Cixi made her sister's son emperor, an official killed himself to object to the adoption, and the emperor died of arsenic in 1908

The Tongzhi Emperor died in the twelfth month of the lunar year in early 1875 with no son. The empresses dowager Ci'an and Cixi chose Zaitian, aged three, son of Prince Chun and of Cixi's younger sister. He was adopted as the son of the Xianfeng Emperor, Tongzhi's father, not of Tongzhi, and the edict promised that his first son would become Tongzhi's heir. Tongzhi's widow took poison. In 1879 the official Wu Kedu asked to attend Tongzhi's burial at the Huiling tomb. On the way back he hanged himself in a ruined temple at Jizhou, survived, and took poison. In his robe was a memorial asking the dowagers to fix in writing that the throne would return to Tongzhi's line. It cited Zhao Pu, who had broken the Song founder's mother's covenant. The court honoured him, and the ministers confirmed the arrangement. The Guangxu Emperor had no children. He died on 14 November 1908, aged 38, about 22 hours before Cixi. Her last edict made Puyi heir to Tongzhi and also to Guangxu. In November 2008 Chinese investigators reported arsenic in Guangxu's hair and remains at 2,000 times normal levels, about 201.5 mg in total, and concluded he died of acute arsenic poisoning. Wu Kedu's son buried him at Jizhou, as his father's last letter asked.