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In the twilight of imperial rule, a woman rose to power in China who would transform the middle kingdom.
在封建统治的末期，一位女性在中国获得了权力，她将改变这个中央王国。
Yehenara Tsing, better known as dowager empress Cixi was as clever as she was ambitious.
叶赫那拉氏，更广为人知的名字是慈禧太后，她既聪明又雄心勃勃。
Born into a respectable descent family, she became a low-ranking concubine in the Forbidden City.
她出生在一个有名望的体面家庭，后来成为了紫禁城中一个地位低下的嫔妾。
Only to work her way up to the very top through a combination of intrigue cunning and constantly underrated intelligence.
她通过阴谋诡计和不断被低估的智慧，一步步爬到最高层。
She rose through a male-dominated world to become the most powerful person in China and should use that power to transform the empire.
她在一个男性主导的世界里成长起来，成为中国最有权势的人，她应该利用这种权力来改变帝国。
As a woman behind the throne, Cixi unleashed a wave of modernization that upended the late Qing dynasty under a 40-year reign.
作为皇位背后的女性，慈禧掀起了一股现代化浪潮，颠覆了晚清40年的统治。
China opened up itself to the west, began to industrialize and even made moves towards democracy.
中国向西方开放，开始工业化，甚至走向民主。
Yet for all the undoubted good, she did there was also a dark side to the dowager empress.
然而，尽管慈禧太后做了无可置疑的好事，但她也有黑暗的一面。
Implicated in a number of assassinations, swept up in the bloody horrors of the Boxer Rebellion, Cixi walked a fine line between enlightened leader and cold-blooded machiavellian.
慈禧卷入了多起暗杀事件，卷入了义和团运动的血腥恐怖之中，她在开明的领袖和冷血的不择手段之间保持着微妙的平衡。
Today, biographies is investigating the story of the ordinary girl who became imperial China's matriarch.
如今，许多传记都在调查这个平凡女孩成为中国封建社会的女统治者的故事。
There's no curse attributed to ancient China which supposedly goes may you live in interesting times.
中国古代并没有所谓的“愿你生活在有趣的时代”。
None could have known it at the moment of a birth but the girl who would become Cixi was destined to live through some of the most interesting times.
在慈禧出生的那一刻，没有人会知道这一点，但这个后来成为慈禧的女孩注定要经历一些最有趣的时代。
In history, born, Yehe Nara Cixi, on November 29th, 1835, Cixi's early life is shrouded in mystery, almost no formal records of her first 16 years exist, leaving us to piece together what we can from later sources.
在历史上，慈禧生于1835年11月29日，她的早年生活一直笼罩在神秘之中，几乎没有关于她16岁前的正式记录，只能让我们从后来的资料中拼凑出一些线索。
We know that she was a manchu part of the minority ethnic class that had ruled majority Han China since the 1660s.
我们知道她是一个满族少数民族阶级的一部分，自17世纪60年代以来一直统治着占多数的汉族。
We know too that her father was a mid-level government official, the sort of guy who could give his family a comfortable life in a nice part of Beijing.
我们也知道，她的父亲是一位中层清政府官员，是那种可以让家人在北京的好地方过上舒适生活的人。
We also know that she was born at a point when China was about to embark on an unprecedented era of crisis.
我们还知道，她出生在中国即将开始一个前所未有的危机时期。
In 1839, when Cixi was just four, the First Opium War would see China trounced by the British,
在1839年，慈禧年仅四岁时，中国在第一次鸦片战争中被英国打败，
慈禧年仅四岁时，中国在第一次鸦片战争中被英国打败，
beginning a multi-decade series of conflicts civil wars, rebellions and outside interference, known as the century of humiliation.
开始了长达数十年的冲突，内战，叛乱和外部干涉，被称为百年耻辱。
But while the First Opium War passed little Cixi bai, she would soon find herself at the epicenter of the wave of coming conflicts.
但是，当第一次鸦片战争结束时，小慈禧白很快发现自己处于即将到来的冲突浪潮的中心。
And speaking of Cixi now, might be a good time to make a quick note on names. Cixi was the name given to the girl born Yehenara Tsing.
现在说到慈禧，也许是时候简单记一下慈禧的名字了。 慈禧是那个出生的女孩叶赫那拉慈禧的名字。
Once she reached the position of dowager empress, sort of like how in ancient Rome Octavian became emperor Augustus.
一旦她成为皇太后，就像古罗马屋大维成为奥古斯都皇帝一样。
But since Cixi received a new name, almost every time she changed ranks, there's just no way that we're going to be able to use the chronologically correct ones.
但自从慈禧获得了一个新名字，几乎每次她改变位分，我们就无法按照时间使用正确的名字。
Without confusing, the hell out of absolutely everybody so in the interest of making things simple,
为了不让大家感到困惑，为了让事情变得简单,
we're just going to call her Cixi Taihou, also regarding the pronunciation of her name, I did look it up.
我们就叫她慈禧太后吧，关于她名字的发音我也查过了。
There are some conflicting ones, but I went with my main pronunciation dictionary which says Tsing.
有一些冲突的地方，但我查了重要的发音字典，读清。
So here we are everybody as a girl in Qing dynasty.
所以我们大家都是清朝的女孩。
China Cixi grew up learning ladylike pursuits which meant that she could paint and play chess, but was never taught to read or ride.
慈禧在成长过程中学习了淑女的追求，这意味着她会画画和下象棋，但从未学过读书或骑马。
Yet even at this young age, there were signs she wouldn't be bound by traditional gender roles when Cixi was a pre-teen.
然而，在慈禧十几岁的时候，就有迹象表明她不会被传统的性别角色所束缚。
The Daoguang emperor announced that serious money was missing from the imperial treasury, rather than try and find the culprit, he ordered anyone who'd ever worked there to shoulder part of the debt.
道光皇帝宣布国库缺了一大笔钱，他没有去寻找罪魁祸首，而是命令所有曾在那里工作过的人来承担部分债务。
There was a description that unfortunately included one of Cixi's ancestors with the debt passed on to living relatives, her father was in danger of being thrown in prison according to legend.
有一种描述，不幸的是，慈禧的一个祖先把债务传给了在世的亲戚，她的父亲有被关进监狱的危险。
Though Cixi went out and somehow managed to raise 60 percent of the debt in loans from that point.
尽管慈禧从那时起设法筹集了60%的债务。
On the story goes, her father valued her opinion as highly as he would a son kind of a backhand compliment today.
随着故事的发展，她的父亲重视她的意见，就像重视儿子的赞美一样。
But a serious deal in a society that ranked women equal to well a comfortable armchair not that Cixi suffered as badly as most women of her era.
慈禧在一个把女性视为舒适的扶手椅的社会中，并没有像她那个时代的大多数女性那样遭受痛苦。
As a Manchu, she was exempt from the painful hand traditional foot binding a practice she had banned in later life.
作为一个满族人，她不用忍受痛苦的传统缠足，这是她在晚年禁止的。
But while Cixi's ethnicity would save her feet from being mutilated, the same can't be said of a soul in 1850.
但慈禧的种族身份使她的脚免于残缺, 但却不能免于1850年的灾难。
The old emperor died and was replaced with the Xianfeng Emperor.
老皇帝去世，咸丰皇帝继位。
This began imperial China's one of the new emperor's most important tasks was modernizing his empire.
这开始了新皇帝最重要的任务之一就是使他的帝国现代化 。
Anything silly like that, but rather choosing his new harem.
任何蠢事都可以，但他选择了他的新后宫。
So when she turned 16, Cixi like every Manchu girl was summoned to the capital to partake in an absurd face-to-face version of hot or not in a courtyard of the Forbidden City.
因此，当慈禧16岁时，她像所有满族女孩一样被召到京城，在紫禁城的院子里参加一场荒唐的面对面的“火辣与否”真人秀。
She was made to stand with hundreds of other women while Xianfeng strutted up and down trying to decide who to get jiggy with in the end.
她被迫和其他数百名女性站在一起，而咸丰趾高气扬地踱来踱去，试图决定谁进入他的后宫。
It was her eyes that did it every account ever written of Cixi notes how enthralling her eyes were evidently. The emperor thought so too.
正是她的眼睛，每一篇关于慈禧的文章都说她的眼睛是多么迷人。 皇帝也这么认为。
That day, Cixi was one of 10 women chosen for Xianfeng's harem.
那天，慈禧是咸丰后宫的10个女人之一。
She moved into the Forbidden City on June 26th, 1852, as a low-ranking concubine.
1852年6月26日，她以妾的身份迁入紫禁城。
Yet before a decade was out, she'd have managed to claw her way to the very top.
然而，不到10年，她就会设法爬到最高层。
