This content chronicles the tumultuous and largely unchosen life of Puyi, the last emperor of China, from his infant enthronement amidst political chaos to his eventual rehabilitation and life as a common citizen, highlighting the profound impact of historical events on an individual's destiny.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
So, a country with half a billion people
but no one is awake to buy from me?
Give me all your money!
You look like a nice guy who will buy my stuff.
Look, Chief! I have Chinese dinnerware,
Chinese gold, Chinese machines,
and this...
in case nature suddenly called.
Or not, if it upsets you.
I demand your money instantly!
Looks like you want to rob me.
Put that away, or you'll pay!
Bro, if you are feeling Kung fu,
then let's Kung fu!
It's fine, you can have it.
Thanks, man. I was too lazy to shave it anyway.
Dispose of everything you have, Egyptian.
Then, go in peace.
I appreciate you efforts, but I can't dispose of anything more!
I'm a simple salesman.
An Egyptian salesman in China?
Believe me, Son. I have lived for 70 years
and that is the most moronic idea I have ever heard in my life.
I wanted to try my luck and sell Chinese goods in China.
Turn the tables and no one will notice.
What else are you trading?
I have beauty products and perfumes,
snacks and pendants, accessories and hair creams,
Granite pots and Graphite stones.
You could say it's the target of all targets.
Now, you wretched miserable man!
It's time to settle this!
No, no, no, please, no, please!
No, no, no!
Should have taken the flowerpot too!
Hello, my dear viewers.
Welcome to a new episode of ElDaheeh.
On December 2nd 1908,
A great and an unusual event happened in China.
The new emperor, heaven's son on Earth, was being crowned.
He was the king of 10 thousand years,
and held to a sacred position in the Chinese traditions.
And like I said, the event was very unusual.
The coronation was a little strange.
The emperor was crying, my friend.
Why, Abo Hmeed?
He kept saying: "I want mommy! I want mommy!"
Abo Hmeed, aren't we talking about the emperor of China?
The country with the current population of 1.4 billion people?
We are indeed talking about that China, my friend.
Of course, because the emperor was crying,
his father kept telling him: "Shush! Shush!"
However, this didn't silence the emperor at all!
The emperor kept crying: "I want mommy!"
To fix the situation, they brought toys to distract him.
Sorry, Abo Hmeed, but what's up with him?
The emperor Puyi, the Son of Heaven and the king of 10 thousand years,
at the moment of his coronation,
was 2 years and 10 months old at the time.
He didn't know what was happening!
Like any other kid his age, he was playing at home,
when suddenly palace officials arrived and took him by force.
They moved him to the Forbidden City to the emperor’s palace in Beijing
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are!
You tiny emperor! Want to go to the Forbidden City
to the emperor’s palace in China? Let's go!"
This kid went to the Forbidden City to be the Chinese emperor,
after his uncle the Guangxu Emperor had died.
This previous emperor died only at the age of 37,
and he had no successors.
That's when the strongest woman in China, Empress Dowager Cixi,
chose the youngest member of the Qing dynasty, Puyi the child
to be the new emperor.
Anyway, the emperor finally started to calm down a little bit,
and allowed them to continue with the coronation.
Then, he got bored with the toys, so he threw them.
And he went back to crying.
To comfort him, his father told him that everything will be over soon.
That's when the audience of the coronation looked at him angrily.
"How can you say that?"
What's wrong, Abo Hmeed? Why are they overreacting?
No, my friend. This sentence in particular hurt a lot!
It's true that the father meant that the coronation would be over soon.
But the audience were thinking of something else.
That not only would the coronation be over soon,
but the entire imperial history of China was about to end as well.
This system has lasted for more than 4300 years.
And this crying emperor child...
would probably be China's last emperor.
Let me tell you about China during Puyi's coronation.
In the early 20th century, China was in a state of chaos.
The world was advancing and coming up with great inventions.
Meanwhile, China was only advancing in population numbers,
which was doubling faster than any other place in the world.
At the time, China's population had reached 400 million people.
Not only that, but the political state of China was tough.
China had signed humiliating agreements with colonial powers,
and gave up some of their land.
They gave land to Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan
due to the military wars they lost.
Their most famous defeat ever
was their defeat in the Opium wars against Britain
where China was forced to accept the trade of opium
from British colonies in India.
"You will consume opium, whether you like it or not!
and you will import it from us. You lost, right?"
This defeat turned China into an avid consumer of opium.
We don't know how many opium addicts there were,
but some estimations say that it could have been quarter of the people.
The quarter of your country, which is China that had 400 million at the time,
that means 100 million opium addict.
Not just that, some statistics say it was two thirds of the population.
Of course, opium made millions of people incapable of working.
They started begging to be able to buy the drug.
Even China itself turned into the biggest opium producer in the world.
For example, in 1906,
China's opium production had reached 35000 tons a year.
Of course, that led to ruining the agriculture.
Instead of planting rice or wheat, farmers plant opium.
It's a guaranteed and quick profit.
Above all that, China witnessed one of the biggest famines in history.
The famine of 1907,
when 25 million people died of hunger.
That's more people dead than the world war I.
All of these problems led to many uprisings in China,
and a violent political turmoil.
In 1911, the emperor Puyi was now 5 years old,
and he had spent three years as an emperor so far.
At the time, the Xinhai revolution took place.
People everywhere were fighting to end the imperial rule.
The Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet Yuan Shikai
reached an agreement with the rebels.
"Congrats, everyone!
We will end the imperial system!
And declare the Republic of China!
On one condition, dear revolutionists.
That I would be president."
And indeed, on February 12th 1912,
it's declared that China was now a republic
with a small agreement that ensured the dignity of the emperor and his family,
and said that they can stay in the Forbidden City.
We will rule our China how we want,
while he's just simply an honorable symbol
residing in his Forbidden City without any power.
They were given an annual subsidy of four million silver taels.
Tael or Tahil was the name of the currency at the time.
The silver Tael was about 1.3 ozt, so you don't get scammed.
There was also another condition
that the emperor and his family kept their possessions and treasures.
This created a strange and extraordinary situation
at a time when the entirety of China was politically, economically,
military, and socially struggling.
The Forbidden City was the only exception.
As if it's an imperial heaven in the middle of hell.
Puyi wrote in his autobiography
how a giant feast was presented to him, his family,
and the four empress dowagers.
You don't have any influence, or power,
but you keep your possessions and will be given money
to live similarly to how you used to live before.
Of course, this is all during a state of chaos in China.
Puyi said in his autobiography that the consumption of the six of them
had once reached 388 chickens and 2 tons of meat a month.
They were a molokhia plat away from opening a "Qasr ElKababgi" in China.
That was just the families food.
There were others, Abo Hmeed?
Wasn't that place for imperial families only?
Men were forbidden from staying the night in the Forbidden City.
Remember Game of Thrones, Khaleesi? I mean-my friend?
Sorry, but will these six people go to the bathroom on their own?
Will they clean afterward? There had to be servants.
So, thousands of castrated servants were brought to serve.
-What, Abo Hmeed? -Thousands of castrated servants.
Like in Game of Thrones.
There was about 3000 of these servants.
Imagine how much those 3000 are eating?
The Forbidden City consumed 8 tons of only ham in one month.
When Puyi moved from one place to another in the Forbidden City,
there was a great parade just for him.
Tens of those people would carry him on a bamboo chair.
And tens of others would carry all his needs:
clothes, umbrellas, food, and medicine
Above all that, he was allowed to order anything and it had to be done.
Of course, as a naughty kid and also a normal human,
Puyi enjoyed it very much!
He wrote in his memoir how he ordered these people
to bend down and eat dirt from the floor.
Of course, they did what he asked without arguing.
And when he got older and started his education,
if he forgot his homework or made a mistake,
one of the servants would get beaten up instead.
All because he's the emperor of China,
the Son of Heaven, the sacred human!
But all of that happened in an area of 920 meters in length
and 750 meter in width only.
All of this grandeur was there.
His authority is only in that city.
But outside of its walls, he was not only a nobody,
he also couldn't leave without the republicans' permission.
An emperor who's imprisoned in the Forbidden City.
You might say: So, what if he was imprisoned?
He was a kid living a life like no other!
He was living the life of Riley.
No one can tell him to sit in the naughty corner or have a timeout.
This is truthfully a good point of view.
However, this had very bad consequences on the kid.
He spent a lonely childhood without a single other kid to play with.
There were no kids in the Forbidden City.
And he wasn't allowed out.
Also, people outside weren't allowed in.
Puyi even spent his childhood away from his mother
who wasn't allowed in the Forbidden City.
And he only saw her 8 years later.
While the world was changing and moving forward,
and events were transpiring all over the world,
and the 20th century came with all of its inventions and creations,
Puyi was denied all that!
And he was put under strict rules to life like a emperor.
When they discovered that the emperor had bad vision and needs glasses,
the emperor dowagers, who were his guardians, totally refused.
"Emperors never wear glasses. Is this a joke?
Emperor wearing glasses?"
But a crying emperor during the coronation is OK?
"Glasses? This is where we draw the line!"
They saw that glasses were a symbol of weakness,
and the emperor can never be weak.
Inside the palace, there was no place for modern inventions.
There were no watches or lamps.
Puyi was frustrated by all that.
Especially after hiring the professor Reginald Johnston,
a Scottish professor, as his teacher.
The man who turned into his only friend and role model,
and would be his only window to the outside world.
The window to the world that Mr. Johnston opened for Puyi
made him go through battles for almost everything.
For example, when Mr. Johnston told him about a strange thing called a telephone
that he could use to talk to anyone,
Puyi asked for a telephone inside the palace.
Clearly, it was a disaster!
"A telephone, your majesty? That's impossible.
This will happen over my dead body."
When Mr. Johnston gifted him a bicycle,
it was met with huge aggression and denial.
It's true that Puyi lived a luxurious life, but it had a big price.
His upbringing was strange and unnatural.
No one does that! No one lives like that!
I'm telling you this, because it will greatly affect his personality.
At the age of 16, Puyi's wedding is held
to Empress Wanrong, and consort or concubine Wenxiu.
Was it an offer, Abo Hmeed? Take one, get one free?
What is this?
Anyway, as a part of the wedding ceremony,
a representative of the president went to congratulate them.
The representative congratulated them very seriously and formally.
After that he said that a few moments ago he was a representative,
and suddenly he kneeled down to the emperor,
and said: "I am now your servant, and want to congratulate you."
What a change!
This situation shows what was happening in China outside the Forbidden City.
The Republic of China was entering an era of disturbances.
A period known as The Warlord Era.
China was in the middle of violent conflicts between military generals.
These people created local militias,
and fought against each other to gain authority.
At that time, many people wished for imperial days to be back.
One of the generals, General Zhang Xun,
took over authority on July 1st 1917.
He said that there was no way to fix China
other than to bring back imperialism.
And indeed, he declares that the imperial system is back.
And he gives his loyalty to Puyi,
who suddenly found himself an emperor again
with authority outside of the Forbidden City.
However, This only lasted for 17 days,
because there was another military coup.
This coup overthrew General Zhang Xun,
and it brought back the republic system,
and Puyi was banished again,
and went back to being a prisoner at the Forbidden City.
These conditions made Puyi's life an annoying one.
Over time, with this state of instability,
he thought about escaping to Britain as a teenager.
And indeed, he made a plan to travel and study at Oxford.
Like Mr. Johnston, his role model.
But when it was time, he was scared of crossing the gate,
because he feared seeing the street for the first time,
even though he was 17 years old at the time.
Imagine being 17 and afraid of walking in the street alone.
However, this can't compare to the surprises time had in store for him.
Time goes by, and memories of imperialism become even older,
and much more forgettable.
And newspapers started to see Puyi as a good target to attack.
"The king who is living a luxurious life in the Forbidden City,
and who has many hidden treasures to inherit!"
Puyi started to understand
that the city he lived in was being put in the past,
and that it was a matter of time before they attack him.
And indeed, on the morning of November 5th 1924,
General Feng Yuxiang's troops invaded the Forbidden City,
and they gave the emperor a notice
that everyone in the Forbidden City had to evacuate in three hours,
or else they would shoot them.
And that all the privileges that the emperor had
would be withdrawn and canceled.
And from that moment, the Emperor Puyi,
the Son of Heaven, the sacred human,
the King of 10 thousand years,
became a regular Chinese citizen like everyone else,
who could either get an insurance, or not.
That's how a young emperor, only 18 years old,
who lived his whole life being served in luxury,
found himself facing life with no one by his side.
No servants, no associates, as a citizen not an emperor.
Not knowing where to go, who to trust,
who is the friend, and who is the foe?
Will they just overthrow him? Or will they kill him?
After much thinking, He decided to run away to the embassy complex in Beijing.
He thought about seeking refuge in Germany, or going to the British embassy.
But, the plan was changed in the last second.
When Mr. Johnston, his teacher and closest friend,
suggested the embassy of Japan.
That's not because Japan is the home of Anime and safety.
It's because Japan is an imperial country.
A country that worships its emperor,
so they would definitely show him compassion.
Only an Emperor can understand a fellow emperor.
The strange part, which we will get later,
was that the embassy of Japan welcomed the emperor and sympathize with him.
They welcomed him very passionately,
and they planned him move to Tianjin city.
The city that was under a multiple-party government,
because China gave it up before.
He moves into the specific part of the city that Japan controls,
which would be his residence for seven years
under the full, special, and fancy Japanese care.
"Wow! Finally, some appreciation!
Arigatou gozaimasu (thank you)!"
However, growing up as an emperor,
-and ask me- isn't something you can just forget.
During the 7 years that Puyi spent in Tianjin,
he had hope to become an emperor once again.
And letters continued to come from warlords in China
who many of them promised him to be an emperor again,
or at least promised to restore the agreement
which guarantees the special treatment and VIP lounge.
However, these were empty promises.
And his friends were leaving one after the other.
However, only one extremely loyal and generous friend remained,
and that is the Japanese empire.
You might be a kind and naive person like Puyi,
and think that Japan was doing all this
out of love for Puyi's personality and what he stands for,
or out of sympathy to a poor emperor.
But, the truth was that Japan had different plans,
and very terrifying ones.
In September 1931, Japan invades the region of Manchuria.
The region that historically belongs to the Qing dynasty.
Whose dynasty was that? It was Puyi's.
Then, they sent an invitation to Puyi to come live in Manchuria
under the protection of its conqueror, Japan.
Of course, Puyi accepted the invitation very happily and eagerly.
And he started thinking about great plans and dreams
to carry on his ancestors' story.
The Qing dynasty who left Manchuria,
and succeeded in fully enforcing their power on the entirety of China
and ruling for more than 300 years.
And indeed, in May 1932,
Japan announced the empire of Manchukuo,
and its new emperor Puyi,
who accepted the coronation despite people warning him not to,
and despite China announcing that he was a traitor and enemy of the people.
Even his wife refused, and fell into a deep depression,
and became an opium addict.
Everyone saw the reality of what was happening, except for Puyi.
Japan was only interested in its imperial ambitions.
Puyi was just a decoration,
and a justification to tell the world that Japan didn't conquer Manchuria.
It just helped someone get what was rightfully his.
But in reality, that someone was merely a puppet in hands of Japan,
who, of course, had all the power and made all the decisions.
He would even start to see that reality one step at a time.
Like suddenly arresting the prime minister for secretly criticizing Japan.
So, Puyi tells them that he had someone in mind to replace him.
But, they tell him: "No, don't bother. We will hire someone else.
Just like we hired the first one. Stay in your lane and eat dumplings."
They also started to intervene in his and his family's life.
Like ordering him to end his little sister's engagement
with the banished prime minister's son.
Of course, Puyi had to obey their orders and end the engagement.
The Japanese didn't only control Puyi's decisions,
but also his movements.
Puyi didn't leave his palace without permission.
And if he went to a celebration or event, it was according to their orders.
Puyi went back to being a prisoner.
The thing he had been running from his whole life came back for him.
The title that he thought it rightfully belonged to him was his prison.
Despite the extremely luxurious life that he lived,
and up to this point, was still living,
we still feel sorry for him.
Also, he won't feel as comfortable as he was in the Forbidden City.
He will always be afraid that the Japanese might get mad at him and kill him.
He found himself signing catastrophic decisions.
Like sending citizens from Manchuria to fight with the Japanese,
to fight alongside the Japanese army.
Against who? China!
That was in 1937, when Japan declared the complete invasion of China.
Puyi sent soldiers form Manchuria, which belonged to China,
to fight with the Japanese against the Chinese.
That's terrifying,
but I'm feel sympathy for this man because he's naive.
This invasion would turn later into a part of the world war II.
And instead of Puyi leaving Manchuria
to restore the glory of the Empire of China,
he sent its citizens to destroy China.
Japan used the scorched earth policy to invade China.
They erased full cities from the face of the earth,
and committed terrible massacres.
Like the Nanjing Massacre,
when about 250,000 to 300,000 civilians were killed,
and from 20,000 up to 80,000 women were raped.
It's famously known as the Rape of Nanjing.
Not only that, but the most horrible thing ever was what unit 731 did.
The unit that experimented everything on the Chinese people.
They brought people alive, and opened them up
to see a live illustration on how organs work in nature,
or to remove organs one by one from the human body
and see how he will live.
In addition, they brought the female prisoners
and had people with syphilis rape them
to study how the disease grows after infection,
and how it develops for these female prisoners.
They also denied prisoners from food and water
to figure out how long does it take someone to die from hunger.
They also brought prisoners and threw off of high places
to know at which height people would die,
and at which height people wouldn't be really injured.
That's in addition to weapon testing to see how effective it is against humans,
starting from swords and guns, up to biological weapons.
By the end of the World War II,
Japan started to recruit young men from Manchuria as suicidal bombers.
Puyi found himself saying words of goodbye written by the Japanese
to the soldiers who were chosen to bomb themselves in China.
Puyi was saying words about pride and wishing the soldiers success,
meanwhile, these soldiers were crying and shaking in front of him.
On August 9th 1945,
the Soviet Union declared war against Japan,
and started to invade Manchuria.
On August 14th, World War II ends
with the Japanese emperor Hirohito announcing the surrender of Japan.
Everything in Manchuria starts falling down.
Surely, Puyi was afraid of the Soviets, so he tried escaping to Japan
to try to be a part of the security treaties
that the United States made with Japan.
And after a long journey to escape Manchuria,
Puyi reaches his final stop, the Mukden city airport.
From there, a plane would take him to Tokyo.
But, before the plane engines could start,
the sky was filled with Soviet parachutes.
Within minutes, he found a Soviet soldier at his plan asking him to surrender.
And Puyi, the Son of Heaven, the king of 10 thousand years,
became a prisoner for the Soviet Union held in Siberia.
When you hear the name Soviet Union and Siberia, my friend,
you might expect it to be the end.
A place with a bad reputation cut off from the world.
Ice as far as the eye could see.
A place that is nothing but white.
However, the truth was unlike any expectations.
Siberia was a paradise to Puyi.
The Soviets gave Puyi a very special treatment,
and allowed him to have a servant and a doctor.
Also, he was accompanied by his captured brother and cousins.
It was a light prison with perfect conditions.
I want to tell you that Puyi liked the prison so much
to the point that he sent to Stalin
telling him: "Please I want to keep living in the Soviet Union
wherever you want me to be!
But please, I'm begging you not to do this one thing..."
The thing he feared the most, his worst nightmare...
What is it, Abo Hmeed?
That the communist Soviet Union would send him back to communist China.
Oh no!
Of course, you are a guy who was aligned with the Japanese,
have sent soldiers to fight China with Japan,
and you took cover behind the Japanese,
who raped, killed, and preformed every possible experiment on Chinese people!
So, imagine going go back to China again!
You will be made into a Chinese meatball.
That's why he spent his years in the Soviet Union
wishing to never go back a single day in China.
China! Where his Empire is!
But obviously, my friend, history had another plan in mind.
The history is a script writer!
Are we really going to end it here? So easy and simple?
No! Where's the drama? Where's the spices?
A story with a happy ending is a story not finished yet.
On October 1st 1949,
Chinese communists led by Mao Zedong
was able to kick the Kuomintang nationalists out of China,
and established the People's Republic of China on July 31st 1950.
China became communist under Mao Zedong's control.
An agreement was done between the Soviet Union and China,
where Puyi, his family, and their servants were delivered to China.
That's when Puyi's nightmare comes true!
The first few days in prison for Puyi were the worst days ever.
He didn't sleep all night.
He stayed up waiting for the guards to come in and shoot him.
However, History again says that this won't happen.
The Chinese didn't want to kill him.
What did they want? Torture him?
No, my friend. They wanted to rehabilitate the last Chinese emperor.
Rehabilitate?
Rehabilitate him to become a perfect Chinese communist citizen
At the time, China had a certain policy
that everyone had a chance and could be changed,
and their evil personalities could be fixed
to turn them into perfect citizens and communism members.
Members of a socio-economic organization where everyone is equal,
and everyone is loyal to one thing: The people.
Mao was interested in Puyi personally,
because simply if we rehabilitate the emperor himself,
who was seen by the Chinese as one of the worst 5 men in the world,
then everyone can be rehabilitated!
So, the good news is that Puyi will live because China needs him.
But the bad news is "Let's go! Rehab starts now!"
Associates, family, and servants were taken out of his cell,
and Puyi found himself alone in a cell with other people.
It's true that these prisoners were officials in Manchuria,
but they knew that the way out of prison is to renounce the emperor,
and to treat him like a commoner, not an emperor.
Imagine that Puyi at the age of 44
had to do things he has never done before.
Things that are easy for me and you,
but for him it was a difficult problem.
For example, brushing his own teeth for the first time,
or getting dressed on his own for the first time.
They also made him wash his clothes,
and stand in line to get food.
Not just that, but also to carry the soup plate on his own
until he finds an empty place on the table to eat.
What is this, Abo Hmeed? That's too much. They have no mercy.
Did they really go that far? To make him carry his plate,
look for a place, sit down,
and probably feed himself too, right?
Because he didn't know, he turned into a messy person
who couldn't button up his shirt,
and he kept dropping plates on the floor as he carried them,
and he had to pick the plates and the food up off the floor to eat.
He was treated like an unsacred person at the age of 44.
All the people who kneeled for him
and called him "majesty", now call him "you".
They also treat him harshly.
Puyi found himself forced to study communist principals.
He didn't only need to read Marx and Lenin's books,
he needed to write a summary about how these ideas inspired him,
and how he could use them in his life outside of prison.
All that wasn't easy for him.
But as years went by, Puyi realizes
that there was no way out of prison other than rehabilitation.
And he started to participate and take part in prison tasks.
He started to follow instructions perfectly.
It's true that the guy who is in his fifties finally did his own things,
but of course, he was a burden for everyone around him.
For example, he sometimes forgets to close the faucet
and can never put things back in their place,
and when he cooks food, he burns it.
Abo Hmeed, I think you are talking about me and most men.
If he is giving out food, he will probably drop it on someone's head.
That's why they sent him to the garden where he can't hurt anyone.
With that, the first stage of rehab was a success.
After that came a more difficult stage.
Puyi would be taken out on visits in China and Manchuria
to meet victims of war crimes committed by the Japanese during his reign.
He listened to people's memories of their lost loved ones,
or to the women who were raped,
or to the stories of Unit 731 victims.
After Puyi listened to all that, he broke down in tears.
At other times, he would kneel to the survivors and ask for forgiveness,
or ask to be brutally punished for his crimes.
Years later, Puyi successfully adapted to the rehabilitation process.
To the point that while attending a play about his reign,
heroes of the play pointed at his picture and said:
"This emperor is a traitor!"
And Puyi was watching at the time.
After the play ended, he commented in the prison journal
that he was very happy with the play,
because all criminals must see who they really are,
and that these plays remind us of our past,
and make us feel ashamed of ourselves.
Of course, we don't know if he was acting or being honest,
but we know for sure that these years changed his life forever,
and changed his personality completely.
In December 1959, after nine years of imprisonment,
It was declared that the citizen Puyi was reformed,
and was free to go out to public life.
And for the first time ever in 53 years, Puyi was free.
He was imprisoned his entire life.
Starting from his childhood in the Forbidden City,
to the Japanese controlling all his decisions and movements,
to his imprisonment in the Soviet Union and again in China.
For the first time, this guy is free.
He could do whatever he wanted on God's green earth.
Not trapped in the Forbidden City,
or a refugee in the Japanese part of Tianjin,
or a puppet emperor controlled by the Japanese,
or a prisoner in a Soviet camp,
or a prisoner being rehabilitated in China.
At first, Puyi lived in a single apartment with his siblings.
It belonged to the Chinese government.
And in the first few days, he insisted on being a typical Chinese citizen.
He took part in sweeping the street.
But when he went outside, he got lost.
He didn't know how to get home.
He told people: "I'm Puyi, the last Emperor of China.
So, please do you know where does the emperor’s sister live?"
After that he got a very admirable job.
That's where the brilliance of history as a script writer comes in.
The last emperor of China becomes a gardener assistant.
That's the only skill he developed during rehab.
He worked very hard in the garden in the morning,
then slept at night in the worker dorms
in a room shared with his fifth an last wife Li Shuxian.
After that, he was promoted and left the gardener job.
He worked as an employee in the archives department
of a political advisory body in the Chinese Communist Party.
This man took the employment ladder from up to down.
He didn't even use the stairs, he went down in the elevator.
From the emperor of the world's most populated country,
to a gardener assistant, not even the gardener himself.
And when he got promoted, he was an employee in archives.
What is this? Really! What is happening?
The communist party allowed him to be interviewed by foreign journalists
to tell them how his life changed to become a good citizen.
"I want to say to the foreign journalists and communist party:
My life is so much better. Rehab was the best thing ever."
Journalists couldn't believe that this poor person,
who wore humble clothes and gave prompted or unprompted apologizes,
is the same great emperor of China,
The Son of Heaven, and king of 10 thousand years.
Also, they asked him to write his memoir where he talked about all the details.
The autobiography was called "From Emperor to Citizen",
which was turned by Italian director Bertolucci
into a cinematic movie in 1987.
It was called "the Last Emperor".
Really! The Chinese communist is brilliant in campaigns and PR.
Any other country would have grabbed him and crushed his bones.
Erase him! End him!
But they said: "We will take him, use him, rehabilitate him.
We will tell him to write an autobiography, get interviewed,
and turn his life into a movie to promote our communist policies."
At the end of 1967, in a hospital in Beijing,
the Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai called the hospital manager.
He said: "You have a patient dying of kidney cancer named Puyi.
Please take special care of him and keep him out of crowded places."
However, this request of favorable treatment
reached the Red Guards.
If you have seen the China episode, you know who the Red Guards are
specifically at that time.
These are enthusiastic students and part of the cultural movement
the correctional revolution led by Mao.
So, they attacked the hospital,
because they knew one patient was treated differently
since he was the last emperor of China.
They forcefully try to take Puyi who was dying in the hospital.
But doctors reached a middle ground with them
to send him back to the general ward and let him die in peace.
And indeed, Puyi went back to his ward without complaining.
Keeping a smile despite the pain of his illness.
That's when the doctors and nurses got scared,
and started to reduce the amount of care they gave him.
"If the Red Guards suspected we treat him better, they will destroy the hospital.
So, we stopped treating him."
They wished he would die sooner, for his sake and their sake.
Even his relatives and ex-wives
were scared of staying with him in his final moments
out of fear of the Red Guards.
That's how Puyi spent his final moments.
Completely alone, isolated, and an outcast.
Like he lived alone, isolated, and an outcast in the Forbidden City.
Until he dies on October 17th 1967 at the age of 61.
His body was cremated in a near by crematory.
None of his relatives dared to ask for the Urn that had his ashes.
The urn stays in one of the graves,
just like any other unidentified ashes,
who died without relatives or identifiers.
But in 1979, 13 years after his death,
one of his relatives came and asked for his ashes.
And reburied him in a more appropriate manner.
Puyi's story is one of the strangest stories in history.
A story for a guy who never once chose his life.
From the moment of being a crying baby during his ceremony,
to the moment he became a typical Chinese communist citizen.
He didn't chose any of that. He simply had to.
That's why the British journalist Edward Behr,
who made a series of interviews with Puyi in 1964, wonders:
"Was the great emperor, The Son of Heaven, and king of 10 thousand years
rehabilitated as a perfect citizen in communist China,
or was it all a good act by Puyi?
Was it another choice he was forced to make and deal with
just like all the things he didn't chose?"
Edward thinks that, of course, we will never know,
but we can only sympathize with him,
and see him as a child who is looking down from his throne,
and a lonely teenager playing with his bike in the Forbidden City,
and a puppet emperor for the Japanese government,
and a smiling young man who doesn't know his dim future.
We see him as a man with messy clothes,
smiling with sadness and a great sense of guilt inside him,
which was planted in him during the rehab years in the Chinese prison.
The feeling that stuck with him till the day he died,
till he quit life and became an urn of ashes,
which only found its final home 13 years after his death.
That's it. Last but not least,
I hope you watch the old episodes and the new ones,
look at the resources and Subscribe if you are on YouTube.
This story can be summed up, my friend,
that the emperor couldn't stay in power,
but he could water a flower.
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
