Xuantong Emperor

Puyi (溥儀, 1906–1967) was the last emperor of China and the last ruler of the Qing Dynasty. He came to the throne in 1908 at the age of two and reigned under the era name Xuantong (宣統, 1909–1912) until the Xinhai Revolution forced his abdication in February 1912. As the dynasty ended with him, he was never given a temple name.

His life after the throne was as unusual as his reign was short: a restoration of twelve days in 1917, expulsion from the Forbidden City in 1924, thirteen years as the Japanese-controlled ruler of Manchukuo, fourteen years as a prisoner, and a last few years as an ordinary citizen of the People's Republic. For collectors, the reign is the period of the last imperial porcelain made at Jingdezhen.

Birth and Succession

Puyi was born in Beijing in February 1906, the eldest son of Zaifeng, Prince Chun, and his wife Youlan. His father was a half-brother of the Guangxu Emperor, so Puyi was the emperor's nephew. Guangxu died childless on 14 November 1908 and the Empress Dowager Cixi the following day. Before she died, Cixi named the two-year-old Puyi as heir, and he was enthroned in December 1908 with his father as regent.

Once he had been taken into the palace, Puyi did not see his mother for seven years. He formed a close bond with his wet nurse, Wang, and later said she was the only person who could control him. She was sent away when he was eight.

In his son's name Prince Chun continued the reforms of Cixi's last years, which promised a constitution and created elected provincial assemblies in 1909. But he dismissed the general Yuan Shikai the same year, and in May 1911 he appointed a cabinet dominated by Manchu princes. To many reformers it showed that the court would never truly share power.

The Xinhai Revolution and Abdication

In October 1911 the army garrison at Wuchang, in Wuhan, mutinied, and the revolt spread rapidly through the Yangtze valley and beyond as province after province declared its independence of the Qing. Public opinion had turned decisively against the dynasty, and few were willing to fight for a court that seemed to have lost the Mandate of Heaven.

The court recalled Yuan Shikai to put down the revolution. Instead he negotiated with the revolutionaries. Prince Chun gave up the regency in December 1911, and the Empress Dowager Longyu, Guangxu's widow, took charge of the court's response. On 12 February 1912 she issued the edict of abdication on behalf of the six-year-old emperor. It ended the rule of the Qing, which had governed China since 1644, and an imperial system more than two thousand years old.

Under the Articles of Favourable Treatment agreed with the new Republic, Puyi kept his imperial title and an annual allowance, and went on living in the inner court of the Forbidden City.

Porcelain with the Xuantong Mark

The imperial kilns at Jingdezhen supplied the court until the end of the dynasty. Porcelain made for the palace in these years was marked with the six-character mark 大清宣統年製 (Da Qing Xuantong nian zhi), usually written in regular script in underglaze blue. Our chart of Qing reign marks sets it beside the marks of the earlier reigns. The reign was short and the court's finances strained, so output was small, and shapes and decoration largely continue those of the Guangxu reign.

A mark records what was written on a piece, not when it was made. The Xuantong mark, like every Qing reign mark, has been copied ever since, so a piece with a Xuantong mark has to be judged by its body, glaze, painting and finish rather than by the mark alone. Our guide to detecting fakes sets out what to look for. Late Qing pieces can be found among our Qing dynasty porcelain.

Restoration and Life in the Palace

In July 1917 the warlord Zhang Xun, whose troops still wore the queue as a sign of loyalty to the Qing, occupied Beijing and restored the Xuantong Emperor to the throne. The premier of the Republic, Duan Qirui, raised troops against him and also sent a Caudron Type D aircraft, flown by Pan Shizhong with the bombardier Du Yuyuan, to drop three bombs on the Forbidden City. The bombs did little damage and killed one eunuch, but the raid is considered the first recorded aerial bombing by the Chinese air force. Faced with opposition across the country, the restoration collapsed after twelve days.

Puyi stayed on in the palace. In 1919 the Scottish scholar Reginald Johnston became his tutor, and Puyi took the English name Henry, by which he was afterwards known in the West. In 1922, at sixteen, he married Wanrong as his empress and Wenxiu as a secondary consort.

Expulsion

In October 1924 the warlord Feng Yuxiang seized Beijing in a coup. Looking for legitimacy, he decided that abolishing the unpopular Articles of Favourable Treatment would win public approval. In November 1924 he revised them, abolishing Puyi's title and privileges and reducing him to a private citizen, and Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City the same day. After a short stay at his father's house, he took refuge in the Japanese Legation.

Tianjin

Puyi's adviser Lu Zongyu urged him to move to Tianjin, arguing that it was safer than Beijing. Lu was secretly working with the Japanese, who wanted Puyi where they could control him more easily, and without the embarrassment of sheltering him in their Beijing legation, which strained relations with China. In 1925 Puyi left Beijing for the Japanese concession in Tianjin, wearing a plain Chinese gown and a skullcap for fear of being robbed on the train.

He lived first in the Zhang Garden and from 1929 in Lu Zongyu's former house, the Garden of Serenity. He was admitted to social clubs that usually accepted only white members, while with his advisers Zheng Xiaoxu, Chen Baochen and Luo Zhenyu he discussed ways of regaining the throne. In June 1925 the warlord Zhang Zuolin, the "Old Marshal", a former bandit who ruled Manchuria, came to visit him. He kowtowed to Puyi and promised to restore the House of Qing, provided that Puyi made a large donation to his army.

In 1931 Wenxiu divorced him, a public humiliation for a former emperor. After the Japanese army seized Manchuria in September that year, the Japanese officer Doihara Kenji arranged for Puyi to be smuggled out of Tianjin in November and taken north.