Felice Beato · Public domain · Source
Also called: Yixin, Prince Kung
Son of the Daoguang Emperor and brother of Xianfeng, who stayed in Beijing in 1860 when the emperor fled, signed the Convention of Beijing, and from 1861 led the Zongli Yamen and the Self-Strengthening Movement
In October–November 1860 Prince Gong signed the Convention of Beijing with Britain, France and Russia. China opened Tianjin, ceded southern Kowloon to Britain, and gave Russia, which had acted as mediator, the Maritime Province east of the Ussuri.
When the Xianfeng Emperor died at Rehe in 1861, eight ministers led by Sushun became regents for the six-year-old Tongzhi Emperor. In November the two empresses dowager, Ci’an and Cixi, joined Prince Gong to overthrow them and began to rule from behind the screen.
British diplomat, plenipotentiary in the Second Opium War, who concluded the treaties of Tianjin and Beijing and ordered the burning of the Yuanmingyuan in 1860; son of the Elgin of the Parthenon marbles
Consort of the Xianfeng Emperor and mother of the Tongzhi Emperor who held real power in Qing China for nearly half a century and crushed the 1898 reforms
Ninth Qing emperor (r. 1850–1861), who faced the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War, fled to Rehe as Anglo-French forces neared Beijing in 1860, and died there
From the single gate at Canton to the burning of the Old Summer Palace — a century in which a trade in tea, silver and opium became the First and Second Opium Wars, forcing China open and costing it territory