Master Puyi's Twilight In The Forbidden City

“The new Lord of Ten Thousand Years and the Son of Heaven”, the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi uttered as her last words to the three-year old Puyi before eventually losing her breath in her deathbed. It marked the enthronement of Puyi as the last chosen Manchu emperor of China, yet, nobody could have imagined how these words would have been reversed until the young boy’s later years in life. Despite of being born with an astonishing opportunity of existing as a ruler of a great dynasty from a young age, Puyi lived preposterously in which the fluctuating history of once his mighty kingdom affected him in the most inconceivable ways. According to an anecdotal material entitled “Twilight in the Forbidden City” by Puyi’s English tutor, Puyi was treated

When Puyi was formally forced out to the Forbidden City by the warlords in 1924, he had mixed feelings of leaving for the first time his once ‘prison’ for several years, filled with anxiety yet exhilarating to experience living in the outside. Although he was exiled in Tientsin, Puyi had the willingness to rule over the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo under the reign title ‘Kangde’ (Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2016). Puyi’s declaration about sovereignty and equality between Manchukuo and Japan made him realize the Japanese true intentions. His household was mainly controlled by the Japanese ministers and he was even blackmailed to sign edicts administered solely by Japan. Unfortunately, Puyi along with his officials were captured by the Russians and became war criminals forced to testify for the Japanese crimes after their lost in World War II. His years of imprisonment were a time of difficult coping with a life largely different from being an elegant emperor, attempting him to commit suicide but still failed. Puyi, who was used to be served by others, simply became one of the helpers in jail and learned to live independently. Even after his release from the prison, Puyi lived as a commoner in Beijing until his