Pu Yi, The Last Emperor of China ~ Nanang Public Area

27 January 2009

Pu Yi, The Last Emperor of China

puyi, the last emperor of chinaInterested on Pu Yi (the last emperor of China) a moment after watching his biography on MetroTV, I was googling to know more about himself detaily in text version. I met a brief description about him described by Encylopedia.Com

Pu Yi or Henry Pu-yi, Manchu Aisin Gioro, 1906-67, last emperor (1908-12) of China, under the reign name Hsuan T'ung. After his abdication, the new republican government granted him a large government pension and permitted him to live in the Forbidden City of Beijing until 1924. After 1925, he lived in the Japanese concession in Tianjin. In 1934, reigning under the name K'ang Te, he became the emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo , or Manchuria.

He was captured by the Russians in 1945 and kept as their prisoner. In 1946, Pu Yi testified at the Tokyo war crimes trial that he had been the unwilling tool of the Japanese militarists and not, as they claimed, the instrument of Manchurian self-determination. In 1950 he was handed over to the Chinese Communists, and he was imprisoned at Shenyang until 1959, when Mao Zedong granted him amnesty.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia.Com described Pu Yi biography more complete. Right here, I just quoted a part of Wikipedia version on Pu Yi:

Emperor of China (1908–1912)

Chosen by Dowager Empress Cixi while on her deathbed, Puyi ascended the throne aged 2 years and 10 months in December 1908 following his uncle's death on November 14. He was titled the Xuantong Emperor. Puyi's introduction to emperorship began when palace officials arrived at his family household to take him. Puyi screamed and resisted as the officials ordered the eunuchs to pick him up. His wet-nurse, Wen-Chao Wang, was the only one who could console him, and therefore accompanied Puyi to the Forbidden City. Puyi would not see his real mother again for six years.

Puyi's upbringing was hardly conducive to the raising of a healthy, well-balanced child. Overnight, he was treated as a god and unable to behave as a child. The adults in his life, save his wet-nurse Mrs. Wen-Chao, were all strangers, remote, distant, and unable to discipline him. Wherever he went, grown men would kneel to the floor in a ritual kow-tow, averting their eyes until he passed. Soon the young Puyi discovered the absolute power he wielded over the eunuchs, and frequently had them beaten for small transgressions.

Puyi's father, the 2nd Prince Chun, served as a regent until December 6, 1911 when Empress Dowager Longyu took over in the face of the Xinhai Revolution.

Empress Dowager Longyu signed the "Act of Abdication of the Emperor of the Great Qing" (《清帝退位詔書》) on February 12, 1912, following the Xinhai Revolution, under a deal brokered by Yuan Shikai (the great general of the army Beiyang) with the imperial court in Beijing (formerly Peking) and the republicans in southern China: by the "Articles of Favourable Treatment of the Emperor of the Great Qing after his Abdication" (《清帝退位優待條件》) signed with the new Republic of China, Puyi was to retain his imperial title and be treated by the government of the Republic with the protocol attached to a foreign monarch. This was similar to Italy's Law of Guarantees (1870) which accorded the Pope certain honors and privileges similar to those enjoyed by the King of Italy. He and the imperial court were allowed to remain in the northern half of the Forbidden City (the Private Apartments) as well as in the Summer Palace. A hefty annual subsidy of 4 million silver dollars was granted by the Republic to the imperial household, although it was never fully paid and was abolished after just a few years.

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