Alternate successors to the Qing dynasty throne in 1875?

I'm going through a Bio on Empress Dowager Cixi and it explains that when her son, the emperor, died she chose her nephew as the successor as a form of revenge against his father, Yixuan, because then they would be separated. She did this because Yixuan had a eunuch she made friends with killed.

It these circumstances had not influenced the choosing of the next emperor then who may have been chosen and with what consequences?
 
I don't know how reliable this is, but this site and the next page seem to contain a wide array of descendants of the Daoguang Emperor. I am completely ignorant of Chinese history, so I can't really help you any further. :eek:
 
I'm going through a Bio on Empress Dowager Cixi and it explains that when her son, the emperor, died she chose her nephew as the successor as a form of revenge against his father, Yixuan, because then they would be separated. She did this because Yixuan had a eunuch she made friends with killed.

It these circumstances had not influenced the choosing of the next emperor then who may have been chosen and with what consequences?

I think you've got your Prince's confused. Prince Chun, AKA Yuxuan was pretty much a non-entity, loyal to Cixi. His son was chosen because Guangxu was Cixi's nephew, and she could rather easily remain as Regent. The other choices would be a son of Prince Gong (the Prince whom your thinking of about the Eunuch thing), either Zaicheng or Zaiying would be most likely. The elder was 16 and the younger around 13 or 14, so it would vastly limit Cixi's power. Now typically it was an unwritten rule that the next Emperor wouldn't come from the same generation as the previous (unlike here where the potential heirs are the Emperor's first cousins) but I can't think of any potential heir outside of these. However I'm not an expert so someone more knowledgeable then I can hopefully expand on this.
 
I remember Qing didn't have a succession law, and the emperor chose his successor by his own will. In this case, Emperor Tongzhi died at the age of 18 and childless, so Cixi chose Zaitian because he's young(3 years old), son of one of her minion(Yixuan), and also her nephew(Wanzhen is her younger sister), thus the best candidate for a new round of regency.

And that biography attributed the death of An Dehai to the wrong person. Furthermore accusing Prince Gong for his death may be far fetched, as the one ordered his execution was Ding Baozhen, then governor of Shandong, who had no known connection to Prince Gong. He was not reprimanded in any serious way and was promoted to viceroy of Sichuan 7 years later.
 
I remember Qing didn't have a succession law, and the emperor chose his successor by his own will. In this case, Emperor Tongzhi died at the age of 18 and childless, so Cixi chose Zaitian because he's young(3 years old), son of one of her minion(Yixuan), and also her nephew(Wanzhen is her younger sister), thus the best candidate for a new round of regency.

And that biography attributed the death of An Dehai to the wrong person. Furthermore accusing Prince Gong for his death may be far fetched, as the one ordered his execution was Ding Baozhen, then governor of Shandong, who had no known connection to Prince Gong. He was not reprimanded in any serious way and was promoted to viceroy of Sichuan 7 years later.

Well there was no actual succession law but it was tradition to chose the successor from the next generation. That's why Cixi's insistence that Zaitian become the next Emperor caused such an upset at court.

And actually the episode with An Dehai was a bit more complicated. Prince Gong pushed Empress Dowager Ci'an to make an independent decision for once and used the crimes of Cixi's favorite eunuch as a way to do so.
 
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