page_title: Puyi
section_title: Later life (1945–1967)
hierarchical_section_title: Puyi / Biography / Later life (1945–1967)
caption_attribution_description: 中文: 1961年在纪念辛亥革命50周年大会期间，鹿钟麟、溥仪、熊秉坤的合影。自左至右：鹿钟麟、溥仪、熊秉坤。
context_page_description: Puyi 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 in China and Khevt Yos Khaan in Mongolia from 1908 until his forced abdication on 12 February 1912, after the 1911 Revolution.
  He was briefly restored to the throne as emperor by the loyalist General 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. In 1934, he was declared the Kangde 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.
context_section_description: 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. 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. He knew about the civil war in China from Chinese-language broadcasts on Soviet radio but seemed not to care. 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. The Kuomintang captured Puyi's cousin Eastern Jewel and publicly executed her in Beijing in 1948 after she was convicted of high treason. 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.
  In 1946, Puyi testified at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, 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. 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". The Australian judge Sir William Webb, the President of the Tribunal, was often frustrated with Puyi's testimony, and chided him numerous times. At one point, when Puyi said "I have not finished my answer yet", Webb replied, "Well, don't finish it". 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. 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. 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.
  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. Puyi did not speak Russian and had limited contacts with his Soviet guards, using a few Manchukuo prisoners who knew Russian as translators. 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. One prisoner told Puyi that the Soviets would keep him in Siberia forever because "this is the part of the world you come from". 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. 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.
  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. Puyi was of considerable value to Mao, as Behr noted: "In the eyes of Mao and other Chinese Communist leader
caption: 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.
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