On August 15, 1900, in the early morning of the day after the Eight-Nation Alliance entered Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi hastily fled with Emperor Guangxu to Xi'an in Shaanxi Province. Just the day before, Cixi had summoned the Grand Councilors five times to decide whether she should stay or leave. Their unanimous response was that the Qing army could no longer resist the powerful offensive of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and the only way to ensure the safety of the Empress Dowager and the Emperor was to flee. Upon hearing this, Cixi wept bitterly and ultimately decided to escape westward with Emperor Guangxu.
At that time, Emperor Guangxu was still imprisoned on Yingtai Island in Zhongnanhai, and Empress Dowager Cixi urgently ordered people to fetch him overnight. To facilitate their escape, both Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu disguised themselves as commoners. Li Lianying specially changed Cixi into Han Chinese clothing and styled her hair in a Han Chinese fashion; the once extravagantly dressed Empress Dowager Cixi, during her flight to the west, was dressed no differently from a peasant woman.
Empress Dowager Cixi took away Emperor Guangxu's Empress Longyu and Consort Jin, but pushed his most beloved Consort Zhen into a well and drowned her. In addition, all the consorts left behind by Emperor Tongzhi, as well as two elderly consorts of Emperor Xianfeng, were all abandoned in the rear palace.
In the early morning of August 15th, she could no longer wait and fled Beijing. To ensure her and Emperor Guangxu's safety, over two thousand Qing soldiers escorted them along the way. Empress Dowager Cixi chose the Shenwu Gate as her exit from the palace. Her brother, Guixiang, who was also Empress Longyu's father, invited her onto his carriage and saw her out through Shenwu Gate. As Cixi's party reached the Xizhi Gate, an unexpected autumn rain began to fall. The accompanying servants, unable to bear the bitter wind and rain, scattered in all directions. Seeing this, Empress Dowager Cixi felt a chill in her heart and could not help but shed tears, while eunuchs like Li Lianying also burst into sobs. The ruler of the mighty Qing Dynasty had fallen to such a state—truly a pitiful sight.
From fleeing the Forbidden City on August 15th to arriving in Xi'an on October 26th, Empress Dowager Cixi and her entourage traveled for over seventy days, covering thousands of miles. Along the way, these royals, who were usually pampered and accustomed to luxury, endured great hardships. To evade the Eight-Nation Alliance, they had to pass through some extremely desolate areas. In some places, the land was barren, and the local people lived in dire poverty, unable to offer anything decent to entertain them. On one occasion, they fled to a small village where Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu had not eaten for an entire day. Since the village had nothing but sorghum, Cixi and Guangxu had to fill their stomachs with it. Unexpectedly, in their hunger, they found the sorghum surprisingly delicious.
One night, as an autumn drizzle fell and temperatures dropped sharply, Empress Dowager Cixi and her entourage sought shelter in the homes of impoverished commoners. Since they lacked enough warm clothing, Cixi, Emperor Guangxu, and the accompanying concubines could only burn bean stalks stored by the locals to keep warm. As for the attending officials and soldiers, they had no choice but to spend the night exposed to the rain.
During her flight for survival, with each day uncertain, Empress Dowager Cixi still did not forget to plunder treasures from the places she passed along the way. After arriving in Xi'an, no longer needing to flee for her life, she immediately resumed her former luxurious lifestyle. Whether in terms of food, clothing, daily necessities, or entertainment, there was little difference from her time in the Forbidden City.
To satisfy her insatiable greed, Empress Dowager Cixi openly sold official positions in Xi'an, amassing vast wealth. Li Lianying, serving as the intermediary between Cixi and local officials, also took the opportunity to accumulate considerable riches. When Cixi left Xi'an in October 1901, the silver and treasures she had plundered required thousands of carts to transport.
Early on, even before leaving the capital, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the suppression of the Boxers. In her view, the invasion of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance was entirely caused by the Boxers. At the same time, she also ordered Prince Qing and Li Hongzhang to begin peace negotiations with the Eight-Nation Alliance.
Representatives of the foreign powers presented a twelve-point peace framework to Yikuang and Li Hongzhang, after which both sides began discussions on these terms. Given the gravity of the matter, Li Hongzhang dared not make decisions on his own and relayed the powers' intentions to Empress Dowager Cixi, who was thousands of miles away, seeking her final verdict. Seeing that the foreign powers had not listed her as the chief culprit of the war, nor demanded that Emperor Guangxu be restored to power and the empress dowager be deposed, Cixi felt greatly relieved and immediately telegraphed Li Hongzhang and others, instructing them to agree to any conditions the powers proposed.
Under the direction of Empress Dowager Cixi, on September 7, 1901, Yikuang and Li Hongzhang, representing the Qing government, signed the Boxer Protocol in Beijing with representatives from eleven countries: Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Italy, Russia, Austria, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. The treaty stipulated that China would pay reparations of 450 million taels of silver to the foreign powers, to be repaid over 39 years, with principal and interest totaling 982 million taels; it required the dismantling of forts from Beijing to Dagu and allowed foreign troops to be stationed at key points along the railway from Beijing to Shanhaiguan; it designated the Dongjiaominxiang area in Beijing as a legation quarter, to be guarded by foreign troops and off-limits to Chinese residents; it permanently banned the Chinese people from forming anti-foreign organizations and imposed severe punishment on officials involved in the Boxer Rebellion, while those who had failed to suppress the movement were to be immediately dismissed and never rehired; and it transformed the Zongli Yamen into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, placing it at the head of the six ministries.
The Boxer Protocol was yet another unequal treaty imposed on China by imperialist powers. After its signing, the Qing government completely degenerated into a tool for imperialist rule over China, and China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal society was thus established.
After signing the Boxer Protocol on behalf of the Qing government, Li Hongzhang began coughing up blood as soon as he returned home. Throughout his life, Li Hongzhang signed over thirty treaties, but the Boxer Protocol was undoubtedly the most humiliating of them all. The signing of this treaty dealt a heavy blow to Li Hongzhang, and just two months later, the nearly eighty-year-old Li Hongzhang died of illness in Beijing. Before this, Empress Dowager Cixi had already boarded her eight-carried sedan chair to return safely to Beijing, continuing to shamelessly serve the insatiable Western powers.