The Last Manchu by Henry Pu Yi

Author:Henry Pu Yi
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-18T10:00:00+00:00

Two Emperors of the same Continent wish to be almighty and deserving of respect,

While seven guests, passengers on the same ship, speak of Imperial coexistence.

It is not an empty boast to say that man can triumph over his destiny,

For when there are common goals there is no need for lengthy talk.

Because we had eaten a Japanese meal together, Cheng Hsiao-hsu later was inspired to design two personal seals for me in commemoration of the event. One seal told of the times of civil wars in the remote past when a prince escaped his captors and managed to regain his throne. The other seal celebrated the eating together of a meal of rice paste and oatmeal which symbolized the revival of the Later Han Dynasty.31 By recalling these two incidents from the historical past of China, he sought to remind me of how we had survived a crisis and shared the common experience of a new beginning.

Once we were aboard the Awaji Maru, Cheng Hsiao-hsu talked incessantly about his ambition to govern the country, and his words seemed not to cease until the morning of November 13th when we put in at the South Manchuria Railway dock at Yingkow in Liaoning Province. I had imagined that there would be a crowd to give me the sort of welcome I had received when I visited the Japanese primary school in Tientsin—people waving flags, cheering, and shouting “Long live the Emperor.” But the nearer the boat drew to the dock the fewer signs I saw of any such welcome. There were no crowds, no flags. When I went ashore I discovered that the handful of people there to meet me were all Japanese.

I was immediately taken to the station and, without being given a word of explanation, was transported to the warm springs resort of Tangkangtzu, where, full of suspicion, I entered the Tuitsuike Hotel. Run by the Japanese South Manchuria Railway Company, this hotel was a luxuriously furnished Western-style building in the Japanese manner and was reserved for Japanese army officers, high officials of the South Manchuria Railway, and Chinese bureaucrats. I was shown to a suite of rooms on the second floor where my former tutor and adviser Lo Chen-yu, the head of my general affairs office in Tientsin Tung Chi-hsu, and my counselor Shang Yen-ying were waiting. After greeting me, Lo Chen-yu told me that he was in the midst of discussions with the Kwantung Army regarding my restoration and the founding of the new state. He explained that it would not do for news of my arrival to leak out before the conclusion of the discussions, and that it would also be wrong if any of us but he were to be seen outside the hotel. I did not understand the significance of his advice and simply thought that this explained why nobody had come to welcome me. I believed that the talks with the Kwantung Army would present no problem and that soon the news could be announced

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