by Henry Pu Yi
Many retired Ch’ing officials living inside the Great Wall sent congratulatory memorials and even the boss of the Shanghai underworld sent a memorial proclaiming himself a loyal subject.
On June 6, Prince Chichibu, the brother of the Emperor of Japan, came to congratulate me on behalf of Hirohito. He awarded me the Japanese Cordon of the Chrysanthemum and on my wife Wan Jung he bestowed the Order of the Crown.
In July, my father, a younger brother and a sister came to Changchun to see me. Their visit illustrates how deeply intoxicated with myself I had become. When they arrived at Changchun, I sent a group of palace officials and also a company of the Palace Guard to welcome them at the station. Wan Jung and I waited outside the palace gate. She was dressed in Manchu court dress and I wore my marshal’s uniform with three sets of medals—one from the Japanese, one from the state of Manchukuo, and a third consisting of Great Ch’ing decorations. Since I did not dare wear this third set in front of the Kwantung Army, I was glad of this particular chance to show them off.
When my father’s automobile arrived at the palace, I stood at attention, saluted in a military manner and Wan Jung knelt in Manchu fashion. Then I accompanied him into the drawing room and, before taking off my uniform, I also knelt to him in Manchu fashion and paid my respects.
That night I held a big family banquet at which Western-style cuisine and etiquette were observed. According to my arrangements, as soon as I entered the banquet hall, a military band began to play.
As the banquet proceeded to the stage of drinking champagne, Pu Chieh, as I had arranged, stood up, raised his glass and shouted: “Ten thousand years to His Majesty the Emperor, ten thousand years, ten thousand years.” My family all joined in the toast. As soon as I heard the shouting, my head reeled as if I had already reached a point of intoxication.
The following day, a senior palace official told me that the Headquarters of the Kwantung Army had protested in the name of the Japanese Ambassador that in sending an armed guard to the station to welcome my father I had violated the agreement between the Northeastern authorities and Japan which Manchukuo had undertaken to observe. Under this agreement a strip of land on either side of the railway was to be the territory of the South Manchuria Railway Company and no armed men were to be allowed into it except those of the Japanese army. The Kwantung Army Headquarters wanted an assurance that no such incident would occur again.
This incident should have been enough to awaken me from my dream world, but at least on this occasion, the Japanese showed me the courtesy of not protesting openly, and after I had sent someone to apologize and to assure them it wouldn’t happen again, they said nothing more.
I reached the pinnacle of authority and the nadir of my misconceptions after the first of my two state visits to Japan, in April, 1935. The Kwantung Army had made all the arrangements for this trip which was undertaken to demonstrate my gratitude to the Japanese Emperor for sending his brother, Prince Chichibu, to congratulate me on my ascension to the throne as well as to show my personal interest in promoting friendly relations between Japan and Manchukuo.
The Japanese government had organized a reception committee of fourteen consisting of high-ranking peers headed by Baron Hayashi, a Privy Councillor. A battleship, the Hie Maru, was sent over to take me to Japan and other warships provided an escort. When I set sail from Dairen I inspected three destroyers and, on arrival at Yokohama, there was a formation of over 100 airplanes to welcome me.
During the voyage I was seasick and wrote the following poem:
The sea is as flat as a mirror,
I travel 10,000 miles.
Thus two nations join hands,
To strengthen the East.
On the fourth day of the voyage I witnessed a maneuver of over seventy warships and I penned some more verses in an effort to forget my seasickness. Even before landing in Japan I was so flattered by the honors given me that I no longer knew who I was. I was not only impressed by the power demonstrated by the Japanese but also looked at it as a demonstration of respect for me. All my misgivings of the past I now attributed to my own misunderstandings.
On my arrival in Tokyo, the Emperor Hirohito personally came to the station to welcome me, and also gave me a big banquet. After I had paid him a visit of respect, he returned my visit. I also received many felicitations from important Japanese elder statesmen. I inspected troops with Hirohito and even participated in a ceremony at the Meiji Shrine. I also went to pay my special respects to Hirohito’s mother, the Japanese Empress Dowager. The Japanese press reported that as I strolled with her in the garden I used my hand to help her up a small slope as I had once helped my father up the steps of the palace in Changchun, but the truth is that I had never helped my father up a single step. On the last day of my visit, Prince Chichibu represented his older brother at the railroad station to bid me good-bye.
The treatment I received from the Japanese Imperial Household really went to my head, and the air seemed to have a different aroma to it now that I had paid an imperial state visit. Since I and the Emperor of Japan were equals, I reasoned, my status in Manchukuo was exactly like his in Japan. I therefore believed that the Japanese would treat me the same way they treated their own Emperor.
Intoxicated by these illusions, as soon as I returned to Changchun I asked the latest commander of the Kwantung Army, General Minami, to come to see me so that I could give him my impressions of the trip. On the following day, April 29, I participated in the celebration of Hirohito’s birthday, and on April 30 I sent for all the officials in the capital, Chinese and Japanese, to come to hear me talk about my visit. I had not discussed what I was going to say with the Japanese in advance and did not prepare a draft of my remarks for them to examine beforehand. In my talk I described in detail how the Japanese Emperor had entertained me, elaborated on the respect his subjects had shown me, and concluded by asserting that disloyalty to the Emperor of Manchukuo was the same as disloyalty to the Emperor of Japan.
Less than a month after my return to Changchun, the Commander of the Kwantung Army, during one of our routine meetings, told me that “Premier Cheng Hsiao-hsu wished to retire.” He advised me to grant the request and replace him with a new Prime Minister. I had already learned that Japan was dissatisfied with Cheng, and since I was also looking for an excuse to get rid of him, I immediately agreed and proposed that my Minister of Civil Affairs and Governor of Fengtien Province, Tsang Shih-yi, be appointed Cheng’s successor. I thought that General Minami, who had heard my views on Japan-Manchukuo friendship twice in recent days, would be bound to comply with my request. But to my surprise I ran straight into a brick wall.
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “The Kwantung Army has already considered the question and chosen a suitable man. Your Majesty need not worry about a thing. It would be better to let Chang Ching-hui be the Prime Minister.” 35
Not long before this, Cheng Hsiao-hsu had expressed his annoyance with the Japanese by saying that Manchukuo was no longer a child and that it should be let alone to take a walk. This remark had irritated his Japanese masters and they therefore kicked him aside. Cheng was not even allowed to draw his money out of the bank and was forbidden to move out of Changchun. Under constant surveillance, he could only practice calligraphy and compose poems at his home. He died suddenly three years later, a disappointed man. His son, Cheng Chui, met a sudden death a few years before his father, and it was rumored that both had been murdered by the Japanese. Even if this rumor were untrue, their tragic ends should have been enough to smash my illusions about the restoration of my ancestral heritage. Yet it took one more year after Cheng’s death, until it began to dawn on me what my position really was.
23
Illusions Vanish
FROM THE TIME OF ITS WITHDRAWAL FROM THE LEAGUE OF Nations in early 1933, Japan proceeded to prepare for war and the total invasion of China. Even before the July 7 incident in 1937,36 Japan continued to use armed force and engineered many coups in North China. M
eanwhile, the Nanking Government of the Kuomintang surrendered step by step and repeatedly indicated to Japan that it did not contemplate any anti-Japanese action, insisting that there was no reason for it to be against Japan. As a result, Japan’s influence was greatly strengthened within the Great Wall.
In view of all this and the fact that the Kwantung Army had ignored my advice in choosing a replacement for Cheng Hsiao-hsu, I should have understood the unreality of my position. But I was still utterly intoxicated and had not awakened from my dream. The first real taste of disillusion came over the Ling Sheng affair.
Ling Sheng was the son of a former Ch’ing military governor in Mongolia and had been an adviser at Chang Tso-lin’s headquarters. He had been one of the members of the delegation that had come to Port Arthur to urge me to become Chief Executive and had thus been listed as one of the “founders of the nation.” When he was suddenly arrested by the Kwantung Army in the spring of 1936 he was governor of a province of Manchuria.
According to Colonel Yasunori Yoshioka, the Kwantung Army’s “Attache to the Imperial Household,” Ling Sheng was arrested because he had been engaged in anti-Manchukuo and anti-Japanese activities. From other sources, however, I had been told that he was arrested because at a recent governors’ conference he had expressed complaints which irritated the Japanese. Apparently he had argued that the Kwantung Army had not fulfilled the promises Itagaki had made at Port Arthur concerning the recognition of Manchukuo as an independent country. Ling Sheng had claimed that as governor of Hsingan Province he had no real power or authority.
I found the news of his arrest especially disquieting because only six months previously my fourth sister had become engaged to his son. Just as I was debating whether I should discuss the matter with the Kwantung Army, the Commander came to see me.
“A few days ago we broke a case and the one who committed the crime was known to Your Majesty,” he explained. “It was the Governor of Hsingan Province, Ling Sheng. He had established an alliance with foreign countries to plot a revolt against Japan. A military tribunal has found him guilty of crimes against Japan and Manchukuo and he has been condemned to death.”
“Condemned to death,” I repeated in surprise.
“Yes, death. This will be a warning. By executing one, we warn another hundred.”
After he left, Colonel Yoshioka advised me to break off the engagement between my sister and Ling Sheng’s son, and I immediately complied.
Ling Sheng’s sentence was carried out by decapitation and several of his relatives were similarly executed at the same time. This was the first case of execution by the Japanese of a high Manchukuo official. Since Ling Sheng had sought a marriage relationship with my family, I had supposed he respected me and was loyal. Yet the Kwantung Army had judged him solely by his attitude toward Japan. The incident made me realize that the Japanese would apply the same standards to me, and when I thought of the Commanding General’s statement about killing one to warn a hundred, his remarks seemed most ominous.
The incident also made me think of a man whose fate had been the direct opposite of Ling Sheng’s—Chang Ching-hui, the new Prime Minister. Clearly the Japanese intended me to see the contrast between the two. How Chang Ching-hui had ingratiated himself with the Japanese is evident in a remark he once made at a Council of State meeting. “Japan and Manchukuo,” he stated, “are like two dragonflies tied to a single string.” On another occasion he said: “Manchukuo has thousands of square miles of land but the Manchurians are illiterate and ignorant. If the Japanese come to open virgin land and teach them modern techniques, both sides will benefit.”
When the Japanese stepped up their grain requisitions and bought up grain at a low fixed price, Chang Ching-hui pointed out that “soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army are giving their lives, and for us, the Manchurian people, to pay with grain is quite fair.” The Commander of the Kwantung Army was always praising Chang Ching-hui as a good minister and as a man who was adept at giving effect to Japanese-Manchukuo friendship.
After the Ling Sheng affair, I was even more deeply disturbed by a meeting I had with Prince Te.
Prince Te was a Mongol prince whom the Japanese had placed in charge of the “Inner Mongolian Autonomous Military Government.” When I had lived in Tientsin he had sent me money, and given well-bred Mongol ponies to Pu Chieh, and had shown his loyalty in many other ways. When he came to see me in Changchun he complained that the Japanese were too powerful and ambitious. After hearing his complaints, I couldn’t help but comfort him a little. I didn’t anticipate that on the following day, Colonel Yoshioka would come to see me with a grim expression on his face.
“What did Your Majesty discuss with Prince Te yesterday?” he asked.
Realizing that something was wrong, I said that we had only been talking about unimportant things.
“The talk you had yesterday,” Yoshioka said, “indicated some dissatisfaction with the Japanese, did it not?”
My heart began to pound. I knew that the only thing I could do was deny it. “That is a false statement manufactured by Prince Te,” I exclaimed.
Even though Yoshioka did not continue the inquiry, I was on edge and worried. How had the Japanese learned of my talk with Prince Te? There were two possibilities. Either the Japanese had installed some kind of listening device or Prince Te had acted as an informer. I spent a long time searching for a listening device, but since I found none I inclined to the view that Prince Te had deliberately tried to betray me. I thus learned from this incident, better than from the Ling Sheng affair, not to talk frankly with any outsider, and I became very cautious toward all visitors. As a matter of fact, there were very few and in 1937 the Kwantung Army insisted that Yoshioka, the Attache to the Imperial Household, should be present whenever I saw a visitor.
Many of the policies and laws to which I gave my assent in these days were connected with Japan’s war preparations and the strengthening of her rule over the Northeast. They included the First Five Year Plan for Developing Production, the Property Control Law, the Reorganization of the Government to strengthen Japanese rule, and the adoption of Japanese as a “national language.” But none of these had an impact on me equal to that of my brother Pu Chieh’s marriage.
After Pu Chieh had graduated from the school for children of the Japanese nobility in Tokyo, he had been transferred to the Japanese Army Cadet School. He returned to Changchun in the winter of 1935 and was appointed a second lieutenant in the Imperial Guard. From this time on, the Kwantung Army people who knew him were always bringing up the subject of his marriage. When I first heard about it, I only laughed it off and didn’t give it a thought. I didn’t anticipate that Yoshioka would come to see me to say that the Kwantung Army hoped that Pu Chieh would marry a Japanese girl in order to promote friendly relations between the two countries.
This suggestion made me uncomfortable and I discussed the problem with my second sister. We decided to get Pu Chieh a wife from Peking in order to forestall this Japanese plot, for it was now clear that the Japanese wished to obtain, via Pu Chieh, a child of Japanese descent who could succeed me on the throne, and I warned Pu Chieh that if there were a Japanese wife in the family the husband would be under the supervision of the Japanese. Pu Chieh respectfully promised not to marry a Japanese, but when Yoshioka put pressure on him by telling him that General Honjo, himself, was acting as matchmaker on his behalf in Tokyo, he obeyed the Kwantung Army. On April 3, 1937, he married Hiro Saga, daughter of Marquis Saga of Japan. Less than a month after their marriage, under instructions from the Kwantung Army, the Council of State passed a succession law by which Pu Chieh and his son would be the successors to the throne if I had no male offspring.
After Pu Chieh and his wife’s return from Tokyo I decided that I could no longer speak frankly in front of him or eat the food that his wife sent me. If Pu Chieh and I were dining together and there were food on the table prepared by his wife, I would wait until he had tasted the food first. Later, when Pu
Chieh was about to become a father, I became so worried for my own safety and even for his, that I consulted divination. I was sure the Kwantung Army was capable of killing us both in order to obtain an emperor of Japanese descent. However, when his wife gave birth to a daughter, I was very much relieved.
I even became worried about what would happen if I myself were to father a son. Would he be safe or not? For the Kwantung Army had asked me to sign a document saying that if there should be a crown prince he would be sent to Japan at the age of five and brought up under their control.
On July 7, 1937, when the fighting broke out that led to the Japanese occupation of Peking, some retired Ch’ing officials in Peking began to hope for a revival of the Great Ch’ing, but I now knew this was impossible. My only concerns were how to preserve my own safety in the face of the Japanese and how to deal with Yoshioka, the Attaché to the Imperial Household and the incarnation inside my own palace of the Kwantung Army.
24
Yasunori Yoshioka—My Adviser
IF ONE WERE TO COMPARE THE KWANTUNG ARMY TO A source of high-tension electric current and myself to an electric motor, then Yasunori Yoshioka was a wire of high conductivity.
A short man with a small moustache and high cheekbones, he never left me from the time he first came to the palace in 1935 to the Japanese surrender in 1945 when he was captured by the Soviet Army at the same time I was. During those years he rose from the rank of an army lieutenant colonel to lieutenant general. He had a dual status: one was a senior staff officer of the Kwantung Army and the other was “Attache to the Manchukuo Imperial Household.” This was a Japanese term, similar to the title of “Companion of the Inner Court” in Chinese, but it does not make much difference how one translates it, for the words do not describe his real function. He was in fact the piece of wire through which the Kwantung Army transmitted its intentions to me. The tours of inspection I made, the visitors I received, the protocol I observed, my admonitions to my subjects, the toasts I proposed, and even my nods and smiles were all under Yoshioka’s direction. He decided whom I should and should not see, the meetings I should attend, the speeches I delivered—everything.