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The last emperor of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Jerome Ch'en
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Extract

The publication of P'u-yi's autobiography is an occasion of great importance, not merely to sinologists and historians, but also to sociologists and political scientists, for the book contains a wealth of valuable information about the recent past of China, life in the Manchu court, particularly that of the author, and the technique of political education adopted by the Chinese Communists. The book itself is a unique document in two respects—it is the first autobiography of a Chinese monarch and this monarch's life spans the period from the medievalism of Aisin-Gioro to the Communism of Mao Tse-tung.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1965 , pp. 336 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1965

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References

1 Wo-tich'ienpan-sheng Peking, 1964,590 pp. with biographical index and illustrations. Hereafter references to passages from this book are given in the form of pagenumbers only. An English translation of this work is being published: From emperor to citizen—the autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi. Translated by W. J. F. Jenner. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. Vol. I appeared in 1964, Vol. II is due in 1965.

2 There are significantly two kinds of footnotes in this book—one with the characters tso-che, ‘ne author’, at the end and the other without.

3 There are some discrepancies between the autobiography and RJ, however. These are given in an appendix to this article.

4 A dream of Tartary, London, 1963. Hereafter referred to as Tartary.Google Scholar

5 The book was published in 1934, but its terminus ad quern was 1932. Johnston's own introduction is not dated; P'u-yi's preface, however, is—September 1931. The book was probably completed either at the end of 1932 or at the beginning of 1933.

6 They were the Imperial Concubines Chin , Yü , Hsün , and chin ; see p. 57.

7 On p. 141 P'u-yi refers to his only two trips outside the Forbidden City before 1922. Johnston says that both were to Pei-fu (his father's residence), the first to his mother's funeral and the second to see his father. Both took place in 1921 when he was 15 years of age (RJ, 266).

8 On his homosexual tendencies and practice, see P'an, op. cit., II, 22, and McAleavy, Tartary, 238. The former is based on P‘u-yi’s own confession and the latter on Aishinkakura Hiro (Madame P'u-chieh), Ryūten no ōhi , Tokyo, 1959. McAleay comes to the conclusion that Wan-jung the empress, was driven to opium-smoking because of this. But P'u-yi in this book admits that all four of his wives, Wan-jung, Wen-hsiu Tan Yü-ling , and Fu Kuei-jen were ‘nominal’ (376–7). Furthermore, Wan-jung at some stage had done something which P'u-yi ‘could not possibly countenance’ (376). According to P'an Chi-chiung, a male servant was involved in this (P'an, op. cit., II, 75).

P'u-yi also admits his physical weakness and the need of regular injections (375; see also Tartary, 252). Compare this information with Johnston (RJ, 166) who says that P'u-yi appeared to be physically robust and well-developed for his age.

9 'u-yi writes: ‘It was only because Johnston laughed at the queue and contemptuously referred to it as the “pigtail” that I cut mine’ (127).

The word ‘pigtail’ was misunderstood even by such a well-informed man as Ch'en Tu-hsiu (see his Wen-ts'un, I, 86). ‘Pig's tail’ and Lenin's ‘imperialism’ have aroused a great deal of nationalism in China. The emperor cut his queue himself (H. G. W. Woodhead, ‘Reappearance of the Manchu emperor’, 1956, unpublished, 3).

10 P'an Chi-chiung has written a book about her, entitled Mo-tai huang-fei Hongkong, 1957.

11 P'u-yi unjustifiably described Sun's troops as Chiang Kai-shek's(230). As late as 1928, these troops of bandit origin were still fighting under the command of Chang Tsung-ch'ang (Chung-kuo chin-tai-shih lun-ts'ung Taipei, 1959, I, viii, 226) and by the time of the plundering they had just changed their allegiance to Chiang. The plundering was referred to on 26 August 1946 at the Tokyo Tribunal, but was disallowed by both the prosecution and the President (Trans., 4,308).

12 Other versions of this event can be found in Chung-kuo hsien-tai shih-liao ts'ung-k'an Peking, 1953, II, 26–7;Google ScholarHsi-man, Chang, Li-shih hui-yi, 30; Times, 6 November 1924;Google Scholar and China Yearbook, 1925, 843–4.Google Scholar

13 The first four sections of ch. iii have been published with some stylistic differences in the Kuang-ming Jih-pao on 29 and 30 July 1962.

14 See 266 et seq.

15 Tsai-ying's eldest son and P'u-yi's cousin. See A. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Gh'ing period, 383.

16 See Yi-ho-t'uan , Peking, 1955, I, 337–8, and Hsin-hai ke-ming Peking, 1957, VIII, 110–15. The latter is reproduced in this book, 42–5.

17 Chang Ch'i-yün Chung-hua min-kuo shih-kang Taipei, 1954, and Tung Hsien-kuang , Chiang tsung-t'ung chuan Taipei, 1954, are laconic on this matter.

18 See Li Chien-nung, op. cit., 400; Sun Yao Chung-hua min-kuo shih-liao Shanghai, 1929, IV, 3; Cheng-fu kung-pao, 2 June 1917; T'ao Chü-yin Pei-yang-chiin-fa t'ung-chih-shih-ch'i shih-hua Peking, 1957, III, 8–10, 136–9, 159–60, and 187–8; idem, Tu-chün-t'uan chuan Shanghai, 1948, 17–19; and Mao Ssu-ch'eng , Min-kuo shih-wu-nien yi-ch'ien chih Chiang Chieh-shih hsien-sheng Shanghai, 1936, via, 15a.

19 On Chang Hsün's restoration documents, Johnston quotes from the Peking Leader of 6 May 1924, saying that they were taken to Paris (RJ, 144–5). P'u-yi now says that these documents filled a chest which was stolen by someone and shipped to France (110, n. 1). My attempts to trace these documents have been to no avail.

20 Ch'en, Jerome, ‘China's conception of her place in the world’, Political Quarterly, XXXV, 3, 1964,263.Google Scholar

21 The dates were 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, and 27 August 1946.

22 At the Tribunal, the date was identified as 1 November 1931, in the autobiography as 11 October 1931. The former identification is wrong.

23 A slightly altered version of this book was published in Hongkong in 1957 under the title Mo-tai huang-li mi-wen, and has been referred to above.

24 cf. Biderman, A. D., March to calumny, New York and London, 1963, 215: ‘… The Communists did not possess any new, mysterious, superscientific technique for bending people to their will, but rather…the methods used against prisoners of war and other “brainwashing” victims were a composite of old and understandable methods of influence…’.Google Scholar

25 Ch'in Han-ts'ai says that there was not a single volume of modern books in the library of the Manchukuo court (Man-hung ts'an-chao Shanghai, 1947, 89–100) and P'an Chi-chiung says that P'u-yi has never read, for example, Lu Hsiin . See P'an, Mi-wen, II, 97.