Emperor Xuantong, named Pu Yi, was the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). He was born in 32nd year of Emperor Guangxu's reign (1906 AD), died in 1967.
During that period, the Qing Dynasty was in trouble. China had come to be dominated by foreign powers, mainly Westerners. The country was ruled by Dowager Empress Cixi, who had imprisoned the nominal emperor, Guangxu, for conspiring against her. On her deathbed the empress named little Pu Yi -- the son of the imprisoned emperor's brother -- to succeed her. To make sure Guangxu didn't interfere in her plans, it is said, she had him poisoned. Pu Yi was nearly three years old when the dowager empress died. As emperor he was given the reign name Xuantong.
Pu Yi's father who disliked politics served as his son's regent. There was great resentment in China against foreigners and the Manchu government, and in 1911 rebellion swept the country, forcing the regent to resign. Chinese general Yuan Shih-k'ai took over the government. He hoped to start his own ruling dynasty and suggested that Pu Yi should abdicate. Fearing the consequences if they refused, the Manchu Grand Council agreed, and on February 12, 1912, the five-year old emperor renounced his throne. He continued to live in the Forbidden City and was treated with enormous respect.
In 1917, when Pu Yi was 9, a warlord named Zhang Xun decided to restore him to the throne, with army surrounding Peking. Pu Yi released a decree stating that he was the emperor once again. Six days after Pu Yi's restoration a plane dropped three bombs on the Forbidden City. It was the first air raid in Chinese history. Pu Yi's supporters abandoned him, and once again he lost his throne. He remained in the Forbidden City, and his life went on much as it had before.
Pu Yi received an uneven education. He studied classics, history and poetry, but learned no math, geography or science. His lessons were in Chinese and Manchu. At age 13 he started studying English. The Manchus still hoped to restore Pu Yi to his throne, and they wanted him to have contact with Western powers that might be able to help them achieve the goal. So they asked a senior official Reginald Johnston of the British Colonial Office to become Pu Yi's English tutor. Pu Yi was heavily influenced by Johnston and developed a fascination for Western things. With Johnston's help, Pu Yi picked an English name for himself Henry -- a name of the British kings, which is why you can find the last emperor of China listed in encyclopedias as Henry Pu Yi. In addition, it was Johnston who first noticed that Pu Yi needed glasses.
When Pu Yi was 16 his advisors decided that it was time for him to marry. He picked out a very beautiful girl of his own age named Wan Rong as his empress and Wen Xiu as his consort. On the night of his wedding to Wan Rong, Pu Yi panicked and fled from their bedroom; it's part of the possible reason that he never consummated his marriages.
In 1924 the army of another warlord, Feng Yuxiang, surrounded the Forbidden City. Pu Yi was forced to leave the Forbidden City for the first time since becoming emperor. He took with him his imperial seal and a suitcase filled with precious stones.
Soon Reginald Johnston helped him escape to the Japanese legation. Later Pu Yi and his wives moved to Tianjin, on the coast of China, where the Japanese had a lot of power. Pu Yi rented a mansion called Chang Garden and set up his court there. He remained there for years, plotting to regain his throne. Pu Yi and his wife Wan Rong had busy social lives in Tianjin, but their private relationship was very cold. No longer bearing Pu Yi's cold attitude, Wen Xiu eventually demanded a divorce. Divorce was unprecedented in the history of the imperial family, but Pu Yi didn't want a public scandal, so he agreed. Wen Xiu returned to Peking. She lived until 1950, and never remarried.
In 1931 the Japanese army invaded Manchuria. Pu Yi accepted the Japanese army's offer to smuggle him into Manchuria. Wan Rong joined him there later, but she and Pu Yi spent little time together. She had an affair with a guard and Pu Yi punished her by confining her to her rooms. Eventually the empress became an opium addict. She deteriorated mentally and physically.
The Japanese set up a new country in Manchuria called Manchukuo. They made Pu Yi the Chief Executive. It was 1934 when the Japanese agreed to make Pu Yi the Emperor of Manchukuo. The Japanese provided him with a palace and money, and also made all the decisions for him. The emperor was a puppet with very little say even over his personal life. The Japanese pressured him to marry Japanese women, which, of course, would put Japanese spies inside Pu Yi's family. Pu Yi resisted by taking a new Manchu consort named Tan Yuling.
Six years after her marriage to Pu Yi, Tan Yuling died. Pu Yi believed that the Japanese had poisoned her. Once again he was asked to take a Japanese wife. Finally he agreed to marry a Manchurian girl from a Japanese-run school. Once more he was given photographs and told to choose a bride. He picked a 15-year old, thinking that she might be less indoctrinated by the Japanese than an older girl. Her name was Li Yuqin.
At the end of the war Soviet forces took Manchuria. Again Pu Yi fled his palace with only a suitcase of jewels and an imperial seal. He retreated to a small town with his family and entourage. When he learned of Japan's surrender he abdicated the throne of Manchukuo.
He left his wives behind, and never saw Wanrong again. The beautiful drug-addicted empress died in a Chinese prison at the age of 40. Li Yuqin eventually went to work in a library in her hometown of Changchun. In 1958 she divorced Pu Yi and remarried. She died in Changchun in 2001 of cirrhosis of the liver.
Pu Yi and his attendants were taken to the USSR and kept under house arrest. At last, in 1950, Pu Yi returned to China, where he was sent at once to a prison camp. He remained there for nine years. He slept in a cell with other prisoners, made his own bed, and did menial labor.
In December of 1959 Pu Yi, in his 50s, was finally released. He went to live with his family in his father's house in Peking. Pu Yi was assigned to work in the gardens of the Academy of Sciences Institute of Botany. Later he wrote his autobiographyFrom Emperor to Citizen. In 1962 Pu Yi married Li Shuxian, who had been a nurse in a hospital where Pu Yi was treated during his imprisonment. Pu Yi died in 1967. And Li Shuxian died of lung cancer in 1997 at the age of 72.
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