Understanding the Last Emperor, Part III

Continued from Part II

The Emperor hoped he would finally have the opportunity to prove himself as an independent ruler but he was hampered by the degree to which Manchukuo depended on Japan for security and economic development. As Japan was the primary source of investment in Manchukuo, they naturally had the most influence in the country. Both then and in the years since this has been exaggerated to ridiculous proportions. However, because Japan was the primary source of support for the new regime and because the Emperor desired to show solidarity with Japan during times of increasing difficulty, the Emperor signed into law many directives to show that Manchukuo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Japan. Some of these, such as Japanese being made the official language taught in Manchukuo schools, have since caused a great deal of unfair criticism to be heaped on the Emperor. However, in every government position it was a Manchu who held the top ministerial role with the Japanese being restricted to the position of deputy ministers. Many critics hold Manchukuo and Japan to an unfair standard in this regard, ignoring other countries which acted similarly. The United States, for example, recognized the independence of The Philippines after World War II but still imposed many conditions to give American interests a favored position and to maintain American military forces in the country.

Enemies of the Empire of Manchukuo, in and outside the country, worked tirelessly to spread fear and paranoia about the Japanese presence in the country. Especially after the start of World War II any person who died or left the country was immediately accused of having been assassinated by the Japanese. Even the Emperor's consort, Tan Yuling, who died in 1944 is an example of this. Despite the lack of any evidence at all that she died of anything but natural causes it is still widely held, whether outright or through innuendo, that she was murdered by Japanese doctors after opposing their influence in Manchukuo. What is certain is that the Japanese officials always treated the Emperor with the utmost respect and, though he later expressed misgivings, the Emperor gave his full support to Japan and the "holy war" for Greater East Asia and showed this support by proclaiming Shinto as the official state religion of Manchukuo. And yet, the Emperor himself was not immune from the fear-mongering going on throughout the country. Concerns about security became causes for suspicion and in time the Emperor himself became very worried about his safety and constantly consulted Buddhist oracles and delved into divination to try to protect himself. Empress Wan Jung dealt with the situation by becoming addicted to opium, a fact which particularly distressed the Emperor as his mother had died of an opium overdose when he was young.

In actuality, the life of the Emperor had in a way regressed to what it had been like for him as a boy in the Forbidden City, only with a change in handlers. He signed what documents the Japanese put before him, he followed their advice on who he was to meet and what he was to say and was not allowed to leave the palace unless the trip had been cleared by the Japanese and he was accompanied by an official escort. Today this is all portrayed in the most negative light possible, yet is little different from the role of any constitutional monarch and, indeed, was not terribly dissimilar to what life was like for the Emperor of Japan at the same time. There was a war going on and it would not be the first or only time that progress toward greater independence for a client state was put on hold because of an on-going conflict. Moreover, the conflict was increasingly going against Japan and by extension for Manchukuo. Japanese security around the Emperor and his own paranoia only increased as the defeat of Japan loomed closer. This is unfortunate because the Emperor was legitimately popular among the native Manchu people, if for no other reason than that he was one of their own. Even those who grumbled about the Japanese being too heavy-handed still felt sympathy for their Emperor in whom they saw a brief vision of their former glory and status. And though things were far from ideal, it was lost on no one that without Japan the restoration would never have hapened at all, and if they were defeated the restored monarchy was surely doomed. When the end finally came PuYi hoped to fly to Japan where he could surrender to the Americans, but unfortunately for him, he was overtaken by the Russian invasion, captured and placed under house arrest in the Soviet Union for five years. Having long held the Communists to be the worst of all revolutionary, republican groups, he was certain that his fate was sealed.

His fear turned out to be misplaced. The Russians, for their own part, cared very little about him. The Soviet Union had, after all, originally recognized Manchukuo as a legitimate country and had only declared war on Japan at the last minute, after the atomic bomb had been dropped and Japan was all but defeated, in order to grab territory and extend their influence in the Far East. The actual state of mind of the former Chinese Emperor, at this period, is hard to estimate. He made gushing overtures to Joseph Stalin about how his mind had been liberated by reading Karl Marx, yet at the same time he named a cousin to be his successor in the imperial line. Was he genuinely being changed or was he simply throwing himself at the mercy of the powers that be as he had done before with the Chinese republic? He had, after all, testified at the war crimes trials in Tokyo in 1946 and claimed that he had been kidnapped by the Japanese, used against his will as their instrument and pleaded his total opposition to these people to whom he had once expressed his deepest thanks, loyalty and admiration to. Which stance represents his true beliefs? Only PuYi himself could say for sure and his story changed constantly. He was hardly in a position to be perfectly honest with anyone.

Whatever his feelings about Marxist doctrine he certainly did not want to go back to China and fall into Red Chinese hands, certain that he would face death at their hands. The Soviets soon grew uncomfortable keeping him and realized they could not use him to their benefit. So, as a gesture of friendship to the government of Chairman Mao Tse-tung who had recently seized power; even standing triumphantly over the gates of the Forbidden City announcing that the world had stood up, and turned over the despised former monarch to them in 1950. PuYi and his entourage were returned to Manchuria and incarcerated in the Fushun prison for war criminals. He underwent a constant battery of communist indoctrination and reeducation through labor. Famously, he had to learn to dress himself, tie his own shoes, make his own bed, wash his own clothes; all of which he had no idea how to do since he had never had to do anything for himself. He was a tragic figure, especially at that time, being a man who had never known real personal freedom except perhaps for his few years in Tientsin, and yet even the comfort of his previous prisons denied him of any independence and self worth because of his pampering.

In time, PuYi overcame his fear of being killed. The Communists had decided that he would be more useful to them alive than as a traditionalist martyr. Across China, as in most every Communist country, there was an effort to create a "new man" who would see no class distinctions, who would idolize the party, revere the Chairman and march lock-step with the dictates handed down by the absolutist government, even in terms of dictating thoughts and opinions. They saw in PuYi the chance for a great propaganda coup, that they could "reform", as they called it, the Emperor himself, the man once called the Son of Heaven and the Lord of 10,000 Years, as an ordinary working communist. Unfortunately, they were successful in this, though it took ten years to do it. It is hard to say how much individualism he ever had and the Communists have always been masters at denying the value of any individual and by the time of his release PuYi was praising his Communist captors, scorning his imperial background, voicing shame for his great crimes and thanking the Communist government for their charity, benevolence and wisdom.

Chairman Mao officially pardoned PuYi who returned to Beijing and became a simple worker at the Botanical Gardens. Having abandoned his wives in Manchukuo, Empress Wan Jung died in Communist prison in 1946 and his surviving concubine divorced him, the government played matchmaker to see him married to a nurse, also a member of the Communist Party of course, who he stayed with for the rest of his life. PuYi served on the Chinese People‘s Political Consultative Conference from 1964 and wrote his memoir, "From Emperor to Citizen" in which he recounts the story of his life, remarking on how very wicked he and his compatriots were in his time as Emperor and lavishing praise on the Communists for saving his life and helping him to see the truth and be apart of their remaking of China into a much better country than it had ever been before -as he had been duly taught. The life of the last Emperor of China finally came to an end in 1967 when he died in a hospital in Beijing from cancer. At this time, China was at the height of the horrific Cultural Revolution and rumors began that he had been assassinated by Red Guards. The truth, as with much of his life, may never be known. The Cultural Revolution was a reaction against all things traditional, and as the former Emperor PuYi inherently represented the old China, yet as a reborn Communist he also represented the new China and it would seem a little late to kill him. Interestingly, that night the sky turned brown and eerie from a Mongol sand storm that was quite unheard of at that time of year. The strange light and sounds caused many elder Chinese especially to guess that the "last dragon" had flown into the clouds.

Initially, after his death, PuYi was cremated and buried in a Communist Party cemetery alongside government elites and older graves of imperial concubines and eunuchs. Later, in 1995, his widow moved his body to a private cemetery near the old Qing dynasty tombs, paid for by a Hong Kong businessman who admitted that he hoped the presence of the last Emperor would help boost his sales for plots. He also stated that he planned to build a larger memorial for the Emperor and his later wives as a sort of tourist attraction. The Aisin-Gioro, never very taken by PuYi's last wife, were reportedly extremely upset about this action. Even in death, it seems, PuYi is still being used as an instrument for the cause of others.

Understanding the Last Emperor, Part II

Continued from Part I

Married life made the Emperor feel more like his own man and shortly thereafter he decided that if he could not rule China he would at least rule the Forbidden City in line with his own ideas. He had, especially through the influence of Johnston, become something of a radical liberal by the standards of the staunch Chinese traditionalists. He wanted reform and modernization and shocked the court when he cut off his queue and appointed a new chamberlain, Cheng Hsiao-hsu, and attempted a crackdown on the black market sale of antiques from the palace. When he met resistance on this front from those entrenched at court, particularly the eunuchs who had been his only constant companions since childhood, he expelled the eunuchs from the Forbidden City. This was quite an undertaking considering the ancient and powerful position of the eunuchs and the fact that there were still roughly 1,200 of them living in the Forbidden City. What would have come of this new effort to create his own society inside the palace walls we will never know. In 1924 another warlord seized Peking. This time it was a Communist, who ironically also claimed to be a Christian, named General Feng Yuxiang, who ordered PuYi and the entire court to evacuate the Forbidden City immediately.

PuYi considered several destinations to relocate to but eventually settled in the foreign section of Tientsin, specifically in the Japanese legation. Here he had more freedom than he had ever enjoyed in the traditional confines of the Forbidden City and preferred the modern conveniences and cosmopolitan atmosphere he had never known before. He was generally treated with great respect by the representatives of foreign nations, still given the respect due an emperor and was able to dress in western clothes and adopt western practices. This is something most Chinese people were doing anyway but it upset some of his more traditional courtiers who thought it beneath the dignity of the Lord of 10,000 Years to look and act like a European playboy. He also never gave up hope of restoring the Qing Empire and was in constant contact with Chinese loyalists, his Manchurian relatives and the always fickle warlords who demanded a lot of money but delivered only promises. He was also conspicuously well treated by the Japanese who convinced him that they had his best interests at heart, and as fellow believers in the superiority of monarchy and the imperial system, were entirely supportive of his restoration.

There were problems and worries for the Emperor too in Tientsin. The rest of China was engulfed in the civil war between the republican government and communist revolutionaries. In 1931 Princess Wen Xiu, tired of being the second class wife, sought and obtained a divorce from the Emperor, something unprecedented in Chinese imperial history but rather keeping with the more modern lifestyle he had adopted in Tientsin. Most significantly however was when republican troops raided and sacked the tombs of the Qing emperors. For any Chinese raised with the traditional Confucian moral code of filial piety this was a terrible outrage. PuYi was especially incensed to learn that the grave of the Empress Dowager had been desecrated and pearls from her headdress given to the wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to decorate the toes of her shoes. PuYi vowed to those around him to avenge this wrong and to restore the Qing and the dignity of his ancestors, declaring that if he did not do so then he was no Aisin-Gioro.

What seemed like his chance to do so came in 1932 when the Japanese, who had occupied Manchuria with little resistance from official Chinese republican forces, approached the Emperor about returning to power in his ancestral homeland. It took a little negotiation to get PuYi to go along with the idea, especially when it was made clear that this would be a new state and not a restoration of the Qing Empire. Further, PuYi was rather insulted when the Japanese insisted that he be installed first as Chief Executive rather than as a monarch. The Japanese knew that an immediate restoration of the Qing Empire would be overreaching and could be little justified to the outside world. However, there was no doubt that the Emperor was the legitimate hereditary ruler of the Manchu people and this was where a restoration had to start. Japan also knew that if this was going to be accepted by the international community, they would have to play by the rules of the day, which meant "Chief Executive" before "Emperor". The Emperor's longtime advisor Chen Pao-shen was totally opposed to the idea and favored what seemed the safer course of trying to restore the Articles of Favorable Treatment and regaining the good graces of republican China. Others, however, like Cheng Hsiao-hsu and Lo Chen-yu impressed upon him that this was an opportunity that might never come again and the Japanese promised that he would resume his imperial status at an appropriate time in the future. PuYi finally agreed to the enterprise on a trial basis and if he did not become emperor after a certain amount of time he would resign and resume his life as an exile.

PuYi was taken to Manchuria and on March 1, 1932 was formally installed as the Chief Executive of the State of Manchukuo. As the Japanese were continuing their expansion in China this attracted the attention of the League of Nations which sent a delegation to Manchuria to determine whether or not Manchukuo was a legitimate nation which reflected the will of the Manchu people or simply a puppet state of Japan. As was often the case, the commission seemed mostly concerned with the opportunities this offered for other foreign nations rather than focusing on the stated intent of their mission. Nonetheless, the commission, led by the British Earl of Lytton, eventually reported that Manchuria was and would remain Chinese though some degree of autonomy was suggested. This prompted Japan to resign from the League of Nations, deeply offended, and no further action was taken on the part of the international community. Once the Japanese were better entrenched and the Manchu government better established they agreed to restore the imperial dignity to the head of state.

In 1934 PuYi was formally enthroned as Emperor of Manchukuo, taking the reign name of Kang Teh or Tranquility and Virtue of the Great Manchu Empire. This new status did not, though, ease his relationship with the Japanese which was difficult even at the very start of his new reign. The problems were not serious but should be mentioned simply because so many claim that the Emperor was only a pliant tool of the Japanese when, in fact, they two did not always agree completely on everything. For example, PuYi could not bear the idea of being enthroned in anything but the traditional robes of a Chinese emperor. The Japanese, on the other hand, insisted that he wear Manchukuo military uniform. This was, after all, Manchukuo and not the Qing Empire and this might cause difficulty with those who wanted a distinct and independent Manchuria, remaining apart from China. In the end it was agreed that PuYi would be enthroned in uniform but wear traditional regalia when he announced his accession to Heaven at a recently constructed earthen altar. PuYi was, nonetheless, filled with hope for the future, especially after a formal visit to Japan where he was warmly received by Emperor Hirohito. He announced that Japan and Manchukuo were partners and friends and that he intended to produce an heir to secure the succession.

The Japanese, however, were not too enthusiastic about his talk of Japan and Manchukuo being partners, insisting on being treated as the actual power in the country which they were. Many in Japan did not see this as unreasonable and no different from the way the British, for example, interacted with client monarchies in the Empire of India. There were also those in Japan who disagreed and wanted a true and equal partnership between the Manchu and Japanese nations. Most western powers, not surprisingly, dismissed Manchukuo as no more than a Japanese puppet state, particularly after the start of World War II in the Pacific. Some countries did open diplomatic relations with Manchukuo such as of course Japan, the Kingdom of Italy and Nazi Germany as well as General Franco in Spain, Marshal Petain of the Vichy regime in France, Pope Pius XI, the pro-Japanese Republic of China under Wang Qinghui (the only Chinese republicans to recognize the restoration of their former emperor), El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and surprisingly the Soviet Union as well as a few others. 

Emperor "Henry" was never successful in producing an heir however and he was obliged to designate his brother, Prince Pu Chieh, as his successor who was married to the Japanese Princess Hiro Saga but even she bore only daughters. In 1939 the Emperor took another wife which also caused some friction with the Japanese who wanted him to take a Japanese wife. This also illustrates a hole in the logic of biased westerners who insist that the Japanese were full of racial bigotry against other Asians. They wanted to cement their alliance with a royal marriage, something very traditional and, to put it in a western context, no one at the time would have considered for a minute having a British princess married to a King of the Zulus for example. This was also nothing new as, at that time, the Crown Prince of Korea had also taken a Japanese wife and she very much adopted the Korean people as her own. Still, the Emperor of Manchukuo resisted the idea of having a Japanese bride and so, once again, another compromise was worked out by which PuYi married a Han Chinese girl named Tan Yuling. She was educated by the Japanese-operated school system, which made her acceptable to them, and was only a teenager so the Emperor hoped she would be politically innocent.

To be concluded in Part III...

Understanding the Last Emperor, Part I

The last Emperor of China is not a well known figure, and it is an unfortunate truth that most of the notoriety he does hold is on account of the famous Academy Award-winning film about his life. Though he lived not a very long time ago, the last Chinese Emperor remains a very enigmatic figure. The accounts of his life written by others invariably come from biased sources, people who have some agenda to push and in his case it involves the necessity of vilifying the Emperor. Yet, even reading his own accounts, it is hard to come to a very clear understanding of the man. In his youth in the Forbidden City of Peking, surrounded by traditionalist mandarins and submissive eunuchs he was a staunch Chinese imperialist. When he was head of state of Manchuria under Japanese protection he was a staunch ally of Japan and finally when he was taken by the Communists he voiced his disgust at his past life and praised the People‘s Republic. Which opinion was the sincere one? Where any of them sincerely felt? What sort of man was he or was his life spent so dominated by others that any individualism in him was stamped out? Regarding the last Chinese Emperor anyone will find that there are many more questions than answers.

The last Emperor was born Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi on February 7, 1906 to Prince Chun II; the half brother of Emperor GuangXu, and Princess Youlan; daughter of General Ronglu. He had very little time for a normal childhood however as he was summoned to the Forbidden City by the Empress Dowager Cixi when he was not yet three years old. Empress Dowager Cixi was ruling in the place of the nominal monarch, Emperor GuangXu, whom she had suppressed in a military coup after he tried to modernize the country. Now on her deathbed, Cixi wanted to make sure that the Emperor could not retake power after her death and ensure that the system she had in place would continue. An infant monarch would allow those she trusted to hold real power and bring up the child in line with their way of thinking and so she chose PuYi to be the adopted heir of his uncle and succeed as the next emperor. She possibly had GuangXu poisoned as he died on November 14, 1908 with Cixi herself dying the following day. The following month PuYi was officially enthroned as Great Emperor of the Great Qing Dynasty, Grand Khan of Tartary, Lord of 10,000 Years and the Son of Heaven with the reigning name of Hsuan-tung. Already the victim of circumstances beyond his control this occasion marked the beginning of the end of the ancient Chinese Empire.

Because of his age, the little emperor was watched over by his adopted mother, Empress Dowager Longyu and his father who served as regent on his behalf. Opinion varies considerably on Prince Chun, encouraged by the fact that he was quite adept at being acceptable to the powers-that-be at all times. Some view him as a potential reformer, others as a hopeless reactionary. Regardless though, he had relatively little time at the helm of the Chinese Empire before the outbreak of the republican revolution in 1911. The revolt happened almost by accident and was led by the American educated Sun Yat-sen who received the aid of the notorious General Yuan Shihkai. This general had already betrayed the previous emperor, betrayed PuYi and would ultimately betray Sun Yat-sen when after being given the presidency in return for convincing the Qing Dynasty to abdicate he declared himself emperor and tried to found a new dynasty. The Qing were quickly overwhelmed, intimidated and through the persuasion of Yuan Shihkai convinced that they had to come to terms with the revolution in order to survive.

Prince Chun gave up being regent on December 6, 1911 and passed the position to Empress Dowager Longyu who was left to deal with the disaster. It was she, on behalf of the Hsuan-tung Emperor, signed the "Act of Abdication of the Emperor of the Great Qing" on February 12, 1912. The agreement which brought about this abdication, an unprecedented event in world history, was extremely interesting. For one thing, it stated that the Emperor was bowing to the Mandate of Heaven as expressed through the will of the people; which had certainly never been done before in the history the succession of Chinese dynasties. Likewise, in return for the peaceful surrender of the monarchy, the newly born Republic of China agrees to the Articles of Favorable Treatment which guaranteed the title of the Manchu Emperor, the protection of the imperial tombs and monuments, imperial ownership of the imperial palaces within the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, the treatment of the emperor with the respect of a foreign head of state and the payment of four million dollars a year to the imperial court. It was a remarkable agreement in the history of fallen monarchies especially in that, even though China had embraced republicanism, a certain mystique still surrounded the child emperor and even the republic would not deny that the emperor was an emperor and thus worthy of a certain respect. Unfortunately, the republic did not ultimately live up to this agreement, especially in terms of the payments which were stopped fairly quickly, but neither did the imperial court which never accepted the republic as permanent and continued to hope for a restoration.

During this period PuYi led a rather uneventful life. There were occasional ceremonies for him to participate in, dignitaries to be received and of course his education at the hands of the mandarins, particularly his tutor Chen PaoShen who was to be one of his closest advisors throughout much of his life. It is interesting to note how many of the republican officials treated the Emperor. China, especially during this period, was a place where everyone tried to keep all bases covered as to whom might one day be in a position to benefit them. When republican officials would come to the Forbidden City on some errand they would often enter in western clothes, deliver their speech on behalf of the republic in a dignified manner and then leave again, don traditional robes, come back in and bow down to address the Emperor as a private individual. There was a constant dance between the imperial court, the republican government and the military warlords who held most of the actual cards, each one paying lip service to the other for momentary support and looking for a chance to gain political power with the little emperor caught in the middle.

General Chang Hsun

This situation seemed to reach a pivotal moment for the Qing in 1917 when a monarchist warlord, General Chang Hsun, marched on Peking. His troops were known as the Pigtail Army because they retained the Manchu queue hairstyle as a symbol of their continued loyalty to the Qing. The General offered to restore the young monarch and with the assurance that the republican government was supportive, and that the President would step down, the court agreed and announced the official return of Emperor Hsuan-tung to nominal power on July 1. For a brief time dragon flags appeared on the streets and imperial-era robes were being worn again. There was even a rush on costume shops to obtain horse hair queues to give the appearance of having been ever loyal. Yet, not everyone was convinced, and vendors were selling imperial pronouncements with the advertisements that they would soon be antiques. True enough, the President of the republic did not go along with the restoration and soon Peking was besieged by republican forces under General Duan Qirui. There was even a brief air raid when a republican plane dropped a bomb in the Forbidden City which did little damage but caused considerable fright simply because of the novelty of it. By July 12, 1917 the Pigtail Army had been dispersed and Chang Hsun was forced to flee to the Dutch legation. Another abdication announcement was hastily issued on behalf of the young Emperor and once again China reverted to republicanism and warlord rule.

Inside the Forbidden City life went on under the usual routine for PuYi. In the hope of gaining foreign aid and to give the Emperor a more western education a British official named Reginald F. Johnston was employed as tutor to the Emperor. He befriended his pupil and would remain a defender of the last Emperor for the rest of his life, even after certain political problems arose during the 1930's between Britain and some other friends of the last Emperor. It was with Johnston that PuYi chose a name for himself from a list of British monarchs, picking Henry in reference to Henry VIII and so became known by many in the English-speaking world as Emperor Henry of China. In 1922 it was decided that, as he was 16 years old, it was high time for the Emperor to marry. He was given a number of candidates to choose from, but his first choice, the Princess Wen Xiu, was deemed too ugly by the courtiers and so Princess Wan Jung was chosen for the job of wife and Empress with Wen Xiu coming along as concubine.

To be continued in Part II...

MM Video: The Last Emperor in Color

MM Video: The Last Emperor

MM Video: Manchukuo

MM Video: The Last Empress

Today in Imperial History

It was today in 1848 that Francis Joseph became the Kaiser of Austria, starting what would be one of the longest reigns in European history. Emperor Francis Joseph is one of my favorites and it rather pains me that his decades on the thrones of Austria and Hungary are often described in such simplistic terms. However, he was a tower of strength in an empire that very much needed one. His was a man extremely devoted to his duty and (a big part of the reason why he is one of my favorites) to maintaining the authority and respect for the monarchy among the people. He was very careful to avoid anything that could damage the prestige of the monarchy and this was certainly not due to any personal pride or vanity (the man slept on an army cot for Pete's sake!) but because he understood the spiritual and political place of the monarchy as being central to the life of the empire. With all of its diversity it was essential that the reverence toward the monarchy be preserved. He went through many trials in his political career and even more in his private life. He made some mistakes on the political field but none of them were immoral mistakes. Although many dismiss his reign of stagnation, that was certainly not the case just because he opposed political change for the sake of change alone.

It was also on this day, in 1852, that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of the French as Napoleon III. Most monarchists, understandably, have some serious "issues" with the entire Bonaparte dynasty but few would deny that they were a step up from the chaos of republicanism. My own views on Napoleon III are rather mixed. First and foremost, like most royalists, I do not consider him legitimate. That being said, I prefer a Bonaparte monarch to no monarch at all and overall he was not a "bad" monarch. Like his uncle he had radical roots that I would oppose absolutely and even as Emperor of the French he did alot of 'right' things for the wrong reasons. However, like the first empire, his second empire did restore French pride and prestige for a good number of years and, unlike the first empire, he did so without plunging all of Europe into war against the existing monarchial order. He had the good sense to stay on good terms with the British Empire so that French influence in the world expanded rather than shrank during his reign and although his motives in the invasion of Mexico may have been suspect, his support for the restoration of the monarchy there, backed up by French troops, gave Mexico their best government since independence. Again, despite suspect motivations, he did intervene to defend the Pope and to defend Christians in the Middle and Far East.

Finally, it was on this day in 1908 that Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi became the last Emperor of China. He was little more than two years old and was never given a chance to rule his country on his own and his efforts to restore himself later were always troubled by the alliances he had to forge to make this possible. In a way this is one of the most tragic things about the nominal reign of Emperor Xuantong. Revolutionaries turned the public against him despite the fact that he was never given the chance to prove whether he would be an effective monarch or not. It was certainly no fault of his that he was never given an opportunity to prove himself. From what we can tell from his memoirs and those who knew him, there was at least a possibility he could have been just what China needed at the time; a traditional figure who held his position sacred but who recognized the need for considerable reforms to put China on an equal footing with the other great powers of the world. Had his reign been allowed to continue and traditional institutions (topped by the monarchy) been upheld, China could have been spared the internal divisions, gruesome civil war and Marxist tyranny that she suffered. Unfortunately, the opportunity represented by his enthronement was not grasped and China became the first of many Far East nations which turned their back on their own heritage and ended up killing each other on an epic scale over competing foreign ideologies.

Favorite Royal Images: Two Asian Emperors

HIM Emperor Showa (Hirohito) of Japan and HIM Emperor Kang Teh (Pu-Yi) of Manchukuo during a formal visit to Tokyo to cement the Japanese-Manchu alliance.

Consort Profile: Empress Wan Jung

Empress Wan Jung (also known as Empress Wan Rong, Empress Xiao Ke Min and Empress Elizabeth) has the distinction of being the last Empress of China yet relatively little is really known about her. Most know her only in connection to her husband and most of what people generally know about her comes from only a very few sources, most of which are hard to accept as completely reliable. Part of the Daur Mongol ethnic group of Manchuria she was born on November 13, 1906 into one of the most prominent Manchu families. Her father, Rong Yuan, was the Minister of Internal Affairs under the Qing Empire. She was named Gobulo Wan Rong or “Beautiful Countenance” which most thought deserved.

Wan Jung was educated in an American missionary school in Tianjin and privately by the American tutor Isabel Ingram. The two became very close and even exchanged clothes and tried to dress alike. It was her western education that recommended her to the young former Emperor of China. She was 17 when she was chosen (after simply viewing a collection of photographs) to be the wife of the last Emperor. His first choice had been the Princess Wen Xiu but the courtiers thought her insufficiently attractive and so chose Princess Wan Jung for the role of wife and empress and assigned Wen Xiu the part of secondary consort. A year older than her husband, the two seemed to get along well but without great attraction to each other. In his memoirs the Emperor said he left his wife alone on their wedding night as he preferred the Mind Nurture Palace to the Palace of Earthly Peace.

In his memoirs (written under the eye of the communist party it must be remembered) the Emperor does not paint a very flattering picture of his first wife, describing her as a lavish spender and obsessed with social rank and her status as empress. Especially after they were turned out of the Forbidden City and took up residence in the Quiet Garden at Tianjin her expenditures were much commented on. She also began using opium, which the Emperor despised but without which she could find little peace. According to the Emperor it was only her attachment to her status as Empress which kept her from divorcing him as Princess Wen Xiu did but again, that view should not be taken as absolute fact. Most agree that she did not like the Japanese who became more involved with their lives after the move to the Quiet Garden and she opposed going to Manchuria for the establishment of Manchukuo.

Princess Eastern Jewel (Kawashima Yoshiko) was dispatched to befriend the Empress and help get her to Manchuria one way or another though by that time she and the Emperor were for all intents and purposes separated even if living under the same roof. Her opium use increased, she chain smoked and ate very little thus making her health worse and worse. The increase in her opium abuse is generally attributed to the strain of life in Manchukuo with all of the pressures of rank, none of the freedoms and under constant Japanese scrutiny. It is widely held that the Empress became pregnant in 1940 by the Emperor’s chauffeur and that the baby (a girl) was killed by the Japanese just after birth. This has been repeated often enough to be generally believed, and may well be true, but it should be stressed that this was always only a rumor and has never been proven one way or another.

In any event, her drug use increased even more to the point where she was almost constantly in an opium-induced stupor and her mental faculties began to fail her. This put the Emperor off, and he also seems to have blamed her for the loss of Princess Wen Xiu and eventually he was prompted by the Japanese to take another consort. He did say, however, that the Empress joined him in his increasing religious devotion during their time in Manchuria and others commented that it was only the hope of an eventual return to the Qing Empire and the Forbidden City that sustained the Empress. Others, however, maintain that she had no attachment to her old life at all and wanted nothing more than to live a modern, western-style life as exiles in Monte Carlo. Both possibilities came to nothing though with the end of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Empress Wan Jung, consort Li Yuqin and Princess Hiro Saga left by train for Korea trying to get to Japan but were captured by Chinese communists. They were finally moved to Yanji Prison where the Empress died of starvation and opium withdrawl on June 20, 1946. She was only 39-years-old. In October of 2006 a younger brother, Gobulo Runqi, just a year before his own death, had a tomb built for his sister at the Western Qing Tombs complex near Yixian.

The End of Imperial China

It was on this day in 1912 that His Imperial Majesty, Xuantong, “Great Emperor of the Great Qing Dynasty, Grand Khan of Tartary, the Lord of 10,000 Years and the Son of Heaven” formally abdicated, bring the Manchu dynasty and thousands of years of imperial tradition in China to an end. At the time the Emperor was only 6-years-old and was acted for by the Empress-Dowager Longyu who was quite out of her depth and had no one to turn to but the military strongman General Yuan Shihkai (who ultimately proved untrustworthy). In an alliance with the revolutionaries he was able to secure the abdication of the Qing in exchange for political power for himself. The downfall of Imperial China came in such a sudden, confused collapse that the true historical significance of it escaped many, and still does to this day. Consider for a moment that until February 12, 1912 there had been an Emperor of China continuously since at least 221 BC.

To give westerners a little context on this, consider that when the first Emperor of China came to the throne Hannibal had just become commander of the armies of Carthage, the Ptolemy’s ruled Egypt and the Roman Republic had just built its second circus. Carthage would rise and fall, Egypt would fade from the ranks of the great powers, the Roman Republic would become the Roman Empire, rise, divide, fall, come back as the Holy Roman Empire, rise, fragment and fall, the Ottoman Empire would rise, nearly conquer Europe and then fade into the background while all the while the succession of Emperors in China continued. Dynasties rose and fell but there was always a “Son of Heaven” on the Dragon throne until this day in 1912.

The scattered groups opposed to the imperial system had very little in common (which would ultimately lead to decades of anarchy among feuding warlords) but most agreed on racial xenophobia; hatred of the Manchurians was all they agreed on in many cases. It is, therefore, ironic that Sun Yat-Sen, who believed himself entitled to leadership in a post-imperial China, waved the Han nationalist flag while spending much of his life in the United States and coming back to China with a hunchbacked American lackey in a ridiculous uniform clanking with worthless medals who expected to become military commander of the new republic. All the ideas expressed were foreign and foreign advisors were never far from even the most rabid sounding nationalists.

Sun Yet-Sen even went to pay homage to the tomb of the last Ming emperor simply because he was the last Han monarch to rule China before the Qing dynasty came to power and Manchu and Mongol princes assumed the places of importance. However, we should not be too surprised at this. The same man who railed against the decadent Manchu court was a flagrant philanderer, the same man who called for freedom and democracy was an absolute autocrat who would have nothing to do with any organization or party he did not control and the same man who berated the widespread corruption of the late Qing period presided over a provisional government that set a new standard in graft, nepotism, cronyism and corruption of every kind.

On the other side of the thick walls of the “Great Within” the boy Emperor did not really know what monumental event had taken place either. Nothing much changed in his daily life and inside his Forbidden City he was still treated as the Lord of 10,000 Years, partly because not everyone was convinced all the sudden changes that had taken place would be permanent. Most elites tried to keep a foot in each camp and for the Manchurians and traditionalists at least there was still hope that after the novelty of the republic had worn off the people would come back to the system they had known for thousands of years. This was only the beginning of the troubles modern China would face, but it all started with the end of the imperial era, the end of the Great Qing, 98 years ago today.

Rare "Talkie" of the Last Emperor

Monarchist Profile: Sir Reginald F. Johnston

Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston is not an extremely well known figure but many have heard of him thanks to two sources; his memoir "Twilight in the Forbidden City" and the award-winning film "The Last Emperor" in which he was portrayed by Peter O'Toole. He was a committed monarchist and endured much because of this, particularly because of his staunch loyalty to his pupil and friend HIM Emperor Xuantong aka "Henry PuYi". Johnston was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and in 1898 entered the British colonial service working in Hong Kong and Weihaiwei, China. A noted scholar he was known for his extensive studies of China; the language, history, culture and customs. In 1919, as part of an effort to build ties with the British by the Imperial Household Department, Johnston was employed as tutor to the 13-year-old Manchu Emperor.

Johnston and his pupil soon became fast friends and Johnston was one of only 2 foreigners to live so closely to the Emperor in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. He was given a number of honors and could be seen wearing a Chinese gown and being carried in a sedan chair like a Qing dynasty official. The Emperor appreciated his candor and his extensive knowledge of the outside world he knew so little about. He also saw him as a true friend, devoted to him personally and not trying to use him to advance himself as so many others clearly were. Johnston appreciated the Emperor's idealism, curiosity and desire to enact reforms and become a modern monarch. Both of them maintained hope that the Qing monarchy could be restored.

The two remained very close until the Emperor was expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924. A few years later Johnston was assigned as Commissioner of Weihaiwei which post he held until the Republic of China took control of the region in 1930. The following year he became Professor of Chinese at the University of London but still kept in touch with his old pupil and was hopeful that the move to Manchuria and the creation of the Empire of Manchukuo would be the dawn of a new era for the Qing monarch. The last Emperor wrote the forward for his book "Twilight in the Forbidden City" and Johnston wrote of the move to Manchuria,"in the earnest hope that, after the passing of the twilight and the long night, the dawn of a new and happier day for himself, and also for his people on both sides of the Great Wall, is now breaking."

Johnston retired from teaching in 1937 and moved to the island of Eilean Righ which he had purchased and where he built a Chinese garden and kept his Chinese robes, honors, documents and artifacts in a special Chinese-style room. He attracted quite a bit of criticism during the days after the oubreak of World War II in Asia for continuing to fly the Manchukuo flag over his island, a display not of any political approval of Japanese actions but of his unfailing loyalty to his friend the Emperor and his continued belief in his potential to be a good monarch for China. He never married but was engaged at the time of his death the following year in 1938.

Son of Heaven a Prisoner of Atheists

It was on this day in 1945 that the last Emperor of China, "Henry" Pu-Yi, lately Emperor Kang Teh of Manchukuo, his brother Prince Pu-Chieh and his attendants were arrested by troops of the Soviet Red Army as they attempted to fly to Japan in order to surrender to the forces of the United States. After being called as a witness at the Tokyo war crimes trials he would spend five years in Soviet captivity before being handed over to the Chinese communist government in an effort by the dictator Joseph Stalin to improve relations with Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The Emperor's recent abdication was actually his third. His first had been in 1912 when the Empress Dowager Longyu abdicated on his behalf to the Chinese republic. He abdicated again in 1917 after a brief restoration effected by the Qing loyalist Chang Hsun. His 1945 abdication as Emperor of Manchukuo would be his last.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Hsuan-tung of China

His was a strange and tragic life; for a time the nominal ruler of the world (in Confucian belief) and a recognized emperor for longer than most realized he spent most of his life as a powerless prisoner of the designs of those around him. He was born Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi, took the English name Henry among his siblings, reigned as the Emperor Hsuan-tung and later as Emperor Kang Teh but thanks to an award-winning film about him he is probably best known simply as "The Last Emperor". A member of the Manchu dynasty little Pu-Yi was born in 1906 to the second Prince Chun and Princess Youlan. When he was 3 years old he was taken to the Forbidden City in Peking. Emperor Guangxu had just died, still locked away by the Grand Empress Dowager Cixi and the aged woman who had dominated China for so long, then on her deathbed, appointed Pu-Yi to be the next Emperor of China with his father as regent. A short time later, in a grand, elaborate Confucian ceremony that was the last of its kind in China, the little boy was formally enthroned as Hsuan-tung, "Great Emperor of the Great Qing Dynasty, Grand Khan of Tartary, the Son of Heaven and Lord of 10,000 Years".

It was not to last long as the Qing Empire was already close to collapse when the Empress-Dowager breathed her last. The end came in 1911 following a double-cross by the General Yuan Shihkai. However, agreements with the new Republic of China allowed the Emperor to keep his titles, a considerable income, his property and to remain in the Forbidden City where he was treated rather like a foreign ruler. As the era of the warlords opened it was a time when everyone in China wanted to keep a foot in every camp. Pu-Yi grew up in isolation, primitive but luxurious captivity. In 1917 he was briefly restored to nominal power by the German-backed Marshal Chang Hsun but promised support from republican officials did not come and the effort collapsed. The Republic of China declared war on Germany a short time later. In 1924 Pu-Yi's life as he knew it changed forever when a socialist and Methodist Christian warlord captured Peking and ordered the Manchu royals out of the Forbidden City. The last Emperor ended up in Tientsin where the Japanese were very friendly and protective of him. He enjoyed living a modern lifestyle but never lost sight of his ultimate goal: to restore the Great Qing Empire.

Pu-Yi kept contacts with numerous Chinese and White Russian warlords in the hope of effecting a restoration but his life as an ex-emperor did not end until 1932 when he was persuaded to go to Manchuria to become the "Chief Executive" of the State of Manchukuo; a Japanese protectorate. In 1934 he was formally enthroned as Emperor Kang Teh of the Great Manchu Empire, however, the League of Nations judged Manchukuo a Japanese puppet state and the only major foreign powers to recognize Manchukuo were the World War II allies of Japan. As politically incorrect as it might be, in light of the post-war history of China and Korea I maintain that it would have been better for everyone if the Empire of Manchukuo could have been preserved but it was not to be. The last Emperor's fortunes were tied to the fortunes of Japan and when the Japanese surrendered he was forced to abdicate and was quickly captured by the invading Soviet troops in 1945.

He castigated the Japanese at the Tokyo War Crimes trials but despite his efforts to ingratiate himself with his Soviet captors he was eventually handed over to the Red Chinese in 1950. For 10 years he was held in a prison for war criminals in Fushun where he was subjected to a decade of "reform through labor". If the autobiography he was forced to write can be believed the indoctrination methods were successful and when he was released he proclaimed himself a loyal communist, grateful to his captors and scorning his past life and imperial heritage. He worked as a simple gardener in Peking for the rest of his life before he died in 1967 during the height of the Cultural Revolution. The government said it was a result of natural causes but rumors spread immediately that he had been killed by the communist authorities as part of their campaign to sweep away the last remnants of "old China" which the Emperor was certainly a living embodiment of.

Despite the best efforts of the communists the idea of the last Emperor as a villain never really took hold. Most today probably view him as a tragic figure but I take a more nostalgic view. It often seems that the world as a whole missed the significance of the fall of the Chinese Empire; an imperial system which lasted from the time of the ancient Greeks until the 20th Century. His life marked the end of an era and the start of a long period of suffering and terror for China. It also marked the end of China as a society based on the moral principles of Confucius. It is debated as to who would be the heir of the last Emperor today. In his book, Pu-Yi wrote that he designated his cousin, Prince Yu-Yan as his successor. He died in 1997 and if his line is accepted the heir to the Dragon Throne today would be his son Prince Hengzheng, aka Yuan Yuan.