When Wanrong became the Empress of China, she was already ruling over a ... But on the wedding night, he took one look at his brides and fled the bedroom. It was an ominous start to what became ...

The photographs of the Empress Dowager Cixi taken by Xunling ... “She thought about self-representation, and—out of the norm for Chinese portraiture—she sometimes posed in staged vignettes ...

She quickly became a favourite and, after giving birth to Emperor Xianfeng's only son, was made Noble Consort Yi, second only to the empress. Unusually, she could read and write Chinese and ...