In November 1861, a few days following her coup d'état, Cixi was quick to reward Yixin, the Prince Gong, for his help. He was made head of the General Affairs Office and the Internal Affairs Office, and his daughter was made a Gurun Princess, a title usually bestowed only on the Empress's first-born daughter. However, Cixi avoided giving Yixin the absolute political power that princes such as Dorgon exercised during the Shunzhi Emperor's reign. As one of the first acts from "behind the curtains," Cixi (nominally along with Ci'an) issued two important Imperial Edicts on behalf of the emperor. The first stated that the two Empresses Dowager were to be the sole decision makers "without interference," and the second changed the boy emperor's era name from Qixiang (祺祥; "Auspicious") to Tongzhi (同治; "collective stable").
Despite being the sole decision makers, both Ci'an and Cixi were forced to rely on the Grand Council and a complex series of procedures in order to deal with affairs of state. When state documents came in, they were to be first forwarded to the empresses, then referred back to the prince adviser and the Grand Council. Having discussed the matters, the prince and his colleagues would seek the instruction of the empresses at audiences and imperial orders would be drawn up accordingly, with drafts having to be approved by the empresses before edicts were issued.[8]
It also seems that the most important role of the empresses during the regency was merely to apply their seals to edicts, a merely mechanical role in a complex bureaucracy.[9]