Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi (November 29 1835 – November 15 1908), often known in China as the West Dowager Empress was from the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan.
Cixi was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the "de facto" ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and ruled over China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908. She was one of the wives of Emperor Xianfeng and also the mother of Emperor Tongzhi. She quickly took over the power after the death of Emperor Xianfeng. Though her exact origins are unclear it is very likely that she came from an ordinary Manchu family. She was chosen by the Xianfeng Emperor as a concubine. She gained almost total control over the court when the rule of her son the Tongzhi Emperor started. He and her nephew the Guangxu Emperor attempted unsuccessfully to rule in their own right.
As the source tells it, Cixi had a partnership with the #1 concubine Zhin, who had been raised to Empress. The two women ruled together, with Cixi as the more dominant personality.
She was in charge during the Opium Wars, First Sino-Japanese War, and the Boxer Rebellion. She was largely conservative during her rule, and some historians consider her reign despotism, and think that she might be responsible for the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and therefore Imperial China, as a result of Cixi's rule.