Pu Yi Essay

Pu Yi – The Last Emperor of China Young Boy Crowned Emperor in Beijing’s Forbidden City While on her deathbed the Empress Dowager Cixi chose the infant boy Pu Yi to be China’s next emperor. In December 1908 he ascended the throne. [pic][pic][pic][pic] His early years were spent inside the walls of the Forbidden City where he was cared for by consorts of previous emperors. Uncontrollable as a child, he often ordered the eunuchs who served him to be beaten for minor offences.

Shortly after the revolution of 1911 China became a republic and this put an end to imperial power. The young Pu Yi was forced to abdicate the throne in February 1912. Over the next fifty years China’s political scene was dominated by warlords, rebellions, war with Japan and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. These events profoundly shaped Pu Yi’s life. Here is his story. Pu Yi’s Youth and Education The young emperor received lessons in classical subjects like poetry but learned next to nothing about geography, science and mathematics.

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The Manchu people wanted him back on the throne and it was thought at the time that the best way to do this was to expose him to western thought and educational influences. A senior official from the British Colonial Office named Reginald Fleming Johnston became Pu Yi’s tutor. Over the next few years Pu Yi developed a fascination with all things western. He picked an English name — Henry. He stuck with it for the rest of his life. Eviction from the Forbidden City Pu Yi had no choice but to leave the Forbidden City in November 1924.

Forced out by Feng Yuxiang, a warlord who had schemed to take control of Peking for himself, Pu Yi packed his belongings and with a small entourage fled to Tientsin, which is the modern port city of Tianjin. While living in the Japanese concession of that city he lived a life of decadence. Full of imperious airs, he schemed and plotted to get back on the throne. Pu Yi and the Japanese from 1931–1945 Japan invaded the northeastern region of China called Manchuria in 1931. Japanese militarists went forward with their plans to separate this area from Chinese control and a puppet government was created.

Pu Yi was installed by Japan as the emperor of this state, which was then called Manchukuo. During this period he had no real authority. It was the Japanese who were making all of the decisions and getting him to sign all of the new laws. Pu Yi’s old supporters were eliminated one by one and replaced with Japanese vice-ministers. Pu Yi’s Life as a Prisoner and an Ordinary Citizen At the end of World War II, Soviet troops took control of Manchuria and Pu Yi was captured at Mukden. When he heard about Japan’s surrender he formally declared the dissolution of the Manchukuo government.

Taken to Japan to testify in the Tokyo War Crimes Trial in 1946, Pu Yi insisted he was just a tool of the Japanese militarists and not in any way responsible for wartime atrocities. After spending time in a Russian detention centre in Khabarovsk, Pu Yi was sent to the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in China’s Liaoning province. Over the next nine years, he underwent an intense period of educational reform. Pu Yi’s Final Years in Beijing On September 17, 1959 deliverance was at hand for Pu Yi. He was formally pardoned by Chairman Mao Zedong and went to live in Beijing.

He was assigned to work as a gardener and lived out his remaining years tending his plants. Granted full rights after his release from prison, he married Li Shuxian, a nurse, in 1962 and wrote his autobiography in 1964. Royal Palaces and Houses of Beijing Beijing, the capital of China, houses palaces and retreats where royal emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasty lived. At the start of the Cultural Revolution he was an easy target for the Red Guards. Hours before his death in October 1967 hospital staff had to link their arms to stop the revolutionaries from storming Pu Yi’s ward.

He once declared when working as a gardener, “I, along with 650 million of my compatriots, was now the owner of our 9,600,000 sq km of land. ” There was a time as a young boy when he owned it all. References: From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi by Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, Foreign Languages Press, Bilingual Edition 2002 The Last Emperor by Edward Behr, Bantam Books, 1977 Kids Who Rule: The Remarkable Lives of Five Child Monarchs by Edward Cotter, Annick Press, 2007 The Last Emperor’s Humble Occupation by Hannah Beech, Time Magazine, Asian edition, September 27, 1999

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