In the aftermath of the failed Hundred Days' Reform, Empress Dowager Cixi's supporters seized and imprisoned reform-minded officials who had pushed the young Guangxu Emperor toward sweeping modernization of education, the military, and government. Several reformers, the 'Six Gentlemen,' were executed in Beijing without trial. Cixi placed the emperor under effective house arrest, reasserting conservative control over the Qing court just as foreign powers were carving China into spheres of influence.
The Hundred Days' Reform, launched in June 1898 under the idealistic young Guangxu Emperor and reformist scholars like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, had attempted to remake China along the lines of Meiji Japan: modern schools, a reorganized bureaucracy, industrial development, and a constitutional monarchy. It threatened the interests of entrenched Manchu officials and, crucially, of Empress Dowager Cixi, who had ruled from behind the throne for decades.
Cixi struck decisively. With the backing of military commander Yuan Shikai, who betrayed the reformers' plot to use troops against the conservative faction, she confined Guangxu to the Summer Palace's Ocean Terrace, effectively ending his political relevance for the rest of his life. Six reform leaders were dragged to Beijing's vegetable market and beheaded; Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao managed to escape into exile in Japan.
The crushed reform is often seen by historians as a tragic hinge point — a lost chance for the Qing dynasty to modernize peacefully. Instead, conservative retrenchment, followed two years later by the disastrous Boxer Rebellion, hastened the dynasty's final collapse in 1911.
Key people: Cixi, Guangxu Emperor, Kang Youwei, Yuan Shikai