Puyi
Aisin Gioro Puyi [ pʰu iː ] ( Chinese 愛新覺羅 • 溥儀 / 爱新觉罗 • 溥仪 , Pinyin Aìxīnjuéluó Pǔyí , Manchurian ᡦᡠ ᡳ
ᡤᡳᠣᡵ
ᠠᡳᠰᡳᠨ; * February 7, 1906 near Peking ; † October 17, 1967 in Beijing) came from the Manchurian clan of Aisin Gioro and was the twelfth and last emperor of the Qing dynasty in China from 1908 to 1912 (also during a twelve-day restoration phase in 1917).
Puyi later collaborated with Japan , which made him emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo (1932/1934 to 1945). After imprisonment and years of communist re-education in prisons and camps, he was pardoned in 1959 and finally rehabilitated in 1964 . He died in 1967 as a simple citizen of the People's Republic of China .
origin
Puyi was born on February 7, 1906, the eldest son of Prince Chun II (Zaifeng) (1883-1951) and his wife Youlan (1884-1921) in the "Northern Manor" , a palace near Beijing. His father was a younger half-brother of the then reigning Emperor Guangxu and came from the Manchurian princely family of the Aisin Gioro , who had been the Chinese emperors in the Qing Dynasty since 1644 .
Emperor of China (1908–1912)
At the end of 1908, the childless Emperor Guangxu was dying. Therefore, the Dowager Empress Cixi , the real ruler of China and at court, had the two-year-old Puyi brought to the Forbidden City in Beijing on November 13th to appoint him as heir to the throne. Cixi had been holding the strings for 47 years. She was first concubine of Emperor Xianfeng and had a son, Tongzhi , who succeeded his father as a minor in 1861 to the throne. After his sudden death in 1875 at the age of 18 - his pregnant wife died two months after him - the Dowager Empress put her three-year-old nephew Zaitian through as Emperor Guangxu . This was Puyi's uncle.
On November 14, 1908, the day after the boy's arrival in the Forbidden City, Guangxu died, and Cixi died a day later. There are rumors that the dowager empress, as her death approached, poisoned the inconvenient Guangxu in order to appoint Puyi as a minor successor who did not stand in the way of her political goals. In fact, a 2008 investigation revealed a lethal dose of arsenic in Guangxu's body.
At the age of only two, Puyi was Emperor of China and was enthroned on December 2nd in a highly official, lavish ceremony in the “Hall of Supreme Harmony” . The government's motto was Xuāntǒng ( 宣統 / 宣统 ). From then on, the child emperor lived separately from his biological parents as a god-like person in the Forbidden City, surrounded by eunuchs , servants, concubines and concubines of his predecessors. Anyone who confronted the emperor had to kowtow him; criticism or punishment of him were prohibited. A strict protocol regulated the daily routine of the boy, who reacted rather disturbed to the ceremonies and rituals.
The regency for his minor son took over Prince Chun and Guangxu's widow Longyu. Chun quickly proved incapable of consolidating the imperial central power. The dismissal of the powerful commander-in-chief of the imperial army, General Yuan Shikai , turned out to be a major mistake. Conditions were chaotic in China. Corruption and mismanagement threatened to make it ungovernable. Large parts of the country turned away from Beijing, and imperial decrees and edicts hardly had any effect (especially in Canton ). Regional warlords dominated the game, the Kuomintang republican movement enjoyed enormous popularity, and major foreign powers sought to expand their influence in China. When the Xinhai Revolution broke out in the fall of 1911 , the end of the monarchy was in sight. On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen proclaimed the Republic of China and six-year-old Puyi had to abdicate on February 12 . In the edict on the “ benevolent treatment of the emperor of the great Qing dynasty ”, Puyi continued to be granted imperial titles and dignities. He was granted permanent residence in the Forbidden City and received an annual allowance of four million yuan to maintain his vast court .
In the Forbidden City (1912-1924)
Despite his formal abdication, nothing changed in Puyi's life and treatment for the time being. He was allowed to continue to wear and use his title “Emperor of China” . Even after the proclamation of the republic, the conservative court , dominated by eunuchs, held on to the traditional, archaic court ceremony. Puyi still lived apart from his birth parents in the isolation and seclusion of the Forbidden City, where wet nurse Wang Momo was his most important caregiver. Intrigues were spun throughout the court, relatives (especially his father), high officials and eunuchs enriched themselves personally from the funds allocated and the art treasures of the Forbidden City. In the midst of corruption, resentment and intrigue, the upbringing of the boy was up to his wet nurse and selected eunuchs. He was given one-to-one tuition by private tutors, who mainly taught him traditional Chinese and Confucian literature and calligraphy . It was not until 1914 that Puyi's isolated position changed when his younger brother Pujie was brought to court as a playmate.
Politically, it first played a role again in 1917 when the monarchy was briefly reintroduced after a military coup. General Zhang Xun took advantage of the instability of the republic, put himself to power and reinstated Puyi as emperor in July 1917. However, after twelve days (July 1–12) this attempt at restoration was over and Puyi's advisors held back politically from now on.
In the spring of 1919, the British colonial official and sinologist Prof. Reginald Fleming Johnston became Puyi's new private and English teacher, who was now being taught together with his brother and selected aristocratic children. Johnston quickly gained great influence on Puyi, had a lasting impact on his personality and introduced him to the western way of thinking. This went so far that Puyi cut off his own braid , the traditional Manchu hairstyle .
Politically, China remained a powder keg. In November 1924 General Feng Yuxiang came to power and among other things revised the edict between the republic and the emperor. At his pressure, Puyi had to leave the Forbidden City. After 16 years he took another step in front of the gates of his “golden cage” and on November 5, 1924, went with a small entourage to his father's northern mansion.
In Tianjin (1925-1931)
The situation in China came to a head in the mid-1920s, chaos and anarchy reigned and civil war loomed. Regional warlords, the communists and the central republican power fought for power. Foreign powers, especially expansionist Japan, wanted to take advantage of China's weakness and gain territorial and economic advantages. In the turmoil of that time, Puyi's personal safety was more at risk than ever. On the advice of his entourage, Puyi finally went incognito to Beijing's international ambassador district. There he immediately placed himself under the protection of the Japanese embassy and moved with his entourage into their own building, where he was increasingly exposed to Japanese influence.
On February 23, 1925, Puyi moved to Tianjin . The cosmopolitan port city had a large international quarter, where Puyi entered Japanese territory and moved into a stately villa. During the years in Tianjin, Puyi developed a desire to one day return to the Chinese imperial throne. As a private citizen, he actively participated in the social life of the large foreign community, with high financial burdens from the court, servants and relatives.
After the staged Mukden incident (September 1931) and the subsequent Manchurian crisis between Japan and China, Japanese agents ( Doihara Kenji , Itagaki Seishirō , Ishiwara Kanji ) harassed the mentally unstable Puyi. A satellite state dependent on Japan was to emerge in Manchuria , with Puyi at its head. After some hesitation, he finally agreed.
Emperor of Manchukuo (1932 / 34–1945)
After Puyi agreed to head the new state, the Japanese prepared to relocate to Manchuria. For this purpose, on February 24, 1932, a bogus request from the people of Manchuria was presented to him to become their new president, whereupon Puyi was brought to Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur). There he saw how the independent “ Manchukuo ” was established in Manchuria, which was occupied by Japanese troops (March 1), whereupon Puyi made a solemn move to the new capital, Xinjing . In Xinjing he moved into the building complex of the former salt tax authority, set up his court here and was sworn in as president. In the subsequent drafting of the constitution, Puyi was left out; he was not given a say.
As president, although he had extensive executive , judicial and legislative powers and was able to appoint his government, Manchukuo was a Japanese puppet state from the start. The Japanese long-term goal was to use Manchukuo as a springboard for the subjugation of the whole of China (see Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937). The political power of the state lay with the "State Committee for General Affairs" , which was occupied exclusively by Japanese and received its directives for action from Tokyo . Manchukuo - economically developed by the Japanese - served as a source of raw materials and a manufacturing facility. There were many natural resources and raw materials (especially coal and minerals ), a productive and fertile agriculture and the infrastructure was relatively good. The immigration of Japanese settlers was forced, the official language was Japanese and the Shinto religion was introduced.
Puyi, however, secretly dreamed of returning to the imperial throne in Beijing, but the Japanese made him feel more and more who was in charge. In 1934 Manchukuo became a monarchy and was henceforth the " Empire of Manchukuo " . For this purpose Puyi was crowned "Emperor of Manchukuo" on March 1, 1934 (era Kāngdé 康德 ). The coronation ceremony took place in the presence of Prince Chichibus , the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito , which only underlined that Puyi was emperor by the grace of Japan. However, this did not change anything in his position without influence. On the contrary, he felt increasingly like a prisoner at his court, which was a self-contained, privileged world. Surrounded by Japanese informers, he was increasingly isolated from the outside world and soon showed paranoid traits in his behavior . He only found out about the course of World War II from general Japanese war propaganda.
In 1945 Japan was practically defeated militarily. In August the Soviet Union declared war on him and invaded Manchukuo. The Japanese army did not fight, but withdrew to the south. The country fell into chaos, order dissolved. On August 11th, Puyi left his palace in Xinjing and tried to make his way to Japan with a few faithful (including Pujie). While on the run, Puyi formally abdicated on August 16 and declared that Manchuria would return to China. He was then captured by Soviet paratroopers at Mukden Airport .
Life after 1945
The Soviets interned Puyi in the POW camp of Khabarovsk . Here officers, ministers, and high officials enjoyed relatively mild conditions alongside him. In the meantime, Puyi was heard as a witness at the International War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo in 1946 , declared the Japanese alone to be responsible for all war crimes and absolved himself of all guilt.
Puyi remained in Soviet custody until August 1950, before being extradited to the People's Republic of China after the Communist victory under Mao Zedong . The Chinese authorities interned the ex-emperor in Fushun Prison . There he met his brother Pujie, his father-in-law Prince Su and three nephews. The aim of re-education was to make Puyi a loyal citizen of the People's Republic in the spirit of communism. Part of this process was that for the first time in his life he had to do without privileges or servants. In addition, he had to exercise self-criticism in writing and answer to party cadres for his actions. After nine years in Fushun Prison, Puyi was released on December 9, 1959. The re-education was "successfully" completed and by order of Mao Zedong, he was pardoned . He then went to Beijing, was taken in by his half-brother Puren and was assigned a job as a gardener in the city's botanical garden , later as an archivist at an institute for history at a Beijing university. From then on he led a simple, withdrawn life. He was finally rehabilitated in 1964 when he was elected a member of its National Committee by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
His three-volume autobiography was published in Beijing in 1964 under the title The First Half of My Life . Due to his early death, he was unable to carry out the report on the second “half” of his life as a citizen in the People's Republic . In 1964 he was diagnosed with kidney cancer; from then on his health deteriorated continuously until he finally died on October 17, 1967 in the Beijing County Hospital.
According to the laws of the time, his body was cremated in a crematorium and initially buried in the Babaoshan Revolution Cemetery in Beijing. In 1995, his widow arranged for the urn to be moved to an out-of-town cemetery near the traditional burial sites of his Qing ancestors. Four of the nine Qing emperors, three empresses, 69 princes and imperial concubines were buried there.
Marriages
Puyi was married in 1922 to two noble women whom he had to choose from photographs without first having seen them in person. As empress, he took Gobulo Wanrong and Erdet Wenxiu as the imperial concubine , who separated from him in 1931 during their stay in Tianjin. The relationship with the Empress was distant from the start and worsened noticeably due to Wanrong's addiction to opium . Later she isolated herself from all court life, lived a secluded life in her drug addiction and died in 1946.
As Emperor of Manchukuo, he took Tan Yuling as his new concubine in 1937, but she died in 1942 under unknown circumstances. In 1943 he married fifteen-year-old Li Yuqin (1928–2001). After his release from prison, he married Li Shuxian (1925–1997) in 1962.
Movie
His life story was made into a film by Bernardo Bertolucci under the title The Last Emperor . The film was released in 1987 and starred John Lone as Puyi; furthermore Joan Chen played the Empress and Peter O'Toole Johnston. The film received nine Academy Awards in 1988 .
There are some discrepancies between the autobiography and Bertolucci's film adaptation. For example, there is no reference in the book to an attempted suicide during the transfer from the Soviet Union to China, with which the film begins, although Puyi was terrified of death in prison. Furthermore, there is no evidence in the autobiography of a relationship between the empress and her chauffeur in Manchuria, which resulted in a child who was killed by the Japanese shortly after birth, after his father had already been killed.
See also
literature
- Pu Yi: I was Emperor of China. Munich 1986, ISBN 3-423-10710-3 (autobiography)
- Wolfgang Bartke: The great Chinese of today. An encyclopedia of 100 major Chinese personalities in the 20th century . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-37644-6
- John King Fairbank : History of Modern China. 1800-1985. 2nd Edition. dtv, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-423-04497-7
- Jacques Gernet : The Chinese World. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-38005-2
- Gisela Gottschalk : China's great emperor. Pawlak, Herrsching 1985, ISBN 3-88199-229-4
- Jonathan D. Spence : China's Path to Modernity. Hanser, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-446-16284-4
- Martin Gimm : Marginalia on the last Chinese emperor P'u-i and his family . In: Aetas manjurica, 1, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, pp. 32-98.
Web links
- Literature by and about Puyi in the catalog of the German National Library
- Newspaper article about Puyi in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- ZeitZeichen : 11/13/1908 - Pu Yi is appointed Emperor of China
Individual proof
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Guāngxù |
.svg){kind=small} Emperor of China 1908–1912 |
- |
| - |
 Emperor of Mănzhōu Guó 1934–1945 |
Empire dissolved, reintegration into the Republic of China |
| Guāngxù |
Head of the Qīng dynasty (Chinese line) 1908–1967 |
Yuyan |
| Guāngxù |
Head of the Qīng dynasty (Manchukuo line) 1908–1967 |
Pǔjié |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Puyi |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pu Yi, Aisin Gioro; 愛新覺羅 · 溥儀; Pǔyí, Aisin Gioro |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | last emperor of China |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 7, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Beijing |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th October 1967 |
| Place of death | Beijing |