5/5 Cixi faces her greatest challenge as ruler, when anti-Western feeling leads to violence.

When Wanrong became the Empress of China, she was already ruling over a ghost land. In a matter of months, her country abolished the monarchy, turning all Wanrong’s decadent pleasures into dust.

In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei.