MCLC: author unravels plot to topple Puyi

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: author unravels plot to topple Puyi
***********************************************************

Source: The Telegraph (5/10/13):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10050528/Author-unrave
ls-mystery-of-plot-that-toppled-Chinas-last-emperor.html

Author unravels mystery of plot that toppled China's last emperor
It has taken more than 100 years to come to light, but the web of intrigue
and corruption that toppled China's last emperor has finally been pieced
together by a Chinese historian.Puyi was China's last emperor
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing

Plucked from his home as a toddler and declared a living god, Puyi was
taken wailing and screaming to the Forbidden City to continue more than
2,000 years of imperial rule, aged just two years and 10 months.

But just a few years later in 1912, as China boiled with revolution, his
own adoptive mother, the Empress Dowager Longyu, signed abdication papers
forcing him from the Dragon Throne.

Ever since, students of the end of the imperial dynasty have puzzled over
why she appeared so willing to do so. Now Jia Yinghua, a 60-year-old
historian and former government official, has discovered the answer: she
was bribed with 20,000 taels, or 1700lb, of silver, and warned she might
end up being beheaded if she refused.

"What happened is so sensitive it has taken more than 100 years before it
can be revealed," said Mr Jia, who assembled his latest work, The
Extraordinary Life of the Last Emperor, from the secret archives at
Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound, and from interviews with
relations of the imperial courtiers.

Puyi, whose life was featured in the film The Last Emperor by Bernardo
Bertolucci, is still a figure of public fascination in China. "He was
unique," said Mr Jia. "He lived through three dynasties. The entire tumult
of China's last century can be summed up in him. He went from emperor to
gardener, and in his last years he hung a picture of himself with Chairman
Mao on his bedstead."

Indeed the key moments of Puyi's life strike a familiar chord even today,
making some of the details of his biography still too sensitive to be
published in China.

"The time of his abdication was a time of corrupting and buying government
officials," said Mr Jia.

The imperial court in the last days of the Qing dynasty was a shadow of
its former self. Foreign countries, particularly Britain, had humbled the
Qing in battle, carved out rich territories and extracted huge payments.

Starved of income, the Qing court had even pawned the lavish silk robes of
Puyi's predecessor, the Guangxu emperor, said Mr Jia.

Outside the Forbidden City, uprisings were sweeping the land as citizens
called for a republic.

In order to stabilise the situation, the court appointed Yuan Shikai, a
general with influence over a powerful northern army, to be prime minister.

But according to Mr Jia, Mr Yuan was determined to remove the last emperor
from power, by turns cajoling, threatening and then bribing key figures at
court.

Not only did he bribe Puyi's adoptive mother, but he also corrupted her
closest eunuch, Xiao Dezheng, and Prince Yikuang, one of the most powerful
men at court, said Mr Jia.
"In 1911, The Times reported that Prince Yikuang had two million silver
dollars in his Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank account," said Mr Jia. "That
was the result of bribes to remove the monarch."

The eunuch, meanwhile, received a similar sum, equivalent to more than £1
billion in today's money. He used it to build a house in Tianjin stuffed
with treasures looted from the palace.

In return, the eunuch told the Dowager Empress that she would be rich if
she signed the abdication papers. "And if she refused, she would end up
like Louis XVI during the French Revolution: beheaded," said Mr Jia.

Mr Yuan did not stop there. He put pressure on the court by masterminding
a series of threatening letters.

"He had a good relationship with the Russian embassy and he asked them to
write a letter saying if you do not sign the papers, the Western powers
would force it through anyway," said Mr Jia, citing the archives at
Zhongnanhai.

Mr Yuan also secretly authored a telegram from 44 army commanders calling
for the empire to dissolve, according to the notes of his aide, Zeng Yujun.
After abdicating, Puyi was forced to leave the Forbidden City and briefly
became a puppet ruler for the Japanese in a corner of North East China
that they had conquered.

After the Communist Party came to power, Puyi was treated cordially by
Chairman Mao and was eventually allowed to live out his days in Beijing,
for a while working in the Botanical Gardens. He died in 1967, from
complications of kidney cancer and heart disease.