Yuan Shikai in the late Qing Dynasty had two things that were widely known to everyone, one was that during the Guangxu Emperor's change of law, he informed shangshu Ronglu of the military department, and after Empress Dowager Cixi learned of the conspiracy of the Restoration Faction, not only made the Guangxu Emperor's change of law fail, but also caused the six gentlemen of Wushu to be killed, Guangxu was imprisoned, and later Yuan Shikai was also despised by the world for informing the matter, for which Yuan Shikai specially wrote "Wushu Jiluo" to defend himself.
The second was that Yuan Shikai persuaded Empress Longyu to accept preferential conditions and promulgated the "Edict of abdication of the Qing Emperor", and the Qing Dynasty ran out of oil and eventually disappeared, but the emperor's life did not change much.
Puyi was brought into the palace in 1908, when Empress Dowager Cixi was approaching, she arranged everything well, but did not want the Guangxu Emperor to continue to be emperor, so the Guangxu Emperor died one step ahead of Empress Dowager Cixi, and some people suspected that Yuan Shikai was worried that the Guangxu Emperor would return to power after the death of Empress Dowager Cixi, and then hold himself accountable, so he poisoned the Guangxu Emperor, but no evidence of this claim has been found.
On December 2, 1908, Puyi, who was more than 2 years old, took the throne in the Taihe Temple, and the following year changed his era name to "Xuantong", and in 1912 Puyi was only 6 years old when he abdicated, but there were eight preferential treatment for the Qing Dynasty, namely: providing 4 million taels of fees per year, temporarily living in the official after the abdication of the Qing Dynasty, later moving to the Summer Palace, still using the emperor's honorific title, the Republic of China government treating foreign monarchs with courtesy, and special protection of royal private property.
Therefore, when Puyi and others were eating, their extravagant pomp and circumstance was not lower than when they were emperors before, and other former Qing courtiers were bent on restoration, so Puyi was embraced by the throne again at the age of 12, but this time Puyi only stayed on the throne for more than 10 days.
On December 1, the eleventh year of the Republic of China (1922), Puyi got married, married an empress and a concubine, and the wedding pomp was not inferior, so Yuan Shikai gave Puyi 4 million taels of silver every year, put it in modern times, how much is it worth?
According to the estimation of purchasing power at that time, according to the "Archives of the Military Aircraft Department of the Qing Dynasty", when the Guangxu Emperor was pro-government in the fifteenth year of Guangxu (1889), one or two silver could buy 107 kilograms of average grain, but only to buy rice, two silver could be bought to 80 kilograms, according to the current rice price of 3 yuan a kilogram conversion, that is to say, in the late Qing Dynasty, one or two silver was equivalent to 240 yuan, then 4 million silver dollars was equivalent to the current 960 million yuan, so Puyi was still a billionaire.
But it should be noted that after the issuance of the new currency, the 4 million two silver given to Puyi every year became 4 million silver dollars, and the silver dollar and silver are not the same, and some of the copper substances in the silver dollar are not pure silver, according to the "1918-1980 Beijing Social Situation Survey", a silver dollar can buy 16 kilograms of rice.
Still according to the current price of 3 yuan a catty of rice, a silver dollar is equivalent to 48 yuan, 4 million silver dollars is equivalent to 192 million yuan, at this time Puyi has a lot less wealth than before, but Puyi's life has not changed much.
Later, 8 years after Yuan Shikai's death, a coup d'état occurred in Beijing, Puyi left the Forbidden City with his concubine and others, and since then no one has given Puyi 4 million silver dollars per year, so Puyi's life is getting worse and worse, but because he brought out many valuable cultural relics, Puyi's life in Tianjin is still quite passable.
However, the attitude of people outside the palace towards him was not as flattering as that in the palace, and this huge gap became one of the reasons why Puyi wanted to restore.