Aisin-Gioro Puyi (Aisin-Gioro Pu-i; Chinese: 愛新覺羅·溥儀; pinyin: Àixīnjuéluó Pǔyí) was the last Emperor of China, and twelth and final Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. A memver of the Manchu Aisin-Gioro clan, he ruled as a young boy as the Xuantong Emperor (Chinese: 宣統; pinyin: Xuāntǒng Dì).
The Emperor was forced to abdicate the throne at a young age during the Xinhai Revolution, but was for several days in April reinstated as Emperor by Zhang Xun. He was again reinstated Emperor by the Japanese in the 1930's, ruling as the Kangde Emperor over the Manchukoko territories until the withdrawal of the Japanese in the fifties, and his subsequent political abandonment. After which, he was taken as a political prisoner of the New People's China party and interred for reeducation until the 1970's. After which, he lead a low-key life until the forced sacking of Mao Tse Tung as minister of Agriculture and People's Affairs the year after, at which point he was selected by Hou as the replacement minister for several years until passing from cancer.
During his imprisonment and new civilian life he managed to write his memoirs.
The end of his rule marked a millenia of dynastic rule. And his widely known posthumously as the Last Emperor.
Life and background[]
Being a pre-lore character much of his early life and background is ultimately unchanged. Of which such details can be found here.
Exile as Emperor[]
Puyi was reinstated as Emperor once for several weeks in July by the warlord Zhang Xun. However, the restoration was brief and lead to mass disfavor for the warlord and his followers. Popular forces in the Republican Army as well as opposition from other warlords soon forced Zhang Xun to abandon the Emperor, forcing him to again abdicate the throne, however he maintained his residence in the Forbidden City.
Puyi however was soon forced from his residence by Feng Yuxiang, after declaring his title void, making him a normal citizen of the Chinese Republic for a time. And in 1924 was forced from the ancient imperial residence. From here, he moved to his uncle's estate in Tianjin. Puyi also moved between the Japanese embassies and consulates - and even spending a brief period in Japan, where his brother Pujie had married Hirohito's cousin - seeking and obtaining residence.
Emperor of Manchuria[]
The Japanese invaded China, involving them in the Chinese Revolution. Taking advantage of the disorganized Republic in the north and the remaining feuding warlords, the Japanese army was able to make swift work of the northern defenders, taking Manchuria and Beijing. As an act of grace, Emperor Hirohito granted Puyi the title of Emperor of the Manchukoko territories as the Kangde Emperor. By this decleration, Puyi was hardly independent and served as a puppet vassal to Tokyo for the duration of his rule as the Kangde Emperor.
Though submissive to the Japanese in public, Puyi was notably resistant and at odds with the Japanese during his rule of the Kangde Emperor. To Puyi, merely being the Manchurian Emperor was not enough and he demanded a full restoration of the Qing Empire. Of one example of his private clashes, he fought with his Japanese handelers over the dress for his coronation, who wanted him to wear approved Japanese robes, where as Puyi demanded to dress in a more Manchurian style; compromise was however reached and he was permitted to wear a western military uniform for his coronation, and a set of dragon robes for his ascension.
As the Kangde Emperor, Puyi took a great interest in Chinese law and religion, and sought to transform what land he had into a wester model and bring China to the modern era. However, the policies clashes with the Japanese who saw it as a threat to the Japanese administration. Over the course of his reign, Puyi's court was regularly purged in secret by the Japanese to remove pro-Puyi supporters and to replace them with Japanese military ministers.
In the later part of his reign, the forced Japanization of Manchuria was reaching extreme levels which continued to offend the Emperor in private. His authority was slowly shot down and carved away to the point he was forced to attend Shinto prayer sessions conducted in Chinese. As well, a Japanese temple to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu was built on his palatial grounds (which would be later destroyed by the Communists), and Puyi's demands for more confucian structures were denied.
Withdrawl of the Japanese[]
The Japanese abandoned their Chinese aims in the 50's after mounting defeats suffered at the hands of the swelling Chinese Communist Party and its evolving NPC faction. With the full military and political withdrawal of Japanese forces from the mainland, Puyi was left independent, and weakened. Though the Japanese authority had disappeared, Puyi's support had too, as well as his military.
Hastening to rebuild his court, Puyi was able to collect the staff neccesary to operate the new independent Manchurian state. Working for compromise with various far-right factions of the KMT he was able to consolidate a power to make a front agains the Communists and hold off the growing support of Hou Sai Tang for several years. However, the strain of the duties were quick to manifest, and the pillars he had erected began to crumble.
Returning to the Forbidden City he could only slow the crumbling of his second kingdom. One which'd fall in January of 1958 when the Chinese Communists reached the Forbidden City and held siege to it. The palace would fall later that month and Puyi and his supporters surrendered.
Imprisonment[]
For little more than a decade, Puyi was a prisoner of the NPC party. Removed from the course of history, he watched China evolve for its new destined course.
As a prisoner in China, he was forced to endure re-education by the new administration. As a role in the new administrative system, he took up gardening and helped tend to the prison gardens, while recieving lectures on his guilt and the future.
Puyi was moved from prison to prison over the next ten years. Cancer briefly manifested, but was detected early enough by the prison medical staff to save him.
The time to himself allowed him to spend much of his time in composing his memoirs, which were later given to the state-ran NPN who he collaborated with to edit, and then publish to the general public.
Release and Minister[]
Puyi was released on January 6th, 1971 and entered the common Chinese workforce under the supervision of the Chinese security institutions. He spent several months at work as a mid-leel editor for a local bureau of the NPN. Aisin-Gioro was kept largely out of the spotlight, and enjoyed a relatively unknown existence from the general populace who had forgot, or never seen his face.
Attention however was drawn back to him in 1971 during the widespread corruption trial and purges in the Ministry of Agriculture and People's Affairs which saw the imprisonment, deposition, and execution of then minister Mao and many of his followers. The public shame and judicial and executive scrutiny forced many more to step down, not only in the ministry but in several areas of the army and other bureaucratic offices. Much of the ministry was left vacant and many old pre-revolutionary faces calling the move out as a sign as Communism weakness.
Hou Sai Tang made a reconciling offer to the past and turned to Puyi in the following months, appointing the elder ex-emperor as the replacement Emperor. For a while, this was a return of grace for Puyi. Though, his ministerial administration would be cut short be a returning and fatal bout of cancer, he did seek some of the original ideas he had to China's modernization as he could in his short time.
Zhang Auyi was later appointed as his predecessor. Puyi leaving a brief era of mechanized lineage in the ministries affairs, and a brief softening in some areas. One of which was the arranging pardoning of Jin Youzhi of his revolutionary record, and his appointment as a consultant of education policy.
Death[]
Puyi died in office to a returning bout of Kidney Cancer at the age of 68. Puyi's body was cremated, and intured in the Beijing People's Cemetery.