In August 1945, Puyi threw away the crying "Fugui" Li Yuqin and the sluggish-looking Empress Wanrong, and without looking back, took a few close associates and retinues and hurriedly got into the Japanese plane to escape.
This is the most thrilling escape Puyi has experienced, but it is not the first time. As early as 21 years ago, he began his journey of escape.
After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, Puyi, as Emperor Xuantong, announced his abdication. Because Yuan Shikai gave the Qing court generous preferential treatment and retained his title of emperor, puyi continued to live a small imperial court life of pampering and superiority in the Forbidden City with the gates closed.
Who knew that in 1924, the outside world suddenly changed, and a second zhifeng war broke out between the warlords of the Feng clan and the warlords of the direct lineage. When the war was in full swing, Feng Yuxiang, who was originally subordinate to his direct family, suddenly turned his back and went straight to Beijing.
After Feng Yuxiang captured the city of Beijing, he kept forcing Puyi to move out of the Forbidden City, where he had lived for 16 years. Cornered, Puyi had to temporarily live in the Northern Mansion of his father, Zaifeng the Prince of Alcohol.
Figure | Young Puyi
At this time, the scene in the Northern Mansion was extremely chaotic, and Feng Yuxiang's army surrounded the palace, and no one was allowed to enter or leave at will. Puyi seemed to see a knife hanging over his neck, most likely falling down and taking his own life.
At the critical moment of life and death, the royal relatives could not come up with any feasible suggestions except to cry and wipe their tears. Puyi's father Zaifeng, who originally had some stuttering, would only turn around in the house at this time, saying some words that did not match the preface and the afterword, and it was heart-wrenching to watch.
Seeing that the princes and nobles could not count on it, Puyi turned all his hopes to his British teacher Johnston and those ministers who were connected with the great powers such as Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu.
At that time, around Puyi, there was a huge network of interests. Some people want to maintain the status quo, so that they can continue to withdraw huge amounts of money; some people advocate that he studied abroad as an investment target for hoarding; and some people shout the slogan of maintaining the clean room, actually wanting to make a splash. Puyi was repeatedly brainwashed by these people and took the restoration of the old ancestor's accumulation (hereinafter referred to as restoration) as his ultimate goal.
In view of the fact that Feng Yuxiang would turn his face and kill himself at any time, Puyi, who did not want to "die before he could succeed in his career", decided to escape from Beifu and hide in a foreign embassy located in Dongjiaomin Lane, and then wait for the opportunity to study abroad, accumulate strength and return to China to restore.
Leaving Beifu was the first step in Puyi's escape. Knowing the father of Mo Ruo, Zaifeng sensed his son's change and sent people to surround Puyi for 24 hours. In order to shake off these tails, Puyi and two teachers, Chen Baochen and Johnston, formulated a careful plan.
Figure | Puyi and teacher Johnston
He first went out of the house on the pretext of visiting Jingyi and Ronghui, and then obediently went home to leave everyone with the impression of trustworthiness, and the next day he threatened to rent a house in Suzhou Hutong, so that He could take Empress Wanrong and Concubine Wenxiu to live together.
As a result, Puyi only went around Suzhou Street and went straight to the German hospital in Dongjiaomin Lane, the official reason was that he was unwell and needed to see a doctor, but in fact, the teacher Johnston went to the British embassy to ask for shelter. Who knew that Johnston did not return after this trip, because the British embassy was afraid that it would be condemned by public opinion for interfering in the Chinese civil war, refused to accept the last emperor, and saw that Puyi's escape plan was about to fail.
At the critical moment, the Minister of the Interior, Zheng Xiaoxu, "fell from the sky" and brought the invitation message of the Japanese minister. Originally, many people blew the wind in Puyi's ears and told him that among all the foreign ministers, only the Japanese ministers were the most capable and willing to entertain the Chinese emperor. Now, in the face of the olive branch handed by the Japanese side, Puyi did not hesitate to grasp it.
Puyi was warmly welcomed at the Japanese embassy, and the Japanese intimately vacated a building and assigned him a concert office and a duty room according to the rules of the Qing imperial family. The ministers began to be active again, asking for instructions and reporting every morning and evening, and they were very busy.
After Puyi spent his 19th birthday at the Japanese Embassy, he felt that it was not the way to stay, and proposed the idea of studying abroad. The Japanese agreed to his plan and intimately helped him analyze the situation, and finally the two sides reached a consensus: in view of the chaos in Beijing, Puyi should first go to Tianjin, which is relatively safe and close to the port, and then try to achieve great things.
Therefore, under the strict protection of the Japanese, Puyi took a train from Beijing Qianmen Station to Tianjin, which was the whole process of his first escape.
Figure | Puyi and Empress Wanrong
Puyi lived in Tianjin for 7 years of "Yugong" life. During this period, he ate Western food, played tennis, went in and out of various social places in Tianjin, and often spent thousands of dollars to buy all kinds of novel foreign goods, and his life was very comfortable.
However, a comfortable life did not extinguish Puyi's dream of restoration, and he still believed that only by going abroad to accumulate strength and seek foreign aid could he have the opportunity to make a comeback.
Puyi's way abroad is full of obstacles. The princes and elders wanted him to stay, insisting that the "True Dragon Heavenly Son" should stick to the land. Among the various courtiers who supported him to go abroad, they also quarreled endlessly over whether to go to England or Japan.
During this period, Puyi was considering another way to realize the dream of reunification without going abroad, that is, to rely on the strength of warlords to regain the throne.
In Puyi's residence, the figures of various warlords can often be seen. Wu Peifu, the boss of the direct line, once wrote to him as a vassal, and Zhang Zuolin, a warlord of the Feng clan known as the "King of the Northeast", even prostrated himself on the brick floor to Puyi when they first met, shouting: "Hello Emperor!" ”
In fact, in the name of helping Puyi's restoration, many warlords fished out a lot of cash, antiques, pearls and other valuable items from him.
By the second half of 1928, Puyi's expectations for the warlords had been completely disappointed. Zhang Zuolin was killed, and Wu Peifu and Zhang Zongchang, who had close ties with him, were also defeated. What made him most indignant was that Sun Dianying, a warlord under Chiang Kai-shek, actually excavated the Qing Tombs.
Originally, Puyi still had hopes for peaceful coexistence with Chiang Kai-shek's government, but as a result, as soon as the "Tanglin Incident" came out, Sun Dianying was at large, and the pearls on the crown of Cixi Phoenix became the jewelry on the shoes of Chiang Kai-shek's new wife, Soong Mei-ling. Puyi thought it would be difficult to survive under an ambitious and fierce man like Chiang Kai-shek, so he began to plan a second escape.
In 1931 "Nine. After the "18th Incident", Japan quickly occupied the three eastern provinces. In preparation for the implementation of colonial rule, the military high command selected Puyi, an "old friend", as its agent.
Although Puyi was the last emperor who was ousted from power, China's feudal system of more than 2,000 years has been rooted in the hearts of the people, and as long as Puyi waved his arm, there must be a large number of followers. At the same time, Britain, France, the United States and other Western powers are also very friendly to Puyi, whether at home or abroad, his political influence can not be underestimated.
Based on the above reasons, the Japanese sent many lobbyists to persuade Puyi to leave for Lushun to live, "first leave the danger, and then try to be ambitious."
In October 1931, Kenji Toihara, the number one agent of the Japanese invasion of China, came to Tianjin and had secret talks with Puyi overnight to discuss the establishment of a new country in the northeast. The pie he painted was really tempting, and Puyi forgot about studying abroad and started the idea of secretly going to the northeast.
In order to add a fire to the hesitant Puyi, the Japanese military can be said to have spared no effort, first sending people to shoot in the back street of Puyi's residence, and jumping up from the bed in shock to the timid Puyi.
Puyi then received a basket of fruits on November 3, which contained two bombs. It is widely said that the patriotic young marshal Zhang Xueliang used this to warn Puyi not to get too close to the Japanese, but the newspaper public opinion at the time and Puyi himself, who later repented, believed that it was a trick of Kenji Doihara.
On November 8, the Japanese sent traitors and plainclothes teams to create a disturbance in the concession, thereby closing the Japanese concession and isolating Puyi from the outside world. In this case, Puyi could no longer sit still and began his second escape journey on the evening of November 10.
He and his personal attendant Qi Jizhong hid in the back compartment of a two-seater roadster, and the space inside the car was unusually narrow. But Puyi could no longer take care of the emperor's shelf, so he shrunk in the car and escaped from the residence, boarded the boat from the Baihe ferry and headed northeast.
Puyi, who sat on the boat, breathed a sigh of relief and ate rice, miso soup, and pickles with ordinary soldiers. It was not until more than 20 years later, when he happened to read a Japanese magazine published in "Literature and Art Spring and Autumn", that he learned that a large barrel of gasoline was hidden in the ship he was riding on, and the Japanese were ready to set fire to him in case the Chinese army found him.
At that time, the straight-line distance between Puyi's ass and the gasoline barrel would not exceed 3 meters, and he thought that he was getting closer and closer to happiness.
After Puyi arrived in Lushun after many hardships, he was told by the top brass of the Kwantung Army that everything had to be done in accordance with the orders of the Kwantung Army, and no one could be received without permission. At this point, Puyi was completely controlled by the Japanese.
What disappointed him even more was that he had worked so hard to come to the northeast to prepare to become emperor, but the Japanese only let him become the "ruler" of the puppet state of Manchukuo, and threatened him that if he did not accept it, he would use the means of treating the enemy to deal with him.
On March 9, 1932, Puyi reluctantly took office as "ruler" and did not become the so-called "Kant" emperor until 1934. But what's the use of that? He spent 13 years as a puppet under the Japanese.
In August 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, and the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan. The Soviets broke through the borders of Eastern Manchuria and Northern Manchuria and began bombing the puppet capital of Manchukuo, Xinjing (Changchun).
At noon on August 9, 1945, the commander of the Kwantung Army, Yamada Otsuzo, came to force Puyi to retreat with them to Tonghua, and he viciously threatened the timid emperor that if he continued to stay in Changchun's residence, he would be killed by Soviet troops.
Puyi was frightened by these words, and he knew that if he did not obey the orders of the Japanese, he would definitely not survive tonight.
On the evening of August 11, 1945, Puyi embarked on the most dangerous third escape of his life.
Even when they fled, the Japanese forced Puyi to bring their "divine body", which was given to Him by Emperor Hirohito during Puyi's second visit to Japan in 1940. This so-called "divine body" is actually a sword, a bronze mirror and a piece of jade, but the Japanese attach great importance to it, solemnly held by the president of the sacrificial house, Hashimoto Toranosuke, and also sit in the head car to drive the road, the Japanese humiliation of Puyi can be seen.
Puyi took Empress Wanrong, Li Yuqin, a fugui person, and his attendants to follow the "divine body" to the car, and after two days and one night of bumps, they came to the Big Chestnut Ditch in Linjiang for repairs.
On August 17, commander of the Kwantung Army, Otsuzo Yamada, told Puyi that Emperor Hirohito had declared unconditional surrender and that the U.S. government had guaranteed the emperor's safety and status. But for Puyi, he had to wait until he arrived in Japan before being disposed of by the Allies.
Puyi heard these words and suddenly "snapped" a few big mouths of himself, which was also his first "self-abuse" from birth to now. His motivation for sucking his mouth was, on the one hand, to show loyalty to the Japanese side in order to survive, and on the other hand, it was also a kind of venting. His dream of restoration was completely shattered, and the failure of the Japanese not only left him with no way out, but even his life was not guaranteed, and he was extremely upset.
That night, Puyi spent two minutes absentmindedly reading out the "Abdication Edict" drafted as early as Changchun, and then came to the shrugged ministers to shake hands with them and bid farewell, and the last puppet scene of his life was announced.
Immediately after that, the Japanese gave Puyi a blow to the head, due to time constraints and insufficient transportation, Puyi could only take a few people to Japan by plane, and the rest waited for rescue indefinitely.
At this moment of crisis, Puyi did not hesitate to choose his brother Pujie, two brothers-in-law, three nephews, as well as the bodyguard Li Guoxiong and the "imperial doctor" Huang Zizheng, who were his relatives and confidants.
As for the mentally abnormal Empress Wanrong and the "Fuguiren" Li Yuqin, as well as a group of sisters, they are all in the ranks of being abandoned.
Before leaving, the "Fuguiren" pulled on Puyi's sleeve and asked him crying, "What can I do?" Puyi impatiently coped with her: "The plane is too small, you can take the train." ”
"What if the train doesn't come to pick you up?" I don't have a single loved one here! ”
"I'll see you in two days, and I'll be done!"
Just as Puyi and his party landed at Shenyang Airport and prepared to change to a large plane to go to Japan, Soviet soldiers suddenly poured out from all directions, and the last emperor Puyi immediately became a prisoner of the Soviet Red Army.
Until this moment, the Japanese still did not give up their efforts to kidnap Puyi and return to China. They repeatedly demanded from the Soviet generals in Russian, but the Soviet side categorically rejected this proposal and, at Puyi's request, took away several Japanese gendarmes who had never left his side. At this point, although the future is still dark, Puyi has finally got rid of the Japanese who are most frightening to him.
The Soviet army politely asked Puyi's opinion: "How about letting you go to Chita?" Puyi, who had never heard of the place, nodded in agreement.
On August 18, 1945, the last emperor Puyi boarded a Soviet transport plane to fly to the Chita area. The moment the plane took off, his exile finally came to an end.
Text | Snow