Forced to enter the Chinese Emperor's harem at the tender age of sixteen, Yehonala lost her family, her betrothed, and all hope of a normal life. Immured in the seraglio, her beauty and sexual expertise soon enthralled the Son of Heaven, and she was held in high favour as The Orchid, especially after presenting the Emperor with his only male heir.

But even with this protection she was far from safe. Yehonala had entered the perilous world of the Forbidden City, a shadowy demimonde peopled by unscrupulous nobles and calculating eunuchs - a milieu of luxury and intrigue, compounded equally of tradition and corruption, where a misplaced word or unthinking gesture might swiftly prove fatal.

Yet such was her own guile, courage and absolute refusal to countenance defeat, the Orchid slowly triumphed over every adversary to become Ci Xi, the Empress Dowager of China, and the most famous female autocrat in history.