boxer groups following the Boxer Rebellion but after China’s defeat at the hands of the Allied armies and signing of the Boxer Protocol, she started implementing fiscal and institutional reforms that saw the outset of China moving towards a constitutional monarchy.