Puyi: The Last Emperor of China

Podcast Transcript

In 1908, a two-year-old boy named Puyi was installed as the 11th Emperor of the Qing Dynasty in China.

His life would prove to be radically different from that of any other Chinese emperor who came before him. He would see the end of Imperial China, become a puppet ruler for those who wished legitimacy, wind up in prison, and finally live out his final days as a commoner.

His personal story can be seen as a microcosm of the history of China during the 20th century.

Learn more about Puyi, the last Emperor of China, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

To understand Puyi’s story—and I’ll explain why I’m choosing to call him that—you have to start about half a century earlier, in 1861.

It starts with the woman that history knows as the Empress Dowager Cixi. She was unquestionably the most important and powerful person in China in the 19th century.

She began as a low-level concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor, the 8th emperor of the Qing Dynasty. She became empress in 1852 and gave birth to the emperor’s only son in 1856.

When the emperor died in 1861, her son, now the Tongzhi Emperor, was elevated to the throne at the age of five. His mother, now the Empress Dowager, became regent along with the other Empress Dowager, who was not the mother of the Emperor.

She orchestrated a palace coup known as the Xinyou Coup, where she became the primary regent and consolidated power around herself.

Her son died at the age of 18 in 1875, and she appointed her three-year-old nephew, now the Guangxu Emperor, to the throne.

Not surprisingly, with another child on the throne, she remained the regent and consolidated more power.

The Guangxu Emperor reached the age of majority, but he was never able to escape his aunt’s shadow. In 1898, he tried to institute a series of reforms, but the Empress Dowager conducted another coup and put the emperor under house arrest, once again making herself the de facto power behind the throne.

The Guangxu Emperor died on November 14, 1908, without an heir, so the Empress Dowager appointed another child to the throne, the two-year-old Puyi. Puyi was a member of the royal house but not a direct relative to Empress Dowager.

At the same time, she also elevated herself to the newly created title of Grand Empress Dowager of the Qing dynasty.

However, she didn’t get to enjoy her new position very long because she died the very next day, on November 15.

This left the infant Puyi as Emperor, with his father and some court officials serving as regent.

Puyi’s imperial name was the Xuantong Emperor, but he is seldom referred to as such because his reign was so short, and he never reached the age of maturity as emperor. The royal household of the Qing Dynasty, and Puyi’s technical family name, was the Aisin-Gioro, which originally came from Manchuria.

Most Chinese considered the Qing rulers to be Manchurian even though they had been ruling China for over 400 years.

As Puyi was just a child, he had no clue what was happening around him. Imperial China had been weakened through decades of incompetent leadership, corruption, being taken advantage of by Western powers, and a movement to eliminate the monarchy and replace it with a republican form of government.

In 1911, when Puyi was only five, the Xinhai Revolution began which was to end the Qing dynasty.

On February 12, 1912, under the leadership of revolutionary figure Sun Yat-sen, on whom I’ve done a previous episode, the Qing dynasty officially fell, marking the end of more than 2,000 years of imperial rule in China.

Puyi was forced to abdicate, although he was allowed to retain his imperial title and live in the northern half of the Forbidden City as part of a negotiated settlement.

Technically, Puyi did not personally abdicate because he was still a child. His regents did so on his behalf. In fact, when this took place, no one informed him that he was no longer emperor. He had no clue because he was still very young and his day to day routine never changed.

The imperial court eventually signed an agreement with the new Republic of China that was dubbed the Articles of Favourable Treatment of the Great Qing Emperor after His Abdication.

The terms included the following: Puyi would retain the title of “Great Qing Emperor” even though he had no power.

He and the imperial court could continue to live in the Imperial city, and his entourage could continue to perform the imperial rituals.

The Republic of China agreed to provide a substantial annual allowance to support the imperial household and maintain the Qing family’s way of life.

The Republic also agreed to protect the royal family’s property, the ability to use Imperial seals, and the Qing Dynasty tombs. They were also given extraterritorality within the walls of the Forbidden City, which made them exempt from the laws of the republic.

In exchange, the emperor agreed to stay out of politics. By signing the agreement, it also took any remaining pressure off the republic by anypro Imperial subjects.

While this might sound like a great deal for Puyi and the royal court, certainly better than exile or execution, which was the fate of other monarchs during a revolution, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

He was effectually a prisoner, albeit in a very gilded prison. The only place he was allowed to be was in the Forbidden City.

Puyi remained stuck in the Forbidden City for twelve years. Basically, his entire formative years growing up took place within its walls. All of China was undergoing a radical transformation and he was completely isolated from it.

One of the most important decisions that was made was the hiring of an Western tutor for him when he was 13. An Scotsman named Reginald Johnston became Puyi’s tutor and he had a profound influence on his outlook on life.

Johnston not only taught him how the modern world worked, of which he had no experience, he also served as a type of father figure. He arranged for Puyi to get a telephone, a bicycle, and glasses to improve his eyesight.

Puyi’s confinement to the Forbidden City came to an abrupt end on November 5, 1924. A warlord by the name of Feng Yuxiang seized Beijing and, in an attempt to curry favor with the public, canceled the “Articles of Favourable Treatment,” stripped Puyi of his titles, and expelled him from the Forbidden City with just three hours’ notice.

In almost an instant, Puyi went from being the titular emperor of the Qing Dynasty and prisoner of the Forbidden City to being homeless and in exile.

Puyi’s initial inclination was to get the help of the British and to live in exile in Britian. He had a desire to attend university at Cambridge. However, Johnson encouraged Puyi to seek the help of the Japanese.

The theory behind this move was that the Japanese had an emperor who was revered as a god and that he would get better treatment there than in the UK, which had a constitutional monarchy. This was still years before Japan invaded Manchuria and began their expansionist foreign policy.

Rather than taking up residence in the Japanese embassy, which would anger the Chinese government, the Japanese sponsored him in the Chinese city of Tianjin, southeast of Beijing.

Puyi lived in Tianjin for six years with his two wives, because the Emperor was allowed multiple wives when he was married. There he hosted and attended parties and hobnobbed with westerners and joined western clubs that were normally closed to Chinese. He also went on shopping sprees as he was still nominally wealthy and plotted his return to the imperial throne.

Everything changed for him in 1931. Japan invaded Manchuria, the ancestral home of the Qing Dynasty. In occupied Manchuria, they created a puppet state known as Manchukuo. Puyi sailed there in November 1931 in the hope of having his titles restored.

He basically ended up being a prisoner of the Japanese and earned the ire of the Chinese, who considered him a traitor.

In 1934, Japan installed Puyi as emperor of Manchukuo. Puyi accepted the position as he thought it would be a means for him to reestablish imperial rule in China. In reality, it was a horrible decision.

Puyi had no real power. He was nothing more than a puppet of the Japanese who retained all real control in Manchukuo. The Japanese simply used him to give some legitimacy to the state that they had created.

Puyi was under heavy Japanese surveillance until the end of the war in 1945.

In August 1945, as Soviet forces entered Manchuria, Puyi attempted to flee to Japan, but he was captured by the Soviet Red Army and taken to the Soviet Union, where he was held as a prisoner of war.

Once again, Puyi was a prisoner, and once again, his imprisonment wasn’t that bad. He was allowed some servants, and he still lorded over his servants and often slapped them. He was kept in a sanitarium in Siberia during his confinement.

While he was confined by the Soviets, a civil war took place in China which was won by the communists. Puyi was not on good terms with either side of the civil war, but the communists were probably the worst outcome for him.

In 1950, he was returned to China, where he was once again imprisoned, this time for his collaboration with the Japanese during the war. Unlike his previous confinements, this time, he was not given any special privileges.

Puyi spent almost a decade in a Communist re-education camp, where he underwent ideological rehabilitation.

To be fair, he did collaborate with the Japanese. That is undeniable. However, there is no evidence that Puyi had any knowledge of the horrific crimes committed by the Japanese in Manchuria. Given that he was only a figurehead, the Japanese had no incentive to share anything with him.

In 1959, Puyi was pardoned by the Chinese government as part of a broader policy of national reconciliation. He was released from prison and began a new chapter in his life as an ordinary citizen.

In the years following his release, Puyi lived in Beijing and worked as a gardener at the Beijing Botanical Garden. Later, he became an editor at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body.

By all accounts, from those who knew him during this period of his life, he was very akward and clumsy and lacked many basic social skills. For so much of his life everything had been done for him by servants that he lacked the basic skills most people have of daily living.

He would often forget to flush the toilet, close doors, or turn off the water. He was horrible with directions.

He often gave press conferences where he praised the communists which kept him in their favor. He worked for years in prison on a book which was published in 1960. Titled “From Emperor to Citizen” it he recounted his experiences as China’s last emperor, his collaboration with the Japanese, and his life during and after imprisonment.

Supposedly, when he first moved back to Beijing after being in prison, one of the first things he did was visit the Forbidden City as a tourist. While on a tour, he shocked everyone by disclosing he used to be the emperor and showed everyone where he used to play when he lived there.

Puyi lived the last years of his life quietly, away from the public eye. He died on October 17, 1967, from complications related to kidney cancer and heart disease during the chaotic period of the Cultural Revolution.

His life was portrayed in the 1987 film The Last Emperor, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, which won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and brought Puyi’s story to an international audience.

Puyi’s life symbolizes the dramatic transformation of China in the 20th century, from imperial rule to revolution, Japanese occupation, and the establishment of a communist state.

His personal story, moving from absolute monarch to common citizen, illustrates the profound changes that China underwent during his lifetime.