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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16914 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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The point being there'd be no feasible way to swap it out with fake documents.

Gosh. Curse the fiendish ingenuity! But if it was possible to put the documents up there in the first place, I have to think it was possible to somehow manage to get up there and replace them with fakes.

I see that the system only worked (or was used) three times, so it seems things regressed to the older manner later:

The Qing Dynasty produced three emperors through a secret succession system: Emperor Yongzheng passed the throne to Emperor Qianlong , Emperor Jiaqing passed it to Emperor Daoguang , and Emperor Daoguang passed it to Emperor Xianfeng. Emperor Qianlong, due to his commitment to the length of his reign, directly abdicated in favor of Emperor Jiaqing before his death, without using the secret succession process.

Of course, the easier way was cut-throat scheming within the harem and the court of eunuchs to put forward 'their' candidate for successor instead of the perceived favourite for crown prince. Or just get power by being the queen mother/empress dowager and ruthlessly seize power as regent/power behind the throne yourself:

Empress Dowager Cixi (29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who periodically controlled the government of the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent from 1861 until her death in 1908.

Cixi was selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence and gave birth to his son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, their son became the Tongzhi Emperor, and Cixi assumed the role of co-empress dowager alongside Xianfeng's widow, Empress Dowager Ci'an. She and Ci'an ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed the regency together. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875. Ci'an continued to be co-regent with Cixi until her death in 1881.

It would take an Ocean's 11 style heist to get up to the ceiling of the Palace of Heavenly Purity without getting noticed. It is a large open space with a high ceiling and was under armed guard. Physically possible but unlikely.

I visited the Forbidden City and saw that big emperor's hall apparently misunderstood how common the second set of assession instructions were. And I've seen it portrayed in Chinese historical drama shows. It seems to loom larger in modern culture than in ancient history.

Queen mothers battling eunuchs for control was an issue. Including a instance of eunuchs living in opulence and controlling the emperor until non-eunuchs slaughtered them.

To your list of notable women with political power in China I would add Empress Zetian. Based on my memories of Chinese historical dramas: she was a concubine of an emperor, but a low ranked one. Then was sent away to their equivalent to a nunnery when he died. As was the fate of all lower ranked concubines. Having been with an emperor no other man could touch them. But the new emperor quite liked her and recalled her to the palace. He was sickly so she largely ruled for him. The he died and crowned herself Empress. And was a cruel tyrant murdering her opponents. Also a committed Buddhist displacing traditional Chinese religion for state enforced pro-Buddhist policies. This was in the 600s. So from 1200 years ago to the modern era the emperor's mom or wife has been a valid contender for seizing power.

Of course, the easier way was cut-throat scheming within the harem and the court of eunuchs to put forward 'their' candidate for successor instead of the perceived favourite for crown prince.

Scheming Eunuchs, you say?

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