Puyi

Puyi (7 February 1906-17 October 1967), formally the Xuantong Emperor, was Emperor of the Qing dynasty from 2 December 1908 to 12 February 1912 (succeeding Guangxu Emperor and preceding Sun Yat-sen) and Emperor of Manchukuo from 1 March 1934 to 15 August 1945.

Biography[]

Emperor of China[]

Puyi was born on 7 February 1906, the son of Prince Zaifeng, and he was a member of the Aisin Gioro clan of the Manchus. In 1908, the dying Empress Dowager Cixi chose Puyi to assume the Chinese throne as the "Xuantong Emperor" after the death of the Guangxu Emperor, and the two-year-old was treated like a king and not allowed to act like a child.

Puyi grew up with absolute power and had eunuchs beaten for minor offenses, and his absolute rule led to the Xinhai Revolution by the Kuomintang and anti-absolute monarchy parties. In 1917, warlord Zhang Xun restored Puyi to power, but he was expelled from power in 1924, and he lived in Tianjin until 1931. His English teacher gave him the name "Henry Pu Yi", and he lived as a former emperor in the Forbidden City.

Emperor of Manchukuo[]

In 1932, Japan decided to create the puppet state of Manchukuo and name Puyi as its emperor. This was done to gain the loyalty of Qing dynasty loyalists and the local warlords, but Puyi was little more than a puppet who was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army's advisers and generals in Manchuria. Japan handled the defense and foreign affairs of the nation, and it was dragged into the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II by Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo. On 16 August 1945, Puyi was captured by the Soviet Red Army while fleeing to Japan on an airplane, and he expressed his resentment of his treatment by the Japanese to Allied authorities. During the Cultural Revolution, his food rations, salary, his sofa, and his desk were taken from him by the Chinese red guarsd, and he died of kidney cancer in 1967 at the age of 61.