Though the Boxer Rebellion initially targeted the Qing Manchu dynasty as much as foreign powers present in Chine, it rapidly became a tool of imperial authority. Notably because Dowager Empress Cixi decided to support the movement.

While the Boxers were determined to fight, it was truly within the walls of the Forbidden City that everything played out. An undisputed symbol of power for centuries, the imperial regime was weakening and its unity threatened. Decision-making was slowed by constant divisions among advisors, intrigue, and competing interests. Control of the nation was gradually slipping from imperial hands.

Emperor Guangxu was determined to implement reforms across the country, but these were sabotaged by conservatives who believed him to be in league with foreigners. Yet it was Dowager Empress Cixi who orchestrated this opposition; she understood that if the emperor's authority was undermined, she could seize power.

Within these power struggles, relations between the imperial regime and the Boxers proved decisive. By tolerating this secret society, the empress believed she could eliminate foreign influence and thus remove Emperor Guangxu, for whom the foreigners held a certain sympathy. Complete suppression of the powerful Boxers would have been a threat to the empire itself, one that could have brought about its collapse.

Yet moderate advisors disagreed. They believed foreign powers were superior and capable of defeating the Chinese army. They expressed their determination to crush the Boxers in order to appease the West. The ultra-conservative faction, firmly opposed to foreign presence and represented notably by Prince Duan, had everything to gain by allowing the Boxers to eliminate foreigners: Guangxu would lose power and Prince Duan could place his son, the legitimate heir, upon the throne…

Behind her silk curtain, the Dowager Empress thus had to navigate the Boxer movement with considerable cunning to tip the balance in her favor. The Boxer Rebellion concealed far more than mere resistance to foreign domination—it was the very future of imperial power that hung in the balance.

In January 1900, Empress Cixi recognized the secret societies through an imperial edict. By May of that same year, the court was organizing Boxer militias within Peking. When numerous Boxers arrived in the capital in June to lay siege to the foreign legations, imperial forces made no move to stop them. And by mid-June, imperial troops joined the Boxers in their assault on the foreign legations.