1934 Original Manchukuo Chinese Photo Pu Yi Hsinking Children China Vintage

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176299957834 1934 ORIGINAL MANCHUKUO CHINESE PHOTO PU YI HSINKING CHILDREN CHINA VINTAGE. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL 8X10 INCH PHTOO FROM 1934 DEPICTING CHILDREN AT A FLAG PROCESSION OF HSINKING IN CELEBRATION OF THE ENRHTONEMENT OF HENRY PU YI
Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia from 1932 until 1945. It was founded in 1932 after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and in 1934 it became a constitutional monarchy. Under the de facto control of Japan, it had limited international recognition. The area was the homeland of the Manchus, including the emperors of the Qing dynasty. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident. A pro-Japanese government was installed one year later with Puyi, the last Qing emperor, as the nominal regent and later emperor.[1] Manchukuo's government was dissolved in 1945 after the surrender of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. The territories claimed by Manchukuo were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945,[2] and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year.[note 1] Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group was Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians and other minorities. The Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula (present-day Dalian) continued to be directly ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory. Contents 1 Names 2 History 2.1 Background 2.2 Origins 2.3 Diplomatic recognition 2.4 World War II and aftermath 3 Administrative divisions 4 Politics 4.1 Head of State 4.2 Prime Minister 5 Demographics 5.1 Population of main cities 5.2 Japanese population 5.3 Abuse of ethnic minorities 6 Legal system 7 Economy 8 Transport 9 Military 9.1 War crimes in Manchukuo 9.2 Drug trafficking 10 Society and culture 10.1 National symbols 10.2 Education 10.3 Film 10.4 Dress 10.5 Sport 10.6 Stamps and postal history 11 In popular culture 12 See also 13 Notes 14 References 14.1 Citations 14.2 Cited sources 15 Further reading 16 External links Names Further information: Etymology of Manchu and Etymology of Manchuria "Manchukuo" is a variant of the Wade-Giles romanization Man-chou-kuo of the Mandarin pronunciation Mǎnzhōuguó of the original Japanese name of the state, Manshūkoku (満州国). In Japanese, the name refers to the state of Manchuria, the region of the Manchus. The English name, adapted to incorporate the word Manchu, would mean the state of the Manchu people. Indeed, Manchukuo was often referred to in English as simply "Manchuria", a name for Northeast China which had been particularly employed by the Imperial Japanese to promote its separation from the rest of the country.[3][4] Other European languages used equivalent terms: Manchukuo was known to its allies as Manciukuò in Italian and Mandschukuo or Mandschureich in German. In present-day Chinese, Manchukuo's name is still often prefaced by the word wěi (偽, "so-called", "false", "pseudo-", &c.) to stress its illegitimacy.[5] The formal name of the country was changed to the "Empire of Manchuria" (sometimes referred to as "Manchutikuo"), after the establishment of Puyi as the Kangde Emperor in 1934. In Chinese and Japanese, the names were Dà Mǎnzhōu dìguó and Dai Manshū teikoku. The Dà/Dai 大 ("big", "great") were added after the model of the formal names of the Great Ming and Qing dynasties, but this was unused in English. The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria.[4] The historian Norman Smith wrote that "The term "Manchuria" is controversial".[6] Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she "should use the term in quotation marks", when referring to Manchuria.[7] Herbert Giles wrote that "Manchuria" was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression.[8] In his doctoral thesis of 2012, Professor Chad D. Garcia noted that usage of the term "Manchuria" was out of favor in "current scholarly practice" and preferred the term "the northeast".[9] History Background Main articles: History of the Republic of China, Japanese nationalism, Japanese militarism, and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere; territory controlled at maximum height. Japan and its allies in dark red; occupied territories/client states in lighter red. Korea and Taiwan were integral parts of Japan. The Qing dynasty, which replaced the Shun and Ming dynasties in China, was founded by Manchus from Manchuria (modern Northeast China). The Manchu emperors separated their homeland in Jilin and Heilongjiang from the Han Liaoning province with the Willow Palisade. This ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as "China" (中國, Zhongguo; "Central Realm") and referred to it as "Dulimbai Gurun" in Manchu.[10][11][12] The Qing equated the lands of the Qing state (including present day Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas) as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas, proclaiming that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China", using "China" to refer to the Qing in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the "Chinese language" (Dulimbai gurun i bithe) referred to Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and the term "Chinese people" (中國人 Zhongguo ren; Manchu: Dulimbai gurun i niyalma) referred to all Han, Manchus, and Mongol subjects of the Qing. The lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to "China" (Zhongguo, Dulimbai gurun) in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.[13] During the Qing dynasty, the area of Manchuria was known as the "three eastern provinces" (三東省; Sān dōng shěng) since 1683 when Jilin and Heilongjiang were separated even though it was not until 1907 that they were turned into actual provinces.[14] The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907. Since then, the "Three Northeast Provinces" (traditional Chinese: 東北三省; simplified Chinese: 东北三省; pinyin: Dōngběi Sānshěng) was officially used by the Qing government in China to refer to this region, and the post of Viceroy of Three Northeast Provinces was established to take charge of these provinces.[citation needed] As the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free (such as Kashgar) or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the northern lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a huge tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War.[15] But Russia was not satisfied and, as the Qing Dynasty continued to weaken, they made further efforts to take control of the rest of Manchuria. Inner Manchuria came under strong Russian influence in the 1890s with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok.[16] The far right wing Japanese ultra-nationalist Black Dragon Society supported Sun Yat-sen's activities against the Manchus, believing that overthrowing the Qing would help the Japanese take over the Manchu homeland and that Han Chinese would not oppose the takeover. The far right wing Japanese ultranationalist Gen'yōsha leader Tōyama Mitsuru believed that the Japanese could easily take over Manchuria and Sun Yat-sen and other anti-Qing revolutionaries would not resist and help the Japanese take over and enlargen the opium trade in China while the Qing was trying to destroy the opium trade. The Japanese Black Dragons supported Sun Yat-sen and anti-Manchu revolutionaries until the Qing collapsed.[17] Toyama supported anti-Manchu, anti-Qing revolutionary activities including by Sun Yat-sen and supported Japanese taking over Manchuria. The anti-Qing Tongmenghui was founded and based in exile in Japan where many anti-Qing revolutionaries gathered. The Japanese had been trying to unite anti-Manchu groups made out of Han people to take down the Qing. Japanese were the ones who helped Sun Yat-sen unite all anti-Qing, anti-Manchu revolutionary groups together and there were Japanese like Tōten Miyazaki inside of the anti-Manchu Tongmenghui revolutionary alliance. The Black Dragon Society hosted the Tongmenghui in its first meeting.[18] The Black Dragon Society had very intimate relations with Sun Yat-sen and promoted pan-Asianism and Sun sometimes passed himself off as Japanese.[19] That had connections with Sun for a long time.[20] Japanese groups like the Black Dragon Society had a large impact on Sun Yat-sen.[21] According to an American military historian, Japanese military officers were part of the Black Dragon Society. The Yakuza and Black Dragon Society helped arrange in Tokyo for Sun Yat-sen to hold the first Kuomintang meetings, and were hoping to flood China with opium and overthrow the Qing and deceive Chinese into overthrowing the Qing to Japan's benefit. After the revolution was successful, the Japanese Black Dragons started infiltrating China and spreading opium and anti-Communist sentiment. The Black Dragons pushed for the takeover of Manchuria by Japan in 1932.[22] Origins Main articles: Mukden Incident, Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and Pacification of Manchukuo As a direct result of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japanese influence replaced Russia's in Inner Manchuria. During the war with Russia, Japan had mobilized one million soldiers to fight in Manchuria, meaning that one in eight families in Japan had a member fighting the war.[23] During the Russo-Japanese War, the losses were heavy with Japan losing a half-million dead or wounded.[23] From the time of the Russian-Japanese war onward, many Japanese people came to have a proprietary attitude to Manchuria, taking the viewpoint that a land where so much Japanese blood had been lost in some way now belonged to them.[clarification needed][23] In 1906, Japan established the South Manchurian Railway on the former Chinese Eastern Railway built by Russia from Manzhouli to Vladivostok via Harbin with a branch line from Harbin to Port Arthur (Japanese: Ryojun), today's Dalian. Under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Kwantung Army had the right to occupy southern Manchuria while the region fell into the Japanese economic sphere of influence.[24] The Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad company had a market capitalization of 200 million yen, making it Asia's largest corporation, which went beyond just running the former Russian railroad network in southern Manchuria to owning the ports, mines, hotels, telephone lines, and sundry other businesses, dominating the economy of Manchuria.[24] With the growth of the South Manchuria Railroad (Mantetsu) company went growth in number of Japanese living in Manchuria from 16,612 Japanese civilians in 1906 to 233,749 in 1930.[23] The majority of blue collar employees for the Mantetsu were Chinese, and the Japanese employees were mostly white collar, meaning most of the Japanese living in Manchuria were middle-class people who saw themselves as an elite.[25] Between World War I and World War II Manchuria became a political and military battleground between Russia, Japan, and China. Japan moved into Outer Manchuria as a result of the chaos following the Russian Revolution of 1917. A combination of Soviet military successes and American economic pressure forced the Japanese to withdraw from the area, however, and Outer Manchuria returned to Soviet control by 1925.[citation needed] During the Warlord Era in China, the warlord Marshal Zhang Zuolin established himself in Inner Manchuria with Japanese backing.[26] Later, the Japanese Kwantung Army found him too independent, so he was assassinated in 1928. In assassinating Marshal Zhang, the "Old Marshal" the Kwantung Army generals expected Manchuria to descend into anarchy, providing the pretext for seizing the region.[24] Marshal Zhang was killed when the bridge his train was riding across was blown up while three Chinese men were murdered and explosive equipment placed on their corpses to make it appear that they were the killers, but the plot was foiled when Zhang's son Zhang Xueliang, the "Young Marshal" succeeded him without incident while the cabinet in Tokyo refused to send additional troops to Manchuria.[24] Given that the Kwantung Army had assassinated his father, the "Young Marshal"—who unlike his father was a Chinese nationalist—had strong reasons to dislike Japan's privileged position in Manchuria.[27] Marshal Zhang knew his forces were too weak to expel the Kwantung Army, but his relations with the Japanese were unfriendly right from the start.[27] The Japan–Manchukuo Protocol, 15 September 1932 The throne of the emperor of Manchukuo, c. 1937 After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japanese militarists moved forward to separate the region from Chinese control and to create a Japanese-aligned puppet state. To create an air of legitimacy, the last Emperor of China, Puyi, was invited to come with his followers and act as the head of state for Manchuria. One of his faithful companions was Zheng Xiaoxu, a Qing reformist and loyalist.[28] On 18 February 1932[29] Manchukuo ("The Manchurian State") was proclaimed, officially founded on 1 March. It was recognized by Japan on 15 September 1932 through the Japan–Manchukuo Protocol,[30] after the assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. The city of Changchun, renamed Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xinjing; lit.: 'New Capital'), became the capital of the new entity. Chinese in Manchuria organized volunteer armies to oppose the Japanese and the new state required a war lasting several years to pacify the country.[citation needed] The Japanese initially installed Puyi as Head of State in 1932, and two years later he was declared Emperor of Manchukuo with the era name of Kangde (康德, w Kang-te, "Tranquility and Virtue"). Manchukuo thus became Manchutikuo ("The Manchurian Empire"). Zheng Xiaoxu served as Manchukuo's first prime minister until 1935, when Zhang Jinghui succeeded him. Puyi was nothing more than a figurehead and real authority rested in the hands of the Japanese military officials. An imperial palace was specially built for the emperor. The Manchu ministers all served as front-men for their Japanese vice-ministers, who made all decisions.[31] In this manner, Japan formally detached Manchukuo from China over the course of the 1930s. With Japanese investment and rich natural resources, the area became an industrial powerhouse. Manchukuo had its own issued banknotes and postage stamps.[32][33][34] Several independent banks were founded as well.[citation needed] The conquest of Manchuria proved to be extremely popular with the Japanese people who saw the conquest as providing a much needed economic "lifeline" to their economy which had been badly hurt by the Great Depression.[35] The very image of a "lifeline" suggested that Manchuria—which was rich in natural resources—was essential for Japan to recover from the Great Depression, which explains why the conquest was so popular at the time and later why the Japanese people were so completely hostile towards any suggestion of letting Manchuria go.[36] At the time, censorship in Japan was nowhere near as stringent as it later become, and the American historian Louise Young noted: "Had they wished, it would have been possible in 1931 and 1932 for journalists and editors to express anti-war sentiments".[37] The popularity of the conquest meant that newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun which initially opposed the war swiftly changed to supporting the war as the best way of improving sales.[37] In 1935, Manchukuo bought the Chinese Eastern Railway from the Soviet Union.[38] Diplomatic recognition Foreign recognition of Manchukuo represented by states in colors other than gray China did not recognize Manchukuo but the two sides established official ties for trade, communications and transportation. In 1933, the League of Nations adopted the Lytton Report, declaring that Manchuria remained rightfully part of China, leading Japan to resign its membership. The Manchukuo case persuaded the United States to articulate the so-called Stimson Doctrine, under which international recognition was withheld from changes in the international system created by force of arms.[39] In spite of the League's approach, the new state was diplomatically recognized by El Salvador (3 March 1934) and the Dominican Republic (1934), Costa Rica (23 September 1934), Italy (29 November 1937), Spain (2 December 1937), Germany (12 May 1938) and Hungary (9 January 1939). The Soviet Union extended de facto recognition on 23 March 1935, but explicitly noted that this did not mean de jure recognition.[40][41] However, upon signing the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, the Soviet Union recognized Manchukuo de jure in exchange for Japan recognizing the integrity of the neighboring Mongolian People's Republic.[42] The USSR did maintain five consulates-general in Manchukuo initially, although in 1936–37 these were reduced to just two: one in Harbin and another in Manzhouli.[43][44][45] Manchukuo opened consulates in Blagoveshchensk (September 1932) and in Chita (February 1933).[46] It is commonly believed that the Holy See established diplomatic relations with Manchukuo in 1934, but the Holy See never did so. This belief is partly due to the erroneous reference in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film The Last Emperor that the Holy See diplomatically recognized Manchukuo. Bishop Auguste Ernest Pierre Gaspais was appointed as "representative ad tempus of the Holy See and of the Catholic missions of Manchukuo to the government of Manchukuo" by the Congregation De Propaganda Fide (a purely religious body responsible for missions) and not by the Secretariat of State responsible for diplomatic relations with states.[47] In the 1940s the Vatican established full diplomatic relations with Japan, but it resisted Japanese and Italian pressure to recognize Manchukuo and the Nanjing regime.[48] After the outbreak of World War II, the state was recognized by Slovakia (1 June 1940), Vichy France (12 July 1940), Romania (1 December 1940), Bulgaria (10 May 1941), Finland (17 July 1941),[49] Denmark (August 1941), Croatia (2 August 1941)—all controlled or influenced by Japan's ally Germany—as well as by Wang Jingwei's Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China (30 November 1940), Thailand (5 August 1941) and the Philippines (1943)—all under the control or influence of Japan. Puyi as Emperor Kangde of Manchukuo World War II and aftermath Main articles: Second Sino-Japanese War, Asiatic-Pacific Theater, Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945), and Soviet occupation of Manchuria A map of the Japanese advance from 1937 to 1942 Before World War II, the Japanese colonized Manchukuo and used it as a base from which to invade China. The Manchu General Tong Linge was killed in action by the Japanese in the Battle of Beiping–Tianjin, which marked the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War.[50][51][52] In the summer of 1939 a border dispute between Manchukuo and the Mongolian People's Republic resulted in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. During this battle, a combined Soviet-Mongolian force defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army (Kantōgun) supported by limited Manchukuoan forces.[53] On 8 August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, in accordance with the agreement at the Yalta Conference, and invaded Manchukuo from outer Manchuria and Outer Mongolia. During the Soviet offensive, the Manchukuo Imperial Army, on paper a 200,000-man force, performed poorly and whole units surrendered to the Soviets without firing a single shot; there were even cases of armed riots and mutinies against the Japanese forces.[54] Emperor Kangde had hoped to escape to Japan to surrender to the Americans, but the Soviets captured him and eventually extradited him to the communist government in China, where the authorities had him imprisoned as a war criminal along with all other captured Manchukuo officials.[55] From 1945 to 1948, Manchuria (Inner Manchuria) served as a base area for the People's Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War against the National Revolutionary Army.[56] The Chinese Communists used Manchuria as a staging ground until the final Nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Many Manchukuo army and Japanese Kantōgun personnel served with the communist troops during the Chinese Civil War against the Nationalist forces. Most of the 1.5 million Japanese who had been left in Manchukuo at the end of World War II were sent back to their homeland in 1946–1948 by U.S. Navy ships in the operation now known as the Japanese repatriation from Huludao.[57] Administrative divisions For a complete list of prefecture-level divisions, see List of administrative divisions of Manchukuo. During its short-lived existence, Manchukuo was divided into between five (in 1932) and 19 (in 1941) provinces, one special ward of Beiman (Chinese: 北滿特別區) and two Special cities which were Xinjing (Chinese: 新京特別市) and Harbin (Chinese: 哈爾濱特別市). Each province was divided into between four (Xing'an dong) and 24 (Fengtian) prefectures. Beiman lasted less than 3 years (1 July 1933 – 1 January 1936) and Harbin was later incorporated into Binjiang province. Longjiang also existed as a province in 1932 before being divided into Heihe, Longjiang and Sanjiang in 1934. Andong and Jinzhou provinces separated themselves from Fengtian while Binjiang and Jiandao from Jilin separated themselves in the same year. Politics Propaganda poster promoting harmony between Japanese, Chinese, and Manchu. The caption says (Right to left): "With the cooperation of Japan, China, and Manchukuo, the world can be in peace." Main article: Politics of Manchukuo Hideki Tōjō (right) and Nobusuke Kishi, the key architect of Manchukuo (1935–39), also known as the "Shōwa (Emperor) era monster/devil" Historians generally consider Manchukuo a puppet state of Imperial Japan[58] because of the Japanese military's strong presence and strict control of the government administration. Chinese historians generally refer to the state as Wei Manzhouguo ("false state of Manchuria"). Some historians see Manchukuo as an effort at building a glorified Japanese state in mainland Asia that deteriorated due to the pressures of war.[59] The independence of Manchuria was proclaimed on 18 February 1932 and officially founded on 1 March. The Japanese military commander appointed Puyi as regent (reign name Datong) for the time being, stating that he would become Emperor of Manchukuo but could not reign using the title of Emperor of the Great Qing Empire as he once held. Manchukuo was proclaimed a monarchy on 1 March 1934, with Puyi assuming the throne under the reign name of Emperor Kang-de. Puyi was assisted in his executive duties by a Privy Council (Chinese: 參議府), and a General Affairs State Council (Chinese: 國務院). This State Council was the center of political power, and consisted of several cabinet ministers, each assisted by a Japanese vice-minister. The commanding officer of the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo was also the Japanese ambassador to Manchukuo. He functioned in a manner similar to that of a British resident officer in British overseas protectorates, with the power to veto decisions by the emperor. The Kwangtung Army leadership placed Japanese vice ministers in his cabinet, while all Chinese advisors gradually resigned or were dismissed. The Legislative Council (Chinese: 立法院) was largely a ceremonial body, existing to rubber-stamp decisions issued by the State Council. The only authorized political party was the government-sponsored Concordia Association, although various émigré groups were permitted their own political associations. The American historian Louise Young noted that one of the most striking aspects of Manchukuo was that many of the young Japanese civil servants who went to work in Manchukuo were on the left, or at least had once been.[60] In the 1920s, much of the younger intelligentsia in Japan had rejected their parents' values, and had become active in various left-wing movements. Starting with the Peace Preservation Law of 1925, which made the very act of thinking about "altering the kokutai a crime, the government had embarked on a sustained campaign to stomp out all left-wing thought in Japan. However, many of the bright young university graduates active in left-wing movements in Japan were needed to serve as civil servants in Manchukuo, which Young noted led the Japanese state to embark upon a contradictory policy of recruiting the same people active in the movements that it was seeking to crush."[60] To rule Manchukuo, which right from the start had a very statist economy, the Japanese state needed university graduates who were fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and the 1920s–30s, many of the university graduates in Japan who knew Mandarin were "progressives" involved in left-wing causes.[61] The fact that young Japanese civil servants in Manchukuo with their degrees in economics, sociology, etc., who had once been active in left-wing movements helps explain the decidedly leftist thrust of social and economic policies in Manchukuo with the state playing an increasingly large role in society.[61] Likewise, much of the debate between Japanese civil servants about the sort of social-economic policies Japan should follow in Manchukuo in the 1930s was framed in Marxist terms, with the civil servants arguing over whatever Manchuria prior to September 1931 had a "feudal" or a "capitalist" economy.[62] The American historian Joshua Fogel wrote about the young servants of Manchukuo: "Tremendous debates transpired on such things as the nature of the Chinese economy, and the lingua franca of these debates was always Marxism".[63] To resolve this debate, various research teams of five or six young civil servants, guarded by detachments from the Kwantung Army of about 20 or 30 men, went out to do field research in Manchukuo, gathering material about the life of ordinary people, to determine Manchukuo was in the "feudal" or "capitalist" stage of development.[64] Starting in 1936, the Manchukuo state launched Five Year Plans for economic development, which were closely modeled after the Five Year Plans in the Soviet Union.[65] In Manchukuo, the Japanese were creating a brand new state that was in theory independent, which meant that there were no limits upon the sort of policies that the new state could carry out, and many university graduates in Japan, who despite being opposed to the social system that existed in Japan itself, went to work in Manchukuo, believing that they could carry out reforms there that might inspire similar reforms in Japan.[66] This was especially the case since it was impossible to effect any reforms in Japan itself as the very act of thinking about "altering the kokutai" was a crime, which led many leftist Japanese university graduates to go work in Manchukuo, where they believed they could achieve the sort of social revolution that was impossible in Japan.[67] By 1933, the Japanese state had essentially destroyed both the Japanese Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party via mass arrests and Tenkō with both parties reduced down to mere rumps, which caused many Japanese student leftists to draw the conclusion that change was impossible in Japan, but still possible in Manchukuo, where paradoxically the Kwantung Army was sponsoring the sort of policies that were unacceptable in Japan.[68] Moreover, the Great Depression had made it very difficult for university graduates in Japan to find work, which made the prospect of a well-paying job in Manchukuo very attractive to otherwise underemployed Japanese university graduates.[69] In Manchukuo, the Japanese state was creating an entire state anew, which meant that Manchukuo had a desperate need for university graduates to work in its newly founded civil service.[70] In addition, the Pan-Asian rhetoric of Manchukuo and the prospect of Japan helping ordinary people in Manchuria greatly appealed to the idealistic youth of Japan.[69] Young wrote about the young Japanese people who went to work in Manchukuo: "The men, and in some cases, the women, who answered the call of this land of opportunity, brought with them tremendous drive and ambition. In their efforts to remake their own lives, they remade an empire. They invested it with their preoccupations of modernity and their dreams of an Utopian future. They pushed it to embrace an idealist rhetoric of social reform and justified itself in terms of Chinese nationalist aspiration. They turned it to architectural ostentation and the heady luxury of colonial consumption. They made it into a project of radical change, experimentation and possibility".[69] Map of Japanese Hokushin-ron plans for a potential attack on the Soviet Union. Dates indicate the year that Japan gained control of the territory. The Kwantung Army for its part tolerated the talk of social revolution in Manchukuo as the best way of gaining support from the Han majority of Manchukuo, who did not want Manchuria to be severed from China.[71] Even more active in going to Manchukuo were the products of Tenkō ("Changing directions"), a process of brainwashing by the police of left-wing activists to make them accept that the Emperor was a god after all, whom they were best to serve.[72] Tenkō was a very successful process that turned young Japanese who once been ardent liberals or leftists who rejected the idea that the Emperor was a god into fanatical rightists, who made up for their previous doubts about the divinity of the Emperor with militant enthusiasm.[72] One tenkōsha was Tachibana Shiraki, who once been a Marxist Sinologist who after his arrest and undergoing Tenkō become a fanatical right-winger.[72] Tachibana went to Manchukuo in 1932, proclaiming that the theory of the "five races" working together was the best solution to Asia's problems and argued in his writings that only Japan could save China from itself, which was a complete change from his previous policies, where he criticized Japan for exploiting China.[72] Other left-wing activists like Ōgami Suehiro did not undergo Tenkō, but still went to work in Manchukuo, believing it was possible to effect social reforms that would end the "semi-feudal" condition of the Chinese peasants of Manchukuo, and that he could use the Kwantung Army to effect left-wing reforms in Manchukuo.[72] Ōgami went to work in the "agricultural economy" desk of the Social Research Unit of the South Manchurian Railroad company, writing up reports about the rural economy of Manchukuo that were used by the Kwantung Army and the Manchukuo state.[73] Ōgami believed that his studies helped ordinary people, citing one study he did about water use in rural Manchukuo, where he noted a correlation between villages that were deprived of water and "banditry" (the codeword for anti-Japanese guerrillas), believing that the policy of improving water supply in villages was due to his study.[63] The outbreak of the war with China in 1937 caused the state in Manchukuo to grow even bigger as a policy of "total war" came in, which meant there was a pressing demand for people with university degrees trained to think "scientifically".[70] Fogel wrote that almost all of the university graduates from Japan who arrived in Manchukuo in the late 1930s were "largely left-wing Socialists and Communists. This was precisely at the time when Marxism had been all but banned in Japan, when (as Yamada Gōichi put) if the expression shakai (social) appeared in the title of a book, it was usually confiscated".[70] Young also noted—with reference to Lord Acton's dictum that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"—that for many of the idealistic young Japanese civil servants, who believed that they could effect a "revolution from above" that would make the lives of ordinary people better, that the absolute power that they enjoyed over millions of people "went to their heads", causing them to behave with abusive arrogance towards the very people that they had gone to Manchukuo to help.[65] Young wrote that it was a "monumental conceit" of the part of the young idealists to believe that they could use the Kwantung Army to achieve a "revolution from above", when it was the Kwantung Army that was using them.[65] The ambitious plans for land reform in Manchukuo were vetoed by the Kwantung Army for precisely the reason that it might inspire similar reforms in Japan.[74] The landlords in Japan tended to come from families who once belonged to the samurai caste, and almost all of the officers in the Imperial Japanese Army came from samurai families, which made the Kwantung Army very hostile towards any sort of land reform which might serve as an example for Japanese peasants. In October 1941, the Soviet spy ring headed by Richard Sorge was uncovered in Tokyo, which caused the authorities to become paranoid about Soviet espionage, and led to new crackdown on the left. In November 1941, the Social Research Unit of the South Manchurian Railroad Company, which was well known as a hotbed of Marxism since the early 1930s, was raided by the Kenpeitai, who arrested 50 of those working in the Social Research Unit.[75] At least 44 of those working in the Social Research Unit were convicted of violating the Peace Preservation Law, which made thinking about "altering the kokutai" a crime in 1942–43 and were given long prison sentences, of whom four died due to the harsh conditions of prisons in Manchukuo.[76] As the men working in the Social Research Unit had played important roles in Manchukuo's economic policy and were university graduates from good families, the Japanese historian Hotta Eri wrote that the Kenpeitai were ordered to "handle them with care", meaning no torture of the sort that the Kenpeitai normally employed in its investigations.[76] When the Japanese surrender was announced on 15 August 1945, Puyi agreed to abdicate. Head of State Emperor of Manchukuo IMPERIAL Flag of the Emperor of Manchukuo.svg Imperial Standard Pu Yi, Qing dynasty, China, Last emperor.jpg Kāngdé Details Style His Imperial Majesty First monarch Puyi Last monarch Puyi Formation 1 March 1934 Abolition 15 August 1945 Residence Imperial Palace Manchukuo 1932–1945 Personal Names Period of Reigns Era names (年號) and their corresponding range of years All given names in bold. Aisin-Gioro Puyi 愛新覺羅溥儀 Àixīnjuéluó Pǔyì 9 March 1932 – 15 August 1945 Datong (大同 Dàtóng) 1932–1934 Kangde (康德 Kāngdé) 1934–1945 Prime Minister No. Portrait Name (Born-Died) Term of office Political Party Took office Left office Time in office 1 Zheng Xiaoxu.jpg Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938) 9 March 1932 21 May 1935 3 years, 73 days Concordia Association 2 Zhang Jinghui2.JPG Zhang Jinghui (1871–1959) 21 May 1935 15 August 1945 10 years, 86 days Concordia Association Demographics Map of Manchukuo Administrative divisions of Manchukuo in 1938 In 1908, the number of residents was 15,834,000, which rose to 30,000,000 in 1931 and 43,000,000 for the Manchukuo state. The population balance remained 123 men to 100 women and the total number in 1941 was 50,000,000. Other statistics indicate that in Manchukuo the population rose by 18,000,000.[citation needed] In early 1934, the total population of Manchukuo was estimated as 30,880,000, with 6.1 persons the average family, and 122 men for each 100 women. These numbers included 29,510,000 Chinese (96%, which should have included the Manchurian population), 590,760 Japanese (2%), 680,000 Koreans (2%), and 98,431 (<1%) of other nationality: White Russians, Mongols, etc.[citation needed] Around 80% of the population was rural. During the existence of Manchukuo, the ethnic balance did not change significantly, except that Japan increased the Korean population in China. From Japanese sources come these numbers: in 1940 the total population in Manchukuo of Lungkiang, Jehol, Kirin, Liaoning (Fengtian) and Xing'an provinces at 43,233,954; or an Interior Ministry figure of 31,008,600. Another figure of the period estimated the total population as 36,933,000 residents. The majority of Han Chinese in Manchukuo believed that Manchuria was rightfully part of China, who both passively and violently resisted Japan's propaganda that Manchukuo was a "multinational state".[77] After the Russian Civil War (1917–1922), thousands of Russians fled to Manchuria to join the Russian community already there. The Russians living in Manchuria were stateless and as whites had an ambiguous status in Manchukuo, which was meant to be a Pan-Asian state, whose official "five races" were the Chinese, Mongols, Manchus, Koreans and Japanese.[78] At various times, the Japanese suggested that the Russians might be a "sixth race" of Manchukuo, but this was never officially declared.[79] In 1936, the Manchukuo Almanac reported that were 33,592 Russians living in the city of Harbin—the "Moscow of the Orient"—and of whom only 5,580 had been granted Manchukuo citizenship.[80] Japanese imperialism was to a certain extent based on racism with the Japanese as the "great Yamato race", but there was always a certain dichotomy in Japanese thinking between an ideology based on racial differences based on bloodlines versus the idea of Pan-Asianism with Japan as the natural leader of all the Asian peoples.[81] In 1940, ethnic Russians were included among the other nationalities of Manchukuo as candidates for conscription into the Manchukuo military.[82] The British writer Peter Fleming visited Manchukuo in 1935, and while riding a train through the countryside of Manchukuo, a group of Japanese colonists mistook his Swiss traveling companion Kini for a Russian refugee, and began to beat her up.[83] It was only after Fleming was able to prove to the Japanese that she was Swiss, not Russian, that the Japanese stopped and apologized, saying that they would never had beaten her up if they had known she was Swiss, saying that they sincerely believed she was a Russian when they assaulted her.[83] Fleming observed that in Manchukuo: "you can beat White Russians up till you are blue in the face, because they are people without status in the world, citizens of nowhere".[84] Fleming further noted that the Japanese in Manchukuo had a strong dislike of all white people, and because the Russians in Manchukuo were stateless without an embassy to issue protests if they were victimized, the Japanese liked to victimize them.[85] Until World War II, the Japanese tended to leave alone those travelling to Manchukuo with a passport as they did not like to deal with protests from embassies in Tokyo about the mistreatment of their citizens.[83] The Kwantung Army operated a secret biological-chemical warfare unit based in Pinfang, Unit 731, that performed gruesome experiments on people involving much visceration of the subjects to see the effects of chemicals and germs on the human body. In the late 1930s, the doctors of Unit 731 demanded more white subjects to experiment upon in order to test the efficiency the strains of anthrax and plague that they were developing leading to a great many of the Russians living in Manchukuo becoming the unwilling human guinea pigs of Unit 731.[86] The Russian Fascist Party, which worked with the Japanese was used to kidnap various "unreliable" Russians living in Manchukuo for Unit 731 to experiment upon.[86] The children of the Russian exiles often married Han Chinese, and the resulting children were always known in Manchukuo as "mixed water" people, who were shunned by both the Russian and Chinese communities.[87] Chinese accounts, both at the time and later, tended to portray the Russians living in Manchuria as all prostitutes and thieves, and almost always ignored the contributions made by middle-class Russians to community life.[88] Mindful of the way that Americans and most Europeans enjoyed extraterritorial rights in China at the time, accounts in Chinese literature about the Russians living in Manchukuo and their "mixed water" children often display a certain schadenfreude recounting how the Russians in Manchukuo usually lived in poverty on the margins of Manchukuo society with the local Chinese more economically successful.[89] The South Korean historian Bong Inyoung noted when it came to writing about the "mixed water" people, Chinese writers tended to treat them as not entirely Chinese, but on the other hand were willing to accept these people as Chinese provided that would totally embrace Chinese culture by renouncing their Russian heritage, thus making Chineseness as much a matter of culture as of race.[90] Around the same time the Soviet Union was advocating the Siberian Jewish Autonomous Oblast across the Manchukuo-Soviet border, some Japanese officials investigated a plan (known as the Fugu Plan) to attract Jewish refugees to Manchukuo as part of their colonisation efforts which was never adopted as official policy.[citation needed] The Jewish community in Manchukuo was not subjected to the official persecution that Jews experienced under Japan's ally Nazi Germany, and Japanese authorities were involved in closing down local anti-Semitic publications such as the Russian periodical Nashput.[91] However, Jews in Manchukuo were victims of harassment by antisemitic elements among the White Russian population, one notable incident being the murder of Simon Kaspé. In 1937 the Far Eastern Jewish Council was created, chaired by the Harbin Jewish community leader Dr. Abraham Kaufman.[92] Between 1937–1939 the city of Harbin in Manchukuo was the location of the Conference of Jewish Communities in the Far East.[92] Following the Russian Red Army's invasion of Manchuria in 1945, Dr. Kaufman and several other Jewish community leaders were arrested by the Soviets and charged with anti-Soviet activities, resulting in Kaufman's imprisonment for ten years in a Soviet labor camp.[92] The Japanese Ueda Kyōsuke labelled all 30 million people in Manchuria as "Manchus", including Han Chinese, despite the fact that most of them were not ethnic Manchu, and the Japanese written "Great Manchukuo" built upon Ueda's argument to claim that all 30 million "Manchus" in Manchukuo had the right to independence to justify splitting Manchukuo from China.[93] In 1942 the Japanese written "Ten Year History of the Construction of Manchukuo" attempted to emphasize the right of ethnic Japanese to the land of Manchukuo while attempting to delegitimize the Manchu's claim to Manchukuo as their native land, noting that most Manchus moved out during the Qing period and only returned later.[94] Population of main cities Niuzhuang (119,000 or 180,871 in 1940) Mukden (339,000 or 1,135,801 in 1940) Xinjing (126,000 or 544,202 in 1940) Harbin (405,000 or 661,948 in 1940) Andong (92,000 or 315,242 in 1940) Kirin (119,000 or 173,624 in 1940) Tsitsihar (75,000 in 1940) Source: Beal, Edwin G (1945). "The 1940 Census of Manchuria". The Far Eastern Quarterly. 4 (3): 243–262. doi:10.2307/2049515. JSTOR 2049515. Japanese population In 1931–2, there were 100,000 Japanese farmers; other sources mention 590,760 Japanese inhabitants. Other figures for Manchukuo speak of a Japanese population 240,000 strong, later growing to 837,000. In Xinjing, they made up 25% of the population. Accordingly, to the census of 1936, of the Japanese population of Manchuko, 22% were civil servants and their families; 18% were working for the South Manchurian Railroad company; 25% had come to Manchukuo to establish a business; and 21% had come to work in industry.[95] The Japanese working in the fields of transportation, the government, and in business tended to be middle class, white collar people such as executives, engineers, and managers, and those Japanese who working in Manchukuo as blue collar employees tended to be skilled workers.[95] In 1934, it was reported that a Japanese carpenter working in Manchukuo with its growing economy could earn twice as much as he could in Japan.[96] With its gleaming modernist office buildings, state of the art transport networks like the famous Asia Express railroad line, and modern infrastructure that was going up all over Manchukuo, Japan's newest colony become a popular tourist destination for middle-class Japanese, who wanted to see the "Brave New Empire" that was going up in the mainland of Asia.[96] The Japanese government had official plans projecting the emigration of 5 million Japanese to Manchukuo between 1936 and 1956. Between 1938 and 1942 a batch of young farmers of 200,000 arrived in Manchukuo; joining this group after 1936 were 20,000 complete families. Of the Japanese settlers in Manchukuo, almost half came from the rural areas of Kyushu.[95] When Japan lost sea and air control of the Yellow Sea in 1943–44, this migration stopped.[citation needed] When the Red Army invaded Manchukuo, they captured 850,000 Japanese settlers. With the exception of some civil servants and soldiers, these were repatriated to Japan in 1946–7. Many Japanese orphans in China were left behind in the confusion by the Japanese government and were adopted by Chinese families. Many, however, integrated well into Chinese society. In the 1980s Japan began to organise a repatriation programme for them but not all chose to go back to Japan.[citation needed] The majority of Japanese left behind in China were women, and these Japanese women mostly married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (zanryu fujin).[97][98] Because they had children fathered by Chinese men, the Japanese women were not allowed to bring their Chinese families back with them to Japan, so most of them stayed. Japanese law allowed children fathered only by Japanese to become Japanese citizens.[citation needed] Abuse of ethnic minorities The Oroqen suffered a significant population decline under Japanese rule. The Japanese distributed opium among them and subjected some members of the community to human experiments, and combined with incidents of epidemic diseases this caused their population to decline until only 1,000 remained.[99][100][101][102][103] The Japanese banned Oroqen from communicating with other ethnicities, and forced them to hunt animals for them in exchange for rations and clothing which were sometimes insufficient for survival, which lead to deaths from starvation and exposure. Opium was distributed to Oroqen adults older than 18 as a means of control. After 2 Japanese troops were killed in Alihe by an Oroqen hunter, the Japanese poisoned 40 Oroqen to death.[104] The Japanese forced Oroqen to fight for them in the war which led to a massive population decrease of Oroqen people.[105] Even those Oroqen who avoided direct control by the Japanese found themselves facing conflict from anti-Japanese forces of the Chinese Communists, which contributed to their population decline during this period.[104] Between 1931 and 1945, the Hezhen population declined by 80% or 90%, due to heavy opium use and deaths from Japanese cruelty, such as slave labor and relocation by the Japanese.[106] Legal system Though Manchukuo itself was a product of illegality, as the League of Nations ruled that Japan had broken international law by seizing Manchuria, the Japanese invested much effort into giving Manchukuo a legal system, believing that this was the fastest way for international recognition of Manchukuo.[107] A particular problem for the Japanese was that Manchukuo was always presented as a new type of state: a multi-ethnic Pan-Asian state comprising Japanese, Koreans, Manchus, Mongols and Chinese to mark the birth of the "New Order in Asia".[108] Typical of the rhetoric surrounding Manchukuo was always portrayed as the birth of a glorious new civilization was the press release issued by the Japanese Information Service on 1 March 1932 announcing the "glorious advent" of Manchukuo with the "eyes of the world turned on it" proclaimed that the birth of Manchukuo was an "epochal event of far-reaching consequences in world history, marking the birth of a new era in government, racial relations, and other affairs of general interest. Never in the chronicles of the human race was any State born with such high ideals, and never has any State accomplished so much in such a brief space of its existence as Manchukuo".[109] The Japanese went out of their way to try to ensure that Manchukuo was the embodiment of modernity in all of its aspects, as it was intended to prove to the world what the Asian peoples could accomplish if they worked together. Manchukuo's legal system was based upon the Organic Law of 1932, which featured a 12 article Human Rights Protection Law and a supposedly independent judiciary to enforce the law.[108] The official ideology of Manchukuo was the wangdao ("Kingly Way") devised by a former mandarin under the Qing turned Prime Minister of Manchukuo Zheng Xiaoxu calling for an ordered Confucian society that would promote justice and harmony that was billed at the time as the beginning of a new era in world history.[110] The purpose of the law in Manchukuo was not the protection of the rights of the individual, as the wangdao ideology was expressly hostile towards individualism, which was seen as a decadent Western concept inimical to Asia, but rather the interests of the state by ensuring that subjects fulfilled their duties to the emperor.[111] The wangdao favored the collective over the individual, as the wangdao called for all people to put the needs of society ahead of their own needs.[111] Zheng together with the Japanese legal scholar Ishiwara Kanji in a joint statement attacked the Western legal tradition for promoting individualism, which they claimed led to selfishness, greed and materialism, and argued that the wangdao with its disregard for the individual was a morally superior system.[112] The seemingly idealistic Human Rights Protection Law counterbalanced the "rights" of the subjects with their "responsibilities" to the state with a greater emphasis on the latter, just as was the case in Japan. The wangdao promoted Confucian morality and spirituality, which was seen as coming down from the Emperor Puyi, and as such the legal system existed to serve the needs of the state headed by Emperor Puyi, who could change the laws as he saw fit.[113] In this regard it is noteworthy that Legislative Yuan had only the power of assisting the Emperor with making laws, being endowed with far less powers than even the Imperial Diet in Japan had, which had the power to reject or approve laws. It was often suggested at the time that the Legislative Yuan of Manchukuo was a model for the Imperial Diet in Japan, an idea Hirohito, the Japanese emperor, was sympathetic to, but never took up.[114] Hirohito in the end preferred the Meiji constitution passed by his grandfather in 1889 as it gave the Emperor of Japan ultimate power while at the same time the fiction of the Imperial Diet together with a Prime Minister and his cabinet governing Japan gave the Emperor a scapegoat when things went wrong.[citation needed] Initially, the judges who had served the Zhangs were retained, but in 1934, the Judicial Law College headed by the Japanese judge Furuta Masatake was opened in Changchun, to be replaced by a larger Law University in 1937. Right from the start, the new applicants vastly exceeded the number of openings as the first class of the Law College numbered only 100, but 1,210 students had applied.[115] The legal system that the students were trained was closely modeled after the Japanese legal system, which in its turn was modeled after the French legal system, but there were a number of particularities unique to Manchukuo.[116] Law students were trained to write essays on such topics as the "theory of the harmony of the five races [of Manchukuo]", the "political theory of the Kingly Way", "practical differences between consular jurisdiction and extraterritoriality", and how best to "realize the governance of the Kingly Way".[116] The Japanese professors were "astonished" by the "enthusiasm" which the students wrote their essays on these subjects as the students expressed the hope that the wangdao was a uniquely Asian solution to the problems of the modern world, and that Manchukuo represented nothing less than the beginning of a new civilization that would lead to a utopian society in the near-future.[116] The Japanese professors were greatly impressed with the Confucian idealism of their students, but noted that their students all used stock phrases to the extent it was hard to tell their essays apart, cited examples of wise judges from ancient China while ignoring more recent legal developments, and were long on expressing idealistic statements about how the wangdao would lead to a perfect society, but were short on how explaining just how this was to be done in practice.[117] An example of the extent of Japanese influence on the legal system of Manchukuo was that every issue of the Manchukuo Legal Advisory Journal always contained a summary of the most recent rulings by the Supreme Court of Japan, and the reasons why the Japanese Supreme Court had ruled in these cases.[118] However, there were some differences between the Manchukuo and Japanese legal systems. In Japan itself, corporal punishment had been abolished as part of the successful effort to end the extraterritorial rights enjoyed by citizens of the Western powers, but retained for the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan.[118] However, corporal punishment, especially flogging, was a major part of the Manchukuo legal system with judges being very much inclined to impose floggings on low-income Chinese men convicted of minor offenses that would normally merit only a fine or a short prison sentence in Japan.[119] Writing in a legal journal in 1936, Ono Jitsuo, a Japanese judge serving in Manchukuo, regretted having to impose floggings as a punishment for relatively minor crimes, but argued that it was necessary of Manchukuo's 30 million people "more than half are ignorant and completely illiterate barbarians" who were too poor to pay fines and too numerous to imprison.[120] In Taiwan and Korea, Japanese law was supreme, but judges in both colonies had to respect "local customs" in regards to family law.[121] In case of Manchukuo, a place with a Han majority, but those ideology proclaimed the "five races" of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Manchus and Mongols as all equal, this led in effect to several family laws for each of the "five races" respecting their "local customs" plus the Russian and Hui Muslim minorities.[122] The Manchukuo police had the power to arrest without charge anyone who was engaged in the vaguely defined crime of "undermining the state".[123] Manchukuo had an extensive system of courts at four levels staffed by a mixture of Chinese and Japanese judges. All of the courts had both two Japanese and two Chinese judges with the Chinese serving as the nominal superior judges and the Japanese the junior judges, but in practice the Japanese judges were the masters and the Chinese judges puppets.[124] Despite the claims that the legal system of Manchukuo was a great improvement over the legal system presided over by Marshal Zhang Xueliang the "Young Marshal", the courts in Manchukuo were inefficient and slow, and ignored by the authorities whenever it suited them.[125] In Asia, the rule of law and an advanced legal system are commonly seen as one of the marks of "civilization", which is why the chaotic and corrupt legal system run by Marshal Zhang was denigrated so much by the Japanese and Manchukuo media.[125] In the early 1930s, Manchukuo attracted much legal talent from Japan as Japanese Pan-Asian idealists went to Manchuria with the goal of establishing a world-class legal system.[126] As the Kwangtung Army had the ultimate power in Manchukuo, the best Japanese judges by the late 1930s preferred not to go to Manchukuo where their decisions could be constantly second-guessed, and instead only the second-rate judges went to Manchukuo.[126] By 1937 the Japanese judges and lawyers in Manchukuo were either disillusioned Pan-Asian idealists or more commonly cynical opportunists and mediocre hacks who lacked the talent to get ahead in Japan.[126] By contrast, the best of the ethnic Chinese law schools graduates in Manchukuo chose to work as part of Manchukuo's judicial system, suggesting many middle-class Chinese families were prepared to accept Manchukuo.[126] Starting with the Religions Law of May 1938, a cult of Emperor-worship closely modeled after the Imperial cult in Japan where Hirohito was worshiped as a living god, began in Manchukuo.[127] Just as in Japan, schoolchildren began their classes by praying to a portrait of the emperor while imperial rescripts and the imperial regalia become sacred relics imbued with magical powers by being associated with the god-emperor.[127] As the Emperor Puyi was considered to be a living god, his will could not be limited by any law, and the purpose of the law was starkly reduced down to serving the will of the emperor rather than upholding values and rules.[128] As in Japan, the idea governing the legal philosophy in Manchukuo was the Emperor was a living god who was responsible to no-one and who delegated some of his powers down to mere human beings who had the duty of obeying the will of the god-emperors.[128] In Japan and Manchukuo, the actions of the god-emperors were always just and moral because gods could never do wrong, rather than because the god-emperors were acting to uphold moral values that existed a priori.[128] And again following the Japanese system, in 1937 a new category of "thought crime" was introduced declaring that certain thoughts were now illegal and those thinking these forbidden thoughts were "thought criminals".[129] People were thus convicted not for their actions, but merely for their thoughts.[129] After the war with China began in July 1937, an "emergency law" was declared in Manchukuo, placing it under a type of martial law that suspended the theoretical civil liberties that existed up to that point, ordered the mobilization of society for total war, and increased the tempo of repression with the law on "thought crimes" being merely the most dramatic example.[129] In April 1938, a new type of Special Security Courts were created for those charged with the five types of "thought crime".[129] On 26 August 1941, a new security law ruled that those tried before the Special Security Courts had no right of appeal or to a defense lawyer.[130] One Special Security Court in Jinzhou between 1942–45 sentenced about 1,700 people to death and another 2,600 for life imprisonment for "thought crimes", a figure that appears to be typical of the special courts.[131] The police frequently used torture to obtain confessions and those tried in the Special Security Courts had no right to examine the evidence against them.[130] Starting in 1943 the number of those tried and convicted by the courts rose drastically, though the number of death sentences remained stable.[132] The rise in the number of convictions was due to the need for slave labor for the factories and mines of Manchukuo as the traditional supplies of slave labor from northern China were disturbed by World War II as most of those convicted were sentenced to work in the factories and mines.[133] The American historian Thomas David Dubois wrote the legal system of Manchukuo went through two phrases: the first lasting from 1931 to 1937, when the Japanese wanted to show the world a state with an ultra-modern legal system that was meant to be a shining tribute to Asians working together in brotherhood; and the second from 1937 to 1945 when the legal system become more of a tool for the totalitarian mobilization of society for total war.[134] Economy Main article: Economy of Manchukuo See also: Central Bank of Manchou, Manchukuo yuan, Manshukoku Hikoki Seizo KK, Manshukoku Koku KK, Showa Steel Works, Manchurian Industrial Development Company, and Manchukuo Film Association Showa Steel Works in the early 1940s Manchukuo experienced rapid economic growth and progress in its social systems. During the 1920s, the Japanese Army under the influence of the Wehrstaat (Defense State) theories popular with the Reichswehr had started to advocate their own version of the Wehrstaat, the totalitarian "national defense state" which would mobilize an entire society for war in peacetime. An additional influence on the Japanese "total war" school who tended to be very anti-capitalist was the First Five Year Plan in the Soviet Union, which provided an example of rapid industrial growth achieved without capitalism. At least part of the reason why the Kwangtung Army seized Manchuria in 1931 was to use it as an laboratory for creating an economic system geared towards the "national defense state"; colonial Manchuria offered up possibilities for the army carrying out drastic economic changes that were not possible in Japan. From the beginning, the Army intended to turn Manchukuo into the industrial heartland of the empire, and starting in 1932, the Army sponsored a policy of forced industrialization that was closely modeled after the Five Year Plan in the Soviet Union. Reflecting a dislike of capitalism, the Zaibatsu were excluded from Manchukuo and all of the heavy industrial factories were built and owned by Army-owned corporations. In 1935, there was a change when the "reform bureaucrat" Nobusuke Kishi was appointed Deputy Minister of Industrial Development. Kishi persuaded the Army to allow the zaibatsu to invest in Manchukuo, arguing that having the state carry out the entire industrialization of Manchukuo was costing too much money. Kishi pioneered an etatist system where bureaucrats such as himself developed economic plans, which the zaibatsu had to then carry out.[135] Kishi succeeded in marshaling private capital in a very strongly state-directed economy to achieve his goal of vastly increased industrial production while at the same time displaying utter indifference to the exploited Chinese workers toiling in Manchukuo's factories; the American historian Mark Driscoll described Kishi's system as a "necropolitical" system where the Chinese workers were literally treated as dehumanized cogs within a vast industrial machine.[136] The system that Kishi pioneered in Manchuria of a state-guided economy where corporations made their investments on government orders later served as the model for Japan's post-1945 development, albeit not with same level of brutal exploitation as in Manchukuo.[136] By the 1930s, Manchukuo's industrial system was among the most advanced making it one of the industrial powerhouses in the region.[137] Manchukuo's steel production exceeded Japan's in the late 1930s. Many Manchurian cities were modernised during the Manchukuo era. However, much of the country's economy was often subordinated to Japanese interests and, during the war, raw material flowed into Japan to support the war effort. Traditional lands were taken and redistributed to Japanese farmers with local farmers relocated and forced into collective farming units over smaller areas of land.[citation needed] Transport Main article: South Manchuria Railway The Japanese built an efficient and impressive railway system that still functions well today. Known as the South Manchuria Railway or Mantetsu, this large corporation came to own large stakes in many industrial projects throughout the region. Mantetsu personnel were active in the pacification of occupied China during World War II. However, most railway lines in Manchukuo were owned by the Manchukuo National Railway, which, though theoretically independent, was managed and operated entirely by Mantetsu.[citation needed] Military Main articles: Manchukuo Imperial Army, Manchukuo Imperial Air Force, and Manchukuo Imperial Navy Further information: Kwantung Army Cavalry of the Manchukuo Imperial Army The Manchukuo Imperial Army was the ground component of the Empire of Manchukuo's armed forces and consisted of as many as 170,000[138] to 220,000[139] troops at its peak in 1945 by some estimates, having formally been established by the Army and Navy Act of 15 April 1932.[140] The force included members of all the major ethnic groups of Manchukuo, which were trained and led by Japanese instructors and advisors. Despite the numerous attempts by the Japanese to improve the combat capability of the Imperial Army and instill a Manchukuoan patriotic spirit among its troops, the majority of its units were regarded as unreliable by Japanese officers. Their main role was to fight Nationalist and Communist insurgents that continued to resist the Japanese occupation of northeastern China,[141] and occasionally the Manchukuo Imperial Army took part in operations against the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Soviet Red Army (usually in support of the Imperial Japanese Army). Initially its members were former soldiers of Marshal Zhang Xueliang's warlord army who had surrendered to Japan during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.[140] But since the Young Marshal's former troops were largely not loyal to the new regime and performed poorly against partisans, the new government of Manchukuo took efforts to recruit—and later draft—new soldiers.[142] In 1934 a law was passed stating that only those that had been trained by the government of Manchukuo could serve as officers.[140] The Military Supplies Requisition Law of 13 May 1937 allowed Japanese and Manchukuo authorities to draft forced laborers.[143] The actual calling up of conscripts for the army did not begin until 1940, at which point all youths received a physical and 10% were to be selected for service.[142] Between 1938 and 1940, several military academies were established to provide a new officer corps for the Imperial Army, including a specific school for ethnic Mongols.[144] A Type 41 75 mm mountain gun during an Imperial Army exercise After fighting against insurgents during the early to mid-1930s, the Manchukuo Imperial Army played mainly a supporting role during the actions in Inner Mongolia against Chinese forces, with news reports stating that some Manchukuoan units performed fairly well. Later it fought against the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts. A skirmish between Manchukuoan and Mongolian cavalry in May 1939 escalated as both sides brought in reinforcements and began the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Although they did not perform well in the battle overall, the Japanese considered their actions decent enough to warrant expansion of the Manchukuo Army.[145] Throughout the 1940s the only action it saw was against Communist guerrilla fighters and other insurgents, although the Japanese chose to rely only on the more elite units while the majority were used for garrison and security duty.[54] Although Japan took the effort of equipping the Manchukuoan forces with some artillery (in addition to the wide variety it had inherited from Zhang Xueliang's army) along with some elderly tankettes and armored cars,[146] the cavalry was the Imperial Army's most effective and developed branch. This was the force that was confronted by 76 battle-hardened Red Army divisions transferred from the European front in August 1945 during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The cavalry branch saw the most action against the Red Army, but the Manchukuo Army and their depleted Japanese Kwantung Army allies were quickly swept aside by the Soviet offensive. While some units remained loyal to their Japanese allies and put up a resistance, many mutinied against their Japanese advisors while others simply melted away into the countryside. Many of these Manchukuo Army troops would later join the Communists since the Chinese Nationalists would execute former collaborators with Japan, which became an important source of manpower and equipment for the Communists in the region.[54] Manchukuo Imperial Air Force pilots, 1942, with a Nakajima Ki-27 behind The other two branches, the Manchukuo Imperial Air Force and the Manchukuo Imperial Navy, were small and underdeveloped, largely existing as token forces to give legitimacy to the Manchukuo regime. An Air Force was established in February 1937 with 30 men selected from the Manchukuo Imperial Army who were trained at the Japanese Kwantung Army aircraft arsenal in Harbin (initially the Kwantung Army did not trust the Manchukuoans enough to train a native air force for them). The Imperial Air Force's predecessor was the Manchukuo Air Transport Company (later renamed the Manchukuo National Airways), a paramilitary airline formed in 1931, which undertook transport and reconnaissance missions for the Japanese military. The first air unit was based in Hsinking (Changchun) and equipped with just one Nieuport-Delage NiD 29 and was later expanded with Nakajima Army Type 91 Fighters and Kawasaki Type 88 light bombers. Two more air units were established, but they suffered a setback when one hundred pilots took their aircraft and defected to insurgents after murdering their Japanese instructors. Nonetheless three fighter squadrons were formed in 1942 from the first batch of cadets, being equipped with Nakajima Ki-27 fighters in addition to Tachikawa Ki-9s and Tachikawa Ki-55 trainers, along with some Mitsubishi Ki-57 transports. In 1945, because of American bombing raids, they were issued with Nakajima Ki-43 fighters to have a better chance of intercepting B-29 Superfortresses. Some pilots saw action against the American bombers and at least one Ki-27 pilot downed a B-29 by ramming his plane into it in a kamikaze attack. The air force practically ceased to exist by the Soviet invasion but there were isolated instances of Manchukuoan planes attacking Soviet forces.[147] The Imperial Navy of Manchukuo existed mainly as a small river flotilla and consisted mainly of small gunboats and patrol boats, both captured Chinese ships and some Japanese additions. The elderly Japanese destroyer Kashi was lent to the Manchukuoan fleet from 1937 to 1942 as the Hai Wei before returning to the Imperial Japanese Navy. These ships were mostly crewed by Japanese[citation needed] In addition to those, several special units that functioned outside of the main command structure of the military also existed. The Manchukuo Imperial Guard was formed out of soldiers of ethnic Manchu descent, charged with the protection of the Kangde Emperor (Puyi) and senior officials, as well as to function as an honor guard. Despite this it took part in combat and was considered to be an effective unit. Throughout the 1930s a "Mongolian Independence Army" was established out of about 6,000 ethnic Mongolian recruits and fought its own war against bandits with some success. It was expanded in 1938 but merged with the regular Imperial Army in 1940, although Mongol units continued to perform well. A special Korean detachment was formed in 1937 on the personal initiative of a businessman of Korean descent. The unit was small but distinguished itself in combat against Communist guerrillas and was noted by the Japanese for its martial spirit, becoming one of the few puppet units to earn the respect of its Japanese superiors.[148] War crimes in Manchukuo Main article: War crimes in Manchukuo According to a joint study by historians Zhifen Ju, Mitsuyochi Himeta, Toru Kubo and Mark Peattie, more than 10 million Chinese civilians were mobilized by the Kwangtung Army for slave labor in Manchukuo under the supervision of the Kōa-in.[149] The Chinese slave laborers often suffered illness due to high-intensity manual labor. Some badly ill workers were directly pushed into mass graves in order to avoid the medical expenditure[150] and the world's most serious mine disaster, at Benxihu Colliery, happened in Manchukuo. Bacteriological weapons were experimented on humans by the infamous Unit 731 located near Harbin in Beinyinhe from 1932 to 1936 and to Pingfan until 1945. Victims, mostly Chinese, Russians and Koreans, were subjected to vivisection, sometimes without anesthesia. Drug trafficking Poppy harvest in Manchukuo In 2007, an article by Reiji Yoshida in The Japan Times argued that Japanese investments in Manchukuo were partly financed by selling drugs. According to the article, a document found by Yoshida shows that the Kōa-in was directly implicated in providing funds to drug dealers in China for the benefit of the puppet government of Manchukuo, Nanjing and Mongolia.[151] This document corroborates evidence analyzed earlier by the Tokyo tribunal which stated that Japan's real purpose in engaging in drug traffic was far more sinister than even the debauchery of Chinese people. Japan, having signed and ratified the opium conventions, was bound not to engage in drug traffic, but she found in the alleged but false independence of Manchukuo a convenient opportunity to carry on a worldwide drug traffic and cast the guilt upon that puppet state ... In 1937, it was pointed out in the League of Nations that 90% of all illicit white drugs in the world were of Japanese origin ...[152] Society and culture National symbols Main articles: Flag of Manchukuo, Coat of arms of Manchukuo, and National Anthem of Manchukuo Aside from the national flag, the orchid, reportedly Puyi's favorite flower, became the royal flower of the country, similar to the chrysanthemum in Japan.[153] The sorghum flower also became a national flower by decree in April 1933.[154] "Five Races Under One Union" was used as a national motto. Education Manchukuo developed an efficient public education system.[155] The government established many schools and technical colleges, 12,000 primary schools in Manchukuo, 200 middle schools, 140 normal schools (for preparing teachers), and 50 technical and professional schools. In total the system had 600,000 children and young pupils and 25,000 teachers. Local Chinese children and Japanese children usually attended different schools, and the ones who did attend the same school were segregated by ethnicity, with the Japanese students assigned to better-equipped classes.[citation needed] Confucius's teachings also played an important role in Manchukuo's public school education. In rural areas, students were trained to practice modern agricultural techniques to improve production. Education focused on practical work training for boys and domestic work for girls, all based on obedience to the "Kingly Way" and stressing loyalty to the Emperor. The regime used numerous festivals, sport events, and ceremonies to foster loyalty of citizens.[156] Eventually, Japanese became the official language in addition to the Chinese taught in Manchukuo schools.[citation needed] Film Further information: Manchukuo Film Association The Photographic Division, part of the public relations section of the South Manchurian Railway was created in 1928 to produce short documentary films about Manchuria to Japanese audiences. In 1937, the Manchukuo Film Association was established by the government and the South Manchurian Railway in a studio in Jilin province. It was founded by Masahiko Amakasu, who also helped the career of Yoshiko Ōtaka, also known as Ri Koran. He also tried to ensure that Manchukuo would have its own industry and would be catering mainly to Manchurian audiences. The films for the most part usually promote pro-Manchukuo and pro-Japanese views. General Amakasu shot various "documentaries" showing carefully choreographed scenes worthy of Hollywood of the Emperor Puyi in his capital of Hsinking (modern Changchun) being cheered by thousands of subjects and reviewing his troops marching in parades that were intended to help legitimize Manchukuo's independence. After World War II, the archives and the equipment of the association were used by the Changchun Film Studio of the People's Republic of China.[157] Dress The Changshan and the Qipao, both derived from traditional Manchu dress, were considered national dresses in Manchukuo.[citation needed] In a meeting with the Concordia Association, the organizers devised what was termed Concordia Costume, or the kyōwafuku, in 1936. Even Japanese such as Masahiko Amakasu and Kanji Ishiwara adopted it. It was gray and a civilianized version of the Imperial Japanese Army uniform. It was similar to the National Clothes (kokumin-fuku) worn by Japanese civilians in World War II as well as the Zhongshan suit. A pin of either a Manchukuo flag or a five-pointed, five colored star with the Manchukuo national colors were worn on the collars.[158] Court dress resembled those of Meiji-era Japan at that time.[citation needed] Sport See also: Boy Scouts of Manchukuo The Manchukuo National Physical Education Association was established in 1932 to promote sport.[citation needed] Manchukuo also had a national football team, and football was considered the country's de facto national sport; the Football Association of Manchukuo was formed around it.[159] Manchukuo hosted and participated in baseball matches with Japanese teams.[160] Some of the games of the Intercity Baseball Tournament were held in the country, and played with local teams.[161][citation needed] Manchukuo was to compete in the 1932 Summer Olympic Games, but one of the athletes who intended to represent Manchukuo, Liu Changchun, refused to join the team and instead joined as the first Chinese representative in the Olympics. There were attempts by Japanese authorities to let Manchukuo join the 1936 games, but the Olympic Committee persisted in the policy of not allowing an unrecognized state to join the Olympics. Manchukuo had a chance to participate in the planned 1940 Helsinki Olympics, but the onset of World War II prevented the games from taking place.[162] Manchukuo instead sent athletes to compete at the 1940 East Asian Games in Tokyo organised by the Japanese Empire, as a replacement for the cancelled 1940 Summer Olympics.[163] Stamps and postal history Main article: Postage stamps and postal history of Manchukuo Manchukuo issued postage stamps from 28 July 1932 until its dissolution following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in August 1945. The last issue of Manchukuo was on 2 May 1945.[164] In popular culture In Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition (1959), Kaji, the main protagonist, is a labor supervisor assigned to a workforce consisting of Chinese prisoners in a large mining operation in Japanese-colonized Manchuria.[165] Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film The Last Emperor presented a portrait of Manchukuo through the memories of Emperor Puyi, during his days as a political prisoner in the People's Republic of China.[166] Haruki Murakami's 1995 novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle deals greatly with Manchukuo through the character of Lieutenant Mamiya. Mamiya recalls, in person and in correspondence, his time as an officer in the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo. While the period covered in these recollections extends over many years, the focus is on the final year of the war and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.[167] The 2008 South Korean western The Good, the Bad, the Weird is set in the desert wilderness of 1930s Manchuria.[168] Puyi (Chinese: 溥儀; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967) was the last Emperor of China as the twelfth and final Emperor of the Qing dynasty, China's last imperial dynasty. As a child, he reigned as the Xuantong Emperor (pronounced [ɕwántʰʊ̀ŋ], Chinese: 宣統帝; Manchu: ᡤᡝᡥᡠᠩᡤᡝ ᠶᠣᠰᠣ ᡥᡡᠸᠠᠩᡩᡳ; Möllendorff: gehungge yoso hūwangdi) in China and Khevt Yos Khaan in Mongolia from 1908 until his forced abdication on 12 February 1912, after the Xinhai Revolution. He was briefly restored to the throne as emperor by the warlord Zhang Xun from 1 July to 12 July 1917. In 1932, after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the puppet state of Manchukuo was established by Japan and he was chosen to become "Emperor" of the new state using the era-name of Datong (Ta-tung). In 1934, he was declared the Kangde Emperor (or Kang-te Emperor) of Manchukuo and "ruled" until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Puyi was imprisoned as a war criminal for 10 years, wrote his memoirs and became a titular member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the National People's Congress. Contents 1 Names and titles 1.1 Titles 2 Biography 2.1 Emperor of China (1908–1912) 2.2 Eunuchs and the Household Department 2.3 Abdication 2.4 Brief restoration (1917) 2.5 Life in the Forbidden City 2.6 Marriage 2.7 Expulsion from the Forbidden City (1924) 2.8 Residence in Tianjin (1925–1931) 2.9 Captive in Manchuria (1931–1932) 2.10 Puppet ruler of Manchukuo (1932–1945) 2.11 Later life (1945–1967) 3 Death and burial 4 Family 5 Ancestry 6 Portrayal in media 6.1 Film 6.2 Television 6.3 Video games 7 Bibliography 7.1 By Puyi 7.2 By others 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 10.1 Citations 10.2 Sources 11 External links Names and titles Puyi is also known to have used an English given name, "Henry", which he chose from a list of English kings given to him by his English-language teacher, Scotsman Reginald Johnston, after Puyi asked for an English name.[1][2] The personal translator of the captured emperor, Georgy Permyakov in his memoir Emperor Puyi. Five years together writes that in Khabarovsk Puyi was known by the Russian nickname "Yegor the First". Titles Styles of Xuantong Emperor Imperial standard of the Qing Emperor.svg Reference style His Imperial Majesty Spoken style Your Imperial Majesty Alternative style Son of Heaven (天子) When he ruled as Emperor of the Qing Dynasty (and therefore Emperor of China) from 1908 to 1912 and during his brief restoration in 1917, Puyi's era name was "Xuantong", so he was known as the "Xuantong Emperor" (simplified Chinese: 宣统皇帝; traditional Chinese: 宣統皇帝; pinyin: Xuāntǒng Huángdì; Wade–Giles: Hsüan1-t'ung3 Huang2-ti4) during those two periods of time. As Puyi was also the last ruling Emperor of China, he is widely known as "The Last Emperor" (Chinese: 末代皇帝; pinyin: Mòdài Huángdì; Wade–Giles: Mo4-tai4 Huang2-ti4) in China and throughout the rest of the world. Some refer to him as "The Last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty" (Chinese: 清末帝; pinyin: Qīng Mò Dì; Wade–Giles: Ch'ing1 Mo4-ti4). Due to his abdication, Puyi is also known as "Xun Di" (Chinese: 遜帝; pinyin: Xùn Dì; lit.: 'Yielded Emperor') or "Fei Di" (simplified Chinese: 废帝; traditional Chinese: 廢帝; pinyin: Fèi Dì; lit.: 'Abrogated Emperor'). Sometimes a "Qing" (Chinese: 清; pinyin: Qīng) is added in front of the two titles to indicate his affiliation with the Qing dynasty. When Puyi ruled the puppet state of Manchukuo and assumed the title of Chief Executive of the new state, his era name was "Datong" (Ta-tung). As Emperor of Manchukuo from 1934 to 1945, his era name was "Kangde" (Kang-te), so he was known as the "Kangde Emperor" (Chinese: 康德皇帝; pinyin: Kāngdé Huángdì, Japanese: Kōtoku Kōtei) during that period of time. Biography Emperor of China (1908–1912) Painting portrait of Puyi, 1908 Chosen by Empress Dowager Cixi,[3] Puyi became emperor at the age of 2 years and 10 months in December 1908 after the Guangxu Emperor died on 14 November. Titled the Xuantong Emperor (Wade-Giles: Hsuan-tung Emperor), Puyi's introduction to the life of an emperor began when palace officials arrived at his family residence to take him. On the evening of 13 November 1908, without any advance notice, a procession of eunuchs and guardsmen led by the palace chamberlain left the Forbidden City for the Northern Mansion to inform Prince Chun that they were taking away his two-year-old son Puyi to be the new emperor.[4] The toddler Puyi screamed and resisted as the officials ordered the eunuch attendants to pick him up.[5] Puyi's parents said nothing when they learned that they were losing their son.[6] As Puyi cried, screaming that he did not want to leave his parents, he was forced into a palanquin that took him back to the Forbidden City.[6] Puyi's wet nurse Wang Wen-Chao was the only person from the Northern Mansion allowed to go with him, and she calmed the very distraught Puyi down by allowing him to suckle one of her breasts; this was the only reason she was taken along.[6] Upon arriving at the Forbidden City, Puyi was taken to see Cixi.[7] Puyi later wrote: I still have a dim recollection of this meeting, the shock of which left a deep impression on my memory. I remember suddenly finding myself surrounded by strangers, while before me was hung a drab curtain through which I could see an emaciated and terrifying hideous face. This was Cixi. It is said that I burst out into loud howls at the sight and started to tremble uncontrollably. Cixi told someone to give me some sweets, but I threw them on the floor and yelled "I want nanny, I want nanny", to her great displeasure. "What a naughty child", she said. "Take him away to play."[7] His father, Prince Chun, became Prince Regent (摄政王). During Puyi's coronation in the Hall of Supreme Harmony on 2 December 1908, the young emperor was carried onto the Dragon Throne by his father.[7] Puyi was frightened by the scene before him and the deafening sounds of ceremonial drums and music, and started crying. His father could do nothing except quietly comfort him: "Don't cry, it'll be over soon."[8] Puyi in 1922 Puyi did not see his biological mother, Princess Consort Chun, for the next seven years. He developed a special bond with Wang and credited her as the only person who could control him. She was sent away when he was eight years old. After Puyi married, he would occasionally bring her to the Forbidden City, and later Manchukuo, to visit him. After his special government pardon in 1959, he visited her adopted son and only then learned of her personal sacrifices to be his nurse.[9] Growing up with scarcely any memory of a time when he was not indulged and revered, Puyi quickly became spoiled. The adults in his life, except for Wang, were all strangers, remote, distant, and unable to discipline him.[10] Wherever he went, grown men would kneel down in a ritual kowtow, averting their eyes until he passed. Soon he discovered the absolute power he wielded over the eunuchs, and he frequently had them beaten for small transgressions.[5] As an emperor, Puyi's every whim was catered to while no one ever said no to him, making him into a sadistic boy who loved to have his eunuchs flogged.[11] The Anglo-French journalist Edward Behr wrote about Puyi's powers as emperor of China, which allowed him to fire his air-gun at anyone he liked: The Emperor was Divine. He could not be remonstrated with, or punished. He could only be deferentially advised against ill-treating innocent eunuchs, and if he chose to fire air-gun pellets at them, that was his prerogative. — Edward Behr[11] Puyi later said, "Flogging eunuchs was part of my daily routine. My cruelty and love of wielding power were already too firmly set for persuasion to have any effect on me."[10] The British historian Alex von Tunzelmann wrote that most people in the West know Puyi's story only from the 1987 film The Last Emperor, which downplays Puyi's cruelty considerably.[12] By age 7, Puyi had two sides to his personality: the sadistic emperor who loved to have his eunuchs flogged, expected everyone to kowtow to him and enjoyed puppet shows and dog fights, and the boy who slept at night with Wang, suckling her breasts and content to be loved for just once in the day.[13] Wang was the only person capable of controlling Puyi; once, Puyi decided to "reward" a eunuch for a well done puppet show by having a cake baked for him with iron filings in it, saying, "I want to see what he looks like when he eats it".[10] With much difficulty, Wang talked Puyi out of this plan.[10] Every day Puyi had to visit five former imperial concubines, called his "mothers", to report on his progress. He hated his "mothers", not least because they prevented him from seeing his real mother until he was 13.[14] Their leader was the autocratic Empress Dowager Longyu, who successfully conspired to have Puyi's beloved wet nurse Wang expelled from the Forbidden City when he was 8 on the grounds that Puyi was too old to be breast-fed.[15] Puyi especially hated Longyu for that.[15] Puyi later wrote, "Although I had many mothers, I never knew any motherly love."[15] Puyi noted that to travel from just one building to another in the Forbidden City or for a stroll in the gardens, he was always surrounded by "large retinue" of eunuchs and that: In front went an eunuch whose function was roughly that of a motor horn; he walked twenty or thirty yards ahead of the party intoning the sound '... chir ... chir ...' as a warning to anyone who might be waiting in the vicinity to go away at once. Next came two Chief Eunuchs advancing crabwise on either side of the path; ten paces behind them came the centre of the procession. If I was being carried in a chair there would be two junior eunuchs walking beside me to attend to my wants at any moment; if I was walking they would be supporting me. Next came an eunuch with a large silk canopy followed by a large group of eunuchs, some empty-handed, others holding all sorts of things: a seat in case I wanted to rest, changes of clothing, umbrellas and parasols. After these eunuchs of the Imperial Presence came eunuchs of the Imperial tea bureau with boxes of various kinds of cakes and delicacies ... They were followed by eunuchs of the Imperial dispensary ... at the end of the procession came the eunuchs who carried commodes and chamberpots. If I was walking, a sedan-chair, open or covered according to the season, would bring up the rear. This motley procession of several dozen people would proceed in perfect silence and order.[16] Puyi never had any privacy and had all his needs attended to at all times, having eunuchs open doors for him, dress him, wash him, and even blow air into his soup to cool it.[17] Puyi delighted in humiliating his eunuchs, at one point saying that as the "Lord of Ten Thousand Years" it was his right to order a eunuch to eat dirt: "'Eat that for me', I ordered, and he knelt down and ate it".[10] At his meals, Puyi was always presented with a huge buffet containing every conceivable dish, the vast majority of which he did not eat, and every day he wore new clothing as Chinese emperors never reused their clothing.[18] The eunuchs had their own reasons for presenting Puyi with buffet meals and new clothing every day, as Puyi's used clothes made from the finest silk were sold on the black market, while the food he did not eat was either sold or eaten by the eunuchs themselves.[18] Puyi had a standard Confucian education, being taught the various Confucian classics and nothing else.[19] He later wrote: "I learnt nothing of mathematics, let alone science, and for a long time I had no idea where Beijing was situated".[19] When Puyi was 13, he met his parents and siblings, all of whom had to kowtow before him as he sat upon the Dragon Throne.[20] By this time, he had forgotten what his mother looked like.[20] Such was the awe in which the Emperor was held that his younger brother Pujie never heard his parents refer to Puyi as "your elder brother" but only as the Emperor.[20] Pujie told Behr his image of Puyi prior to meeting him was that of "a venerable old man with a beard. I couldn't believe it when I saw this boy in yellow robes sitting solemnly on the throne".[20] It was decided that Pujie would join Puyi in the Forbidden City to provide him with a playmate, but Puyi was notably angry when he discovered his brother was wearing yellow – the color of the Qing – as he believed that only Emperors had the right to wear yellow, and it had to be explained to him that all members of the Qing family could.[20] Eunuchs and the Household Department A quotation from Puyi best summarizes the eunuchs: No account of my childhood would be complete without mentioning the eunuchs. They waited on me when I ate, dressed and slept; they accompanied me on my walks and to my lessons; they told me stories; and had rewards and beatings from me, but they never left my presence. They were my slaves; and they were my earliest teachers.[21] The eunuchs were slaves who did all the work in the Forbidden City, such as cooking, gardening, cleaning, entertaining guests, and the bureaucratic work needed to govern a vast empire. They also served as the emperor's advisers.[22] The eunuchs spoke in a distinctive high-pitched voice, and, to further prove that they were really eunuchs, they had to keep their severed penises and testicles in jars of brine they wore around their necks when working.[23] The Forbidden City was full of treasures that the eunuchs constantly stole and sold on the black market.[23] The business of government and of providing for the emperor created further opportunities for corruption and virtually all the eunuchs engaged in theft and corruption of one sort or another.[23] After his marriage, Puyi began to take control of the palace. He described "an orgy of looting" taking place that involved "everyone from the highest to the lowest". According to Puyi, by the end of his wedding ceremony, the pearls and jade in the empress's crown had been stolen.[24] Locks were broken, areas ransacked, and on 27 June 1923, a fire destroyed the area around the Palace of Established Happiness. Puyi suspected it was arson to cover theft. The emperor overheard conversations among the eunuchs that made him fear for his life. In response, he evicted the eunuchs from the palace.[25] His brother, Pujie, was rumored to steal treasures and art collections to sell to wealthy collectors on the black market. Puyi's next plan of action was to reform the Household Department. In this period, he brought in more outsiders to replace the traditional aristocratic officers to improve accountability. He appointed Zheng Xiaoxu as minister of Household Department and Zheng Xiaoxu hired Tong Jixu, a former Air Force officer from the Beiyang Army, as his chief of staff to help with the reforms. The reform efforts did not last long before Puyi was forced out of the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang.[26] Abdication On 10 October 1911, the army garrison in Wuhan mutinied, sparking a widespread revolt in the Yangtze river valley and beyond, demanding the overthrow of the Qing dynasty that had ruled China since 1644.[27] The strongman of late imperial China, General Yuan Shikai, was dispatched by the court to crush the revolution, but was unable to, as by 1911 public opinion had turned decisively against the Qing, and many Chinese had no wish to fight for a dynasty that was seen as having lost the Mandate of Heaven.[27] Puyi's father, Prince Chun, served as a regent until 6 December 1911, when Empress Dowager Longyu took over following the Xinhai Revolution.[28] Empress Dowager Longyu endorsed the "Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor" (清帝退位詔書) on 12 February 1912 under a deal brokered by Prime Minister Yuan Shikai with the imperial court in Beijing and the Republicans in southern China.[29] At the crucial meeting in the Forbidden City, Puyi watched the meeting between Longyu and Yuan, which he remembered as: The Dowager Empress was sitting on a kang [platform bed] in a side room of the Mind Nature Palace, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief while a fat old man [Yuan] knelt on a red cushion before her, tears rolling down his face. I was sitting to the right of the Dowager and wondering why the two adults were crying. There was nobody in the room besides us three and it was very quiet; the fat man was sniffing while he talked and I could not understand what he was saying ... This was the occasion Yuan directly brought up the question of abdication.[30] Under the "Articles of Favourable Treatment of the Great Qing Emperor 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.[31] Puyi 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 four million silver taels was granted by the Republic to the imperial household, although it was never fully paid and was abolished after just a few years. Puyi himself was not informed in February 1912 that his reign had ended and China was now a republic and continued to believe that he was still Emperor for some time.[32] In 1913, when the Empress Dowager Longyu died, President Yuan Shikai arrived at the Forbidden City to pay his respects, which Puyi's tutors told him meant that major changes were afoot.[33] Puyi soon learned that the real reasons for the Articles of Favorable Settlement was that President Yuan Shikai was planning on restoring the monarchy with himself as the Emperor of a new dynasty, and wanted to have Puyi as a sort of custodian of the Forbidden City until he could move in.[34] Puyi first learned of Yuan's plans to become Emperor when he brought in army bands to serenade him whenever he had a meal, and he started on a decidedly imperial take on the presidency.[33] Puyi spent hours staring at the Presidential Palace across from the Forbidden City and cursed Yuan whenever he saw him come and go in his automobile.[33] Puyi loathed Yuan as a "traitor" and decided to sabotage his plans to become Emperor by hiding the Imperial Seals, only to be told by his tutors that he would just make new ones.[34] In 1915, Yuan proclaimed himself as emperor, but had to abdicate in the face of popular opposition.[35] Brief restoration (1917) See also: Manchu Restoration In 1917 the warlord Zhang Xun restored Puyi to the throne from July 1 to July 12.[36] Zhang Xun ordered his army to keep their queues to display loyalty to the emperor. During that period, a Republican plane dropped a small bomb over the Forbidden City, causing minor damage.[37] This is considered the first aerial bombardment ever in East Asia. The restoration failed due to extensive opposition across China and the decisive intervention of another warlord, Duan Qirui.[38] Life in the Forbidden City Briton Sir Reginald Johnston arrived in the Forbidden City as Puyi's tutor on 3 March 1919.[39] Puyi recalled: "I have never seen foreign men. From the magazines, I noticed they had big mustaches. The eunuchs said the mustaches were very hard and a lantern could be hung at its ends".[40] President Xu Shichang believed the monarchy would eventually be restored, and to prepare Puyi for the challenges of the modern world had hired Johnston to teach Puyi "subjects such as political science, constitutional history and English".[41] Johnston was allowed only five texts in English to give Puyi to read: Alice in Wonderland and translations into English of the "Four Great Books" of Confucianism; the Analects, the Mencius, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean.[41] But he disregarded the rules, and taught Puyi about world history with a special focus on British history.[42] Johnston also told Puyi so much about his native Scotland that Puyi eventually expressed the desire to visit the "Scotland the Brave" that his tutor spoke of with such pride and love.[42] Besides history, Johnston taught Puyi philosophy and about what he saw as the superiority of monarchies to republics.[42] Puyi remembered that his tutor's piercing blue eyes "made me feel uneasy ... I found him very intimidating and studied English with him like a good boy, not daring to talk about other things when I got bored ... as I did with my other Chinese tutors".[43] As the only person capable of controlling Puyi, Johnston had much more influence than his title of English tutor would suggest, as the eunuchs began to rely on him to steer Puyi away from his more capricious moods.[44] When the 14-year-old Puyi had some western-style clothing purchased to wear from a theater company, Johnston flew into a rage, saying that Puyi was wearing cheap clothing unworthy of an emperor, and had him buy expensive clothes from a western-style department store, saying, "If you wear clothes from a second-hand shop, you won't be a gentleman, you'll be ..."; Puyi noted he was unable to finish his sentence.[45] Under Johnston's influence, Puyi started to insist that his eunuchs address him as "Henry" and later his wife Wanrong as "Elizabeth" as Puyi began to speak "Chinglish", a mixture of Mandarin and English that became his preferred mode of speech.[45] Puyi recalled of Johnston: "I thought everything about him was first-rate. He made me feel that Westerners were the most intelligent and civilized people in the world and that he was the most learned of Westerners" and that "Johnston had become the major part of my soul".[46] In May 1919, Puyi noticed the protests in Beijing generated by the May 4th movement as thousands of Chinese university students protested against the decision by the great powers at the Paris peace conference to award the former German concessions in Shandong province together with the former German colony of Qingdao to Japan.[47] For Puyi, the May 4th movement, which he asked Johnston about, was a revelation as it marked the first time in his life that he noticed that people outside the Forbidden City had concerns that were not about him.[47] Puyi could not speak Manchu; he only knew a single word in the language, yili ("arise"). Despite studying Manchu for years, he admitted that it was his "worst" subject among everything he studied.[48][49][50][51] According to the journalist S. M. Ali, Puyi spoke Mandarin when interviewed but Ali believed he could understand English.[52] Johnston also introduced Puyi to the new technology of cinema, and Puyi was so delighted with the movies, especially Harold Lloyd films, that he had a film projector installed in the Forbidden City despite the opposition of the eunuchs who disliked foreign technology in the Forbidden City.[53] Johnston was also the first to argue that Puyi needed glasses, as he was extremely near-sighted, and after much argument with Prince Chun, who thought it was undignified for an Emperor to wear glasses, finally prevailed.[54] Johnston, who spoke fluent Mandarin, closely followed the intellectual scene in China, and introduced Puyi to the "new-style" Chinese books and magazines, which so inspired Puyi that he wrote several poems that were published anonymously in "New China" publications.[55] In 1922, Johnston had his friend, the writer Hu Shih, visit the Forbidden City to teach Puyi about recent developments in Chinese literature.[56] Under Johnston's influence, Puyi embraced the bicycle as a way to exercise, cut his queue and grew a full head of hair, and wanted to go to study at Oxford, Johnston's alma mater.[57] Johnston also introduced Puyi to the telephone, which Puyi soon became addicted to, phoning people in Beijing at random just to hear their voices on the other end.[58] Johnston also pressured Puyi to cut down on the waste and extravagance in the Forbidden City, noting that all the eunuchs had to be fed.[59] Johnston convinced Puyi that he could open doors for himself and did not need eunuchs standing idly all the time by the main doors of the palaces just to open them if he should happen along.[60] Puyi cut off his queue so he would look like a Western gentleman and under Johnston's advice embraced the bicycle as the best way to move about in the Forbidden City, retaining a lifelong enthusiasm for cycling, though it is doubtful that the eunuchs working as gardeners much appreciated Puyi's habit of riding through the flowers.[61] Marriage In March 1922, the Dowager Consorts decided that Puyi should be married, and gave him a selection of photographs of aristocratic teenage girls to choose from.[62] Puyi chose Wenxiu as his wife, but was told that she was acceptable only as a concubine, so he would have to choose again.[63] Puyi then chose Gobulo Wanrong, the daughter of one of Manchuria's richest aristocrats, who had been educated in English by American missionaries in Tianjin, who was considered to be an acceptable empress by the Dowager Consorts.[64] On 15 March 1922, the betrothal of Puyi and Wanrong was announced in the newspapers, on 17 March Wanrong took the train to Beijing, and on 6 April Puyi went to the Qing family shrine to inform his ancestors that he would be married to her later that year.[64] Puyi did not meet Wanrong until their wedding.[64] In an interview in 1986, Prince Pujie told Behr: "Puyi constantly talked about going to England and becoming an Oxford student, like Johnston."[65] On 4 June 1922, Puyi attempted to escape from the Forbidden City, having decided that he wanted to go to study at Oxford, and planned to issue an open letter to "the people of China" renouncing the title of Emperor before leaving for Oxford.[66] The escape attempt failed when Johnston vetoed it and refused to call a taxi, and Puyi was too frightened to live on the streets of Beijing on his own.[67] Pujie said of Puyi's escape attempt: "Puyi's decision had nothing to do with the impending marriage. He felt cooped up, and wanted out."[66] Johnston later recounted his time as Puyi's tutor between 1919 and 1924 in his 1934 book Twilight in the Forbidden City, one of the main sources of information about Puyi's life in this period, though Behr cautioned that Johnston painted an idealised picture of Puyi, avoiding all mention of Puyi's sexuality, merely average academic ability, erratic mood swings, and eunuch-flogging.[68] Pujie told Behr of Puyi's moods: "When he was in a good mood, everything was fine, and he was a charming companion. If something upset him, his dark side would emerge."[69] On 21 October 1922, Puyi's wedding to Princess Wanrong began with the "betrothal presents" of 18 sheep, 2 horses, 40 pieces of satin and 80 rolls of cloth, marched from the Forbidden City to Wanrong's house, accompanied by court musicians and cavalry.[70] Following Manchu traditions where weddings were conducted under moonlight for good luck, an enormous procession of palace guardsmen, eunuchs, and musicians carried the Princess Wanrong in a red sedan chair called the Phoenix Chair from her house to the Forbidden City under a full moon.[71] Wanrong was taken to the Palace of Earthly Peace within the Forbidden City, where Puyi sat upon the Dragon Throne and Wanrong kowtowed to him six times to symbolize her submission to her husband.[71] Wanrong wore a mask in accordance with Chinese tradition and Puyi, who knew nothing of women, remembered: "I hardly thought about marriage and family. It was only when the Empress came into my field of vision with a crimson satin cloth embroidered with a dragon and a phoenix over her head that I felt at all curious about what she looked like."[72] After the wedding was complete, Puyi, Wanrong, and his secondary consort Wenxiu (whom he married the same night) went to the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, where everything was red – the color of love and sex in China – and where emperors had traditionally consummated their marriages.[72] Puyi, who was sexually inexperienced and timid, fled from the bridal chamber, leaving his wives to sleep in the Dragon Bed by themselves.[73] Of Puyi's failure to consummate his marriage on his wedding night, Behr wrote: It was perhaps too much to expect an adolescent, permanently surrounded by eunuchs, to show the sexual maturity of a normal seventeen-year-old. Neither the Dowager consorts nor Johnston himself had given him any advice on sexual matters – this sort of thing simply was not done, where emperors were concerned: it would have been an appalling breach of protocol. But the fact remains that a totally inexperienced, over-sheltered adolescent, if normal, could hardly have failed to be aroused by Wan Jung's [Wanrong's] unusual, sensual beauty. The inference is, of course, that Pu Yi was either impotent, extraordinarily immature sexually, or already aware of his homosexual tendencies.[73] Wanrong's younger brother Rong Qi remembered how Puyi and Wanrong, both teenagers, loved to race their bicycles through the Forbidden City, forcing eunuchs to get out of the way, and told Behr in an interview: "There was a lot of laughter, she and Puyi seemed to get on well, they were like kids together."[74] In 1986, Behr interviewed one of Puyi's two surviving eunuchs, an 85-year-old man who was reluctant to answer the questions asked of him, but finally said of Puyi's relationship with Wanrong: "The Emperor would come over to the nuptial apartments once every three months and spend the night there ... He leave early in the morning on the following day and for the rest of that day he would invariably be in a very filthy temper indeed."[75] Reginald Johnston arranged for the Marquis of Extended Grace Zhu Yuxun, a descendant of the Ming dynasty imperial family, to visit Puyi in the Forbidden City in September 1924, which was the first time the heirs of both the deposed Ming and Qing dynasties came face to face. Puyi rarely left the Forbidden City, knew nothing of the lives of ordinary Chinese people, and was somewhat misled by Johnston, who told him that the vast majority of the Chinese wanted a Qing restoration.[57] Johnston, a Sinophile scholar and a romantic conservative with an instinctive preference for monarchies, believed that China needed a benevolent autocrat to guide the country forward.[57] He was enough of a traditionalist to respect that all major events in the Forbidden City were determined by the court astrologers.[76] Johnston disparaged the superficially Westernized Chinese republican elite who dressed in top hats, frock coats and business suits as inauthentically Chinese and praised to Puyi the Confucian scholars with their traditional robes as the ones who were authentically Chinese.[57] As part of an effort to crack down on corruption by the eunuchs inspired by Johnston, Puyi ordered an inventory of the Forbidden City's treasures, which caused the Hall of Supreme Harmony to go up in flames in a case of arson on the night of 26 June 1923, as the eunuchs tried to cover up the extent of their theft.[77] Johnston reported that the next day he "found the Emperor and Empress standing on a heap of charred wood, sadly contemplating the spectacle".[77] The treasures reported lost in the fire included 2,685 golden statues of Lord Buddha, 1,675 golden altar ornaments, 435 porcelain antiques, and 31 boxes of sable furs, though it is likely that most if not all of these had been sold on the black market before the fire.[78] Puyi finally decided to expel all of the eunuchs from the Forbidden City to end the problem of theft, only agreeing to keep 50 after the Dowager Consorts complained that they could not function without them.[79] After expelling the eunuchs, Puyi turned the grounds where the Hall of Supreme Harmony had once stood into a tennis court, as he and Wanrong loved to play.[80] Wanrong's brother Rong Qi recalled: "But after the eunuchs went, many of the palaces inside the Forbidden City were closed down, and the place took on a desolate, abandoned air."[80] After the Great Kantō earthquake on 1 September 1923 destroyed the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, Puyi donated jade antiques worth some £33,000 to pay for disaster relief, which led a delegation of Japanese diplomats to visit the Forbidden City to express their thanks.[81] In their report about the visit, the diplomats noted that Puyi was highly vain and malleable, and could be used by Japan, which marked the beginning of Japanese interest in Puyi.[82] Expulsion from the Forbidden City (1924) On October 23, 1924, a coup led by the warlord Feng Yuxiang took control of Beijing. Feng, the latest of the warlords to take Beijing, was seeking legitimacy and decided that abolishing the unpopular Articles of Favorable Settlement was an easy way to win the crowd's approval.[83] Feng unilaterally revised the "Articles of Favourable Treatment" on November 5, 1924, abolishing Puyi's imperial title and privileges and reducing him to a private citizen of the Republic of China. Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City the same day.[84] He was given three hours to leave.[83] He spent a few days at the house of his father Prince Chun, and then temporarily resided in the Japanese embassy in Beijing.[2] Puyi left his father's house together with Johnston and his chief servant Big Li without informing Prince Chun's servants, who followed them in another car while two policemen joined on the sides of Puyi's car, leading to a wild car chase through Beijing as Puyi's chauffeur tried to lose the servants' car before Puyi was able to slip into a jewelry store and into a carriage that took him to the Japanese legation.[85] Puyi had originally wanted to go to the British Legation, but the Japanophile Johnston had insisted that he would be safer with the Japanese.[86] For Johnston, the Japanese system where the Japanese people worshipped their emperor as a living god was much closer to his ideal political system than the British system of a constitutional monarchy, and he constantly steered Puyi in a pro-Japanese direction.[86] Puyi's adviser Lu Zongyu, who was secretly working for the Japanese, suggested that Puyi move to Tianjin, which he argued was safer than Beijing, though the real reason was that the Japanese felt that Puyi would be easier to control in Tianjin without the embarrassment of having him live in the Japanese Legation, which was straining relations with China.[87] On 23 February 1925, Puyi left Beijing for Tianjin wearing a simple Chinese gown and skullcap as he was afraid of being robbed on the train.[88] Residence in Tianjin (1925–1931) Garden of Serenity in Tianjin In February 1925, Puyi moved to the Japanese Concession of Tianjin, first into the Zhang Garden (張園),[89] and in 1927 into the former residence of Lu Zongyu known as the Garden of Serenity (simplified Chinese: 静园; traditional Chinese: 靜園; pinyin: jìng yuán).[90] A British journalist, Henry Woodhead, called Puyi's court a "doggy paradise" as both Puyi and Wanrong were dog lovers who owned several very spoiled dogs while Puyi's courtiers spent an inordinate amount of time feuding with one another.[91] Woodhead stated that the only people who seemed to get along at Puyi's court were Wanrong and Wenxiu, who were "like sisters".[92] Tianjin was, after Shanghai, the most cosmopolitan Chinese city, with large British, French, German, Russian and Japanese communities. As an emperor, Puyi was allowed to join several social clubs that normally only admitted whites.[93] During this period, Puyi and his advisers Chen Baochen, Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu discussed plans to restore Puyi as Emperor. Zheng and Luo favoured enlisting assistance from external parties, while Chen opposed the idea. In June 1925, the warlord Zhang Zuolin visited Tianjin to meet Puyi.[94] "Old Marshal" Zhang, an illiterate former bandit, ruled Manchuria, a region equal in size to Germany and France combined, which had a population of 30 million and was the most industrialized region in China. Zhang kowtowed to Puyi at their meeting and promised to restore the House of Qing if Puyi made a large financial donation to his army.[94] As Zhang walked with Puyi to his car at end of their meeting, he noticed a Japanese spy who had followed Puyi and said in a very loud voice, "If those Japanese lay a finger on you, let me know and I'll sort them out", which was Zhang's way of warning Puyi in a "roundabout way" not to trust his Japanese friends.[95] Zhang fought in the pay of the Japanese, but by this time his relations with the Kwantung Army were becoming strained. In June 1927, Zhang captured Beijing and Behr observed that if Puyi had had more courage and returned to Beijing, he might have been restored to the Dragon Throne.[95] Puyi's court was prone to factionalism and his advisers were urging him to back different warlords, which gave him a reputation for duplicity as he negotiated with various warlords, which strained his relations with Marshal Zhang.[96] At various times, Puyi met General Zhang Zongchang, the "Dogmeat General", and the Russian émigré General Grigory Semyonov at his Tianjin house; both of them promised to restore him to the Dragon Throne if he gave them enough money, and both of them kept all the money he gave them for themselves.[97] Puyi remembered Zhang as "a universally detested monster" with a face bloated and "tinged with the livid hue induced by opium smoking".[98] Semyonov in particular proved himself to be a talented con man, claiming as an ataman to have several Cossack Hosts under his command, to have 300 million roubles in the bank, and to be supported by American, British and Japanese banks in his plans to restore both the House of Qing in China and the House of Romanov in Russia.[97] Semyonov claimed that he was only asking for Puyi's financial support because of a temporary cash flow problem, and promised that once his Cossacks took Beijing he would repay all the money Puyi loaned him.[97] Puyi gave Semyonov a loan of 5,000 British pounds, which Semyonov never repaid.[97] Another visitor to the Garden of Serenity was General Kenji Doihara, a Japanese Army officer who was fluent in Mandarin and a man of great charm who manipulated Puyi via flattery, telling him that a great man such as himself should go conquer Manchuria and then, just as his Qing ancestors did in the 17th century, use Manchuria as a base for conquering China.[99] In 1928, during the Great Northern Expedition to reunify China, troops loyal to a warlord allied with the Kuomintang sacked the Qing tombs outside of Beijing after the Kuomintang and its allies took Beijing from the army of Marshal Zhang who retreated back to Manchuria.[100] The news that the Qing tombs had been plundered and the corpse of the Dowager Empress Cixi had been desecrated greatly offended Puyi, who never forgave the Kuomintang as he held Chiang Kai-shek personally responsible for the sacking of the Qing tombs; the sacking also showed his powerlessness.[100] During his time in Tianjin, Puyi was besieged with visitors asking him for money, including various members of the vast Qing family, old Manchu bannermen, journalists prepared to write articles calling for a Qing restoration for the right price, and eunuchs who had once lived in the Forbidden City and were now living in poverty.[101] Puyi himself was often bored with his life, and engaged in maniacal shopping to compensate, recalling that he was addicted to "buying pianos, watches, clocks, radios, Western clothes, leather shoes and spectacles".[102] Puyi's first wife Wanrong began to smoke opium during this period, which Puyi encouraged as he found her more "manageable" when she was in an opium daze.[103] His marriage to Wanrong began to fall apart as they spent more and more time apart, meeting only at mealtimes.[103] Wanrong complained that her life as an "empress" was extremely dull as the rules for an empress forbade her from going out dancing as she wanted, instead forcing her to spend her days in traditional rituals that she found to be meaningless, all the more so as China was a republic and her title of empress was symbolic only.[103] The westernized Wanrong loved to go out dancing, play tennis, wear western clothes and make-up, listen to jazz music, and to socialize with her friends, which the more conservative courtiers all objected to.[103] She resented having to play the traditional role of a Chinese empress, but was unwilling to break with Puyi.[103] Puyi's butler was secretly a Japanese spy, and in a report to his masters described Puyi and Wanrong one day spending hours screaming at one another in the gardens with Wanrong repeatedly calling Puyi a "eunuch"; whether she meant that as a reference to sexual inadequacy is unclear.[104] In 1928, Puyi's concubine Wenxiu declared that she had had enough of him and his court and simply walked out, filing for divorce.[105] After Wenxiu left, a regular visitor to the court was Puyi's cousin Eastern Jewel, described by Tunzelmann as "... an urbane leather-clad cross-dressing spy princess".[12] Captive in Manchuria (1931–1932) In September 1931 Puyi sent a letter to Jirō Minami, the Japanese Minister of War, expressing his desire to be restored to the throne.[106] On the night of 18 September 1931, the Mukden Incident began when the Kwantung Army blew up a section of railroad belonging to the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad company, which was blamed on the warlord Marshal Zhang Xueliang, the "Young Marshal" who took over Manchuria in 1928 when his father, the "Old Marshal", was assassinated by the Kwantung Army.[107] Using this incident as an excuse, the Kwantung Army began a general offensive with the aim of conquering all of Manchuria with heavy artillery being used to blast Zhang's barracks in Mukden.[108] Puyi was visited by Kenji Doihara, head of the espionage office of the Japanese Kwantung Army, who proposed establishing Puyi as head of a Manchurian state. The Empress Wanrong was firmly against Puyi's plans to go to Manchuria, which she called treason, and for a moment Puyi hesitated, leading Doihara to send for Puyi's cousin, the very pro-Japanese Eastern Jewel, to visit him to change his mind.[109] Eastern Jewel, a strong-willed, flamboyant, openly bisexual woman noted for her habit of wearing male clothing and uniforms, had much influence on Puyi.[109] In the Tientsin Incident during November 1931, Puyi and Zheng Xiaoxu traveled to Manchuria to complete plans for the puppet state of Manchukuo. Puyi left his house in Tianjin by hiding in the trunk of a car.[110] The Chinese government ordered his arrest for treason, but was unable to breach the Japanese protection.[2] Puyi boarded a Japanese ship, the Awaji Maru, that took him across the East China Sea, and when he landed in Port Arthur (modern Lüshun) the next day, he was greeted by the man who was to become his minder, General Masahiko Amakasu, who escorted him to the train that took them to a resort owned by the South Manchurian Railroad company.[111] Amakasu was a fearsome man who told Puyi how in the Amakasu Incident of 1923 he had the feminist Noe Itō, her lover the anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, and a six-year-old boy, Munekazu Tachibana, who happened to be there, strangled to death as they were "enemies of the Emperor", and he likewise would kill Puyi if he should prove to be an "enemy of the Emperor".[111] The American historian Louise Young described Amakasu as a "sadistic" man who enjoyed torturing and killing people.[112] Behr commented that Amakasu's boasting about killing a six-year-old boy should have enlightened Puyi about the sort of people he had just allied himself with.[111] Chen Baochen returned to Beijing, where he died in 1935.[113] Once he arrived in Manchuria, Puyi discovered that he was a prisoner and was not allowed outside the Yamato Hotel, ostensibly to protect him from assassination.[114] Wanrong had stayed in Tianjin, and remained opposed to Puyi's decision to work with the Japanese, requiring her friend Eastern Jewel to visit numerous times to convince her to go to Manchuria.[115] Behr commented that if Wanrong had been a stronger woman, she might have remained in Tianjin and filed for divorce, but ultimately she accepted Eastern Jewel's argument that it was her duty as a wife to follow her husband, and six weeks after the Tientsin incident, she too crossed the East China Sea to Port Arthur with Eastern Jewel to keep her company.[116] In early 1932, General Seishirō Itagaki informed Puyi that the new state was to be a republic with him as Chief Executive; the capital was to be Changchun; his form of address was to be "Your Excellency", not "Your Imperial Majesty"; and there were to be no references to Puyi ruling with the "Mandate of Heaven", all of which displeased Puyi.[117] The suggestion that Manchukuo was to be based on popular sovereignty with the 34 million people of Manchuria "asking" that Puyi rule over them was completely contrary to Puyi's ideas about his right to rule by the Mandate of Heaven.[117] The Lytton Commission appointed by the League of Nations was due to arrive in Manchuria soon to examine the Chinese complaint made to the League Council that Japan had committed aggression by seizing Manchuria, and presenting Manchukuo as an exercise in Wilsonian self-determination was calculated by the Kwantung Army to appeal better than archaic arguments about the Mandate of Heaven.[118] Furthermore, the Japanese were fearful of international isolation, and contended that they had not violated the Nine-Power Treaty of 1922 because the Kwantung Army had supposedly responded to the demands of the local people to break away from China.[119] The United States had already announced the Stimson Doctrine of refusing to "recognize any treaty or agreement" that Japan might impose on China which "may be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of the Pact of Paris [the Kellogg–Briand Pact]".[120] The Japanese contention was that China "was not an organized state" but instead a lawless region ruled by warlords; Japan would observe all of its treaty commitments, but would react if the local people asked for Japanese help.[121] The Japanese historian Akira Iriye wrote that this argument about self-determination and freedom for the people of Manchuria was meant to make "an egregious violation of China's territorial and administrative integrity ... compatible with the Washington treaties".[119] Itagaki suggested to Puyi that in a few years Manchukuo might become a monarchy and that Manchuria was just the beginning, as Japan had ambitions to take all of China; the obvious implication was that Puyi would become the Great Qing Emperor again.[117] When Puyi objected to Itagaki's plans, he was told that he was in no position to negotiate as Itagaki had no interest in his opinions on these issues.[118] Unlike Doihara, who was always very polite and constantly stroked Puyi's ego, Itagaki was brutally rude and brusque, addressing Puyi like he was barking out orders to a particularly dim-witted common soldier.[118] Itagaki had promised Puyi's chief adviser Zheng Xiaoxu that he would be the Manchukuo prime minister, an offer that appealed to his vanity enough that he persuaded Puyi to accept the Japanese terms, telling him that Manchukuo would soon become a monarchy and history would repeat itself, as Puyi would conquer the rest of China from his Manchurian base just as the Qing did in 1644.[118] In Japanese propaganda, Puyi was always celebrated both in traditionalist terms as a Confucian "Sage King" out to restore virtue and as a revolutionary who would end the oppression of the common people by a program of wholesale modernization.[122] Puppet ruler of Manchukuo (1932–1945) Styles of Kangde Emperor Flag of the Emperor of Manchukuo.svg Reference style His Imperial Majesty Spoken style Your Imperial Majesty On the night of 24 February 1932, when Puyi accepted the offer to be Chief Executive of Manchukuo, a party was thrown with geishas imported for the celebration, during which Itagaki become very drunk, and forgetting that the geisha are entertainers, not prostitutes, made outrageous sexual advances on them, fondling their breasts and vaginas and telling Puyi that as a general he could do anything he wanted to them.[123] During the party, while Itagaki boasted to Puyi that now was a great time to be a Japanese man, Puyi was much offended when none of the geisha knew who he was.[123] On 1 March 1932, the Japanese installed Puyi as the Chief Executive of Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan, under the reign title Datong (Wade-Giles: Ta-tung; 大同). One contemporary commentator, Wen Yuan-ning, quipped that Puyi had now achieved the dubious distinction of having been "made emperor three times without knowing why and apparently without relishing it."[124] Puyi believed Manchukuo was just the beginning, and that within a few years he would again reign as Emperor of China, having the yellow Imperial Dragon robes used for coronation of Qing emperors brought from Beijing to Changchun.[125] At the time, Japanese propaganda depicted the birth of Manchukuo as a triumph of Pan-Asianism, with the "five races" of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Manchus and Mongols coming together, which marked nothing less than the birth of a new civilization and a turning point in world history.[126] A press statement issued on 1 March 1932 stated: "The glorious advent of Manchukuo with the eyes of the world turned on it was an epochal event of far-reaching consequence in world history, marking the birth of a new era in government, racial relations, and other affairs of general interest. Never in the chronicles of the human race was any State born with such high ideals, and never has any State accomplished so much in such a brief space of its existence as Manchukuo".[127] On 8 March 1932, Puyi made his ceremonial entry into Changchun, sharing his car with Zheng, who was beaming with joy, Amakasu, whose expression was stern as usual, and Wanrong, who looked miserable.[128] Puyi remembered of his first time in Changchun: I saw Japanese gendarmes, and rows of people, wearing all sorts of clothes; some were in Chinese jackets and gowns, some were in Western suits and some in traditional Japanese dress, and they were all holding small flags in their hands. I was thrilled and reflected that I was now seeing the scene that I missed at the harbor. As I walked past them Hsi Hsia [one of his ministers] pointed out a line of dragon flags between the Japanese ones and said that the men holding them were all Manchu "bannermen" who had been waiting for me to come for twenty years. These words brought tears to my eyes, and I was more strongly convinced than ever that my future was very hopeful.[129] Puyi also noted he was "too preoccupied with my hopes and hates" to realize the "cold comfort that the Changchun citizens, silent from terror and hatred, were giving me".[130] Puyi's friend, the British journalist Woodhead, who covered his arrival in Manchuria, wrote, "outside official circles, I met no Chinese who felt any enthusiasm for the new regime", and that the city of Harbin was being terrorized by Chinese and Russian gangsters working for the Japanese, making Harbin "lawless ... even its main street unsafe after dark".[131] In an interview with Woodhead, Puyi said he planned to govern Manchukuo "in the Confucian spirit" and that he was "perfectly happy" with his new position.[132] Luigi Barzini, an Italian journalist from the Corriere della Sera newspaper, wrote: "I was unable to interview this pale, tired prince who doesn't like to talk, who is always plunged in his meditations and who maybe regrets his life as a simple, studious citizen. He has a fixed stare behind his black-framed glasses. When we were introduced, he responded with a friendly nod. But his smile lasted only a second. We could only await the word of the Master of Ceremonies to give us permission to bow ourselves out. A Japanese colonel, our guide, showed us the triumphal arches, the electric light decorations and endless flags. But all this, say the shopkeepers, is 'made in Osaka'".[133] On 20 April 1932, the Lytton Commission arrived in Manchuria to begin its investigation of whether Japan had committed aggression.[134] Puyi was interviewed by Lord Lytton, and recalled thinking that he desperately wanted to ask Lytton for political asylum in Britain, but as General Itagaki was sitting right next to him at the meeting, he told Lytton that "the masses of the people had begged me to come, that my stay here was absolutely voluntary and free".[135] After the interview, Itagaki told Puyi: "Your Excellency's manner was perfect; you spoke beautifully".[136] The diplomat Wellington Koo, who was attached to the Lytton Commission as its Chinese assessor, received a secret message saying "... a representative of the imperial household in Changchun wanted to see me and had a confidential message for me".[137] The representative, posing as an antique dealer, "... told me he was sent by the Empress: She wanted me to help her escape from Changchun. He said she found life miserable there because she was surrounded in her house by Japanese maids. Every movement of hers was watched and reported".[138] Koo said he was "touched" but could do nothing to help Wanrong escape, which her brother Rong Qi said was the "final blow" to her, leading her into a downward spiral.[138] Right from the start, the Japanese occupation had sparked much resistance by guerrillas, whom the Kwantung Army called "bandits". General Doihara was able in exchange for a multi-million bribe to get one of the more prominent guerrilla leaders, the Hui Muslim general Ma Zhanshan, to accept Japanese rule, and had Puyi appoint him Defense Minister.[139] Much to the intense chagrin of Puyi and his Japanese masters, Ma's defection turned to be a ruse, and only months after Puyi appointed him Defense Minister, Ma took his troops over the border to the Soviet Union to continue the struggle against the Japanese.[139] Pu Yi's edict of ascending the throne The Emperor Shōwa wanted to see if Puyi was reliable before giving him an imperial title, and it was not until October 1933 that General Doihara told him he was to be an emperor again, causing Puyi to go, in his own words, "wild with joy", though he was disappointed that he was not given back his old title of "Great Qing Emperor".[140] At the same time, Doihara informed Puyi that "the Emperor [of Japan] is your father and is represented in Manchukuo as the Kwantung army which must be obeyed like a father".[141] Right from the start, Manchukuo was infamous for its high crime rate, as Japanese-sponsored gangs of Chinese, Korean and Russian gangsters fought one another for the control of Manchukuo's opium houses, brothels and gambling dens, with the Russian gangs having a particular interest in going after Jewish businessmen in Manchukuo for extortion and kidnapping.[142] There were nine different Japanese or Japanese-sponsored police/intelligence agencies operating in Manchukuo, who were all told by Tokyo that Japan was a poor country and that they were to pay for their own operations by engaging in organized crime.[143] The Italian adventurer Amleto Vespa remembered that General Kenji Doihara told him Manchuria was going to have to pay for its own exploitation.[144] In 1933, Simon Kaspé, a French Jewish pianist visiting his father in Manchukuo, who owned a hotel in Harbin, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by an anti-Semitic gang from the Russian Fascist Party. The Kaspé case became an international cause célèbre, attracting much media attention around the world, ultimately leading to two trials in Harbin in 1935 and 1936, as the evidence that the Russian fascist gang who had killed Kaspé was working for the Kempeitai, the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army, had become too strong for even Tokyo to ignore.[145] In Asia, the rule of law is seen as one of the marks of "civilization", which is why the Japanese and Manchukuo media had spent so much time disparaging the chaotic and corrupt legal system run by the "Young Marshal", Zhang Xueliang; Puyi was portrayed as having (with a little help from the Kwantung Army) saved the people from the chaos of the rule by the Zhang family.[146] Manchukuo's high crime rate, and the much publicized Kaspé case, made a mockery of the claim that Puyi had saved the people of Manchuria from a lawless and violent regime.[146] Manchukuo Enthronement Commemorative Medal On 1 March 1934 he was crowned Emperor of Manchukuo, under the reign title Kangde (Wade–Giles: Kang-te; 康德) in Changchun. A sign of the true rulers of Manchukuo was the presence of General Masahiko Amakasu during the coronation; ostensibly there as the film director to record the coronation, Amakasu served as Puyi's minder, keeping a careful watch on him to prevent him from going off script.[147] Wanrong was excluded from the coronation: her addiction to opium, anti-Japanese feelings, dislike of Puyi and growing reputation for being "difficult" and unpredictable led Amakasu to the conclusion that she could not be trusted to stay on script.[148] Though submissive in public to the Japanese, Puyi was constantly at odds with them in private. He resented being "Head of State" and then "Emperor of Manchukuo" rather than being fully restored as a Qing Emperor. At his enthronement, he clashed with Japan over dress; they wanted him to wear a Manchukuo-style uniform whereas he considered it an insult to wear anything but traditional Manchu robes. In a typical compromise, he wore a Western military uniform to his enthronement[149] (the only Chinese emperor ever to do so) and a dragon robe to the announcement of his accession at the Temple of Heaven.[150] Puyi was driven to his coronation in a Lincoln limousine with bulletproof windows followed by nine Packards, and during his coronation scrolls were read out while sacred wine bottles were opened for the guests to celebrate the beginning of a "Reign of Tranquility and Virtue".[151] The invitations for the coronation were issued by the Kwantung Army and 70% of those who attended Puyi's coronation were Japanese.[152] The Japanese chose as the capital of Manchukuo the industrial city of Changchun, which was renamed Hsinking. Puyi had wanted the capital to be Mukden (modern Shenyang), which had been the Qing capital before the Qing conquered China in 1644, but was overruled by his Japanese masters.[153] Puyi hated Hsinking, which he regarded as an undistinguished industrial city that lacked the historical connections with the Qing that Mukden had.[153] As there was no palace in Changchun, Puyi moved into what had once been the office of the Salt Tax Administration during the Russian period, and as result, the building was known as the Salt Tax Palace, which is now the Museum of the Imperial Palace of the Manchu State.[153] Puyi lived as a virtual prisoner in the Salt Tax Palace, which was heavily guarded by Japanese troops, and could not leave without permission.[154] Shortly after Puyi's coronation, Prince Chun arrived at the Hsinking railroad station for a visit, and this time Wanrong promised to behave as no Japanese were involved in the ceremonies, and thus she was allowed out of the Salt Tax Palace.[148] As Prince Chun got off the train, the Manchukuo Imperial Guards were there to greet him while Puyi was dressed in his uniform as Commander-in-Chief, wearing Japanese, Chinese and Manchukuo decorations while Wanrong wore the traditional dress of a Chinese empress and kowtowed to her father-in-law.[155] Puyi's half-brother Pu Ren, who was 16 at the time, followed his father to Hsinking and told Behr in an interview: Puyi was outwardly very polite, but he didn't have a lot of respect for his father's opinions. Puyi badly wanted the whole family to stay in Changchun. He wanted me to be educated in Japan, but father was firmly opposed to the idea and I went back to Beijing. Puyi was still in pretty good spirits. He hadn't entirely given up the dream that the Japanese would restore him to the throne of China. — Pu Ren[156] Prince Chun told his son that he was an idiot if he really believed that the Japanese were going to restore him to the Dragon Throne, and warned him that he was just being used.[156] The Japanese Embassy issued a note of diplomatic protest at the welcome extended to Prince Chun, stating that the Hsinking railroad station was under the Kwantung Army's control, that only Japanese soldiers were allowed there, and that they would not tolerate the Manchukuo Imperial Guard being used to welcome visitors at the Hsinking railroad station again.[156] In this period, Puyi frequently visited the provinces of Manchukuo to open factories and mines, took part in the birthday celebrations for the Showa Emperor at the Kwantung Army headquarters and, on the Japanese holiday of Memorial Day, formally paid his respects with Japanese rituals to the souls of the Japanese soldiers killed fighting the "bandits" (as the Japanese called all the guerrillas fighting against their rule of Manchuria).[156] Following the example in Japan, schoolchildren in Manchukuo at the beginning of every school day kowtowed first in the direction of Tokyo and then to a portrait of Puyi in the classroom.[156] Puyi found this "intoxicating".[156] Puyi visited a coal mine and in his rudimentary Japanese thanked the Japanese foreman for his good work, who burst into tears as he thanked the emperor; Puyi later wrote that "The treatment I received really went to my head."[157] Whenever the Japanese wanted a law passed, the relevant decree was dropped off at the Salt Tax Palace for Puyi to sign, which he always did.[158] Puyi signed decrees expropriating vast tracts of farmland to be given to Japanese colonists and a law declaring certain thoughts to be "thought crimes", leading Behr to note: "In theory, as 'Supreme Commander', he thus bore full responsibility for Japanese atrocities committed in his name on anti-Japanese 'bandits' and patriotic Chinese citizens."[158] Behr further noted the "Empire of Manchukuo", billed as an idealistic state where the "five races" of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Manchus and Mongols had come together in Pan-Asian brotherhood, was in fact "one of the most brutally run countries in the world – a textbook example of colonialism, albeit of the Oriental kind".[159] Manchukuo was a sham, and was a Japanese colony run entirely for Japan's benefit.[160] American historian Carter J. Eckert wrote that the differences in power could be seen in that the Kwantung Army had a "massive" headquarters in downtown Hsinking while Puyi had to live in the "small and shabby" Salt Tax Palace close to the main railroad station in a part of Hsinking with numerous small factories, warehouses, and slaughterhouses, the chief prison and the red-light district.[161] In 1935, to solve Japan's overpopulation problem, a plan was announced in Tokyo to settle five million Japanese farmers and their families in Manchukuo between 1936 and 1956, and in the first stage of the plan 20,000 Japanese families moved to Manchukuo every year, continuing until 1944, when American submarine attacks reduced the shipping available to move colonists into Manchukuo.[162] By 1939, the total Japanese population in Manchukuo was about 837,000 men, women, and children; comprising the Japanese who had been brought in as rural colonists plus those who had come to Manchukuo to work as civil servants, businessmen, and for the South Manchuria Railway Company, the largest corporation in Asia at the time, together with their families.[163] To provide farmland for the Japanese settlers, the ethnic Chinese and ethnic Korean farmers already living on the land were evicted to make way for the colonists.[163] The Kwantung Army used those who resisted eviction for bayonet practice.[163] Furthermore, Manchukuo was meant to be the industrial powerhouse of the Japanese empire, and right from the start, the Japanese started to build factories and mines on a vast scale while the Chinese workers were ruthlessly exploited.[164] The American historian Mark Driscoll described the economic system introduced by Nobusuke Kishi, Manchukuo's Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce in 1935–1939 and a future prime minister of Japan, as a "necropolitical" system where the Chinese workers were treated as dehumanized cogs in a vast industrial machine.[165] Behr commented that Puyi knew from his talks in Tianjin with General Kenji Doihara and General Seishirō Itagaki that he was dealing with "ruthless men and that this might be the regime to expect".[166] Puyi later recalled that: "I had put my head in the tiger's mouth" by going to Manchuria in 1931.[166] Puyi (right) as Emperor of Manchukuo. On the left is Chū Kudō. From 1935 to 1945, Kwantung Army senior staff officer Yoshioka Yasunori (吉岡安則)[167] was assigned to Puyi as Attaché to the Imperial Household in Manchukuo. He acted as a spy for the Japanese government, controlling Puyi through fear, intimidation, and direct orders.[168] There were many attempts on Puyi's life during this period, including a 1937 stabbing by a palace servant.[2] During Puyi's reign as Emperor of Manchukuo, his household was closely watched by the Japanese, who increasingly took steps toward the full Japanisation of Manchuria, to prevent him from becoming too independent. He was feted by the Japanese populace during his visits there, but had to remain subservient to Emperor Hirohito.[169] It is unclear whether the adoption of ancient Chinese styles and rites, such as using "His Majesty" instead of his real name, was the product of Puyi's interest or a Japanese imposition of their own imperial house rules.[citation needed] In 1935, Puyi visited Japan, sailing from Dalian to Yokohama on the warship Hiei, and while he met the Shōwa Emperor at a Tokyo railroad station, a moment of unintentional comedy occurred when Puyi attempted to take off a too tight white glove before shaking the Emperor's hand, which he had to struggle with for some time while everyone else struggled not to laugh.[170] The Second Secretary of the Japanese Embassy in Hsinking, Kenjiro Hayashide, served as Puyi's interpreter during this trip, and later wrote what Behr called a very absurd book, The Epochal Journey to Japan, chronicling this visit, where he managed to present every banal statement made by Puyi as profound wisdom, and claimed that he wrote an average of two poems per day on his trip to Japan, despite being busy with attending all sorts of official functions.[171] A typical passage from the book records that Puyi was seasick while travelling to Japan, but that "the Ruler's great joy at seeing Their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan ... removed all thoughts of fatigue from the voyage".[172] Hayashide had also written a booklet promoting the trip in Japan, which claimed that Puyi was a great reader who was "hardly ever seen without a book in his hand", a skilled calligrapher, a talented painter, and an excellent horseman and archer, able to shoot arrows while riding, just like his Qing ancestors.[172] The Shōwa Emperor took this claim that Puyi was a hippophile too seriously and presented him with a gift of a horse for him to review the Imperial Japanese Army with; in fact, Puyi was a hippophobe who adamantly refused to get on the horse, forcing the Japanese to hurriedly bring out a carriage for the two emperors to review the troops.[173] After his return to Hsinking, Puyi hired an American public relations executive, George Bronson Rea, to lobby the U.S. government to recognize Manchukuo.[174] In late 1935, Rea published a book, The Case for Manchukuo, in which Rea castigated China under the Kuomintang as hopelessly corrupt, and praised Puyi's wise leadership of Manchukuo, writing Manchukuo was "... the one step that the people of the East have taken towards escape from the misery and misgovernment that have become theirs. Japan's protection is its only chance of happiness".[175] Rea continued to work for Puyi until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but he failed signally in lobbying Washington to recognize Hsinking. At the second trial relating to the long-running Kaspé case in Harbin in March–June 1936, the Japanese prosecutor argued in favor of the six defendants, calling them "Russian patriots who raised the flag against a world danger – communism".[145] Much to everyone's surprise, the Chinese judges convicted and sentenced the six Russian fascists who had tortured and killed Kaspé to death, which led to a storm as the Russian Fascist Party called the six men "martyrs for Holy Russia", and presented to Puyi a petition with thousands of signatures asking him to pardon the six men.[145] Puyi refused to pardon the Russian fascists, but the verdict was appealed to the Hsinking Supreme Court, where the Japanese judges quashed the verdict, ordering the six men to be freed, a decision that Puyi accepted without complaint.[176] The flagrant miscarriage of justice of the Kaspé case, which attracted much attention in the Western media, did much to tarnish the image of Manchukuo and further weakened Puyi's already weak hand as he sought to have the rest of the world recognize Manchukuo.[145] In 1936, Ling Sheng, an aristocrat who was serving as governor of one of Manchukuo's provinces and whose son was engaged to marry one of Puyi's younger sisters, was arrested after complaining about "intolerable" Japanese interference in his work, which led Puyi to ask Yoshioka if something could be done to help him out.[173] The Kwantung Army's commander General Kenkichi Ueda visited Puyi to tell him the matter was resolved as Ling had already been convicted by a Japanese court-martial of "plotting rebellion" and had been executed by beheading, which led Puyi to cancel the marriage between his sister and Ling's son.[177] During these years, Puyi began taking a greater interest in traditional Chinese law and religion[178] (such as Confucianism and Buddhism), but this was disallowed by the Japanese. Gradually his old supporters were eliminated and pro-Japanese ministers put in their place.[179] During this period Puyi's life consisted mostly of signing laws prepared by Japan, reciting prayers, consulting oracles, and making formal visits throughout his state.[2] Puyi was extremely unhappy with his life as a virtual prisoner in the Salt Tax Palace, and his moods became erratic, swinging from hours of passivity staring into space to indulging his sadism by having his servants beaten.[180] The fact that the vast majority of Puyi's "loving subjects" hated him obsessed Puyi, and as Behr observed it was "... the knowledge that he was an object of hatred and derision that drove Puyi to the brink of madness".[181] Puyi always had a strong cruel streak, and he imposed harsh "house rules" on his staff; servants were flogged in the basement for such offenses as "irresponsible conversations".[182] The phrase "Take him downstairs" was much feared by Puyi's servants as he had at least one flogging performed a day, and everyone in the Salt Tax Palace was caned at one point or another except the Empress and Puyi's siblings and their spouses.[181] Puyi's experience of widespread theft during his time in the Forbidden City led him to distrust his servants and he obsessively went over the account books for signs of fraud.[183] Big Li, Puyi's chief servant, told Behr: It got so that everyone was covertly watching Puyi all the time, to try and find out what mood he was in. Puyi was completely paranoid: if you were caught eyeing him, he would bark: "What's the matter? Why are you looking at me that way?" But if one tried to look away, he would say: "Why are you avoiding me? What have you got to hide?" — Big Li[181] To further torment his staff of about 100, Puyi drastically cut back on the food allocated for his staff, who suffered from hunger; Big Li told Behr that Puyi was attempting to make everyone as miserable as he was.[184] Besides tormenting his staff, Puyi's life as Emperor was one of lethargy and passivity, which his ghostwriter Li Wenda called "a kind of living death" for him.[185] The Emperor did not normally get up until noon, had brunch at about 2 pm before going back to bed for another rest, then played tennis or table tennis, rode his bicycle or car aimlessly around the grounds of the palace or listened to his vast collection of Chinese opera records.[181] He became a devoted Buddhist, a mystic and a vegetarian, having statues of the Buddha put up all over the Salt Tax Palace for him to pray to while banning his staff from eating meat.[183] Puyi's Buddhism led him to ban his staff from killing insects or mice, but if he found any insects or mice droppings in his food, the cooks were flogged.[183] When Puyi went into the gardens to meditate before a statue of the Buddha, there always had to be complete silence, and as there were two loud Japanese cranes living in the garden, the emperor always had his servants flogged if the cranes made a sound.[186] One day, when out for a stroll in the gardens, Puyi found that a servant had written in chalk on one of the rocks: "Haven't the Japanese humiliated you enough?"[187] When Puyi received guests at the Salt Tax Palace, he gave them long lectures on the "glorious" history of the Qing as a form of masochism, comparing the great Qing Emperors with himself, a miserable man living as a prisoner in his own palace.[188] The Empress Wanrong retreated in seclusion as she became addicted to opium, and her father stopped visiting the Salt Tax Palace as he could not bear to see what she had become.[189] Wanrong, who detested her husband, liked to mock him behind his back by performing skits before the servants by putting on dark glasses and imitating Puyi's jerky movements.[190] During his time in Tianjin, Puyi had started wearing dark glasses at all times, as during the interwar period wearing dark glasses in Tianjin was a way of signifying one was a homosexual or bisexual.[190] On 3 April 1937, Puyi's younger full brother Prince Pujie was proclaimed heir apparent after marrying Lady Hiro Saga, a distant cousin of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito. The Kwantung Army general Shigeru Honjō had politically arranged the marriage. Puyi thereafter would not speak candidly in front of his brother and refused to eat any food Lady Saga provided, believing she was out to poison him.[191] Puyi was forced to sign an agreement that if he himself had a male heir, the child would be sent to Japan to be raised by the Japanese.[192] Puyi initially thought Lady Saga was a Japanese spy, but came to trust her after the Sinophile Saga discarded her kimonos for cheongsams and repeatedly assured him that she came to the Salt Tax Palace because she was Pujie's wife, not as a spy.[193] Behr described Lady Saga as "intelligent" and "level-headed", and noted the irony of Puyi snubbing the one Japanese who really wanted to be his friend.[193] A sign of improved relations came when Puyi gave Lady Saga a diamond-encrusted watch as a belated wedding present.[193] Later in April 1937, the 16-year-old Manchu aristocrat Tan Yuling moved into the Salt Tax Palace to become Puyi's concubine, but though Puyi seems to have liked her, it remains unclear whether he had sex with her.[194] Lady Saga tried to improve relations between Puyi and Wanrong by having them eat dinner together, which was the first time they had shared a meal in three years.[193] Wanrong refused to eat with chopsticks, instead using her fingers, regarded as "savage" behavior in Asia; Wanrong said she was past caring what others thought about her.[193] Puyi tried to joke away Wanrong's unhappiness by saying that it was "Mongol night" and everyone was going to be like a Mongol "savage" by eating with their fingers, but Lady Saga noted his jesting fell flat.[193] Based on his interviews with Puyi's family and staff at the Salt Tax Palace, Behr wrote that it appeared Puyi had an "attraction towards very young girls" that "bordered on pedophilia" and "that Pu Yi was bisexual, and – by his own admission – something of a sadist in his relationships with women".[195] Puyi was very fond of having handsome teenage boys serve as his pageboys and Lady Saga noted he was also very fond of sodomizing them.[196] Lady Saga wrote in her 1957 autobiography Memoirs of A Wandering Princess: Of course I had heard rumours concerning such great men in our history, but I never knew such things existed in the living world. Now, however, I learnt that the Emperor had an unnatural love for a pageboy. He was referred to as "the male concubine". Could these perverted habits, I wondered, have driven his wife to opium smoking? — Lady Hiro Saga[197] When Behr questioned him about Puyi's sexuality, Prince Pujie said he was "biologically incapable of reproduction", a polite way of saying someone is gay in China.[198] When one of Puyi's pageboys fled the Salt Tax Palace to escape his homosexual advances, Puyi ordered that he be given an especially harsh flogging, which caused the boy's death and led Puyi to have the floggers flogged in turn as punishment.[184] In June 1937, some off-duty members of the Manchukuo Imperial Guards fell into a trap when they objected to Japanese colonists jumping the queue for rowboats in a Hsinking park, leading to a brawl.[199] The Kempeitai had expected this and were waiting; they arrested the guardsmen, who were then beaten, forced to strip naked in public, and finally convicted by the courts of "anti-Manchukuo activities".[199] As a result, the Manchukuo Imperial Guard lost their right to bear any weapons except pistols.[199] To further add to the message, Amakasu told Puyi that the Manchukuo Prime Minister, Zhang Jinghui, a man Behr called "a venal, cringing Japanese flunky" and whom Puyi despised, should be his role model.[199] In July 1937, when the Sino-Japanese war began, Puyi issued a declaration of support for Japan.[200] In August 1937, Kishi wrote up a decree for Puyi to sign calling for the use of slave labour to be conscripted both in Manchukuo and in northern China, stating that in these "times of emergency" (i.e. war with China), industry needed to grow at all costs, and slavery was necessary to save money.[201] Driscoll wrote that just as African slaves were taken to the New World on the "Middle Passage", it would be right to speak of the "Manchurian Passage" as vast numbers of Chinese peasants were rounded up to be slaves in Manchukuo's factories and mines.[202] From 1938 until the end of the war, every year about a million Chinese were taken from the Manchukuo countryside and northern China to be slaves in Manchukuo's factories and mines.[203] All that Puyi knew of the outside world was what General Yoshioka told him in daily briefings.[200] When Behr asked Prince Pujie how the news of the Rape of Nanking in December 1937 affected Puyi, his brother replied: "We didn't hear about it until much later. At the time, it made no real impact."[204] On 4 February 1938, the strongly pro-Japanese and anti-Chinese Joachim von Ribbentrop became the German foreign minister, and under his influence German foreign policy swung in an anti-Chinese and pro-Japanese direction.[205] On 20 February 1938, Adolf Hitler announced that Germany was recognizing Manchukuo.[205] In one of his last acts, the outgoing German ambassador to Japan Herbert von Dirksen visited Puyi in the Salt Tax Palace to tell him that a German embassy would be established in Hsinking later that year to join the embassies of Japan, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Italy and Nationalist Spain, the only other countries that had recognized Manchukuo. In 1934, Puyi had been excited when he learned that El Salvador had become the first nation other than Japan to recognize Manchukuo, but by 1938 he did not care much about Germany's recognition of Manchukuo. In May 1938, Puyi was declared a god by the Religions Law, and a cult of emperor-worship very similar to Japan's began with schoolchildren starting their classes by praying to a portrait of the god-emperor while imperial rescripts and the imperial regalia became sacred relics imbued with magical powers by being associated with the god-emperor.[206] Puyi's elevation to a god was due to the Sino-Japanese war, which caused the Japanese state to begin a program of totalitarian mobilization of society for total war in Japan and places ruled by Japan.[206] His Japanese handlers felt that ordinary people in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan were more willing to bear the sacrifices for total war because of their devotion to their god-emperor, and it was decided that making Puyi a god-emperor would have the same effect in Manchukuo.[206] After 1938, Puyi was hardly ever allowed to leave the Salt Tax Palace, while the creation of the puppet regime of President Wang Jingwei in November 1938 crushed Puyi's spirits, as it ended his hope of one day being restored as the Great Qing Emperor.[185] Puyi became a hypochondriac, taking all sorts of pills for various imagined aliments and hormones to improve his sex drive and allow him to father a boy, as Puyi was convinced that the Japanese were poisoning his food to make him sterile.[207] He believed the Japanese wanted one of the children Pujie had fathered with Lady Saga to be the next emperor, and it was a great relief to him that their children were both girls (Manchukuo law forbade female succession to the throne).[193] By 1940, the Japanisation of Manchuria had become extreme, and an altar to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu was built on the grounds of Puyi's palace. The origins of the altar are unclear, with the postwar Japanese claiming that Puyi aimed for a closer connection to the Japanese Emperor as a means of resisting the political machinations of the Manchukuo elites, while Puyi in his Chinese Communist-published autobiography claims that he was forced to submit to this by the Japanese. During his visit to Japan in 1940 for Kigensetsu, which was marked with especially lavish celebrations that year to mark the supposed 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Empire of Japan by the mythical Emperor Jimmu on 11 February 660 BC, Puyi during his meeting with the Showa Emperor read out a statement given to him by General Yoshioka asking for permission to worship the Shinto gods and to establish Shintoism as the state religion of Manchukuo.[198] The Showa Emperor replied "I must comply with your wishes" and gave him three relics, namely a bronze mirror, a sword and a piece of jade (reproductions of the Imperial Regalia of Japan) to take home with him to be the center of Shinto worship in Manchukuo.[198] Puyi later wrote "I thought Beijing antique shops were full of such objects. Were these a great god? Were those my ancestors? I burst into tears on the drive back."[198] Since in the Japanese state religion of Shintoism the Japanese Emperor was worshiped as a living god, worshiping at the Shinto shrine in the Salt Tax Palace also meant worshiping the Showa Emperor as a god, which starkly underlined Puyi's subordination to the Showa Emperor.[208] In any case, Puyi's wartime duties came to include sitting through Chinese-language Shinto prayers. Hirohito was surprised when he heard of this, asking why a Temple of Heaven had not been built instead.[209] After his second visit to Japan, Puyi announced in a press statement that Japan and Manchukuo were "unified in virtue and heart", praised the Shinto Sun Goddess Amaterasu for her "divine intervention" in 1931 that supposedly made Manchukuo possible, and hailed the Showa Emperor as a living god as the House of Yamato were all alleged to be the direct descendants of Amaterasu.[210] Already at the Manchukuo Military Academy that was training officers for the Manchukuo army, the cadets were being taught to serve the "two emperors" with the cadets kowtowing to portraits of both the emperors of Manchukuo and Japan.[210] In 1940 Wanrong, also known as "Elizabeth Jade Eyes", engaged in an affair with Puyi's chauffeur Li Tiyu that left her pregnant.[211] To punish her, as Wanrong gave birth to her daughter, she had to watch much to her horror as the Japanese doctors poisoned her newly born child right in front of her.[212] Afterwards, Wanrong was totally broken by what she had seen, and lost her will to live, spending as much of her time possible in an opium daze to numb the pain.[212] Puyi had known of what was being planned for Wanrong's baby, and in what Behr called a supreme act of "cowardice" on his part, "did nothing".[212] Puyi's ghostwriter for Emperor to Citizen, Li Wenda, told Behr that when interviewing Puyi for the book that he could not get Puyi to talk about the killing of Wanrong's child, as he was too ashamed to speak of his own cowardice.[212] In December 1941, Puyi followed Japan in declaring war on the United States and Great Britain, but as neither nation had recognized Manchukuo there were no reciprocal declarations of war in return.[213] During the war, Puyi was an example and role model for at least some in Asia who believed in the Japanese Pan-Asian propaganda. U Saw, the Prime Minister of Burma, was secretly in communication with the Japanese, declaring that as an Asian his sympathies were completely with Japan against the West.[214] U Saw further added that he hoped that when Japan won the war that he would enjoy exactly the same status in Burma that Puyi enjoyed in Manchukuo as part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, saying that as an Asian it was his fondest wish that Japan would do everything that it had done in Manchukuo in Burma.[214] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg sarcastically wrote that U Saw and the rest of Burmese nationalists who saw the Japanese as liberators from the British were not endowed with "great intelligence" as U Saw enjoyed far more power as Prime Minister under the British than Puyi did as Emperor under the Japanese, but they got their wish to have what was done to people of Manchukuo done to their own people, observing: "The use of military and civilian prisoners for bayonet practice and assorted other cruelties provided the people of Southeast Asia with a dramatic lesson on the new meaning of Bushido, the code of the Japanese warrior."[214] During the war, Puyi became estranged from his father, as his half-brother Pu Ren stated in an interview: ... after 1941 Puyi's father had written him off. He never visited Puyi after 1934. They rarely corresponded. All the news he got was through intermediaries, or occasional reports from Puyi's younger sisters, some of whom were allowed to see him. — Pu Ren[215] Puyi himself complained that he had issued so many "slavish" pro-Japanese statements during the war that nobody on the Allied side would take him in if he did escape from Manchukuo.[216] In June 1942, Puyi made a rare visit outside of the Salt Tax Palace when he conferred with the graduating class at the Manchukuo Military Academy, and awarded the star student Takagi Masao a gold watch for his outstanding performance; despite his Japanese name, the star student was actually Korean and under his original Korean name of Park Chung-hee became the dictator of South Korea in 1961.[217] In August 1942, Puyi's concubine Tan Yuling fell ill and died after being treated by the same Japanese doctors who murdered Wanrong's baby.[212] Puyi testified at the Tokyo war crimes trial of his belief that she was murdered, saying "The glucose injections were not administered. There was much to and from activity that night, Japanese nurses and doctors speaking with Yoshioka, then going back to the sickroom."[212] Puyi kept a lock of Tan's hair and her nail clippings for the rest of his life as he expressed much sadness over her loss.[218] Puyi refused to take a Japanese concubine to replace Tan and, in 1943, took a Chinese concubine, Li Yuqin, the 16 year-old daughter of a waiter.[219] Lady Saga later observed that when Li had arrived at the Salt Tax Palace, she was badly in need of a bath and delousing.[219] Puyi liked Li, but his main interest continued to be his pageboys, as he later wrote: "These actions of mine go to show how cruel, mad, violent and unstable I was."[219] For much of World War II, Puyi, confined to the Salt Tax Palace, believed that Japan was winning the war, and it was not until 1944 that Puyi first began to get an inkling that Japan was losing the war when the Japanese press began to report "heroic sacrifices" in Burma and on Pacific islands while air raid shelters started to be built in Manchukuo.[220] Puyi's nephew Jui Lon told Behr: "He desperately wanted America to win the war."[154] Big Li in an interview with Behr said: "When he thought it was safe, he would sit at the piano and do a one-finger version of the Stars and Stripes."[154] In mid-1944, Puyi finally acquired the courage to start occasionally tuning in his radio to Chinese broadcasts and to Chinese-language broadcasts by the Americans, where he was shocked to learn that Japan had suffered so many defeats on land, sea, and the air since 1942.[221] The commander of the Kwantung Army, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, left Manchukuo for the Philippines in July 1944 and told Puyi at their final meeting: "I shall never come back", predicting that he would die for the Emperor in the Philippines.[220] Yamashita was the famous "Tiger of Malaya" who had taken Singapore in 1942, inflicting one of the greatest defeats ever suffered by the British Empire, and his gloomy prediction about his pending defeat and death in the Philippines was unsettling to Puyi.[220] Puyi had to give a speech before a group of Japanese infantrymen who had volunteered to be "human bullets", promising to strap explosives on their bodies and to stage suicide attacks in order to die for the Showa Emperor.[220] Puyi commented as he read out his speech praising the glories of dying for the Emperor: "Only then did I see the ashen grey of their faces and the tears flowing down their cheeks and hear their sobbing."[220] Puyi commented that he felt at that moment utterly "terrified" at the death cult fanaticism of Bushido ("the way of the warrior") which reduced the value of human life down to nothing, as to die for the Emperor was the only thing that mattered; he observed that the Japanese infantrymen all had families and friends who cared for them, and had quite possibly been bullied by their officers into becoming "human bullets".[222] Yoshioka tried to reassure Puyi by saying that the "human bullets" were crying "manly Japanese tears"[citation needed] as deep down they wanted to die for the Emperor, but Puyi later stated he was not convinced by this argument.[222] On 9 August 1945, the Kwantung Army's commander General Otozō Yamada arrived at the Salt Tax Palace to tell Puyi that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and the Red Army had entered Manchukuo.[222] Yamada was assuring Puyi that the Kwantung Army would easily defeat the Red Army when the air raid sirens sounded and the Red Air Force began a bombing raid, forcing all to hide in the basement.[223] While Puyi prayed to the Buddha, Yamada fell silent as the bombs fell, destroying a Japanese barracks next to the Salt Tax Palace.[223] In the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, 1,577,725 Soviet and Mongol troops stormed into Manchuria in a combined arms offensive with tanks, artillery, cavalry, aircraft and infantry working closely together that overwhelmed the Kwantung Army, who had not expected a Soviet invasion until 1946 and were short of both tanks and anti-tank guns.[224] To try and stop the Soviet tanks, the Japanese sent out the "human bullets" as infantrymen packed with explosives, who tried to throw themselves into the treads of the tanks; usually they were shot down before getting anywhere close to the tanks.[225] Puyi was especially terrified to hear that the Mongolian People's Army had joined Operation August Storm, as he believed that the Mongols would torture him to death if they captured him.[226] The next day, Yamada told Puyi that the Soviets had already broken through the defense lines in northern Manchukuo, but the Kwantung Army would "hold the line" in southern Manchukuo and Puyi must leave at once.[223] The staff of the Salt Tax Palace were thrown into panic as Puyi ordered all of his treasures to be boxed up and shipped out; in the meantime Puyi observed from his window that soldiers of the Manchukuo Imperial Army were taking off their uniforms and deserting.[223] To test the reaction of his Japanese masters, Puyi put on his uniform of Commander-in-Chief of the Manchukuo Army and announced "We must support the holy war of our Parental Country with all our strength, and must resist the Soviet armies to the end, to the very end".[223] With that, Yoshioka fled the room, which showed Puyi that the war was lost.[223] At one point, a group of Japanese soldiers arrived at the Salt Tax Palace, and Puyi believed they had come to kill him, but they merely went away after seeing him stand at the top of the staircase.[227] Most of the servants and all of the cooks at the Salt Tax Palace had already fled, forcing Puyi to eat biscuits as his remaining servants hastily packed up all of the Qing treasures at the Salt Tax Palace.[228] Puyi found that his phone calls to the Kwantung Army HQ went unanswered as most of the officers had already left for Korea, his minder Amakasu committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill, and the people of Changchun booed him when his car, flying imperial standards, took him to the railroad station.[228] Late on the night of 11 August 1945, a train carrying Puyi, his court, his ministers and the Qing treasures left Changchun.[229] The train was frequently diverted as a result of Soviet bombing, and everywhere Puyi went, he saw thousands of panic-stricken Japanese settlers fleeing south in vast columns across the roads of the countryside.[229] At every railroad station, hundreds of Japanese colonists attempted to board his train; Puyi remembered them "weeping as they begged Japanese gendarmes to let them pass" while the gendarmes forced them back.[229] At several stations, Japanese soldiers and gendarmes fought one another to board the train.[229] General Yamada boarded the train as it meandered south and told Puyi "... the Japanese Army was winning and had destroyed large numbers of tanks and aircraft", a claim that nobody aboard the train believed.[229] On 15 August 1945, Puyi heard on the radio the address of the Showa Emperor announcing that Japan had surrendered, as the Emperor declared with notable understatement that "the war has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage".[230] In his address, the Showa Emperor described the Americans as having used a "most unusual and cruel bomb" that had just destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; this was the first time that Puyi heard of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which the Japanese had not seen fit to tell him about until then.[230] The next day, Puyi abdicated as Emperor of Manchukuo and declared in his last decree that Manchukuo was once again part of China.[230] As the Soviets had bombed all of the train stations and Puyi's train was running low on coal, the train returned to Changchun.[231] Once there, Puyi planned to take a plane to escape, taking with him his brother Pujie, his servant Big Li, Yoshioka, and his doctor while leaving Wanrong, his concubine Li Yuqin, Lady Hiro Saga and Lady Saga's two children behind.[231] The decision to leave behind the women and children was made by the misogynistic Yoshioka who saw the lives of women and children as worthless compared to the lives of men, and vetoed Puyi's attempts to take them on the plane to Japan.[231] As Puyi left for the airport, he saw Wanrong for the last time in his life, later saying that both she and Li were "blubbering".[232] Puyi asked for Lady Saga, the most mature and responsible of the three women, to take care of Wanrong, who was hopelessly addicted to opium by this point, giving Lady Saga precious antiques and cash to pay for their way south to Korea.[233] On 16 August Puyi took a small plane to Mukden, where another larger plane was supposed to arrive to take them to Japan, but instead a Soviet plane landed.[232] Puyi and his party were all promptly taken prisoner by the Red Army, who initially did not know who Puyi was.[232][234] The opium-addled Wanrong together with Lady Saga and Li were captured by Chinese Communist guerrillas on their way to Korea, after one of Puyi's brothers-in-law informed the Communists who the women were.[235] Wanrong, the former empress, was put on display in a local jail as if she was in a zoo, and people came from miles around to watch her.[236] In a delirious state of mind, she demanded more opium, asked for imaginary servants to bring her clothing, food and a bath, hallucinated that she was back in the Forbidden City or the Salt Tax Palace, and most poignantly of all screamed over and over again she missed her murdered baby daughter.[237] The general hatred for Puyi meant that none had any sympathy for Wanrong, who was seen as another Japanese collaborator, and a guard told Lady Saga that "this one won't last", making it a waste of time feeding her.[238] In June 1946, Wanrong starved to death in her jail cell, lying in a pool of her own vomit, urine and excrement, which the local people all found very funny.[238] In his 1964 book From Emperor to Citizen, Puyi merely stated that he learned in 1951 that Wanrong "died a long time ago" without mentioning how she died.[239] Later life (1945–1967) Puyi (right) and a Soviet military officer The Soviets took him to the Siberian town of Chita. He lived in a sanatorium, then later in Khabarovsk near the Chinese border, where he was treated well and allowed to keep some of his servants.[240] As a prisoner in a spa in Khabarovsk, Puyi spent his days praying to the Buddha, expected the prisoners to treat him as an emperor and slapped the faces of his servants when they displeased him.[241] He knew about the civil war in China from Chinese-language broadcasts on Soviet radio but seemed not to care.[242] The Soviet government refused the Republic of China's repeated requests to extradite Puyi; the Kuomintang government had indicted him on charges of high treason, and the Soviet refusal to extradite him almost certainly saved his life, as Chiang Kai-shek had often spoken of his desire to have Puyi shot.[243] The Kuomintang captured Puyi's cousin Eastern Jewel and publicly executed her in Beijing in 1948 after she was convicted of high treason.[244] Not wishing to return to China, Puyi wrote to Joseph Stalin several times asking for asylum in the Soviet Union, and that he be given one of the former tsarist palaces to live out his days.[245] In 1946, Puyi testified at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo,[246] detailing his resentment at how he had been treated by the Japanese. At the Tokyo trial, he had a long exchange with defense counsel Major Ben Bruce Blakeney about whether he had been kidnapped in 1931, in which Puyi perjured himself by saying that the statements in Johnston's 1934 book Twilight in the Forbidden City about how he had willingly become Emperor of Manchukuo were all lies.[247] When Blakeney mentioned that the introduction to Twilight in the Forbidden City described how Puyi had told Johnston that he had willingly gone to Manchuria in 1931, Puyi perjured himself by saying he was not in contact with Johnston in 1931, and that Johnston made things up for "commercial advantage".[248] The Australian judge Sir William Webb, the President of the Tribunal, was often frustrated with Puyi's testimony, and chided him numerous times.[249] At one point, when Puyi said "I have not finished my answer yet", Webb replied, "Well, don't finish it".[250] Behr described Puyi on the stand as a "consistent, self-assured liar, prepared to go to any lengths to save his skin", and as a combative witness more than able to hold his own against the defense lawyers.[251] Since no one at the trial but Blakeney had actually read Twilight in the Forbidden City or the interviews Woodhead had conducted with him in 1932, Puyi had room to distort what had been written about him or said by him.[252] Puyi greatly respected Johnston, who was a surrogate father to him, and felt guilty about repeatedly calling Johnston a dishonest man whose book was full of lies. He prayed for the Buddha to ask forgiveness for sullying Johnston's name.[253] Puyi's letters to Joseph Stalin After his return to the Soviet Union, Puyi was held at Detention Center No. 45, where his servants continued to make his bed, dress him and do other work for him.[254] Puyi did not speak Russian and had limited contacts with his Soviet guards, using a few Manchukuo prisoners who knew Russian as translators.[255] He spent his time with other Manchukuo and Japanese prisoners playing mah-jong, continued to pray to the Buddha and listened to Japanese records on the only gramophone the Soviets allowed the prisoners.[254] One prisoner told Puyi that the Soviets would keep him in Siberia forever because "this is the part of the world you come from".[255] The Soviets had promised the Chinese Communists that they would hand over the high value prisoners when the CCP won the civil war, and wanted to keep Puyi alive.[256] Puyi's brother-in-law Rong Qi and some of his servants were not considered high value, and were sent to work as slaves in a brutal Siberian labor camp, where they were starved and were worked very hard.[257] When the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong came to power in 1949, Puyi was repatriated to China after negotiations between the Soviet Union and China.[258][259] Puyi was of considerable value to Mao, as Behr noted: "In the eyes of Mao and other Chinese Communist leaders, Pu Yi, the last Emperor, was the epitome of all that had been evil in old Chinese society. If he could be shown to have undergone sincere, permanent change, what hope was there for the most diehard counter-revolutionary? The more overwhelming the guilt, the more spectacular the redemption-and the greater glory of the Chinese Communist Party".[260] Furthermore, Mao had often noted that Lenin had Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor, shot together with the rest of the Russian imperial family, as Lenin could not make the last tsar into a communist; making the last Chinese emperor into a Communist was intended to show the superiority of Chinese communism over Soviet communism.[260] Puyi was to be subjected to "remodeling" to make him into a Communist.[261] Fushun War Criminals Management Centre In 1950, the Soviets loaded Puyi and the rest of the Manchukuo and Japanese prisoners onto a train that took them to China with Puyi convinced he would be executed when he arrived.[262] At the border, there were two lines of soldiers, one Soviet and the other Chinese, and as Puyi walked past, he remembered how the faces of the other prisoners were "deathly pale".[263] Puyi was surprised at the kindness of his Chinese guards, who told him this was the beginning of a new life for him.[263] In attempt to ingratiate himself, Puyi for the first time in his life addressed commoners with ni (你), the informal word for "you" instead of nin (您), the formal word for "you".[263] When the train stopped at Changchun to pick up food, Puyi was convinced that he was going to be shot at his former capital, and he was much relieved when the train resumed its journey to Fushun.[264] Except for a period during the Korean War, when he was moved to Harbin, Puyi spent ten years in the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in Liaoning province until he was declared reformed. The prisoners at Fushun were senior Japanese, Manchukuo and Kuomintang officials and officers.[265] Puyi was the weakest and most hapless of the prisoners, and was often bullied by the other prisoners, who liked to humiliate the emperor, and he might not have survived his imprisonment had the warden Jin Yuan not gone out of his way to protect him.[266] Jin had grown up under Manchukuo and as a schoolboy in the 1930s had kowtowed to portraits of Puyi and waved the Manchukuo flag in the streets when Puyi made visits to Harbin.[267] As Jin had grown up in Manchukuo, he was fluent in Japanese, which was why he was selected to be the warden of Fushun.[268] Jin was assigned the job in 1950 and told Behr in a 1986 interview: "I didn't welcome the idea at all. I tried to get another posting. I wanted nothing to do with those who had been responsible for my older brother's death and my family's suffering during the Manchukuo years. I wondered how I could ever bear to be in their company".[268] Jin also told Behr that he "came to like Puyi quite a bit" as he got to know him, and protected him from the other prisoners.[266] In 1951, Puyi learned for the first time that Wanrong had died in 1946.[239] Puyi had never brushed his teeth or tied his own shoelaces once in his life, and now for the first time was forced to perform the simple tasks that always had been done for him, which he found very difficult.[269] The prisoners often laughed at how Puyi struggled with even brushing his teeth.[269] Much of Puyi's "remodeling" consisted of attending "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist discussion groups" where the prisoners would discuss their lives before being imprisoned.[270] As part of his "remodeling", Puyi was confronted with ordinary people who had suffered under the "Empire of Manchukuo", including those who had fought in the Communist resistance, both to prove to him that resistance to the Japanese had been possible and to show him what he had presided over.[271] When Puyi protested to Jin that it had been impossible to resist Japan and there was nothing he could have done, Jin confronted him with people who had fought in the resistance and had been tortured, and asked him why ordinary people in Manchukuo resisted while an emperor did nothing.[271] As part of confronting war crimes, Puyi had to attend lectures where a former Japanese civil servant spoke about the exploitation of Manchukuo while a former officer in the Kempeitai talked about how he rounded up people for slave labor and ordered mass executions.[272] At one point, Puyi was taken to Harbin and Pingfang to see where the infamous Unit 731, the chemical and biological warfare unit in the Japanese Army, had conducted gruesome experiments on people. Puyi noted in shame and horror: "All the atrocities had been carried out in my name".[272] Puyi by the mid-1950s was overwhelmed with guilt and often told Jin that he felt utterly worthless to the point that he considered suicide.[273] Jin told Puyi to express his guilt in writing. Puyi later recalled he felt "that I was up against an irresistible force that would not rest until it found out everything".[274] Sometimes Puyi was taken out for tours of the countryside of Manchuria. On one, he met a farmer's wife whose family had been evicted to make way for Japanese settlers and had almost starved to death while working as a slave in one of Manchukuo's factories.[275] When Puyi asked for her forgiveness, she told him "It's all over now, let's not talk about it", causing him to break down in tears.[276] At another meeting, a woman described the mass execution of people from her village by the Japanese Army, and then declared that she did not hate the Japanese and those who had served them as she retained her faith in humanity, which greatly moved Puyi.[277] On another occasion, Jin confronted Puyi with his former concubine Li in meetings in his office, where she attacked him for seeing her only as a sex object, and saying she was now pregnant by a man who loved her.[277] On 10 March 1956, Jin confronted Puyi in a meeting in his office with his siblings, where his sisters spoke of their happiness with their new lives working as schoolteachers and seamstresses.[278] Puyi was helped with his "remodeling" when the other prisoners began to blame him for everything that happened in Manchukuo, which was a debit for them as in the Chinese system one is supposed to confess to one's own guilt rather than blaming others; Puyi, by assigning all guilt to himself, won Jin's favor.[279] In late 1956, Puyi acted in a play, The Defeat of the Aggressors, about the Suez Crisis, playing the role of a left-wing Labour MP who challenges in the House of Commons a former Manchukuo minister playing the British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd about Britain's reasons for attacking Egypt.[280] Puyi enjoyed the role and ad libbed several lines in English, shouting "No, no, no! It won't do! Get out! Leave this House!".[281] Sometimes Puyi acted in plays about his life and Manchukuo, and in one theatrical production, playing a Manchukuo functionary, Puyi kowtowed to a portrait of himself as Emperor of Manchukuo.[281] During the Great Leap Forward, when millions of people starved to death in China, Jin chose to cancel Puyi's visits to the countryside lest the scenes of famine undo his growing faith in communism.[282] Behr wrote that many are surprised that Puyi's "remodeling" worked, with an Emperor brought up as almost a god becoming content to be just an ordinary man, but he noted that "... it is essential to remember that Puyi was not alone in undergoing such successful 'remolding'. Tough KMT generals, and even tougher Japanese generals, brought up in the samurai tradition and the Bushido cult which glorifies death in battle and sacrifice to martial Japan, became, in Fushun, just as devout in their support of communist ideals as Puyi".[283] Puyi came to Beijing on 9 December 1959 with special permission from Mao Zedong and lived for the next six months in an ordinary Beijing residence with his sister before being transferred to a government-sponsored hotel.[284] He had the job of sweeping the streets, and got lost on his first day of work, which led him to tell astonished passers-by: "I'm Puyi, the last Emperor of the Qing dynasty. I'm staying with relatives and can't find my way home".[285] One of Puyi's first acts upon returning to Beijing was to visit the Forbidden City as a tourist, when he pointed out to other tourists that many of the exhibits were the things he had used in his youth.[286] He voiced his support for the Communists and worked at the Beijing Botanical Gardens. Working as a simple gardener gave Puyi a degree of happiness he had never known as an emperor, though he was notably clumsy.[287] Behr noted that in Europe people who played roles analogous to the role Puyi played in Manchukuo were generally executed; for example, the British hanged William Joyce ("Lord Haw-haw") for being the announcer on the English-language broadcasts of Radio Berlin, the Italians shot Benito Mussolini, and the French executed Pierre Laval, so many Westerners are surprised that Puyi was released from prison after only nine years to start a new life.[288] Behr wrote that the Communist ideology explained this difference, writing: "In a society where all landlord and 'capitalist-roaders' were evil incarnate, it did not matter so much that Puyi was also a traitor to his country: he was, in the eyes of the Communist ideologues, only behaving true to type. If all capitalists and landlords were, by their very nature, traitors, it was only logical that Puyi, the biggest landlord, should also be the biggest traitor. And, in the last resort, Puyi was far more valuable alive than dead".[288] In early 1960, Puyi met Premier Zhou Enlai, who told him: "You weren't responsible for becoming Emperor at the age of three or the 1917 attempted restoration coup. But you were fully to blame for what happened later. You knew perfectly well what you were doing when you took refuge in the Legation Quarter, when you traveled under Japanese protection to Tianjin, and when you agreed to become Manchukuo Chief Executive."[289] Puyi responded by merely saying that though he did not choose to be an emperor, he had behaved with savage cruelty as boy-emperor and wished he could apologize to all the eunuchs he had flogged during his youth.[289] At the age of 56, he married Li Shuxian, a hospital nurse, on 30 April 1962, in a ceremony held at the Banquet Hall of the Consultative Conference. From 1964 until his death he worked as an editor for the literary department of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, where his monthly salary was around 100 yuan. One yuan in the 1960s was equivalent to about 40 cents USD.[290] Li recalled in a 1995 interview that: "I found Pu Yi a honest man, a man who desperately needed my love and was ready to give me as much love as he could. When I was having even a slight case of flu, he was so worried I would die, that he refused to sleep at night and sat by my bedside until dawn so he could attend to my needs".[291] Li also noted like everybody else who knew him that Puyi was an incredibly clumsy man, leading her to say: "Once in a boiling rage at his clumsiness, I threatened to divorce him. On hearing this, he got down on his knees and, with tears in his eyes, he begged me to forgive him. I shall never forget what he said to me: 'I have nothing in this world except you, and you are my life. If you go, I will die'. But apart from him, what did I ever have in the world?".[291] Puyi in 1961, flanked by Xiong Bingkun, a commander in the Wuchang Uprising, and Lu Zhonglin, who took part in Puyi's expulsion from the Forbidden City in 1924. In the 1960s, with encouragement from Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, and the public endorsement of the Chinese government, Puyi wrote his autobiography Wode Qian Bansheng (Chinese: 我的前半生; pinyin: Wǒdè Qián Bànshēng; Wade–Giles: Wo Te Ch'ien Pan-Sheng; lit.: 'The First Half of My Life'; translated into English as From Emperor to Citizen) together with Li Wenda, an editor at the People's Publishing Bureau. The ghostwriter Li had initially planned to use Puyi's "autocritique" written in Fushun as the basis of the book, expecting the job to take only a few months. He found the "autocritique" used such wooden language as Puyi confessed to a career of abject cowardice, noting over and over again that he had always done the easy thing rather than the right thing in the most leaden prose possible, that Li was forced to start anew to produce something more readable as he interviewed Puyi, taking him four years to write the book.[292] In this book (as translated into English and published by Oxford University Press), Puyi made the following statement regarding his testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal:[293] I now feel very ashamed of my testimony, as I withheld some of what I knew to protect myself from being punished by my country. I said nothing about my secret collaboration with the Japanese imperialists over a long period, an association to which my open capitulation after September 18, 1931 was but the conclusion. Instead, I spoke only of the way the Japanese had put pressure on me and forced me to do their will. I maintained that I had not betrayed my country but had been kidnapped; denied all my collaboration with the Japanese; and even claimed that the letter I had written to Jirō Minami was a fake.[106] I covered up my crimes in order to protect myself. Many of the claims in From Emperor to Citizen, like the statement that it was the Kuomintang who stripped Manchuria bare of industrial equipment in 1945–46 rather than the Soviets, together with an "unreservedly rosy picture of prison life", are widely known to be false, but the book was translated into foreign languages and sold well. Behr wrote: The more fulsome, cliché-ridden chapters in From Emperor to Citizen, dealing with Puyi's prison experiences, and written at the height of the Mao personality cult, give the impression of well-learned, regurgitated lessons.[294] From 1963 onward, Puyi regularly gave press conferences praising life in the People's Republic of China, and foreign diplomats often sought him out, curious to meet the famous "Last Emperor" of China.[295] In an interview with Behr, Li Wenda told him that Puyi was a very clumsy man who "invariably forgot to close doors behind him, forgot to flush the toilet, forgot to turn the tap off after washing his hands, had a genius for creating an instant, disorderly mess around him".[296] Puyi had been so used to having his needs catered to that he never entirely learned how to function on his own.[296] He tried very hard to be modest and humble, always being the last person to board a bus, which meant that he frequently missed the ride, and in restaurants would tell waitresses, "You should not be serving me. I should be serving you."[296] Pujie told Behr: Gaol was like school for him. All his life, until 1945, everyone around him had convinced him he was special, almost divine. Because of this, his attitude towards others had never been normal. Only in Fushun did he become aware of people as people. — Behr (1987)[297] Puyi's nephew Jui Lon stated in an interview with Behr that before his imprisonment Puyi's chief characteristic was his utter selfishness. Even in the gaol he hoarded his cigarettes and would never give any away, even though he was not a heavy smoker. When I saw him in Beijing after his release he was a changed man. In his family he started to care for people for the first time in his life. — Jui Lon[298] During this period, Puyi was known for his kindness, and once after he accidentally knocked down an elderly lady with his bicycle, he visited her every day in the hospital to bring her flowers to make amends until she was released.[298] Puyi objected to Pujie's attempt to reunite with Lady Saga, who had returned to Japan, writing to Zhou asking him to block Lady Saga from coming back to China, which led Zhou to reply: "The war's over, you know. You don't have to carry this national hatred into your own family."[299] Behr concluded: "It is difficult to avoid the impression that Puyi, in an effort prove himself a 'remolded man', displayed the same craven attitude towards the power-holders of the new China that he had shown in Manchukuo towards the Japanese."[299] Death and burial Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution in 1966, and the youth militia known as the Maoist Red Guards saw Puyi, who symbolised Imperial China, as an easy target. Puyi was placed under protection by the local public security bureau and, although his food rations, salary, and various luxuries, including his sofa and desk, were removed, he was not publicly humiliated as was common at the time. The Red Guards attacked Puyi for his book From Emperor to Citizen because it had been translated into English and French, which displeased the Red Guards and led to copies of the book being burned in the streets.[300] Various members of the Qing family, including Pujie, had their homes raided and burned by the Red Guards, but Zhou Enlai used his influence to protect Puyi and the rest of the Qing from the worst abuses inflicted by the Red Guard.[301] Jin Yuan, the man who had "remodelled" Puyi in the 1950s, fell victim to the Red Guard and became a prisoner in Fushun for several years, while Li Wenda, who had ghostwritten From Emperor to Citizen, spent seven years in solitary confinement.[302] But Puyi had aged and his health began to decline. He died in Beijing of complications arising from kidney cancer and heart disease on 17 October 1967 at the age of 61.[303] In accordance with the laws of the People's Republic of China at the time, Puyi's body was cremated. His ashes were first placed at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, alongside those of other party and state dignitaries. (This was the burial ground of imperial concubines and eunuchs prior to the establishment of the People's Republic of China.) In 1995, as a part of a commercial arrangement, Puyi's ashes were transferred by his widow Li Shuxian to a new commercial cemetery named Hualong Imperial Cemetery (华龙皇家陵园)[304] in return for monetary support. The cemetery is near the Western Qing Tombs, 120 km (75 mi) southwest of Beijing, where four of the nine Qing emperors preceding him are interred, along with three empresses and 69 princes, princesses and imperial concubines.[305] Family Quotation from Puyi:[306] My father had two wives, and they bore him four sons and seven daughters. The Pedigree of the Qing House flow chart can be found in Puyi's autobiography.[307] Quotation from Puyi (referring only to his first four wives):[308] ... they were not real wives and were only there for show. Father: Zaifeng, Prince Chun of the First Rank (醇親王 載灃; 12 February 1883 – 3 February 1951) Grandfather: Yixuan, Prince Chunxian of the First Rank (醇賢親王 奕譞; 16 October 1840 – 1 January 1891) Grandmother: Secondary consort, of the Liugiya clan (側福晉 劉佳氏; 1866–1925), personal name Cuiyan (翠妍) Mother: Primary consort, of the Gūwalgiya clan (嫡福晉 瓜爾佳氏; 1884 – 30 September 1921), personal name Youlan (幼蘭) Grandfather: Ronglu (1836–1903), served as the Minister of Works from 1878–1879, the Minister of War from 1895–1898, the Viceroy of Zhili in 1898 and a Grand Secretary in the Wenhua Hall (文華殿) from 1898–1902 and the Wenyuan Library from 1902–1903, and held the title of a first class baron (一等男) Grandmother: Lady Aisin Gioro Consorts: Empress, of the Gobulo clan (皇后 郭布羅氏; 13 November 1904 – 20 June 1946), fourth cousin thrice removed, personal name Wanrong (婉容) Lady, of the Li clan (李氏; 4 September 1924 – 9 June 1997), personal name Shuxian (淑賢) Noble Consort Mingxian, of the Tan clan (明賢貴妃 譚氏; 11 August 1920 – 14 August 1942), personal name Yuling (玉齡) 祥妃 Consort Shu, of the Erdet clan (淑妃 鄂爾德特氏; 20 December 1909 – 17 September 1953), personal name Wenxiu (文繡) Concubine Fu, of the Li clan (福嬪 李氏; 15 July 1928 – 24 April 2001), personal name Yuqin (玉琴) Paternal side A three-year-old Puyi (right), standing next to his father (Zaifeng, Prince Chun) and his younger brother Pujie Puyi's great-grandfather was the Daoguang Emperor (r. 1820–1850), who was succeeded by his fourth son, the Xianfeng Emperor (r. 1850–1861).[28][309] Puyi's paternal grandfather was Yixuan, Prince Chun (1840–1891), the seventh son of the Daoguang Emperor and a younger half-brother of the Xianfeng Emperor. The Xianfeng Emperor was succeeded by his only son, who became the Tongzhi Emperor (r. 1861–1875).[310] The Tongzhi Emperor died at the age of 18 without a son, and was succeeded by the Guangxu Emperor (r. 1875–1908), son of 1st Prince Chun and Lady Yehe Nara Wanzhen (younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi). The Guangxu Emperor died without an heir.[3] Puyi, who succeeded the Guangxu Emperor, was the eldest son of Zaifeng, Prince Chun, who was born to Yixuan, Prince Chun and his second concubine Liugiya Cuiyan (1866–1925). Lady Liugiya had been a maid in the residence of Yixuan. Born to a Han Bannerman family, her original family name was Liu (劉), and this was changed to the Manchu clan name Liugiya when she became the concubine of Yixuan and was transferred to a Manchu banner. Zaifeng was therefore a younger half-brother of the Guangxu Emperor and the first in line to succession after Guangxu.[311] Puyi was in a branch of the Aisin Gioro clan with close ties to Empress Dowager Cixi, who was from the Yehe Nara clan. Cixi's niece, who later became Empress Dowager Longyu (1868–1913), was married to the Guangxu Emperor. Puyi had a younger full brother, Pujie (1907–1994), who married a cousin of Emperor Hirohito, Lady Hiro Saga. The rules of succession were changed to allow Pujie to succeed Puyi, who had no children.[312][313] Puyi's last surviving younger half-brother Puren (b. 1918) adopted the Chinese name Jin Youzhi and lived in China until his death in 2015. In 2006 Jin Youzhi filed a lawsuit in regards to the rights to Puyi's image and privacy. The lawsuit claimed that those rights were violated by the exhibit "China's Last Monarch and His Family".[314] Puyi's second cousin,[315] Pu Xuezhai (溥雪齋), was a musician who played the guqin, and an artist of Chinese painting.[316] Maternal side Puyi's mother was Youlan (1884–1921), the daughter of Ronglu (1836–1903), a statesman and general from the Gūwalgiya clan. Ronglu was one of the leaders of the conservative faction in the Qing court, and a staunch supporter of Empress Dowager Cixi; Cixi rewarded his support by marrying his daughter, Puyi's mother, into the imperial family. The Gūwalgiya clan was regarded as one of the most powerful Manchu clans in the Qing dynasty. Oboi, an influential military commander and statesman who was a regent during the Kangxi Emperor's reign, was from the Guwalgiya clan.[317] In detail Wanrong and Puyi in Tianjin In 1921, it was decided by the Dowager Consorts (the four widows of the emperors before Puyi) that it was time for the 15-year-old Puyi to be married, although court politics dragged the complete process (from selecting the bride, up through the wedding ceremony) out for almost two years. Puyi saw marriage as his coming of age benchmark, when others would no longer control him. He was given four photographs to choose from. Puyi stated they all looked alike to him, with the exception of different clothing. He chose Wenxiu. Political factions within the palace made the actual choice as to whom Puyi would marry. The selection process alone took an entire year.[318] Wanrong Puyi's second choice for his wife was Wanrong, a Daur. She married Puyi in 1922 and became his Empress. Her father, Rong Yuan (榮源), was a Minister of Domestic Affairs. She was considered beautiful and came from a wealthy family. By Puyi's own account, he abandoned Wanrong in the bridal chamber and went back to his own room.[319] He maintained that she was willing to be a wife in name only, in order to carry the title of Empress. The couple's relationship was good initially, and Puyi showed preference over Wenxiu for Wanrong and displayed trust in her. However, after Wenxiu left in 1931, Puyi blamed Wanrong and stopped speaking to her and ignored her presence.[308] She became addicted to opium, and eventually died in a prison in Yanji, Jilin after being arrested by Chinese Communist soldiers.[320] Wenxiu Puyi's first choice for his wife was Wenxiu, from the Erdet (鄂爾德特) clan. She married Puyi in 1922. Although she was Puyi's first choice, the Four Dowager Consorts felt that Wenxiu came from an unacceptable impoverished family and was not beautiful enough to be Empress, so they told the court officials to ask Puyi to choose again. The second time Puyi chose Wanrong, who became Empress, while Wenxiu was designated as Consort Shu (淑妃). Puyi and Wenxiu divorced in 1931. Puyi awarded her a house in Beijing and $300,000 in alimony, to be provided by the Japanese.[2] In his autobiography, Puyi stated her reason for the divorce was the emptiness of life with him in exile, her desire for an ordinary family life, and his own inability to see women as anything but slaves and tools of men. According to Puyi, she worked as a school teacher for some years after the divorce.[321] She married Major Liu Zhendong in 1947.[322] Tan Yuling Puyi's third wife, Tan Yuling, was a Manchu of the Tatara (他他拉) clan. She married Puyi in 1937 at the age of 16 on the recommendation of the daughter of Yulang (毓朗), a beile. She was designated as Puyi's Concubine Xiang (祥貴人). Puyi married her as "punishment" for Wanrong, and, "... because a second wife was as essential as palace furniture." She was also a wife in name only. She became ill in 1942 with typhoid, which the Japanese doctor said would not be fatal. After the doctor's consultation with Attaché to the Imperial Household Yasunori Yoshioka, Tan Yuling suddenly died. Puyi became suspicious of the circumstances when the Japanese immediately offered him photographs of Japanese girls for marriage.[323] Puyi posthumously granted her the title Noble Consort Mingxian (明賢貴妃).[citation needed] Li Yuqin In 1943 Puyi married his fourth wife,[when?] a 15-year-old student named Li Yuqin, who was a Han Chinese from Changchun, Jilin. She was designated as Puyi's Concubine Fu (福貴人).[324] In February 1943, school principal Kobayashi and teacher Fujii of the Nan-Ling Girls Academy took ten girl students to a photography studio for portraits. Three weeks later, the school teacher and the principal visited Li Yuqin's home and told her Puyi ordered her to go to the Manchukuo palace to study. She was first taken directly to Yasunori Yoshioka who thoroughly questioned her. Yoshioka then drove her back to her parents and told them Puyi ordered her to study at the palace. Money was promised to the parents. She was subjected to a medical examination and then taken to Puyi's sister Yunhe and instructed in palace protocol.[clarification needed][325] Two years later when Manchukuo collapsed, Li Yuqin shared a train with Empress Wanrong, who was experiencing opium withdrawal symptoms at the time. They were both arrested by the Soviets and sent to a prison in Changchun. Li Yuqin was released in 1946 and sent back home. She worked in a textile factory while she studied the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. In 1955 she began visiting Puyi in prison. After applying to the Chinese authorities for a divorce, the government responded on her next prison visit by showing her to a room with a double bed and ordered her to reconcile with Puyi, and she said the couple obeyed the order. She divorced Puyi in May 1957. She later married a technician, and had two sons.[326] During the Cultural Revolution she became a target for attack by the Red Guards because she used to be Puyi's concubine. She died of liver problems in 2001.[citation needed] Li Shuxian In 1962 under an arrangement with premier Zhou Enlai, Puyi married his fifth and last wife, Li Shuxian, a nurse of Han Chinese ethnicity. They had no children. She died of lung cancer in 1997.[234] Li Shuxian recounted that they dated for six months before the marriage, and she found him to be "... a man who desperately needed my love and was ready to give me as much love as he could."[327] Changchun (Chinese: 长春) is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China.[5] Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a sub-provincial city, comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 2 county-level cities.[6] According to the 2010 census of China, Changchun had a total population of 7,674,439 under its jurisdiction. The city's metro area, comprising 5 districts and 4 development areas, had a population of 3,815,270 in 2010, as the Shuangyang and Jiutai districts are not urbanized yet.[3] It is one of the biggest cities in Northeast China, along with Shenyang, Dalian and Harbin. The name of the city means "long spring" in Chinese. Between 1932 and 1945, Changchun was renamed Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xīnjīng; lit.: 'new capital') by the Japanese as it became the capital of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, occupying modern Northeast China. After the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Changchun was established as the provincial capital of Jilin in 1954. Known locally as China's "City of Automobiles",[7] Changchun is an important industrial base with a particular focus on the automotive sector.[8] Because of its key role in the domestic automobile industry, Changchun was sometimes referred to as the "Detroit of China."[9] Apart from this industrial aspect, Changchun is also one of four "National Garden Cities" awarded by the Ministry of Construction of P.R. China in 2001 due to its high urban greening rate.[7][failed verification] Contents 1 History 1.1 Early history 1.2 Railway era 1.3 City planning and development from 1906–1931 1.4 Manchukuo and World War II 1.4.1 Construction of Hsinking 1.4.2 Japanese chemical warfare agents 1.5 Siege of Changchun 1.6 People's Republic 2 Geography 2.1 Climate 3 Administrative divisions 4 Demographics 4.1 Ethnic groups 5 Culture 5.1 Dialect 5.2 Religion 5.3 Places of interest 6 Economy 6.1 Development zones 6.1.1 Changchun Automotive Economic Trade and Development Zone 6.1.2 Changchun High Technology Development Zone 6.1.3 Changchun Economic and Technological Development Zone 7 Infrastructure 7.1 Railways 7.2 Public transport 7.3 Road network 7.4 Air 8 Military 9 Education 9.1 Universities and colleges 9.2 Middle schools 9.3 Primary and secondary schools 10 Sports and stadiums 11 Film 12 People 13 See also 14 References 14.1 Citations 14.2 Sources 15 External links History Early history Changchun was initially established on imperial decree as a small trading post and frontier village during the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor in the Qing dynasty. Trading activities mainly involved furs and other natural products during this period. In 1800, the Jiaqing Emperor selected a small village on the east bank of the Yitong River and named it "Changchun Ting".[10] At the end of 18th century peasants from overpopulated provinces such as Shandong and Hebei began to settle in the region. In 1889, the village was promoted into a city known as "Changchun Fu".[11] Railway era In May 1898, Changchun got its first railway station, located in Kuancheng, part of the railway from Harbin to Lüshun (the southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway), constructed by the Russian Empire.[12] The South Manchuria Railway office of Changchun After Russia's loss of the southernmost section of this branch as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Kuancheng station (Kuanchengtze, in contemporary spelling) became the last Russian station on this branch.[12] The next station just a short distance to the south—the new "Japanese" Changchun station—became the first station of the South Manchuria Railway,[13] which now owned all the tracks running farther south, to Lüshun, which they re-gauged to the standard gauge (after a short period of using the narrow Japanese 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge during the war).[14] A special Russo-Japanese agreement of 1907 provided that Russian gauge tracks would continue from the "Russian" Kuancheng Station to the "Japanese" Changchun Station, and vice versa, tracks on the "gauge adapted by the South Manchuria Railway" (i.e. the standard gauge) would continue from Changchun Station to Kuancheng Station.[13] An epidemic of pneumonic plague occurred in surrounding Manchuria from 1910 to 1911, known as the Manchurian plague.[15] It was the worst-ever recorded outbreak of pneumonic plague which was spread through the Trans-Manchurian railway from the border trade port of Manzhouli.[16] This turned out to be the beginning of the large pneumonic plague pandemic of Manchuria and Mongolia which ultimately claimed 60,000 victims.[17] City planning and development from 1906–1931 City planning map of Changchun, 1932 The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and saw the transfer and assignment to Japan in 1906 the railway between Changchun and Port Arthur, and all its branches.[18] Having realized the strategic importance of Changchun's location with respect to Japan, China and Russia, the Japanese Government sent a group of planners and engineers to Changchun to determine the best site for a new railway station. Without the consent of the Chinese Government, Japan purchased or seized from local farmers the land on which the Changchun Railway Station was to be constructed as the centre of the South Manchuria Railway Affiliated Areas (SMRAA).[19] In order to turn Changchun into the centre for extracting the agricultural and mineral resources of Manchuria, Japan developed a blueprint for Changchun and invested heavily in the construction of the city. At the beginning of 1907, as the prelude to, and preparation for, the invasion and occupation of China, Japan initiated the planning programme of the SMRAA, which embodied distinctive colonial characteristics. The guiding ideology of the overall design was to build a high standard colonial city with sophisticated facilities, multiple functions and a large scale. Accordingly, nearly 7 million yen on average was allocated on a year-by-year basis for urban planning and construction during the period 1907 to 1931.[20] The comprehensive plan was to: ensure the comfort required by Japanese employees on Manchurian Railways ensure that Changchun would be a base for Japanese control of the whole Manchuria provide an effective counterweight to Russia in that part of China. The city's role as a rail hub was underlined in its planning and construction, the main design concepts of which read as follows: under conventional grid pattern terms, two geoplagiotropic boulevards were newly carved eastward and westward from the grand square of the new railway station. The two helped form two intersections with the gridded prototypes, which led to two circles of South and West. The two sub-civic centres served as axes on which eight radial roads were blazed that took the shape of a sectoral structure. At that time, the radial circles and the design concept of urban roads were quite advanced and scientific. It activated to great extent the serious urban landscapes as well as clearly identifying the traditional gridded pattern. With the new Changchun railway station as its centre, the urban plan divided the SMRAA into various specified areas: residential quarters 15%, commerce 33%, grain depot 19%, factories 12%, public entertainment 9%, and administrative organs (including a Japanese garrison) 12%.[20] Each block provided the railway station with supporting and systematic services dependent on its own functions. In the meantime, a comprehensive system of judiciary and military police was established which was totally independent of China. That accounted for the widespread nature of military facilities within the urban construction area of 3.967 km2 (1.532 sq mi), such as the railway garrison, the gendarmerie and the police department, with its 18 local police stations.[20] Perceiving Changchun as a tabula rasa upon which to construct new and sweeping conceptions of the built environment, the Japanese used the city as a practical laboratory to create two distinct and idealized urban milieus, each appropriate to a particular era. From 1906 to 1931, Changchun served as a key railway town through which the Japanese orchestrated an informal empire. Between 1932 and 1945, the city became home to a grandiose new Asian capital. Yet, while the façades in the city and later the capital contrasted markedly, along with the attitudes of the state they upheld, the shifting styles of planning and architecture consistently attempted to represent Japanese rule as progressive, beneficent, and modern. The development of Changchun, in addition to being driven by the railway system, suggested an important period of the Northeast modern architectural culture, reflecting Japanese urban design endeavours and revealing that county's ambition to invade and occupy China. Japanese architecture and culture had been widely applied to Manchukuo to highlight the special status of the Japanese puppet. Urban planning clearly stems from a culture, be it aggressive or creative. Changchun's planning and construction process serves as a good example. Changchun expanded rapidly as the junction between of the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway and the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway, remaining the break of gauge point between the Russian and standard gauges into the 1930s,[21] Manchukuo and World War II On 10 March 1932 the capital of Manchukuo, a Japan-controlled puppet state in Manchuria, was established in Changchun.[22] The city was then renamed Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xīnjīng; Wade–Giles: Hsin-ching; Japanese:Shinkyō; literally "New Capital") on 13 March.[23] The Emperor Puyi resided in the Imperial Palace (Chinese: 帝宮; pinyin: Dì gōng) which is now the Museum of the Manchu State Imperial Palace. During the Manchukuo period, the region experienced harsh suppression, brutal warfare on the civilian population, forced conscription and labor and other Japanese sponsored government brutalities; at the same time a rapid industrialisation and militarisation took place. Hsinking was a well-planned city with broad avenues and modern public works. The city underwent rapid expansion in both its economy and infrastructure. Many of buildings built during the Japanese colonial era still stand today, including those of the Eight Major Bureaus of Manchukuo (Chinese: 八大部; pinyin: Bādà bù) as well as the Headquarters of the Japanese Kwantung Army. Construction of Hsinking Hsinking Master Plan Map (1934) Hsinking was the only Direct-controlled municipality (特别市) in Manchukuo after Harbin was incorporated into the jurisdiction of Binjiang Province.[24] In March 1932, the Inspection Division of South Manchuria Railway started to draw up the Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking (simplified Chinese: 大新京都市计画; traditional Chinese: 大新京都市計畫; pinyin: Dà xīn jīngdū shì jìhuà). The Bureau of capital construction (国都建设局; 國都建設局; Guódū jiànshè jú) which was directly under the control of State Council of Manchukuo was established to take complete responsibility of the formulation and the implementation of the plan.[25] Kuniaki Koiso, the Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, and Yasuji Okamura, the Vice Chief-of-Staff, finalized the plan of a 200 km2 (77 sq mi) construction area. The Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking was influenced by the renovation plan of Paris in the 19th century, the garden city movement, and theories of American cities' planning and design in the 1920s. The city development plan included extensive tree planting. By 1934 Hsinking was known as the Forest Capital with Jingyuetan Park built, which is now China's largest Plantation and a AAAA-rated recreational area.[26] In accordance with the Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking, the area of publicly shared land (including the Imperial Palace, government offices, roads, parks and athletic grounds) in Hsinking was 47 km2 (18 sq mi), whilst the area of residential, commercial and industrial developments was planned to be 53 km2 (20 sq mi).[27] However, Hsinking's population exceeded the prediction of 500,000 by 1940. In 1941, the Capital Construction Bureau modified the original plan, which expanded the urban area to 160 km2 (62 sq mi). The new plan also focused on the construction of satellite towns around the city with a planning of 200 m2 (2,200 sq ft) land per capita.[25] Because the effects of war, the Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking remained unfinished. By 1944, the built up urban area of Hsinking reached 80 km2 (31 sq mi), while the area used for greening reached 70.7 km2 (27.3 sq mi). As Hsinking's city orientation was the administrative center and military commanding center, land for military use exceeded the originally planned figure of 9 percent, while only light manufacturing including packing industry, cigarette industry and paper-making had been developed during this period. Japanese force also controlled Hsinking's police system, instead of Manchukuo government.[28] Major officers of Hsinking police were all ethnic Japanese.[29] The population of Hsinking also experienced rapid growth after being established as the capital of Manchukuo. According to the census in 1934 taken by the police agency, the city's municipal area had 141,712 inhabitants.[30] By 1944 the city's population had risen to 863,607,[31] with 153,614 Japanese settlers. This population amount made Hsinking the third largest metropolitan city in Manchukuo after Mukden and Harbin, as the metropolitan mainly focused on military and political function.[32] Special City Government office of Hsinking   Datong Avenue in Hsinking (1939)   Manchukuo ministry building (built. 1935)   Manchukuo supreme court (built 1938) Japanese chemical warfare agents Main article: Unit 100 In 1936, the Japanese established Unit 100 to develop plague biological weapons, although the declared purpose of Unit 100 was to conduct research about diseases originating from animals.[33] During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II the headquarters of Unit 100 ("Wakamatsu Unit") was located in downtown Hsinking, under command of veterinarian Yujiro Wakamatsu.[34] This facility was involved in research of animal vaccines to protect Japanese resources, and, especially, biological-warfare. Diseases were tested for use against Soviet and Chinese horses and other livestock. In addition to these tests, Unit 100 ran a bacteria factory to produce the pathogens needed by other units. Biological sabotage testing was also handled at this facility: everything from poisons to chemical crop destruction. Siege of Changchun Chinese Red Army entering Changchun. Main article: Siege of Changchun On 20 August 1945 the city was captured by the Soviet Red Army and renamed Changchun.[35] The Russians maintained a presence in the city during the Chinese civil war until 1946. Kuomintang forces occupied the city in 1946, but were unable to hold the countryside against communist forces. The city fell to the communists in 1948 after the five-month Siege of Changchun by the People's Liberation Army. Between 10 and 30 percent[36] of the civilian population starved to death under the siege; estimates range from 150,000[37] to 330,000.[38] As of 2015 the PRC government avoids all mention of the siege.[39] People's Republic Changchun Liberation Monument Renamed Changchun by the People's Republic of China government, it became the capital of Jilin in 1954. The Changchun Film Studio is also one of the remaining film studios of the era. Changchun Film Festival has become a unique gala for film industries since 1992.[40] From the 1950s, Changchun was designated to become a center for China's automotive industry. Construction of the First Automobile Works (FAW) began in 1953[41] and production of the Jiefang CA-10 truck, based on the Soviet ZIS-150 started in 1956.[42] Soviet Union lent assistance during these early years, providing technical support, tooling, and production machinery.[41] In 1958, FAW introduced the famous Hongqi (Red Flag) limousines[42] This series of cars are billed as "the official car for minister-level officials".[43] Changchun hosted the 2007 Winter Asian Games.[44] Geography Changchun and vicinities, NASA World Wind screenshot, 2005-05-18 Changchun lies in the middle portion of the Northeast China Plain. Its municipality area is located at latitude 43° 05′−45° 15′ N and longitude 124° 18′−127° 02' E. The total area of Changchun municipality is 20,571 km2 (7,943 sq mi), including metro areas of 2,583 square kilometres (997 sq mi), and a city proper area of 159 km2 (61 sq mi). The city is situated at a moderate elevation, ranging from 250 to 350 metres (820 to 1,150 ft) within its administrative region.[1] In the eastern portion of the city, there lies a small area of low mountains, with the Laodaodong Mountain, which has an altitude of 711 meters, being the highest. The city is also situated at the crisscross point of the third east–westward "Europe-Asia Continental Bridge".[citation needed] Changchun prefecture is dotted with 222 rivers and lakes. The Yitong River, a small tributary of the Songhua River, runs through the city proper. Climate Changchun has a four-season, monsoon-influenced, humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa). Winters are long (lasting from November to March), cold, and windy, but dry, due to the influence of the Siberian anticyclone, with a January mean temperature of −14.7 °C (5.5 °F). Spring and autumn are somewhat short transitional periods, with some precipitation, but are usually dry and windy. Summers are hot and humid, with a prevailing southeasterly wind due to the East Asian monsoon; July averages 23.2 °C (73.8 °F). Snow is usually light during the winter, and annual rainfall is heavily concentrated from June to August. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 47 percent in July to 66 percent in January and February, a typical year will see around 2,617 hours of sunshine, and a frost-free period of 140 to 150 days. Extreme temperatures have ranged from −33.0 °C (−27 °F) to 35.7 °C (96 °F).[45] Climate data for Changchun (1981–2010 normals, extremes 1951–2018) Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °C (°F) 4.6 (40.3) 14.5 (58.1) 23.4 (74.1) 31.9 (89.4) 35.2 (95.4) 36.7 (98.1) 38.0 (100.4) 35.6 (96.1) 30.6 (87.1) 27.8 (82.0) 20.7 (69.3) 11.7 (53.1) 38.0 (100.4) Average high °C (°F) −9.6 (14.7) −4.2 (24.4) 4.0 (39.2) 14.5 (58.1) 21.7 (71.1) 26.4 (79.5) 27.5 (81.5) 26.7 (80.1) 21.8 (71.2) 13.5 (56.3) 1.7 (35.1) −6.7 (19.9) 11.4 (52.6) Daily mean °C (°F) −14.7 (5.5) −9.8 (14.4) −1.6 (29.1) 8.5 (47.3) 15.8 (60.4) 21.1 (70.0) 23.2 (73.8) 22.1 (71.8) 16.0 (60.8) 7.7 (45.9) −3.2 (26.2) −11.6 (11.1) 6.1 (43.0) Average low °C (°F) −19.0 (−2.2) −14.6 (5.7) −6.7 (19.9) 2.8 (37.0) 10.1 (50.2) 16.0 (60.8) 19.3 (66.7) 17.9 (64.2) 10.8 (51.4) 2.7 (36.9) −7.4 (18.7) −15.7 (3.7) 1.3 (34.4) Record low °C (°F) −36.5 (−33.7) −31.9 (−25.4) −27.7 (−17.9) −12.2 (10.0) −3.4 (25.9) 4.5 (40.1) 11.1 (52.0) 3.9 (39.0) −3.7 (25.3) −13.4 (7.9) −24.7 (−12.5) −33.2 (−27.8) −36.5 (−33.7) Average precipitation mm (inches) 3.9 (0.15) 4.6 (0.18) 13.2 (0.52) 24.1 (0.95) 48.7 (1.92) 92.7 (3.65) 169.3 (6.67) 135.0 (5.31) 43.8 (1.72) 22.2 (0.87) 13.7 (0.54) 6.1 (0.24) 577.3 (22.72) Average precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) 4.6 4.5 5.9 6.7 10.2 13.0 15.1 12.1 7.9 6.0 5.7 6.1 97.8 Average relative humidity (%) 66 58 51 47 50 62 78 77 67 59 62 66 62 Mean monthly sunshine hours 179.9 196.3 234.7 235.3 258.4 248.9 213.2 230.0 237.1 215.1 172.4 159.9 2,581.2 Percent possible sunshine 66 66 65 60 58 54 47 54 63 63 60 60 59 Average ultraviolet index 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 8 5 3 1 1 4 Source 1: China Meteorological Administration (precipitation days and sunshine 1971–2000),[46][47] Weather China[45] Source 2: Weather Atlas[48] Administrative divisions Changchun City People's Government Map including Changchun (labeled as 長春 CH'ANG-CH'UN (HSINKING)) (AMS, 1956) Map of Changchun (CH'ANG-CHUN (HSINKING)) The sub-provincial city of Changchun has direct jurisdiction over 7 districts, 3 county-level cities and 1 County: Map NanguanKuanchengChaoyangErdaoLuyuanShuangyangJiutaiNong'an CountyYushu (city)Dehui (city)Gongzhuling (city) Name Simplified Chinese Hanyu Pinyin Population (2017 census) Area (km2) City proper Chaoyang District 朝阳区 Cháoyáng Qū 1,007,870 237 Nanguan District 南关区 Nánguān Qū 1,123,779 81 Kuancheng District 宽城区 Kuānchéng Qū 855,159 238 Erdao District 二道区 Èrdào Qū 809,390 452 Luyuan District 绿园区 Lùyuán Qū 1.002,672 216 Suburb Shuangyang District 双阳区 Shuāngyáng Qū 400,933 1,677 Jiutai District 九台区 Jiǔtái Qū 700,606 3375 Satellite cities Dehui 德惠市 Déhuì Shì 949,786 3,435 Yushu 榆树市 Yúshù Shì 1,266,969 4,712 Gongzhuling 公主岭市 Gōngzhǔlǐng Shì 4,027 271 Rural Nong'an County 农安县 Nóng'ān Xiàn 1,149,680 5,400 Demographics Historical population Year Pop. ±% 1932 104,305 —     1934 160,381 +53.8% 1939 415,473 +159.1% 1944 863,607 +107.9% 1953 855,197 −1.0% 1964 4,221,445 +393.6% 1982 5,744,769 +36.1% 1990 6,421,956 +11.8% 2000 7,135,439 +11.1% 2010 7,677,089 +7.6% Population size may be affected by changes in administrative divisions. In 1958, 5 counties were put under Changchun's jurisdiction, increasing the total population to over 4 million. According to the Sixth China Census, the total population of the City of Changchun reached 7.677 million in 2010.[49] The statistics in 2011 estimated the total population to be 7.59 million. The birth rate was 6.08 per thousand and the death rate was 5.51 per thousand. The urban area had a population of 3.53 million people. In 2010 the sex ratio of the city population was 102.10 males to 100 females.[49] Ethnic groups As in most of Northeastern China the ethnic makeup of Changchun is predominantly Han nationality (96.57 percent), with several other minority nationalities.[citation needed] Ethnicity Population[citation needed] Percentage[citation needed] Han 6,883,310 96.47% Manchu 142,998 2.0% Korean 49,588 0.69% Hui 43,692 0.61% Mongol 11,106 0.16% Culture Dialect The most commonly spoken dialect in Changchun is the Northeastern Mandarin, which is originated from the mix of several languages spoken by immigrants from Hebei and Shandong. Then, after the PRC was established, the rapid economic growth in Changchun attracted a huge amount of immigrants from various places, so the northeastern dialect spoken in urban areas of Changchun is closer to the mandarin Chinese than the in rural areas because the immigrants had a great impact on the northeastern dialect spoken in urban areas.[50] Religion Changchun has five major religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Christianity, and Islam. There are 396 government-approved places for religious activities and worship services.[50] The temples in Changchun include Changchun Wanshou Temple, Baoguo Prajna Temple, Baiguo Xinglong Temple, Pumen Temple, Big Buddha Temple, Changchun Temple, Changchun Catholic Church, Changchun West Wuma Road Christian Church, and Changchun City Mosque.[51] Shamanism had been circulated in Northeast China during ancient times and was believed by many Manchus. Now the shamanism and the study of it have become an important cultural heritage of the region.[52] Places of interest Jilin Provincial Museum, a national first-grade museum, is located in Changchun. The museum was moved to Changchun from Jilin City after the transfer of the provincial government seat.[53] It was originally located in the centre of the old town, but, after nine years of construction, a new building for the museum's collections was completed in 2016 on the city's outskirts in Nanguan District near Jingyuetan Park.[54] Economy Changchun achieved a gross domestic product (GDP) of RMB332.9 billion in 2010, representing a rise of 15.3 percent year on year. Primary industry output increased by 3.3 percent to RMB25.27 billion. Secondary industry output experienced an increase of 19.0 percent, reaching RMB171.99 billion, while the tertiary industry output increased 12.6 percent to RMB135.64 billion. The GDP per capita of Changchun was ¥58,691 in 2012, which equates to $9338. The GDP of Changchun in 2012 was RMB445.66 billion and increased 12.0 percent compared with 2011. The primary industry grew 4.3 percent to RMB31.71 billion. Secondary industry increased by RMB229.19 billion, which is a rise of 13.1 percent year on year. Tertiary industry of Changchun in 2012 grew 11.8 percent and increased by RMB184.76 billion.[4][55] A FAW-built Audi 100 The city's leading industries are production of automobiles, agricultural product processing, biopharmaceuticals, photo electronics, construction materials, and the energy industry.[7] Changchun is the largest automobile manufacturing, research and development center in China, producing 9 percent of the country's automobiles in 2009. Changchun is home to China's biggest vehicle producer FAW (First Automotive Works) Group, which manufactured the first Chinese truck and car in 1956. The automaker's factories and associated housing and services occupy a substantial portion of the city's southwest end. Specific brands produced in Changchun include the Red Flag luxury brand, as well as joint ventures with Audi, Volkswagen, and Toyota. In 2012, FAW sold 2.65 million units of auto. The sales revenue of FAW amounted to RMB 408.46 billion, reprensenting a rise of 10.8% on year.[7] As cradle of the auto industry, one of Changchun's better known nicknames is "China's Detroit".[9] Manufacturing of transportation facilities and machinery is also among Changchun's main industries. 50 percent of China's passenger trains, and 10 percent of tractors are produced in Changchun. Changchun Railway Vehicles, one of the main branches of China CNR Corporation, has a joint venture established with Bombardier Transportation to build Movia metro cars for the Guangzhou Metro and Shanghai Metro,[56] and the Tianjin Metro. Foreign direct investment in the city was US$3.68 billion in 2012, up 19.6% year on year.[7] In 2004 Coca-Cola set up a bottling plant in the city's ETDZ with an investment of US$20 million.[57] Changchun hosts the yearly Changchun International Automobile Fair, Changchun Film Festival, Changchun Agricultural Fair, Education Exhibition and the Sculpture Exhibition. CRRC manufactures most of its bullet train carriages at its factory in Changchun. In November 2016, CRCC Changchun unveiled the first bullet train carriages in the world with sleeper berths, thus extending their use for overnight passages across China. They would be capable of running in ultra low temperature environments. Nicknamed Panda, the new bullet trains are capable of running at 250 km/h, operate at -40 degrees Celsius, have Wi-Fi hubs and contain sleeper berths that fold into seats during the day.[58] Other large companies in Changchun include: Yatai Group, established in 1993 and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1995. It has developed into a major conglomerate involved in a wide range of industries including property development, cement manufacturing, securities, coal mining, pharmaceuticals and trading.[59] Jilin Grain Group, a major processor of grains.[60] Development zones Changchun Automotive Economic Trade and Development Zone A Hongqi H7 manufactured in Changchun's FAW Company on display at the 2012 Hannover-Messe Founded in 1993, the Changchun Automotive Trade Center was re-established as the Changchun Automotive Economic Trade and Development Zone in 1996. The development zone is situated in the southwest of the city and is adjacent to the China First Automobile Works Group Corporation and the Changchun Film ThemeCity. It covers a total area of approximately 300,000 square metres (3,229,173 square feet). Within the development zone lies an exhibition center and five specially demarcated industrial centers. The Changchun Automobile Wholesale Center began operations in 1994 and is the largest auto-vehicle and spare parts wholesale center in China. The other centers include a resale center for used auto-vehicles, a specialized center for industrial/commercial vehicles, and a tire wholesale center.[57] Changchun High Technology Development Zone The zone is one of the first 27 state-level advanced technology development zones and is situated in the southern part of the city, covering a total area of 49 km2 (19 sq mi). There are 18 full-time universities and colleges, 39 state and provincial-level scientific research institutions, and 11 key national laboratories. The zone is mainly focusing on developing five main industries, namely bio-engineering, automobile engineering, new material fabrication, photo-electricity, and information technology. Changchun Economic and Technological Development Zone Established in April 1993, the zone enjoys all the preferential policies stipulated for economic and technological development zones of coastal open cities.[57] The total area of CETDZ is 112.72 square kilometres (43.52 square miles), of which 30 square kilometres (12 square miles) has been set aside for development and utilization.[61] It is located 5 kilometres (3 miles) from downtown Changchun, 2 km (1.2 mi) from the freight railway station and 15 km (9 mi) from the Changchun international airport. The zone is devoted to developing five leading industries: namely automotive parts and components, photoelectric information, bio-pharmaceutical, fine processing of foods, and new building materials. In particular, high-tech and high value added projects account for over 80 percent of total output. In 2006 the zone's total fixed assets investment rose to RMB38.4 billion. Among the total of 1656 enterprises registered, 179 are foreign-funded. The zone also witnessed a total industrial output of RMB 277 billion in 2007.[57] Infrastructure Changchun is a very compact city, planned by the Japanese with a layout of open avenues and public squares. The city is developing its layout in a long-term bid to alleviate pressure on limited land, aid economic development, and absorb a rising population. According to a draft plan up until 2020, the downtown area will expand southwards to form a new city center around Changchun World Sculpture Park, Weixing Square and their outskirts, and the new development zone.[57] Railways Changchun railway station Changchun has three passenger rail stations, most trains only stop at the central Changchun railway station (simplified Chinese: 长春站; traditional Chinese: 長春站), where there are multiple daily departures to other northeast cities such as Jilin City, Harbin, Shenyang, and Dalian, as well as other major cities throughout the country such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.[citation needed] The Harbin–Dalian high-speed railway which runs through three provinces in northeastern China, has a stop in Changchun.[62] The new Changchun West railway station, situated in the western end of urbanized area, is the station for the high-speed trains of the Harbin–Dalian high-speed railway.[63] Public transport See also: Changchun Subway Changchun Rail Transit is an urban rail transit service of Changchun. Its first line was opened on 30 October 2002, making Changchun the fifth metropolitan city in China to open rail transit. Till November 2018, there are 5 lines in Changchun, including Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, Line 4, and Line 8. Changchun railway covers about 100.17 kilometers. Till September 2019, there are 4 lines of Changchun Rail Transit under construction, including Line 6 and Line 9, as well as Line 2 West Extension and Line 3 East Extension. By 2025, the Changchun rail transit line network will consist of 10 lines with a total length of 341.62 kilometers. In September 2019, the average daily passenger volume of Changchun Rail Transit reached 680,400 person, and the maximum daily passenger volume of its line network was 830,500 person on 13 November 2019. The total estimated passenger volume in 2019 is about 168 million person. Road network Changchun is linked to the national highway network through the Beijing - Harbin Expressway (G1), the Ulanhot - Changchun - Jilin - Hunchun Expressway (G12), the Changchun - Shenzhen Expressway (G25), the Changchun - Fusong Expressway (S26) and the busiest section in the province, the Changchun–Jilin North Highway. This section connects the two biggest cities in Jilin and is the trunk line for the social and economic communication of the two cities.[57] Changchun is served by a comprehensive bus system—most buses (and the tram) charge 1 Yuan (元) per ride. Private automobiles are becoming very common on the city's congested streets. Bicycles are relatively rare compared to other northeastern Chinese cities, but mopeds, as well as pedal are relatively common. Air Main article: Changchun Longjia International Airport Changchun Longjia International Airport is located 31.2 kilometres (19.4 miles) north-east of Changchun urban area. The airport's construction began in 1998, and was intended to replace the older Changchun Dafangshen Airport, which was built in 1941. The airport opened for passenger service on 27 August 2005.[64] The operation of the airport is shared by both Changchun and nearby Jilin City.[65] The airport has scheduled flights to major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and 68 other cities. There are also scheduled international flights between Changchun and overseas cities such as Bangkok,[66] Osaka,[67] Khabarovsk,[68] Singapore, Tokyo and Vladivostok. Military Changchun is headquarters of the 16th Group Army of the People's Liberation Army, one of the four group armies that comprise the Northern Theater Command responsible for defending China's northeastern borders with Russia, Mongolia and North Korea. Education Universities and colleges PRC State key laboratory in Jilin University Changchun has 27 regular institutions of full-time tertiary education with a total enrollment of approximate 160,000 students. Jilin University and Northeast Normal University are two key universities in China.[40] Jilin University is also one of the largest universities in China, with more than 60,000 students. Changchun Normal University Changchun University Changchun University of Science and Technology Changchun University of Chinese Medicine[69] Jilin College of the Arts Jilin Huaqiao Foreign Languages Institute, a private college offering bachelor study programs in foreign languages, international trade management and didactics[70] Jilin University Jilin University of Finance and Economics Jilin Agricultural University Northeast Normal University Jilin Engineering Normal University Changchun Institute of Technology [71] Middle schools High School Attached to Northeast Normal University Affiliated Middle School to Jilin University No.72 Middle School of Changchun Second experimental school of Jilin Province No.11 High School of Changchun Changchun No.6 middle school Changchun Foreign Languages School Primary and secondary schools International schools include: Changchun American International School Deutsche Internationale Schule Changchun Sports and stadiums Changchun Sports Centre As a major Chinese city, Changchun is home to many professional sports teams: Jilin Northeast Tigers (Basketball), is a competitive team which has long been one of the major clubs fighting in China top-level league, CBA. Changchun Yatai Football Club, who have played home soccer matches at the Development Area Stadium since 2009.[72] In 2007 they won the Chinese Super League.[73] There are two major multi-purpose stadiums in Changchun, including Changchun City Stadium and Development Area Stadium. Changchun Wuhuan Gymnasium, the main venue of the 2007 Asian Winter Games. It has an indoor speed skating arena, Jilin Provincial Speed Skating Rink,[74] as one of five in China.[75] Jinlin Tseng Tou are a professional ice hockey team based in the city, and compete in the Russian-based Supreme Hockey League.[76] They are one of two Chinese-based teams to enter the league during the 2017–18 season, the other being based in Harbin.[citation needed] Film
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: China
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