Puyi

Separated from his family, Puyi lived his childhood in a regime of virtual seclusion in the Forbidden City, surrounded by guards, eunuchs and other servants who treated him like a divinity. The emperor's upbringing was a mixture of pampering and mistreatment, as the little one had to follow all the rules of rigid Chinese imperial protocol and was unable to behave like a normal child.[15]

The eunuchs were virtual 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.[16] The eunuchs spoke in a distinctive high-pitched voice and, to further prove that they were really eunuchs, had to keep their severed penises and testicles in jars of brine they wore around their necks when working.[17] The Forbidden City was full of treasures that the eunuchs constantly stole and sold on the black market.[17] The business of government and of providing for the emperor created further opportunities for corruption, in which virtually all the eunuchs engaged.[17]

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.[18] 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.[19]

His brother, Pujie, was rumored to steal treasures and art collections to sell to wealthy collectors on the black market.^{[citation needed]} After his wedding, 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.[20] Locks were broken, areas ransacked. 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. But on 27 June 1923, a fire destroyed the area around the Palace of Established Happiness, just at the moment when the emperor had ordered to carry out the inventory of one of the imperial warehouses. Puyi suspected it was arson to cover theft. The emperor overheard conversations among the eunuchs that made him fear for his life. In response, a month after the fire, he evicted the eunuchs from the palace with the support of the Republican military.[21] The reform efforts did not last long before Puyi was forced out of the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang.[22]

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.[23] 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.[23] Puyi's father, Prince Chun, served as a regent until 6 December, when Empress Dowager Longyu took over following the Xinhai Revolution.[24]

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 Yuan, now Prime Minister, with the imperial court in Peking and the Republicans in southern China.[25] Puyi recalled in his autobiography the meeting between Longyu and Yuan:

The Dowager Empress was sitting on a kang [platform] in a side room of the Mind Nature Palace, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as a fat old man [Yuan] knelt before her on a red cushion, tears streaming down his face. I was sitting to the right of the widow and wondering why both adults were crying. There was no one in the room other than the three of us and everything was very quiet; the fat man snorted as he spoke and I couldn't understand what he was saying... This was the time when Yuan directly raised the question of abdication.[26]

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. 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.[27] In 1913, when the Empress Dowager Longyu died, President Yüan arrived at the Forbidden City to pay his respects, which Puyi's tutors told him meant that major changes were afoot.[28]

Puyi soon learned that the real reasons for the Articles of Favourable Settlement was that President Yuan 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.[29] 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.[28] 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.[28] 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.[29] In 1915, Yuan proclaimed himself as emperor, and he was planning to marry his daughter with Puyi, but had to abdicate in the face of popular opposition.[30]

… In the time when China was called a republic and humanity had advanced to the 20th century, I was still living as an emperor, breathing the dust of the 19th century.[35]

Sir Reginald Johnston, a respected British scholar and diplomat from Edinburgh, Scotland, arrived in the Forbidden City as Puyi's tutor on 3 March 1919.[36] 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".[37] 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.[37] But he disregarded the rules, and taught Puyi about world history with a special focus on British history.[38] Besides history, Johnston taught Puyi philosophy and about what he saw as the superiority of monarchies to republics.[38] 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".[39]

Titular emperor Puyi in the Forbidden City

Puyi's tutor, Sir Reginald Johnston

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.[36] Under the Scotsman'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.[40] Puyi recalled of Johnston: "I thought everything about him was first-rate. He made me feel that Westerners were the most intelligent and civilised people in the world and that he was the most learned of Westerners" and that "Johnston had become the major part of my soul".[41] In May 1919, Puyi noticed the protests in Peking 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.[42] 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.[42] After his first interview with the emperor, the British academic recorded his impressions in a report addressed to the British authorities; in this document Johnston mentions:

He appears to be physically robust and well developed for his age. He is a very "human" boy, with liveliness, intelligence and an enthusiastic sense of humor. Furthermore, he has excellent manners and is totally free from arrogance […] Although the emperor does not seem to have been spoiled yet, from the nonsense and futility that surrounds him, I am afraid there is no hope that he will emerge unscathed from the moral dangers through of the next few years of his life (very critical years necessarily for a boy in his early adolescence), unless he can be removed from the influence of the hordes of eunuchs and other useless officials who are now almost his only companions. I am inclined to think that the best course of action to take in the interest of the boy himself would be to remove him from the harmful atmosphere of the "Forbidden City" and send him to the Summer Palace. There it would be possible for him to live a much less artificial and happier life than he can under the present conditions...[43]

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.[44][45][46][47] According to the journalist S. M. Ali, Puyi spoke Mandarin when interviewed, but Ali believed he could understand English.[48] 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.[49] Johnston was also the first to argue that Puyi needed glasses since he had developed myopia, as he was extremely near-sighted, and after much argument with Prince Chun, who thought it was undignified for an emperor, finally prevailed.[50] 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.[51] In 1922, Johnston had his friend, the writer Hu Shih, visit the Forbidden City to teach Puyi about recent developments in Chinese literature.[52] 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.[53] Johnston also introduced Puyi to the telephone, which Puyi soon became addicted to, phoning people in Peking at random just to hear their voices on the other end.[54] Johnston also pressured Puyi to cut down on the waste and extravagance in the Forbidden City[55] and encouraged him to be more self-sufficient.[56]

Gobulo Wanrong, Puyi's wife and Empress of China

Secondary consort Wenxiu

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.[57] Puyi chose Wenxiu as his wife, but was told that she was acceptable only as a concubine, so he would have to choose again.[58] Puyi later claimed that the faces were too small to distinguish between.[59] 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.[60] On 15 March 1922, the betrothal of Puyi and Wanrong was announced in the newspapers. On 17 March, Wanrong took the train to Peking, 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.[60] Puyi did not meet Wanrong until their wedding.[60]

In an interview in 1986, Prince Pujie told Behr: "Puyi constantly talked about going to England and becoming an Oxford student, like Johnston."[61] On 4 June 1922, Puyi attempted to escape from the Forbidden City and planned to issue an open letter to "the people of China" renouncing the title of Emperor before leaving for Oxford.[62] 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 Peking on his own.[63] 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."[62] 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. 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.''[64]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.[65] 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[66] within the Forbidden City, where Puyi sat upon the Dragon Throne. Later Wanrong kowtowed to him six times in her living quarters to symbolize her submission to her husband as the decree of their marriage was read out.[66]

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."[67] 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 colour of love and sex in China – and where emperors had traditionally consummated their marriages.[67] Puyi, who was sexually inexperienced and timid, fled from the bridal chamber, leaving his wives to sleep in the Dragon Bed by themselves.[68] 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.[68]

It is worth addressing, that several chinese sources [which?] mention that the emperor´s body was broken (a euphemism for the first sexual experience) by a palace maid when he was about 10 or 11 years old. A eunuch who was on nightguard, wanted to go gambling instead, and decided to send a palace maid to the emperor`s bedchamber to entertain him. The events of that night left him traumatized, and for the rest of his life he was deeply afraid of any sexual contact with women. Over the years several attempts were made to cure his perceived impotence, but they were all unsuccessful, since the root of the problem was never addressed. Behr is also not a reliable source by any means. Li Shuxian, the emperor`s widow, explained in an interview that Behr had later on apologized to her for the things he had written.. ^{[citation needed]}

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."[69] In 1986, Behr interviewed one of Puyi's two surviving eunuchs, an 85-year-old 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 left 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."[70] A eunuch who served in the Forbidden City as Wanrong's personal servant later wrote in his memoir that there was a rumour among the eunuchs that Puyi was gay, noting a strange situation where he was asked by Puyi to stand inside Wanrong's room while Puyi groped her.[71] Another eunuch claimed that Puyi preferred the ''land-way'' of the eunuchs to the ''water-way'' of the Empress, implying he was gay.[72]

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.[53] 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.[53] He was enough of a traditionalist to respect that all major events in the Forbidden City were determined by the court astrologers.[73] Johnston disparaged the superficially Westernised 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.[53]

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. The Hall of Established Happiness was burned on the night of 26 June 1923, as the eunuchs tried to cover up the extent of their theft.[74] Johnston reported that the next day, he "found the Emperor and Empress standing on a heap of charred wood, sadly contemplating the spectacle".[75] The treasures reported lost in the fire included 2,685 golden statues of 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.[76]

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.[77] Puyi turned the grounds where the Hall of Supreme Harmony had once stood into a tennis court, as he and Wanrong loved to play.[78] 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."[78] 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.[79] 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.[80]

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.[149] 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.[150] 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[151] (the only Chinese emperor ever to do so) and a dragon robe to the announcement of his accession at the Temple of Heaven.[152] 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".[153] The invitations for the coronation were issued by the Kwantung Army and 70% of those who attended Puyi's coronation were Japanese.[154] Time magazine published an article about Puyi's coronation in March 1934.[155]

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.[156] Puyi hated Hsinking, which he regarded as an undistinguished industrial city that lacked the historical connections with the Qing that Mukden had.[156] 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 Salt Tax Palace, which is now the Museum of the Imperial Palace of the Manchu State.[156] Puyi lived there as a virtual prisoner and could not leave without permission.[157] Shortly after Puyi's coronation, his father arrived at the Hsinking railroad station for a visit,[150] 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.[158] 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.[158]

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 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).[158] 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.[158] Puyi found this "intoxicating".[158] He 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."[159]

Whenever the Japanese wanted a law passed, the relevant decree was dropped off at Salt Tax Palace for Puyi to sign, which he always did.[160] Puyi signed decrees expropriating vast tracts of farmland 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."[160] 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".[161] Manchukuo was a sham, and was a Japanese colony run entirely for Japan's benefit.[162] 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.[163]

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".[164] Puyi later recalled that: "I had put my head in the tiger's mouth" by going to Manchuria in 1931.[164]

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)[165] 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.[166] There were many attempts on Puyi's life during this period, including a 1937 stabbing by a palace servant.[83]

In 1935, Puyi visited Japan.[167] 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.[168] 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.[169] 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.[170]

After his return to Hsinking, Puyi hired an American public relations executive, George Bronson Rea, to lobby the U.S. government to recognize Manchukuo.[171] 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".[172] Rea continued to work for Puyi until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but he ultimately failed 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 favour of the six defendants, calling them "Russian patriots who raised the flag against a world danger – communism".[147] 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.[147] 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.[173] The handling 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.[147]

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.[170] 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.[174] During these years, Puyi began taking a greater interest in traditional Chinese law and religion[175] (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.[176] 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.[83]

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.[177] Puyi later wrote that his orphaned page boy servants, most of whom had had their parents killed by the Japanese, experienced such ''wretched'' lives in the palace they were the size of 10-year-olds at the age of eighteen.[178] Puyi was obsessed by the fact that the vast majority of Puyi's "loving subjects" hated him, 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".[179] 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".[180] 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.[179] 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.[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.[182] 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.[183]

Puyi 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.[181] His Buddhism led him to ban his staff from killing insects or mice, but if he found any insects in his food, the cooks were flogged.[181] 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?"[184] 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.[185] 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.[186] 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.[186]

Tan Yuling, Puyi's concubine

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.[187] 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.[188] Puyi initially thought Lady Saga was a Japanese spy, but came to trust her after the Sinophile Saga discarded her kimono for cheongsams and repeatedly assured him that she came to the Salt Tax Palace because she was Pujie's wife, not as a spy.[189] 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.[189] Later in April 1937, the 16-year-old Manchu aristocrat Tan Yuling moved into the Salt Tax Palace to become Puyi's concubine.[190] 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.[189]

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".[191] 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.[192] 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[193]

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.[194] 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.[182]

In July 1937, when the Second Sino-Japanese war began, Puyi issued a declaration of support for Japan.[195] In August 1937, Kishi wrote up a decree for Puyi to sign calling for the use of corvée 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.[196] 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.[197] 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.[198]

All that Puyi knew of the outside world was what General Yoshioka told him in daily briefings.[195] 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."[199] 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.[200] On 20 February 1938, Adolf Hitler announced that Germany was recognizing Manchukuo.[200] 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 recognised 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.[201] 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.[201] 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.[201] 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.[183] Puyi became a hypochondriac, taking all sorts of pills for various imagined ailments 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.[202] 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).[189]

In 1935, Wanrong engaged in an affair with Puyi's chauffeur Li Tiyu that left her pregnant.[203] To punish her, Wanrong's baby was killed.[204] It is unclear what happened, but there are two accounts of what happened to Wanrong after her baby's murder. One account said that Puyi lied to Wanrong and that her daughter was being raised by a nanny, and she never knew about her daughter's death.[205][206] The other account said that Wanrong had found out or knew about her daughter's infanticide[207][208] and lived in a constant daze of opium consumption thereafter. 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".[204] 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.[204]

Emperor Puyi shakes hands with Emperor Hirohito at Tokyo Station on 26 June 1940

In December 1941, Puyi followed Japan in declaring war on the United States and Great Britain, but as neither nation had recognised Manchukuo, there were no reciprocal declarations of war in return.[209] 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.[210] 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.[210] 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[211]

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.[212] 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.[213] 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.[204] Puyi testified at the Tokyo war crimes trial of his belief that she was murdered.[204] 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.[214] He 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.[215] 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."[215]

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 he started to doubt this after the Japanese press began to report "heroic sacrifices" in Burma and on Pacific islands while air raid shelters started to be built in Manchukuo.[216] Puyi's nephew Jui Lon told Behr: "He desperately wanted America to win the war."[157] Big Li said: "When he thought it was safe, he would sit at the piano and do a one-finger version of the Stars and Stripes."[157] 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 since 1942.[217]

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.[216] 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."[216] 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.[218]

On 9 August 1945, the Kwantung Army's commander General Otozō Yamada told Puyi that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and the Red Army had entered Manchukuo.[218] 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.[219] While Puyi prayed to the Buddha, Yamada fell silent as the bombs fell, destroying Japanese barracks next to the Salt Tax Palace.[219] 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.[220]

Puyi was 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.[221] 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.[219] 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.[219] 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".[219] With that, Yoshioka fled the room, which showed Puyi that the war was lost.[219] 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.[222] Most of the staff at the Salt Tax Palace had already fled,[223] and 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 killed himself by swallowing a cyanide pill, and the people of Changchun booed him when his car, flying imperial standards, took him to the railroad station.[223]

The site of Puyi's abdication in a small mining office complex in Dalizi[224]

Late on the night of 11 August 1945, a train carrying Puyi, his court, his ministers and the Qing treasures left Changchun.[225] Puyi saw thousands of panic-stricken Japanese settlers fleeing south in vast columns across the roads of the countryside.[225] At every railroad station, hundreds of Japanese colonists attempted to board his train; Puyi remembered them weeping and begging Japanese gendarmes to let them pass,[225] and at several stations, Japanese soldiers and gendarmes fought one another.[225] 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.[225] On 15 August 1945, Puyi heard on the radio the address of the Showa Emperor announcing that Japan had surrendered.[226] 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.[226]

The next day, Puyi abdicated as Emperor of Manchukuo and declared in his last decree that Manchukuo was once again part of China.[226] Puyi's party split up in a panic, with former Manchukuo Premier Chang Ching-hui going back to Changchun.[227] Puyi planned to take a plane to escape from Tonghua, 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.[227] The decision to leave behind the women and children was in part made by Yoshioka who thought the women were in no such danger, and vetoed Puyi's attempts to take them on the plane to Japan.[227]

Puyi asked for Lady Saga, the most mature and responsible of the three women, to take care of Wanrong, and he gave Lady Saga precious antiques and cash to pay for their way south to Korea.[228] 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 Air Force plane landed.[229] Puyi and his party were all promptly taken prisoner by the Red Army, who initially did not know who Puyi was.[229][230] 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.[231] Wanrong, the former empress, was put on display in a local jail and people came from miles around to watch her.[232] 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. 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.[233] In June 1946, Wanrong starved to death in her jail cell.[233] 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.[234]

Styles of Xuantong Emperor
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.

As Puyi was also the last ruling emperor of China (not counting Yüan Shih-k'ai's abortive restoration of the imperial title), 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 the "yielded emperor" (Chinese: 遜帝; pinyin: Xùn Dì) or "abrogated emperor" (simplified Chinese: 废帝; traditional Chinese: 廢帝; pinyin: Fèi Dì). Sometimes, the character "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.

Qing Dynasty

	Order of the Peacock Feather
	Order of the Blue Feather
	Order of the Double Dragon
	Order of the Imperial Throne
	Order of the Yellow Dragon
	Order of the Red Dragon
	Order of the Blue Dragon
	Order of the Black Dragon

Manchukuo

	Grand Order of the Orchid Blossom
	Order of the Illustrious Dragon
	Order of the Auspicious Clouds
	Order of the Pillars of State

Foreign

	Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (Italy)
	Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, 1st Class (Italy)
	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy (Italy)
	Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (Japan)
	Order of the Paulownia Flowers (Japan)
	Order of Carol I (Romania)

• The Last Emperor, a 1986 Hong Kong film (Chinese title 火龍, literally means Fire Dragon) directed by Li Han-hsiang. Tony Leung Ka-fai played Puyi.
• The Last Emperor, a 1987 film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. John Lone played the adult Puyi.
• Aisin-Gioro Puyi (愛新覺羅·溥儀), a 2005 Chinese documentary film on the life of Puyi. Produced by CCTV, it was part of a series of ten documentary films about ten historical persons.
• The Founding of a Party, a 2011 Chinese film directed by Huang Jianxin and Han Sanping. Child actor Yan Ruihan played Puyi.
• 1911, a 2011 historical film directed by Jackie Chan and Zhang Li. The film tells of the founding of the Republic of China when Sun Yat-sen led the Xinhai Revolution to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The five-year-old Puyi is played by child actor Su Hanye. Although Puyi's time on screen is short, there are significant scenes showing how the emperor was treated at court before his abdication at the age of six.[295]

• The Misadventure of Zoo, a 1981 Hong Kong television series produced by TVB. Adam Cheng played an adult Puyi.
• Modai Huangdi (末代皇帝; literally means The Last Emperor), a 1988 Chinese television series based on Puyi's autobiography From Emperor to Citizen, with Puyi's brother Pujie as a consultant for the series. Chen Daoming starred as Puyi.
• Feichang Gongmin (非常公民; literally means Unusual Citizen), a 2002 Chinese television series directed by Cheng Hao. Dayo Wong starred as Puyi.
• Ruten no Ōhi – Saigo no Kōtei (流転の王妃·最後の皇弟; Chinese title 流轉的王妃), a 2003 Japanese television series about Pujie and Hiro Saga. Wang Bozhao played Puyi.
• Modai Huangfei (末代皇妃; literally means The Last Imperial Consort), a 2003 Chinese television series. Li Yapeng played Puyi.
• Modai Huangdi Chuanqi (末代皇帝传奇; literally means The Legend of the Last Emperor), a 2015 Hong Kong/China television collaboration (59 episodes, each 45 minutes), starring Winston Chao

• The autobiography of Puyi – ghost-written by Li Wenda. The title of the Chinese book is usually rendered in English as From Emperor to Citizen. The book was re-released in China in 2007 in a new corrected and revised version. Many sentences which had been deleted from the 1964 version prior to its publication were now included.
• Aisin-Gioro, Puyi (2002) [1964]. 我的前半生 [The First Half of My Life; From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Puyi] (in Chinese). Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 978-7119007724. – original
• Pu Yi, Henry (2010) [1967]. The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China. Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1602397323.

• Behr, Edward (1987). The Last Emperor. Toronto: Futura. ISBN 978-0708834398.

Inspired by Bernardo Bertolucci's film of the same name.

• Driscoll, Mark (2010). Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, The Dead, and The Undead in Japan's Imperialism, 1895–1945. Durnham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822347613.
• Fenby, Jonathan (2004). Chiang Kai-shek China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. New York: Carroll & Graf.
• Headland, Isaac Taylor (1909). Court Life in China. F.H. Revell. ISBN 978-0585150291.
• Johnston, Reginald Fleming (2008) [1934]. Twilight in the Forbidden City. Soul Care Publishing. ISBN 978-0968045954.
• Li Shuxian (2006) [1984]. My Husband Puyi: Puyi yu wo / [Li Shuxian kou shu; Wang Qingxiang zheng li; Changchun shi zheng xie wen shi zi liao yan jiu wei yuan hui bian]. Chuan guo xin hua shu dian jing xiao. ISBN 978-7208001671.

By Puyi's fifth wife Li Shuxian. Memories of their life together were ghost written by Wang Qingxian. An English version translated by Ni Na was published by China Travel and Tourism Press.

• Weinberg, Gerhard (2005). A World In Arms: a Global History of World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521618267.
• Young, Louise (1998). Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520219342.