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. She has always been called the Young Empress,
but is now the Empress Dowager. After the great Dowager was made
the concubine of Hsien Feng, she succeeded in arranging a
marriage, as we have seen, between her younger sister and the
younger brother of her husband, the Seventh Prince, as he was
called, father of Kuang Hsu and the present regent.
The world knows how, in order to keep the succession in her own
family, she took the son of this younger sister, when her own son
the Emperor Tung Chih died, and made him the Emperor Kuang Hsu
when he was but little more than three years of age. When the
time came for him to wed, she arranged that he should marry his
cousin, Yehonala, the daughter of her favourite brother, Duke
Kuei. This Kuang Hsu was not inclined to do, as his affections
seem to have been centred on another. The great Dowager, however,
insisted upon it, and he finally made her Empress, and to
satisfy,--or shall we say appease him?--she allowed him to take
as his first concubine the lady he wanted as his wife; and it was
currently reported in court circles that when Yehonala came into
his presence he not infrequently kicked off his shoe at her, a
bit of conduct that is quite in keeping with the temper usually
attributed to Kuang Hsu during those early years. This may
perhaps explain why she stood by the great Dowager through all
the troublous times of 1898 and 1900, in spite of the fact that
her imperial aunt had taken her husband's throne
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