 The Tongzhi Restoration was named for the Tongzhi Emperor (r. 1861–1875), and was engineered by the young emperor's mother, the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908).The restoration, however, which applied "practical knowledge" while reaffirming the old mentality, was not a genuine program of modernization.Academics are divided as to whether the Tongzhi Restoration arrested the dynastic decline or merely delayed its inevitable occurrence.