Stephanie Balkwill, University of California, Los Angeles (THE CONVERSATION) In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei.

The photographs of the Empress Dowager Cixi taken by Xunling ... True, she had been the de facto ruler of China since 1881, maneuvering her way out of concubinage by bearing Emperor Xianfeng ...

In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei. Historians do not know her birth name or in what year she was born ...