Xinyou Coup was a Chinese palace coup instigated by Empress Dowagers Cixi and Ci'an, and Prince Gong to seize power after the death of the Xianfeng Emperor in 1861. On his deathbed, the emperor had appointed a group of eight regents, led by Sushun, who were adjutant generals and grand councillors, to assist his infant son Zaichun, later to be known as the Tongzhi Emperor. The eight regents, Zaiyuan, Duanhua, Jingshou, Sushun, Muyin, Kuangyuan, Du Han and Jiao Youying were later forced to commit suicide. Other sources says only three officials were forced to commit suicide.

Empress Dowager Cixi, was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who effectively controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908. Selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence, she gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, his five-year-old son became the Tongzhi Emperor, and Cixi assumed the role of co-empress dowager alongside Xianfeng's widow, Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed the regency along with Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875. Ci'an continued as co-regent until her death in 1881.