Favorite Royal Images: The Last Empress

HM Empress Wan Jung of China

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.

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Royal Profile: Prince Pu-Chieh of China

His Imperial Highness Prince Aisin-Gioro Pu-Chieh was born on April 16, 1907 to Prince Chun (Zaifeng) and the Lady Youlan. He is mot well known for being the younger brother of the last Emperor of China. As a child he was taken to the Forbidden City to be a playmate of his brother who had never met another child in his life before that time. Prince Pu-Chieh was taught to treat his brother with extreme deference and was quite happy and relieved to see that he was, in fact, a “normal” child. In his memoir the Emperor relates playing hide-and-seek with his brother and a sister only to become outraged when he noticed Prince Pu-Chieh was wearing a yellow gown -a color reserved for the Emperor alone. Most people know of this incident due to its inclusion in the famous film about “The Last Emperor” but too much can be made of it. The two brothers developed a very close bond and remained devoted to each other for the rest of their lives with very few problems ever arising between them.

Both boys lived very sheltered lives within the Forbidden City and were allowed to do nothing for themselves. Both dreamed of escaping and going abroad to see the world. As they grew older they began to plan for this eventuality. Since he had more freedom to come and go than his brother, Prince Pu-Chieh was tasked with smuggling valuable items out of the Forbidden City to save up for the day when they could effect their getaway. Of course, nothing came of the plan and Prince Pu-Chieh was still with his brother when a republican general evicted them from the Forbidden City, forcing them to relocate, ultimately to the Japanese concession in Tientsin. An informal alliance was already being formed between those around the Emperor and the Japanese who were the only ones willing to help and who were about the only Asian power that was an independent monarchy and still considered monarchy of paramount importance. To some extent it was only natural that the two would come together.

Anything involving the Emperor was delicate but Prince Pu-Chieh was someone who was free to move about, had yet to really establish a role for himself and so was a better candidate for solidifying ties between the Japanese and the Qing Dynasty. Prince Pu-Chieh learned Japanese from a well-connected tutor the Emperor selected for him and he began to enquire about going to Japan to study, perhaps even to attend the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He was told this would not be possible right away but that another school could certainly be found to give Pu-Chieh the proper educational preparation. The only potential complication was that in 1924 the Prince had married the Manchu Princess Tung Shih-hsia. However, as the two had no children it was not considered a totally “solidified” marriage as most would understand it and so would not prevent him from going off on his own.

So, in 1929, Prince Pu-Chieh was, with the permission of his brother, sent to Japan to be educated. He attended Gakushuin Peers’ School, an institution for educating the sons of Japanese nobles and he was talented enough to be admitted to the Imperial Japanese Army Academy from which he graduated as an officer in July of 1935. By that time the Japanese had already helped establish the Empire of Manchukuo over which the last Qing Emperor was reigning as Emperor Kang Teh. After his graduation from the Japanese military academy, Prince Pu-Chieh joined his brother in Manchukuo and the Japanese authorities began discussing with the Emperor the marriage of his brother to a Japanese lady of appropriate rank to further strengthen the ties between them. The Emperor agreed and the Kwantung Army (the Japanese military presence in Manchuria) provided a selection of appropriate brides for Prince Pu-Chieh to choose from. Like his brother before him, he had to choose his wife simply from looking over a collection of photographs. His choice was a distant relative of the Japanese Imperial Family, Lady Hiro Saga. As it turned out, he had made a very fine choice.

Prince Pu-Chieh returned to Japan to collect his bride-to-be and on February 2, 1937 they held their formal engagement ceremony at the Manchukuo embassy in Tokyo. On April 3 the two were married at the Imperial Army Hall in Kudanzaka, Tokyo. In the fall the newlyweds moved to Hsinking (Changchun) in Manchukuo to be near the Emperor. Part of the reason for the Japanese insistence on this marriage was because the Emperor had no children and so, in Manchukuo at least, Prince Pu-Chieh was heir to the throne. They were determined that by this marriage the future Imperial Family of Manchukuo would be a mixture of Manchu and Japanese royal bloodlines. Because of all of these political considerations it would be easy to dismiss the marriage of Prince Pu-Chieh and Princess Hiro Saga as being merely for show; all form and no substance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The two were extremely devoted to each other and their commitment remained steadfast throughout the years and all the political turmoil (including a world war) that was soon to come. Prince Pu-Chieh truly loved his wife and she him.

In Manchukuo, Prince Pu-Chieh did his best to assist his brother and promote Manchu-Japanese friendship. Because of his position and military training he was appointed to the (largely ceremonial) post of commander of the Imperial Guard. In 1939 he became a father for the first time when Princess Hiro Saga gave birth to their daughter, HIH Princess Huisheng. A son, it was hoped, would follow, but this was not to be. In 1941 another baby was born, another daughter, HIH Princess Yunsheng. Prince Pu-Chieh was proud of his family and devoted to them, however, he also continued his military training, even after the onset of World War II, returning to Japan for a short time in 1944 to attend the Army Staff College. The worsening war situation necessitated his return to Manchukuo where, in the final days of the war, after the U.S. had already dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, the Soviet Union broke their non-aggression pact and invaded in August 1945. The Imperial Family was split up with the Empress and Princess Hiro Saga and the children trying to reach Japan via Korea and the Emperor and Prince Pu-Chieh trying to reach Japan by airplane, hoping to avoid the communists at all cost and surrender themselves to the Americans who would possibly treat them with more fairness.

Unfortunately, the evacuation was not fast enough and Prince Pu-Chieh was captured along with the Emperor and his entourage before their plane could take off. They spent the next five years in prison in Siberia before, in a new show of Sino-Soviet friendship, they were handed over to the Communist Chinese government in 1950. With his brother he was held at the Fushun War Criminals Prison to undergo “reeducation through labor”. During his years of confinement he learned in a letter from his wife in Japan that his eldest daughter had been murdered. Whether the indoctrination he received worked or if the Prince was putting on an act for the authorities, we will never know, but the official story is that Prince Pu-Chieh was a model prisoner even, toward the end of his term, writing propagandistic plays extolling the “New China” and ridiculing her enemies. After he was released he was reunited with his wife, Princess Hiro Saga, in 1961 who had faithfully waited for him and left her own country to live in China with him. The two resumed their married life as if no time at all had elapsed. Like the rest, Prince Pu-Chieh joined the Chinese Communist Party and was given a number of minor government positions as a show of how the Maoist system could “reform” anyone.

Princess Hiro Saga died in 1987 and the grief of Prince Pu-Chieh was clearly evident in the media coverage of her funeral. Previously that year he had served as an advisor on the famous film “The Last Emperor”, the first time the Chinese government allowed foreign film crews inside the Forbidden City. HIH Prince Aisin-Gioro Pu-Chieh died on February 28, 1994 at the age of 86.

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Monarchist Profile: Zheng Xiaoxu

Few monarchists are probably less remembered or more unjustly vilified than the late statesman, artist and diplomat Zheng Xiaoxu. He was an upright and loyal servant of the last Emperor of China and a man who wanted a China that was strong, united, independent and modern while still holding to their ancient traditions and cultural heritage, at the heart of which was the Confucian imperial system. Zheng Xiaoxu was born on April 2, 1860 in Suzhou, Jiangsu province into a Han family which originated in Fujian province. Noticeably bright from his youth, he took the imperial examinations in 1882 and earned an intermediate degree and within a few years became a secretary to Li Hongzhang, a high Qing official and later a prominent commander in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Taiping Rebellion. His performed his duties satisfactorily and in 1891 was posted to the Chinese legation in Tokyo and later acted as a Chinese consul in Tsukiji, Osaka and Kobe.

While in Kobe, Zheng Xiaoxu played a crucial role in the organization of the Chinese guild and he made many important contacts in Japanese high society in both the political and cultural spheres. However, he was recalled in 1894 with the outbreak of the war with Japan and he worked in Nanjing with Zhang Zhidong, an advocate of reform and opponent of the Japanese annexation of Formosa. Zheng Xiaoxu accompanied his master to Peking and there obtained an appointment to the Foreign Office, a position for which he was well suited. However, his association with many of the prominent reformers gathered around Emperor Guangxu during the “100 Days Reform” in 1898 meant that, once the Empress-Dowager had suppressed the effort, Zheng Xiaoxu suddenly became rather unpopular in Peking and he left the city for the southern provinces where he served in various capacities.

When the Revolution of 1911 came and brought down the Qing Dynasty, replacing the traditional imperial system with a western-style republic, Zheng Xiaoxu was outraged and spurned all efforts to induce him to join the new government. He adamantly refused to serve the republic or to even acknowledge them as the new masters of China and he retired to Shanghai where he wrote poetry and practiced his calligraphy. In fact, it is for his art and poems that he is probably most remembered today, when he is fondly remembered at all. However, even in his retirement he did not cease to make his political views known and he wrote a number of brutally honest criticisms of the republican government. Viewing their entire establishment as illegitimate and un-Chinese he denounced the succession of governments as a collection of thieves, ineffective, self-centered and only looking to pocket as much as they could while they could before being pushed out by others. So, all in all, he had a very accurate view of the early days of the Republic of China.

Zheng Xiaoxu and the Emperor

This brought Zheng Xiaoxu to the attention of certain individuals inside the massive walls of the “Great Within”. Reginald F. Johnston, the British tutor and unofficial advisor to the last Emperor, recommended Zheng Xiaoxu to the young former Emperor for the post of lord chamberlain. He was duly appointed and tasked with leading a wave of reforms in the operating of the Forbidden City. However, he met opposition from the outset by everyone from corrupt officials worried that their usual way of doing business was being endangered, from Manchurians who were suspicious of a Han official being given such an important post and naturally extending to some republican officials who were always nervous about possible efforts to restore the imperial system by those in the Forbidden City. Zheng Xiaoxu persevered however and became known for his staunch loyalty to the Emperor as well as his willingness to change and adapt to modern circumstances. When the freedom and, at times, even the safety of the Emperor was threatened, Zheng Xiaoxu helped arrange his transfer to the Japanese legation in Tianjin.

It is not surprising, given the history Zheng Xiaoxu had with the Japanese and the contacts he had long had in Japan, that he would look to them for assistance at this critical time for the Qing Dynasty. However, he was not wedded to the Japanese alone and encouraged maintaining contacts with as many foreign powers as possible from White Russian exiles to British diplomats. He reasoned that if numerous powers became involved their own competition amongst themselves would prevent any one of them from dominating the Qing restoration movement. However, it was ultimately the Japanese who proved to be the only ones willing to take concrete measures to help the former Manchu Emperor and attention turned toward moving the young former monarch back to his ancestral homeland of Manchuria. Zheng Xiaoxu urged the Emperor to accept this course of action and came to be the dominant figure in the imperial court. When Japan said they would support the creation of an independent Manchuria under the leadership of the Emperor but not a full blown restoration of the “Great Qing Empire” Zheng Xiaoxu embraced the idea while his longtime rival, Lo Chen-yu, felt this was not sufficient and resigned.

So, first as a state and then as an imperial monarchy, Manchukuo was created and Zheng Xiaoxu became prime minister to the Emperor who adopted the reigning name of Kang-Te. All the years of effort seemed to have paid off with an actual restoration, even if only over Manchuria. Most still hoped that this would, in any event, be one step toward the eventual restoration of the Qing Empire of China and the prime minister was certainly among them. Zheng Xiaoxu had been a key player in the establishment of Manchukuo, starting with his contacts in the foreign service as well as friends in the Black Dragon Society (formerly the Black Ocean Society) who wanted Manchuria to act as a buffer zone between Japan and the Soviet Union. He wrote the lyrics to the national anthem, helped organize the administration, wrote about the Confucian monarchist political-moral philosophy of the monarchy and many of the efforts to encourage public support for the new state. However, it would be incorrect to portray him (as most do) as simply a puppet of the Kwantung Army. He shared the views of the more benevolent Japanese imperialists that Manchukuo required Japanese assistance and oversight in the early formative period but that this role should be lessened until it disappeared entirely, leaving Japan and Manchukuo as totally equal and independent allies.

Many often forget how long Manchukuo was an established country, from 1932 to 1945. As early as 1934, after Manchukuo officially became a monarchy, Zheng Xiaoxu viewed the role of the Japanese as being effectively over and resented their continued oversight of Manchu affairs. As was his nature, he was not hesitant to voice his opinions and openly clashed with the Kwantung Army high command on a number of occasions. As a result, many of the Japanese leaders came to view Zheng Xiaoxu as an enemy rather than an ally and suggested the Emperor replace him with someone else. After this attitude was clearly proven to him, Zheng Xiaoxu requested permission to retire in May of 1935 and this was granted. He was still kept under close watch until his mysterious death on March 28, 1938. The Emperor ordered that he be given a state funeral, a fittingly ceremonious end for a man who had been such a loyal servant of his monarch and perhaps merciful in that, disillusioned as he had already become, he did not live to see the final fall of the last Emperor of the “Middle Kingdom”.