Puyi

Puyi (Chinese: 溥儀; pinyin: Pǔ Yí; Wade–Giles: P'u-i; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967) was the last emperor of China, having reigned as the Xuantong Emperor of the Qing dynasty (1908–1912, with a brief restoration in 1917) and later as the Kangde Emperor of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state during World War II. After the war, he was held as a war criminal in the Soviet Union and China until 1959, when the Chinese Communist Party granted him amnesty and presented him as a model of successful reeducation.

In 1908, chosen by Empress Dowager Cixi to succeed the childless Guangxu Emperor, Puyi ascended the throne at age two with his father Prince Chun as regent. Following the Xinhai Revolution, Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication edict on Puyi's behalf; in return, the Articles of Favorable Treatment allowed him to retain his imperial title and remain in the Forbidden City. From 1 to 12 July 1917, the loyalist general Zhang Xun restored him to the throne. In 1924, warlord Feng Yuxiang expelled him from the palace, and Puyi took refuge in Tianjin.

Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Puyi was installed as chief executive of Manchukuo in 1932 and he was crowned emperor of Manchukuo in 1934. At the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, he was captured by the Soviet Red Army, testified at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946, and he was repatriated to the People's Republic of China in 1950. After his release in 1959, Puyi published an autobiography (ghostwritten by Li Wenda) and he worked as a gardener before he became a researcher at the Central Research Institute of Culture and History. In 1964, he was selected as a member of 4th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. After the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, he was protected by Zhou Enlai, and he died without issue in 1967.

Puyi was born on 7 February 1906 in Beijing. His father was Zaifeng, the Prince Chun. Zaifeng was a Manchu prince His great-grandfather was the Daoguang Emperor, his great-uncle was the Xianfeng Emperor, and his grandfather was Yixuan, the first person to hold the title of Prince Chun. Puyi's uncle, the Guangxu Emperor, was Puyi's immediate predecessor.

Puyi's mother was Youlan, of the Manchu Plain White Banner Gūwalgiya clan. Her father was Ronglu, who held the minor rank of Qiduyu in the nobility, and who was a close ally of Empress Dowager Cixi. He held a number of important positions in the government, including Minister of War and Chief Grand Councillor (1895–1898). He was also commandant of the Peking Field Force (1870–1879) and Beiping Police (1877–1879), a lieutenant-general of the Plain White Banner (1887), and chamberlain of the Imperial Bodyguard (1888). In 1895, he founded the Army of North China, the dominant military force in China until 1927. Zaifeng married Youlan in 1902.

Chosen by Empress Dowager Cixi, Puyi became emperor at the age of 2 years 10 months and 25 days in December 1908 after the Guangxu Emperor, Puyi's half-uncle, died childless on 14 November. Titled the Xuantong Emperor, Puyi's introduction to the life of an emperor began when palace officials arrived at his family residence to take him. On the evening of 13 November, without any advance notice, a procession of eunuchs and guardsmen led by the palace chamberlain left the Forbidden City for the Northern Mansion to inform Prince Chun that they were taking away his two-year-old son Puyi to be the new emperor. The toddler Puyi screamed and resisted as the officials ordered the eunuch attendants to pick him up. Puyi's parents said nothing when they learned that they were losing their son. As Puyi wept, screaming that he did not want to leave his parents, he was forced into a palanquin that took him to the Forbidden City. Wang Lianshou, Puyi's wet nurse, was the only person from the Northern Mansion allowed to go with him. Upon arriving at the Forbidden City, Puyi was taken to see Cixi. Puyi later wrote:

I still have a dim recollection of this meeting, the shock of which left a deep impression on my memory. I remember suddenly finding myself surrounded by strangers, while before me was hung a drab curtain through which I could see an emaciated and terrifying hideous face. This was Cixi. It is said that I burst out into loud howls at the sight and started to tremble uncontrollably. Cixi told someone to give me some sweets, but I threw them on the floor and yelled "I want nanny, I want nanny", to her great displeasure. "What a naughty child", she said. "Take him away to play."

Cixi died on 15 November, less than two days after the meeting. Puyi's father, Prince Chun, became Prince Regent. During Puyi's coronation in the Hall of Supreme Harmony on 2 December 1908, the young emperor was carried onto the Dragon Throne by his father. Puyi was frightened by the scene before him and the deafening sounds of ceremonial drums and music, and started crying. His father could do nothing except quietly comfort him: "Don't cry, it'll be over soon." Puyi wrote in his autobiography:

On 10 October 1911, the army garrison in Wuhan mutinied, sparking a widespread revolt in the Yangtze river valley and beyond, demanding the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, which had ruled China since 1644. The strongman general Yuan Shikai was dispatched by the court to crush the revolution, but was unable to, as by 1911 public opinion had turned decisively against the Qing, and many Chinese had no wish to fight for a dynasty that was seen as having lost the mandate of heaven. Puyi's father, Prince Chun, resigned as regent on 6 December, when Empress Dowager Longyu took over with Yuan Shikai as Prime Minister.

Empress Dowager Longyu endorsed the "Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor" on 12 February 1912, under a deal brokered by Yuan with the imperial court in Beijing and the Republicans in southern China. Puyi recalled in his autobiography the meeting between Longyu and Yuan:

The Dowager Empress was sitting on a kang [platform] in a side room of the Mind Nature Palace, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as a fat old man [Yuan] knelt before her on a red cushion, tears streaming down his face. I was sitting to the right of the widow and wondering why both adults were crying. There was no one in the room other than the three of us and everything was very quiet; the fat man snorted as he spoke and I couldn't understand what he was saying... This was the time when Yuan directly raised the question of abdication.

Under the "Articles of Favourable Treatment of the Great Qing Emperor after His Abdication", signed with the new Republic of China, Puyi was to retain his imperial title and be treated by the government of the Republic with the protocol attached to a foreign monarch. Puyi and the imperial court were allowed to remain in the northern half of the Forbidden City (the Private Apartments) as well as in the Summer Palace. An annual subsidy of four million silver taels was granted by the Republic to the imperial household, although it was never fully paid and was abolished after just a few years. Puyi was not informed in February 1912 that his reign had ended and China was now a republic, and continued to believe that he was still emperor for some time. In 1913, when Empress Dowager Longyu died, President Yuan arrived at the Forbidden City to pay his respects, which Puyi's tutors told him meant that major changes were afoot.

Puyi soon learned that the real reasons for the Articles of Favourable Settlement was that President Yuan was planning on restoring the monarchy with himself as the emperor of a new dynasty, and wanted to have Puyi as a sort of custodian of the Forbidden City until he could move in. Puyi first learned of Yuan's plans to become emperor when he brought in army bands to serenade him whenever he had a meal, and he started on a decidedly imperial take on the presidency. Puyi loathed Yuan as a "traitor" and decided to sabotage his plans to become emperor by hiding the Imperial Seals, only to be told by his tutors that he would just make new ones. In 1915, Yuan proclaimed himself as emperor, and he was planning to marry his daughter to Puyi, but had to abdicate in the face of popular opposition.

In 1917, the warlord Zhang Xun restored Puyi to the throne from 1 to 12 July. Zhang Xun ordered his army to keep their queues to display loyalty to the emperor. However, the then-Premier of the Republic of China, Duan Qirui, ordered a Caudron Type D plane, piloted by Pan Shizhong (潘世忠) with bombardier Du Yuyuan (杜裕源) from Nanyuan airfield, to drop three bombs over the Forbidden City as a show of force against Zhang Xun, causing the death of a eunuch, but otherwise inflicting minor damage. This is the first aerial bombardment recorded by a Chinese Air Force, and the restoration failed due to extensive opposition across China.

On 3 March 1919, the Scottish scholar and diplomat Reginald Johnston arrived in the Forbidden City to serve as Puyi's tutor. President Xu Shichang believed the monarchy would eventually be restored, and to prepare Puyi for the challenges of the modern world had hired Johnston to teach Puyi "subjects such as political science, constitutional history and English". Johnston was allowed only five texts in English to give Puyi to read: Alice in Wonderland and translations into English of the "Four Great Books" of Confucianism; the Analects, the Mencius, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean. But he disregarded the rules, and taught Puyi about world history with a special focus on British history. Besides history, Johnston taught Puyi philosophy and about what he saw as the superiority of monarchies to republics. Puyi remembered that his tutor's piercing blue eyes "made me feel uneasy ... I found him very intimidating and studied English with him like a good boy, not daring to talk about other things when I got bored ... as I did with my other Chinese tutors".

As the only person capable of controlling Puyi, Johnston had much more influence than his title of English tutor would suggest, as the eunuchs began to rely on him to steer Puyi away from his more capricious moods. Under the Scotsman's influence, Puyi started to insist that his eunuchs address him as "Henry" and later his wife Wanrong as "Elizabeth" as Puyi began to speak "Chinglish", a mixture of Mandarin and English that became his preferred mode of speech. Puyi recalled of Johnston: "I thought everything about him was first-rate. He made me feel that Westerners were the most intelligent and civilised people in the world and that he was the most learned of Westerners" and that "Johnston had become the major part of my soul". In May 1919, Puyi noticed the protests in Beijing generated by the May Fourth Movement as thousands of Chinese university students protested against the decision by the great powers at the Paris peace conference to award the former German concessions in Shandong together with the former German colony of Qingdao to Japan. For Puyi, the May Fourth Movement, which he asked Johnston about, was a revelation as it marked the first time in his life that he noticed that people outside the Forbidden City had concerns that were not about him. After his first interview with the emperor, the British academic recorded his impressions in a report addressed to the British authorities; in this document Johnston mentions:

The Forbidden City had long suffered from corruption and theft by the eunuchs. According to Puyi, by the end of his wedding ceremony, the pearls and jade in the empress's crown had been stolen. After his wedding, Puyi began to take control of the palace and reform the household. Inspired by Johnston, Puyi ordered an inventory of the Forbidden City's treasures, but on 27 June 1923, a fire destroyed the area around the Palace of Established Happiness. Puyi suspected it was arson to cover theft. In response, a month after the fire, he evicted almost all the eunuchs from the palace with the support of the Beiyang Army. Runqi recalled: "But after the eunuchs went, many of the palaces inside the Forbidden City were closed down, and the place took on a desolate, abandoned air."

After the Great Kantō earthquake on 1 September 1923 destroyed the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, Puyi donated jade antiques worth some £33,000 to pay for disaster relief, which led a delegation of Japanese diplomats to visit the Forbidden City to express their thanks. To continue reform efforts, Puyi appointed Zheng Xiaoxu as minister of Household Department, and Zheng hired Tong Jixu, a former Beiyang Army officer, as chief of operations. These efforts did not last long before Puyi was forced out of the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang.

On 23 October 1924, a coup led by the warlord Feng Yuxiang took control of Beijing. Feng, the latest of the warlords to take Beijing, was seeking political legitimacy and decided that abolishing the unpopular Articles of Favourable Settlement was an easy way to win the crowd's approval. His contemporary supporters stated that Marshal Feng wanted to make clear to the people that China was an established republic. Feng unilaterally revised the "Articles of Favourable Treatment" on 5 November 1924, abolishing Puyi's imperial title and privileges and reducing him to a private citizen of the Republic of China. Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City the same day. He was given three hours to leave. He spent a few days at the house of his father Prince Chun, and then temporarily resided in the Japanese embassy in Beijing. Puyi left his father's house together with Johnston and his chief servant Big Li without informing Prince Chun's servants, slipped his followers, and went to the Japanese legation. Puyi had originally wanted to go to the British Legation, but Johnston had insisted that he would be safer with the Japanese. For Johnston, the system where the Japanese people worshipped their emperor as a living god was much closer to his ideal than the British constitutional monarchy, and he constantly steered Puyi in a pro-Japanese direction.

However, Johnston tried to get the British diplomatic legation in Beijing to host Puyi, and although the British authorities were not very interested in welcoming the former emperor, the British representative eventually gave Johnston his consent. However, Johnston later discovered that Puyi – in view of the situation and that Johnston was not returning from his efforts – had taken refuge in the Japanese legation after being advised by Zheng Xiaoxu. The Japanese diplomat Kenkichi Yoshizawa gave Puyi the regards of the Japanese government, saying, "Our government has formally acknowledged Your Majesty's taking refuge in our legation and will provide protection for you." Puyi's adviser Lu Zongyu, who was secretly working for the Japanese, suggested that Puyi move to Tianjin, which he argued was safer than Beijing, though the real reason was that the Japanese felt that Puyi would be easier to control in Tianjin without the embarrassment of having him live in the Japanese Legation, which was straining relations with China. On 23 February 1925, Puyi left Beijing for Tianjin wearing a simple Chinese gown and skullcap as he was afraid of being robbed on the train. Puyi described his train journey to Tianjin, saying, "At every stop between Beijing and Tianjin several Japanese policeman and special agents in black suits would get on the train so that, by the time we reached Tianjin, my special car was almost half occupied by them."

In February 1925, Puyi moved to the Japanese concession of Tianjin, first into the Zhang Garden, and in 1929 into the former residence of Lu Zongyu known as the Garden of Serenity. A British journalist, Henry Woodhead, called Puyi's court a "doggy paradise" as both Puyi and Wanrong were dog lovers who owned several very spoiled dogs while Puyi's courtiers spent an inordinate amount of time feuding with one another. Woodhead stated that the only people who seemed to get along at Puyi's court were Wanrong and Wenxiu, who were "like sisters". Tianjin was, after Shanghai, the most cosmopolitan Chinese city, with large British, French, German, Russian and Japanese communities. As an emperor, Puyi was allowed to join several social clubs that normally only admitted whites. During this period, Puyi and his advisers Chen Baochen, Zheng Xiaoxu, and Luo Zhenyu discussed plans to restore Puyi as Emperor. Zheng and Luo favoured enlisting assistance from external parties, while Chen opposed the idea. In June 1925, Puyi was visited by Zhang Zuolin the warlord who ruled Manchuria. Zhang promised to restore the Qing in exchange for financial assistance for his army. Zhang warned Puyi in a "roundabout way" not to trust his Japanese friends. Zhang received funds from the Japanese, but by this time his relations with the Kwantung Army were becoming strained. In June 1927, Zhang captured Beijing and Behr observed that if Puyi had returned to Beijing, he might have been restored to the Dragon Throne. Puyi was quoted to have said, in a 1927 article in The Illustrated London News, that "I never wish to be Emperor again".

Puyi's court was prone to factionalism and his advisers were urging him to back different warlords, which gave him a reputation for duplicity as he negotiated with various warlords, which strained his relations with Marshal Zhang. At various times, Puyi met Zhang Zongchang, the "Dogmeat General", and the White Russian émigré general Grigory Semyonov at his Tianjin house; both of them promised to restore him to the Dragon Throne if he gave them enough money, and both of them kept the money he gave them for themselves. Another visitor was Colonel Kenji Doihara, a Japanese army officer fluent in Mandarin, who flattered Puyi and encouraged him to seek restoration in Manchuria.

In 1928, during the Northern Expedition to reunify China, Sun Dianying, a warlord who had switched allegiances from Zhang to Chiang Kai-shek after the latter's Kuomintang army took Beijing from Zhang, sacked the Qing tombs outside Beijing. The news that the Qing tombs had been plundered and the corpse of Empress Dowager Cixi desecrated deeply offended Puyi. He never forgave the Kuomintang and held Chiang personally responsible—partly due to allegations that Kuomintang leaders, including Madame Chiang, had accepted bribes from Sun's looting. The incident underscored Puyi’s painful realization of his lack of powerful support and contributed to his decision to turn to the Japanese.

During his time in Tianjin, Puyi was besieged with visitors asking him for money, including various members of the vast house of Aisin-Gioro, old Manchu bannermen, journalists prepared to write articles calling for a Qing restoration for the right price, and eunuchs who had once lived in the Forbidden City and were now living in poverty. Puyi was often bored with his life, and engaged in maniacal shopping to compensate, recalling that he was addicted to "buying pianos, watches, clocks, radios, Western clothes, leather shoes, and spectacles".

Puyi's first wife, Wanrong, continued to smoke opium recreationally during this period. Their marriage began to fall apart as they spent more and more time apart, meeting only at mealtimes. Puyi wrote in his memoir:

In September 1931, Puyi sent a letter to Jirō Minami, the Japanese Minister of War, expressing his desire to be restored to the throne. On the night of 18 September 1931, the Mukden incident began when the Japanese Kwantung Army blew up a section of railroad belonging to the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad company and blamed the warlord Marshal Zhang Xueliang. On this pretext the Kwantung Army began a general offensive with the aim of conquering all of Manchuria. Puyi was visited by Kenji Doihara, head of the espionage office of the Japanese Kwantung Army, who proposed establishing Puyi as head of a Manchurian state. The Japanese further bribed a café worker to tell Puyi that a contract was out on his life in an attempt to frighten Puyi into moving.

The Empress Wanrong was firmly against Puyi's plans to go to Manchuria, which she called treason, and for a moment Puyi hesitated, leading Doihara to send for Puyi's relative, the very pro-Japanese Yoshiko Kawashima (also known as "Eastern Jewel", Dongzhen), to visit him to change his mind. In the Tientsin Incident of November 1931, Puyi and Zheng Xiaoxu travelled to Manchuria to complete plans for the puppet state of Manchukuo. Puyi left his house in Tianjin by hiding in the trunk of a car. The Chinese government ordered his arrest for treason, but was unable to breach the Japanese protection. Puyi boarded a Japanese ship that took him across the Bohai, and when he landed in Port Arthur (modern Lüshun), he was greeted by the Japanese agent Masahiko Amakasu, who escorted him to a resort owned by the South Manchurian Railroad company. Chen Baochen returned to Beijing, where he died in 1935.

Once he arrived in Manchuria, Puyi discovered that he was a prisoner and was not allowed outside the Yamato Hotel, ostensibly to protect him from assassination. Wanrong had stayed in Tianjin, and remained opposed to Puyi's decision to work with the Japanese, requiring her friend Kawashima to visit numerous times to convince her to go to Manchuria. Wanrong ultimately accepted Kawashimas's argument that it was her duty as a wife to follow her husband, and six weeks after the Tientsin incident, she too crossed the East China Sea to Port Arthur escorted by Kawashima.

In early 1932, General Seishirō Itagaki informed Puyi that the new state was to be a republic with him as Chief Executive; the capital was to be Changchun; his form of address was to be "Your Excellency", not "Your Imperial Majesty"; and that Manchukuo would have a national assembly, all of which displeased Puyi, as it went against his idea of a restored Qing empire. When Puyi objected to these plans, Itagaki suggested that in a few years Manchukuo might adopt the monarchy. The next day Itagaki told Puyi there would be no alternative to this proposal. Zheng Xiaoxu, who had been promised the position of prime minister of Manchukuo, persuaded Puyi to accept these terms. In Japanese propaganda, Puyi was always celebrated both in traditionalist terms as a Confucian "Sage King" out to restore virtue and as a revolutionary who would end the oppression of the common people by a program of wholesale modernisation.

Puyi accepted the Japanese offer and on 1 March 1932 was installed as the Chief Executive of Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan, under the era name Datong. One contemporary commentator, Wen Yuan-ning, quipped that Puyi had now achieved the dubious distinction of having been "made emperor three times without knowing why and apparently without relishing it." A New York Times article from 1933 stated: "There is probably no more democratic or friendlier ruler in the world than Henry Pu-yi, former Emperor of China and now Chief Executive of the new State of Manchukuo."

Puyi believed that his reign over Manchukuo was just the beginning, and he believed that within a few years, he would reign as Emperor of China again, having the yellow imperial dragon robes which were used for the coronation of Qing emperors brought from Beijing to Changchun. At the time, Japanese propaganda depicted the birth of Manchukuo as a triumph of Pan-Asianism, with the "five races" of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Manchus, and Mongols coming together, which marked nothing less than the birth of a new civilisation and a turning point in world history. A press statement issued on 1 March 1932 stated: "The glorious advent of Manchukuo with the eyes of the world turned on it was an epochal event of far-reaching consequence in world history, marking the birth of a new era in government, racial relations, and other affairs of general interest. Never in the chronicles of the human race was any State born with such high ideals, and never has any State accomplished so much in such a brief space of its existence as Manchukuo".

On 8 March 1932, Puyi made his ceremonial entry into Changchun, sharing his car with Zheng, who was beaming with joy, Amakasu, whose expression was stern as usual, and Wanrong, who looked miserable. Puyi also noted he was "too preoccupied with my hopes and hates" to realise the "cold comfort that the Changchun citizens, silent from terror and hatred, were giving me". Puyi's friend, the British journalist Woodhead wrote, "outside official circles, I met no Chinese who felt any enthusiasm for the new regime", and that the city of Harbin was being terrorised by Chinese and Russian gangsters working for the Japanese, making Harbin "lawless ... even its main street unsafe after dark". In an interview with Woodhead, Puyi said he planned to govern Manchukuo "in the Confucian spirit" and that he was "perfectly happy" with his new position.

On 20 April 1932, the Lytton Commission arrived in Manchuria to begin its investigation of whether Japan had committed aggression. Puyi was interviewed by Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, and recalled thinking that he desperately wanted to ask him for political asylum in Britain, but as General Itagaki was sitting right next to him at the meeting, he told Lytton that "the masses of the people had begged me to come, that my stay here was absolutely voluntary and free". After the interview, Itagaki told Puyi: "Your Excellency's manner was perfect; you spoke beautifully". The diplomat Wellington Koo, who was attached to the commission as its Chinese assessor, received a secret message saying "... a representative of the imperial household in Changchun wanted to see me and had a confidential message for me". The representative, posing as an antique dealer, "... told me he was sent by the Empress: She wanted me to help her escape from Changchun. He said she found life miserable there because she was surrounded in her house by Japanese maids. Every movement of hers was watched and reported". Koo said he was "touched" but could do nothing to help Wanrong escape, which her brother Runqi said was the "final blow" to her, leading her into a downward spiral. Right from the start, the Japanese occupation had sparked much resistance by guerrillas, whom the Kwantung Army called "bandits". General Doihara was able in exchange for a multi-million dollar bribe to get one of the more prominent guerrilla leaders, the Manchu general Ma Zhanshan, to accept Japanese rule, and had Puyi appoint him Defence Minister. Much to the intense chagrin of Puyi and his Japanese masters, Ma's defection turned out to be a ruse, and only months after Puyi appointed him Defence Minister, Ma took his troops over the border to the Soviet Union to continue the struggle against the Japanese.

Japanese emperor Hirohito wanted to see if Puyi was reliable before giving him an imperial title, and it was not until October 1933 that General Doihara told him he was to be an emperor again, causing Puyi to go, in his own words, "wild with joy", though he was disappointed that he was not given back his old title of "Great Qing Emperor". At the same time, Doihara informed Puyi that "the Emperor [of Japan] is your father and is represented in Manchukuo as the Kwantung army which must be obeyed like a father". Manchukuo was immediately infamous for its high crime rate, as Japanese-sponsored gangs of Chinese, Korean, and Russian gangsters fought one another for the control of opium houses, brothels, and gambling dens. There were nine different Japanese or Japanese-sponsored police/intelligence agencies operating in Manchukuo, who were all told by Tokyo that Japan was a poor country and that they were to pay for their own operations by engaging in organised crime. The Italian adventurer Amleto Vespa remembered that General Kenji Doihara told him Manchuria was going to have to pay for its own exploitation. In 1933, Simon Kaspé, a French Jewish pianist visiting his father in Manchukuo, who owned a hotel in Harbin, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by an anti-Semitic gang from the Russian Fascists. The Kaspé case became an international cause célèbre, attracting much media attention around the world, ultimately leading to two trials in Harbin in 1935 and 1936, as the evidence that the Russian fascist gang who had killed Kaspé was working for the Kempeitai, the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army, had become too strong for even Tokyo to ignore. Puyi was portrayed as having saved the people from the chaotic Zhang family rule, with the help of the Kwantung Army. Manchukuo's high crime rate, and the much publicised Kaspé case, made a mockery of the claim that Puyi had saved the people of Manchuria from a lawless and violent regime.

On 1 March 1934, Puyi was crowned Emperor of Manchukuo, under the regnal title "Kangde" in Changchun. Wanrong was excluded from the coronation: her addiction to opium and anti-Japanese feelings had made her embarrassing for Puyi. Though submissive in public to the Japanese, Puyi was constantly at odds with them in private. He resented being "Chief Executive" and then "Emperor of Manchukuo" rather than being fully restored as a Qing Emperor. At his enthronement, he clashed with Japan over dress; they wanted him to wear a military uniform, whereas he wanted to wear the traditional Manchu robes. In a typical compromise, he wore a Western military uniform to his enthronement and a dragon robe to the announcement of his accession at the Temple of Heaven. Puyi was driven to his coronation in a Lincoln limousine with bulletproof windows followed by nine Packards, and during his coronation scrolls were read out while sacred wine bottles were opened for the guests to celebrate the beginning of a "Reign of Tranquillity and Virtue". The invitations for the coronation were issued by the Kwantung Army and 70% of those who attended Puyi's coronation were Japanese. Time magazine published an article about Puyi's coronation in March 1934.

The Japanese chose Changchun as Manchukuo's capital, which was renamed Xinjing. Puyi had wanted the capital to be Mukden (modern Shenyang), which had been the Qing capital before the conquest of the Ming in 1644, but was overruled by his Japanese masters. Puyi hated Xinjing, which he regarded as an undistinguished industrial city that lacked the historical connections with the Qing that Mukden had. As there was no palace in Changchun, Puyi moved into what had once been the office of the Salt Tax Administration during the Russian period, and as result, the building was known as Salt Tax Palace, which is now the Museum of the Imperial Palace of Manchukuo. Puyi lived there as a virtual prisoner and could not leave without permission. Shortly after Puyi's coronation, his father arrived at the Xinjing railroad station for a visit. Prince Chun told his son that he was an idiot if he really believed that the Japanese were going to restore him to the Dragon Throne, and warned him that he was just being used. The Japanese embassy issued a note of diplomatic protest at the welcome extended to Prince Chun, stating that the Xinjing railroad station was under the Kwantung Army's control, that only Japanese soldiers were allowed there, and that they would not tolerate the Manchukuo imperial guard being used to welcome visitors at the Xinjing railroad station again.

In this period, Puyi frequently visited the provinces of Manchukuo to open factories and mines, took part in the birthday celebrations for Hirohito at Kwantung Army headquarters and, on the Japanese holiday of Memorial Day, formally paid his respects with Japanese rituals to the souls of the Japanese soldiers killed fighting the "bandits"—as the Japanese called all the guerrillas fighting against their rule of Manchuria. Following the example in Japan, schoolchildren in Manchukuo at the beginning of every school day kowtowed first in the direction of Tokyo and then to a portrait of Puyi in the classroom. Puyi found this "intoxicating". He visited a coal mine and in his rudimentary Japanese thanked the Japanese foreman for his good work, who burst into tears as he thanked the emperor; Puyi later wrote that "The treatment I received really went to my head."

Whenever the Japanese wanted a law passed, the relevant decree was dropped off at Salt Tax Palace for Puyi to sign, which he always did. Puyi signed decrees expropriating vast tracts of farmland to Japanese colonists and a law declaring certain thoughts to be "thought crimes", leading Behr to note: "In theory, as 'Supreme Commander', he thus bore full responsibility for Japanese atrocities committed in his name on anti-Japanese 'bandits' and patriotic Chinese citizens." Behr further noted the "Empire of Manchukuo", billed as an idealistic state where the "five races" of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Manchus, and Mongols had come together in Pan-Asian brotherhood, was in fact "one of the most brutally run countries in the world – a textbook example of colonialism, albeit of the Oriental kind". American historian Carter Eckert wrote that the differences in power could be seen in that the Kwantung Army had a "massive" headquarters in downtown Xinjing while Puyi had to live in the "small and shabby" Salt Tax Palace close to the main railroad station in a part of Xinjing with numerous small factories, warehouses, and slaughterhouses, the chief prison, and the red-light district.

Behr commented that Puyi knew from his talks in Tianjin with General Kenji Doihara and General Seishirō Itagaki that he was dealing with "ruthless men and that this might be the regime to expect". Puyi later recalled that: "I had put my head in the tiger's mouth" by going to Manchuria in 1931.