Selected when she was fifteen as one of Emperor Xianfeng’s 3,000 concubines, she rose rapidly through their ranks, cementing her position by producing an heir, Tongzhi. When Xianfeng died in 1861, Ton
Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of thr