My Half Life

Author: Aisin Gioro/Puyi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: Puyi's three reigns as emperor were a result of the specific historical environment of modern China. His life path embodied the changes of modern society, and his transformation process reflected the dawn of national progress. In his later years, Puyi's wish was to write a book titled "My Later Life," but unfortunately, he passed away too early to fulfill this dream. If he had lived to see the reform and opening-up period, he might have written again with new reflections, and I believe this "My Half-Life" would have been even more educational. According to the feudal succession rules, Puyi should not have been chosen as emperor in the first place. In autumn 1908, when the Guangxu Emperor was critically ill, the Empress Dowager Cixi urgently sought to adopt an heir. Logically, the older nephew of the "Pu" clan, Puyiwei, should have been chosen—his grandfather was Yixun, the sixth brother of Emperor Xianfeng. Yixun had once assisted in the Beijing coup and contributed to the "Curtain of Power." However, the Empress Dowager inexplicably chose the eldest son of the Guangxu Emperor's brother, Zaifeng—Puyi. Some guessed that Cixi believed she was still healthy and that a young emperor would be easier to control. Additionally, Puyi's grandmother was Cixi's own sister, and his mother was the daughter of Cixi's most trusted aide, Ronglu. At the time, Puyiwei was outside the palace, expecting the throne to be his, but upon seeing Puyi being carried inside, he was so furious that he raged for half an hour. For this unforgivable crime of "screaming at the palace gates," Cixi only forgave him out of consideration for his grandfather. In mid-November, both the Guangxu Emperor and the Empress Dowager died within two days, forcing the new empress dowager, the Guangxu Emperor's wife Longyu, and her younger brother Zaifeng to jointly support Puyi's ascension to the throne. As the twelfth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Puyi's first reign at the age of three coincided with the declining fortunes of the empire. When he ascended the throne, he was carried onto the hall by his father, the regent, while drums and music blared and officials knelt in reverence—he was so frightened that he cried. His father couldn't calm him down, so he brought out toys and said, "Soon! Soon! It's almost over!" Many officials privately thought this was bad luck. Indeed, within three years, in early 1912, facing the storm of the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing court, with Longyu (Puyi's aunt) as his nominal mother, declared abdication, holding the young emperor in her arms. After abdication, Puyi gradually grew wiser under the influence of Qing court remnants around him, who instilled in him a sense of restoration. In July 1917, the feudal warlord Zhang Xun led troops into Beijing and reinstated Puyi as emperor, giving the 11-year-old boy his second taste of imperial power, though it lasted only 11 days before he was deposed. After that, Puyi placed his hopes for restoration in foreign powers. First, he was persuaded by John Jordan, a teacher sent by the British embassy, to seek support in the West, but this plan failed due to the Anglo-American government's policy of maintaining the Republic of China. Later, he allied with the Japanese invaders who sought to split China by creating a "Manchurian Independence Movement." After the September 18th Incident, he went to Manchukuo, first as "Regent," and in 1934, he ascended the throne for the third time. However, the Japanese did not fulfill their promise to help restore the "Great Qing," instead making him the "Emperor Kangde" of Manchukuo, with all external statements drafted by the Kwantung Army, and even restricting his freedom to leave the palace. After spending over a decade in the deep palace of Manchukuo, Puyi's feelings toward the Japanese shifted from gratitude to dissatisfaction, then to fear—but this was entirely unrelated to the anti-Japanese struggle. In 1945, after Japan's surrender, Puyi was arrested by the Soviet army and handed over to China in 1950, where he was imprisoned in a war criminal management facility for nearly a decade on charges of treason and assisting invaders—justly so. From emperor to citizen, he once wanted to write "My Later Life," but sadly, he never got the chance. In the war criminal management facility, Puyi learned for the first time in his life how to tie shoelaces, wash clothes, and other daily skills, and his imperial mindset was swept away, replaced by a sense of civic responsibility. In autumn 1959, Puyi was granted special amnesty and returned to Beijing. Some elderly people still bowed to him upon meeting, but he immediately criticized them for their outdated thinking. After receiving a voter's registration card, he called it the most precious thing in his life. He began working at the Botanical Garden. When Montgomery visited, he asked how he felt, and Puyi replied, "Compared to being an emperor, I'd rather be a gardener." The British field marshal was utterly astonished and later spread this as a remarkable story. Some foreign progressive figures who visited reported, "Seeing Puyi, one can truly understand what China's socialist transformation means." In the 1980s, Puyi became a key figure in film and television works. Domestic productions objectively depicted how he, as a naive youth, was poisoned by feudal ideology, then lured into treason by imperialist figures like John Jordan and Ishii Kamejiro. They showed how he transformed into a beneficial citizen after liberation. However, Western-produced films, instead, portrayed Puyi as always kind and unchangeable by nature, with John Jordan depicted as an angelic figure who spread Western civilization and encouraged individual development. As for Puyi's betrayal of China and his role as a puppet emperor in Manchukuo, the films blamed circumstances, portraying him as merely a victim. Setting aside differing national values, objectively speaking, this also contradicts historical reality.