The captured emperor
In 1932, the puppet state of Manchukuo appeared on Chinese territory. Captured by the Japanese militarists, the Japanese placed the last emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Ai Xinjue Luo Puyi, at his chief. Puyi received a symbol of power from the Japanese emperor, the relics of the goddess Amaterasu: the ritual sword and mirror. In fact, Puyi did not have real power, Manchukuo was controlled by the commander of the Kwantung Army, but Puyi had his own imperial court and treasury.
After the Red Army defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army in 1945 and General Yamada accepted the surrender, puyi's family tried to sneak to Tokyo. But when the emperor arrived at the Fengti military airfield in Fengtian, he was captured by the forces of Marshal Hujiakov, commander of the Soviet 12th Air Force. Emperor Puyi became a prisoner of the Soviet Red Army. He spent a day in a secret room at the airport before being taken to the Soviet Union. Legend has it that with the arrival of the emperor, a plane carrying Manchukuo's gold reserves took off from the airport.
The last emperor Puyi was captured by the Soviet Red Army and flew to Shenyang
After some deliberation, Stalin ordered that Emperor Puyi and his eight retinue be sent to Chita. On August 20, 1945, Puyi was placed in an ordinary house in special facility No. 30 of the People's Committee of the Interior, surrounded by a high iron fence, and machine gunners were on duty outside. As one guard reported, Emperor Puyi had a lot of luggage, including huge suitcases and leather briefcases. Guards were barred from inspecting the luggage — officials who arrived with Mr. Puyi said they had been inspected and should not touch them. Emperor Puyi stayed in Chita until October and was transported to unKVD 45 near Khabarovsk. Puyi participated in the trial of Japanese militarists. Puyi became the main witness of the prosecution for eight days.
The poor yellow emperor of puppet Manchukuo found himself in a deep predicament: even following the instructions of the officers of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs did not promise him to save his life. The emperor feared he would be extradited to an increasingly powerful China under Mao Zedong. He even wrote a letter to Stalin asking for political asylum in the Soviet Union. Puyi tried to persuade Stalin that he was fully familiar with the teachings of communism and even prepared to join the party. However, Stalin had no plans for him, and in 1950 the emperor was handed over to the Chinese government, but Puyi did cross the border with a lighter suitcase. For Manchukuo's gold reserves he did not take with him. So where did the gold go? What was in the Emperor's suitcase and briefcase?
Pseudo-Manchukuo gold
According to legend, Marshal Sergei Hujakov of Fengtian Airport seized the gold reserves of Manchukuo, which the Japanese were preparing to ship to Tokyo. On two planes the gold and some other jewelry were sent to Moscow. However, only one plane flew to Moscow, the second plane mysteriously disappeared, marshal Hujakov reported to Stalin that the plane had crashed on the way to Moscow, and after the incident Stalin had a new view of Marshal Hujakov, commander of the 12th Air Force. He was arrested and taken to Moscow as a result of a plane crash. However, upon closer inspection and verification, the Air Marshal was not the man he claimed to be at all. The real Sergei Hujakov – the red commander of the guerrilla detachment – died long ago in the civil war of 1918. This person is an imposter.
At the end of the Civil War, Khanferyants became Khudyakov. How and where this happens is not entirely clear. According to one legend, he appears to have taken the name of a dead friend. However, it is not clear why. According to another, he identified himself as a foreign name when he was captured by the Turks and feared he would be killed as an Armenian. But where this happens and under what circumstances it is unclear to anyone. Another strange moment – until 1945 his relatives did not know he had survived the Civil War. For everyone, he is still Khudyakov. It must be taken into account that there are two circumstances that can compel a person to change his surname and nationality. The first is a threat to life, and the second is the need to hide undignified behavior.
In 1945 the People's Commissariat of internal affairs of the USSR passed an investigation: the marshal was suspected of being recruited by British intelligence while in Baku. There were indeed a lot of Britons in Baku before the revolution, but why recruit a boy aged 15-16? The investigation into espionage and the crash of a plane with gold lasted four years. In 1949 Hujakov was shot and his family was exiled to Krasnoyarsk Krai.
What about gold? But the gold was never found!
The Emperor's Jewelry
A more interesting story is about Emperor Puyi's personal jewelry. Emperor Puyi and the officials of his entourage were immediately searched by the People's Committee of Internal Affairs for the suitcases they were carrying. The suitcase containing Puyi's private vault in Khabarovsk was confiscated, and its contents were described and evaluated. In total, there were 111 pieces of gold jewelry in the suitcase, with a total value of 474,000 rubles (this figure is now considered to be considered a great underestimate). In addition to the large number of gold and silver ornaments, there are a large number of unique things in it: large pearls, gold plates of historical value, a gold box, a beetle-shaped watch set with 174 diamonds and two rubies, and many other gold jewelry famous in the East.
The People's Commissariat of internal affairs of the USSR did not dare to blatantly take all this from Emperor Puyi. They slyly offered to have Emperor Puyi transfer the jewelry for the Soviet Union to "use to restore the national economy." Puyi could not refuse the man who held the power of his life and death, and he handed over the jewelry to Lieutenant Colonel Kudryavtsev.
However, in his later memoirs, Puyi wrote that he did not hand over everything. He stuffed the most expensive things into the double bottom of one of the suitcases, something he couldn't put down... He ordered it to be thrown away! The emperor's nephews gave up their jewelry as best they could: worthless pearls were burned in the furnace, and gold was stuffed into secluded places. One day, a guard found a gold bracelet in an old radiator in the yard. But none of the Chinese admit that it was the emperor's doing.
The whereabouts of the Japanese relics handed over to the Soviet authorities, the mirror and sword of the god Amaterasu, have since been missing. However, researcher Dmitry Lihanov believes that Puyi's personal sword was well preserved in the special archives in Moscow until the end of 1950, when it was transferred to the city's museum, while Emperor Puyi's saber was kept in the Far East Headquarters Military District. He also suggested that the relics of the god Amaterasu were most likely kept in Moscow's personal collections, possibly the descendants of the officers who defeated Japan or guarded the emperor in 1945.
The whereabouts of the lost gold
Marshal Hujakov
The fact that the emperor had his jewels of gold was absolutely certain. The personal translator of Emperor Georgi Permiakov said bluntly in an interview that he saw the "golden mountain" with his own eyes. There is an assumption that Puyi's jewelry was simply sold at a low price, and the money went into the fund to restore the national economy of the Soviet Union. Of course, in the future they will already be sold at real prices. As you can see, Stalin was not wrong when he filed a lawsuit after the war for the theft of the spoils of war. Maybe Emperor Puyi managed to bring some jewelry back to China but they certainly went to the treasury.
As for Manchuria's gold reserves, which eventually fell into moscow's hands, he knew everything: Puyi was sent back to China, and Stalin ordered his gold to be returned to China. The same Permyakov appeared in the inventory and valuation of gold in 1950 and in the transfer to the Chinese authorities.
What happened to the gold on the other plane? What is the fate of the gold on board? We don't know. As a result of the "newly discovered circumstances" Marshal Hujakov was rehabilitated in 1954 and returned all ranks and awards to him in 1960. So this man is innocent.
But the problem remains. Considering that the Soviet plane flew a distance of 4800 kilometers, it was not difficult to fly to Manila and even to a country in Southeast Asia in a plane carrying gold to control the plane. According to some reports, the gold was later owned by the United States and transported by the American Douglas, which had a range of 2200 kilometers. But perhaps the plane with the relics of the gods of gold and Amaterasu is still lying somewhere in the swamp of Eastern Siberia waiting to be found by future generations.