Xianfeng Emperor

The fourth son of the Daoguang Emperor, Yizhu took the throne at 18 into an empire already breaking. Within months the Taiping Rebellion erupted in the south, taking Nanjing by 1853; the Nian Rebellion followed in the north, then ethnic uprisings among the Miao and Panthay peoples. Defeat in the Second Opium War cost Manchuria to Russia under the Treaty of Aigun, and when fighting resumed in 1860, British and French forces entered Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace. He fled to the imperial estate at Jehol and never returned. His health collapsed under the weight of it. He died there in August 1861, thirty years old, leaving a six-year-old son and eight appointed regents. Months later his widow Cixi staged a coup, took power, and ruled in his shadow for the next half-century.