The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China Free

FREE THE LAST MANCHU: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HENRY PU YI, LAST EMPEROR OF CHINA PDF

Last Emperor of China brief chronology of major events in his life is proof of his perseverance in the face of continuing adversity:. Abdicated, but continued to live as if he were still Emperor, within the Forbidden City in Peking. The reason seems to be his weak character in combination Last Emperor of China the political importance of the Manchu tradition. Indeed, his life suggests a historical justification for the appearance of the anti-hero of modern fiction. Pu Yi, by his own admission, was a liar, suspicious, tricky, a hypocrite and preoccupied with a fear of death. He also hinted that he might have been homosexual, and goes to some length to explain how these aspects of his character were developed as a result of his upbringing and the historic forces with which he had to contend. And it is these explorations into his vices that are such an important aspect of his life. For if Pu Yi had been able to rise above the corrupting influence of 1, eunuchs during his youth and the personality The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi an exotic English tutor, if he had been able to resist the blandishments of his courtiers and the pride of family and tradition, if he had been able to do without twelve-year-old boy pages and stand up to predatory Japanese militarists, then he clearly could never have been brainwashed as he was by the Red Chinese. The defects which were within him provided the suppleness necessary for survival. Without them he would either have been shot before he fell into Communist hands, died or gone insane during the thought-molding process, and his captors would have been without tools with which to work. Although the facts of his life, which he describes with such charm and tells so well, could stand in themselves as illuminating and important vignettes of Chinese history, the book, over and above its Gone with the Wind fascination, confirms the significance of the Manchu tradition. Either the warlords in North China, or the Japanese, or the Soviets or the Maoist Communists could have executed him and extinguished the monarchy just as the Bolsheviks did the Czar of Russia and his immediate family. Yet they never did. On the contrary, they always accorded him some form of special treatment. At first, when the monarchy was overthrown, Pu Yi was allowed to live on, within the Forbidden City, and maintain the imperial traditions. Later, the Japanese made him the puppet Emperor of Manchuria. Then the Russians, who captured him from the Japanese, put him in a hotsprings resort. Even the Americans were ultimately forced by events to accord him special treatment. When he was brought to Tokyo in August to testify in the war-crimes trial of Japanese leaders, there was pressure to put Pu Yi himself on trial. To try Pu Yi as a war criminal might impair the position of the Emperor of Japan, whose mystique and cohesive force Mac-Arthur was determined to preserve. Pu Yi had, as Emperor of Manchuria, close ties with the Japanese royal family. His brother and heir was married to a relative of the Empress. Their children were half-Japanese. No other ousted ruler in modern history has exhibited the survival powers of Henry Pu Yi. To say that he led a charmed life is too easy an explanation. An ex-emperor can, perhaps, be lucky once, or even twice, but not six times! The explanation of this ability to survive is an underlying theme of his autobiography and, as such, becomes a key to understanding modern China. The basis for this book originally appeared in three volumes in Peking in It was called to my attention in by Chinese living in the United States who read with interest and excitement a serialized version that Last Emperor of China published in the popular press of Hong Kong. Their reaction The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi me to believe that an English edition might enjoy a similar response among American readers, and this conviction was substantiated when it became possible to obtain and read a copy of the original Last Emperor of China version. In its original form, The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, had it been literally translated, the autobiography would have come to over 1, printed pages, and would have suffered from a profusion of repetitious passages. Although Dr. Tsai translated the entire book on tape, it was necessary, in order to preserve reader interest, to make certain editorial changes. In all cases of excision and rearrangement, however, I have been as faithful as possible to the Chinese as a Westerner can possibly be. When the book dealt with specific events and detailed descriptions of imperial Chinese life this was not too difficult, although it was complicated by the fact that Pu Yi was a Manchu and his interests and preoccupations were without precedent in so far as the West was concerned. In addition, there was no basis for comparison of his account since no Chinese Emperor ever before revealed to the public the secrets of the Forbidden City. An Oriental, and above all Pu Yi, simply did not think like a Westerner; the thoughts came out in a different and unaccustomed progression and passed through different convolutions. Superimposed on this, there was the Chinese Communist habit of equating events with ideology to the extent that an Occidental found himself so far removed from the actualities of daily life and the conflicts involved that it was difficult to grasp truth in terms of definable human emotions and reactions. But in all cases, the book was as faithful an abridgment of the original Chinese as it was humanly possible to make it and, at the same time, create a readable and entertaining story for a Western reader. Here again there were difficulties. No royal family in history guarded its secrets more zealously than the Manchus. What really went on within the Forbidden City was purposely withheld from those without. Genuine source material was not published, and the official statements that were released studiously avoided any revelations as to the personal factors behind them. It was necessary to The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi things out, therefore, with the help of an occasional foreigner who managed to penetrate some corner of the Forbidden City on official business, the gossip of eunuchs and an infrequent indiscretion by a palace official or royal relative. Such sources were not always reliable, but were the best available and I used them if only to help the reader understand what Last Emperor of China otherwise be an almost incomprehensible life-style on the part of Manchu royalty. Now, twenty years later, there is a demand for a second edition. Also, and perhaps more important, events of the past twenty years have given an authenticity to the book it did not have for the average Western reader in One reason for this is a shift in attitudes. Relations with Communist China have been resumed. Trade and tourism have been established. Hostilities on both sides have subsided with the consequence that Westerners can observe events and read books about China with an objectivity that was heretofore difficult. Puyi | Biography & Facts | Britannica

The man known as Henry Pu Yi led one of the strangest lives of the 20th century. The last of the Manchu emperors, he succeeded to the throne as a boy of two in Three years later a revolution turned the country into a republic but, although his abdication was arranged, he was allowed to keep his title and live in mock-imperial state, attended by courtiers and eunuchs, served meals of 40 courses and given playmates who were punished if he misbehaved himself. The little boy, indeed, did not realise that anything had changed, but as his biographer Edward Behr remarked, his palace was the first of his many prisons. China fell into the hands of rival warlords and for a few days The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi Pu Yi was reinstated as emperor and The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi removed again. At 16 he was given four photographs of girls he had never met to choose from and provided with an imperial wife and an imperial concubine. Aged 19 inwith China in turmoil, he escaped to The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi international settlement at Tientsin to take shelter in the welcoming arms of the Japanese. They found a use for him and, when they took control of Manchuria Last Emperor of Chinathey proclaimed Pu Yi as Emperor of Manchukuo. He remained titular emperor all through the Second World War, but he was never more than a Japanese puppet. Pu Yi now tried to fly to Korea and on to Japan, but he was caught by Soviet troops at Mukden airport and flown to Siberia where he was kept captive, though in comfortable circumstances, until when the Russians handed him over to the Communist regime in China. Pu Yi was sure he would be executed but the Chinese put him in a management centre for war criminals along with some of his family and ex- Manchukuo officials and army officers. He was Prisoner No and tended the prison vegetable garden. He worked part-time as an assistant gardener at the Beijing botanical gardens and in married his fifth and last wife, a hospital nurse, who survived him. He was sometimes trotted out and shown to visiting foreign dignitaries as an interesting curiosity until his death of kidney cancer at the age of 61 in Pu Yi, last Emperor of China, is pardoned. The last of the Manchu emperors received a formal pardon on December 4th, China Political. Related Articles. The Birth of China's Tragedy. Popular articles. Could the Soviet Union Have Survived? Distortions and Omissions. Pu Yi, last Emperor of China, is pardoned | History Today

Born to a life of unimaginable privilege, he died as a humble assistant gardener under the communist regime. When he passed away of lung kidney cancer inPuyi was under the protective custody of members of the Cultural Revolution, completing a life story that's truly stranger than fiction. On The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi sides of his family, ties were tight with the de facto ruler of China, the Empress Dowager Cixi. Little Puyi was only two years old when his uncle, the Guangxu Emperor, died of arsenic poisoning on November 14,and the Empress Dowager selected the little boy as the new emperor before she died the very next day. On December 2,Puyi was formally enthroned as the Xuantong Emperor, but the toddler did not like the ceremony and reportedly cried and struggled as he was named the Son of Heaven. He was officially adopted by the Dowager Empress Longyu. The child emperor spent the next four years in the Forbidden City, cut off from his birth family and surrounded by a host of eunuchs who had to obey his every childish whim. When the little boy discovered that he had that power, he would order the eunuchs caned if they displeased him in any way. The only person who dared discipline the tiny tyrant was his wet-nurse and substitute mother-figure, Wen-Chao Wang. She reportedly got 1, pounds of silver from General Yuan Shikai for her cooperation — and the promise that she would not be beheaded. Yuan declared himself President of the Republic of China, ruling until December of when he bestowed the title of Hongxian Emperor on himself inattempting to start a new dynasty, but died three months later of renal failure before he ever took the throne. Meanwhile, Puyi remained in the Forbidden City, not even aware of the Xinhai Revolution that rocked his former empire. In July ofanother warlord named Zhang Xun restored Puyi to the throne for eleven days, but a rival warlord called Duan Qirui nixed the restoration. Finally, inyet another Last Emperor of China, Feng Yuxian, expelled the year-old former emperor from the Forbidden City. Puyi took up residence in the Japanese embassy in Beijing for one and a half years and in moved to the Japanese concession area of Tianjin, toward the northern end of China's coastline. Puyi and the Japanese The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi a common opponent in the ethnic Han Chinese who had ousted him from power. The former emperor wrote a letter to the Japanese Minister of War in requesting help in recovering his throne. As luck would have it, the Japanese had just concocted an excuse to invade and occupy Manchuriathe homeland of Puyi's ancestors, and in November ofJapan installed Puyi as their puppet emperor of the new state of Manchukuo. Puyi was not pleased that he ruled only Manchuria, rather than the whole of China, and was further chafed under Japanese control where he was even forced to sign an affidavit that if he had a son, the child would be raised in Japan. The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi andPuyi was under the observation and orders of a Kwantung Army officer who spied on the Emperor of Manchukuo and relayed orders to him from the Last Emperor of China government. His handlers gradually eliminated his original staff, replacing them with Japanese sympathizers. When Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, Puyi boarded a flight for Japan, but he was captured by the Soviet Red Army and forced to testify at the war crimes trials in Tokyo in then remaining in Soviet custody in Siberia The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi Puyi would spend the next ten years interned in the prison, constantly bombarded with communist propaganda. ByPuyi was ready to speak publicly in favor of the Chinese Communist Party, so he was released from the re-education camp and allowed to return to Beijing, where he got a job as an assistant gardener at the Beijing Botanical Gardens and in married a nurse named Li Shuxian. The former emperor even worked as an editor for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from on, and also authored an autobiography, "From Emperor to Citizen," which was supported by top party officials Mao and Zhou Enlai. By this time, his health was failing as well. On October 17,at the age of just 61, Puyi, China's last emperor, died of kidney cancer. His strange and turbulent life ended in the city where it had begun, six decades and three political regimes earlier. Share Flipboard Email. Kallie Szczepanski. History Expert. Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U. Updated August 14, ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our.