CHINA'S LAST EMPEROR - PUYI'S FASCINATING BIOGRAPHY
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
- Aisingioro Puyi, the last emperor of China, fell from son of heaven to citizen. In his tumultuous life, he would be crowned three times, in the Qing dynasty, Republic of China, and Manchukuo. In this first part of my Emperor Puyi documentary, I explain how Puyi was selected by the dying empress dowager Cixi to become emperor Xuantong, and the Xinhai Revolution which led to his abdication 3 years later. I shed light on Zhang Xun's Manchu Restoration of 1917, Puyi's education under sir Reginald Johston and his eviction from the Forbidden City. Finally, I detail his life in Tianjin with the Japanese, and the creation of Manchukuo.
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♫ MUSIC ♫
Total War Three Kingdoms - Bitter Winds
Total War Shogun 2 - Resolve
Total War Three Kingdoms - Champion
Total War Three Kingdoms - Oath of the Peach Garden
Fuzhan (To Battle)
Lost in the Forest
Total War Three Kingdoms - A Noble Legacy
Total War Three Kingdoms - The Yellow River
China Heroically Stands in the Universe
Total War Three Kingdoms - Unite the Realms
Total War Shogun 2 - Ebb and Flow
Joy and Peace (Guzheng)
Mountain Stream
Total War Three Kingdoms - Wuxing
Civilization VI - Winter Flower
Total War Three Kingdoms - Besieged
Restless Native
Night Raid
Civilization VI - Guzheng improv 2
Civilization V - Washington War Theme
Total War Three Kingdoms - End of an Era
Drizzle (毛毛雨)
Total War Shogun 2 - Point of No Return
The Loyalist - Lotus Lane
🎬 VIDEO CREDITS 🎬
Legend of the Last Emperor (2014)
1911 (2011)
The Founding of a Party (2011)
China: The Roots of Madness (1967)
Kawashima Yoshiko (1990)
📜 MAIN SOURCES 📜
The Last Emperor (1987), Edward S. Behr
Scottish Mandarin: The Life and Times of Sir Reginald Johnston (2012), Shiona Airlie
Timeline of the Ming & Qing Palace Events (The Palace Museum website)
Twilight in the Forbidden City (1934), Sir Reginald F. Johnston
From Emperor to Citizen (2007), Aisingiori Puyi
🏷️ TAGS 🏷️
emperor xuantong documentary
puyi biography
emperor puyi
last emperor of china
last qing emperor
fall of the qing dynasty
collapse of the qing dynasty
xinhai revolution
sir Reginald Johnston
reginald johnston tutor
empress dowager cixi
manchu restoration
Introduction: (0:00)
Context: (00:35)
Child emperor: (03:31)
Xinhai revolution: (05:35)
The republic: (09:31)
Manchu Restoration: (12:05)
Reginald Johnston: (14:18)
Puyi's wedding: (17:02)
Growing up: (19:16)
Evicted!: (22:01)
Tianjin: (24:38)
The Mukden incident: (29:34)
Conclusion: (31:40)
Imagine being a Chinese uncle working as a store clerk, and the kid emperor calls you for a prank😂
Wenxiu eventually became a teacher and remarried. Her second marriage to Liu Zendong was much more successful. He was by her side when she died in 1953. Puyi commented Wenxiu demonstrated great courage and willpower knowing her wish was greatly disapproved. Sadly Wanrong who treated Wenxiu badly would be left behind while Puyi tried to escape after the fall of Manchouko. She died in prison from opium withdrawal and malnutrition in 1946. Puyi heard of her death in 1951 and was said to have no emotion at the news. No one knows where her grave is. In 2006 her half brother had a ritual burial for Wanrong at the Western Quing tombs. Eastern Jewel was arrested in Beijing in 1948, charged with treason and was executed as a traitor. Her body was cremated and her ashes sent back to her adoptive family in Japan.
Did not expect such a long video after that almost hour long comeback 2 weeks ago. Beautiful.
Thank you for reuploading again, truly a more nuance and humain portrayal of the person. The few who have covered this on CZcams did such a dull surface level framing of an evil bad guy
Will there be a part 2?
Thank you! I'm working on the part 2, which should be up in a few days :)
Fun fact: Pujie's son is the current head of the aisin gioro family.
There is a great movie about Puyi’s Life called The Last Emperor. I highly recommend it. It even won an Oscar.
This video is a reupload because the guy actually used the clips from The Last Emperor but was taken down by the company behind the movie. The reupload had some new content and used a more recent adaptation of Puyi's life and some new photos to fill in the void.
The Last Emperor is good as a movie, but I would not fully understand the story, if I had not known the more detailed history behind it.
The crippled people of the Qing dynasty and all these degraded and living in yesterday's world people in the forbidden city, terrible.
Forget anakin skywalker. This guy grew up with a very serious chosen one complex. He thought he was all that and he wasn’t
He grew up being told that in every way.
@@amypagekaviani5661 as someone whose worked with early childhood aged children, I can say that’s the best way to make sure they never age out of the egocentric stage
@@michellecrocker2485 All of the males Empress Cixi chose did not have a chance!
@@amypagekaviani5661 you know they didn’t. She liked pushing for child emperors ( in particular, relatives) probably because she got to control them for a while and she liked that
Thank you for your video. China has an interesting and hard history.
Thank you so much for reuploading and remastering this!
Glad to see you back!
I learned so much from this. Thank you! 🙏
This was indeed a fascinating biography, might be your best video ever!
Thank you for all of your hard work on these
The weight he prbly felt with all that history behind him , must have been enormous
Excellent!
I'm not Chinese but this bio of Puyi still gives me goosebumpsof his life
last time I was this early, Puyi was emperor
Amazing how I always see you comment on 90% of channels I regularly watch
He's now puppet emperor of Manchukuo
一觉醒来，人已经…
I used to rule the world,
seas would rise when I gave the word.
Now every morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own…..
Considering Puyi was a street sweeper, this song is a perfect fit for him.
Missed your uploads. Welcome back.
It wasn't proven that Guangxu was assassinated but he definitely died in solitude confinement (To the people of the outside world at least..). Now, Guangxu's fame was rather hot.
So after the 2nd Opium War and the loss to the French during the Sino-French War over in Vietnam/Indochina, China thought all was great and they can keep doing what they're doing but then came the Japanese and the final blow came in 1895 when it got royally spanked by of all people, the Japanese.
So after these defeats, Guangxu, as a teen before he even got on the hot seat, came up with a plan for total annihilation of the court and rebuilt it from the ground up with revolutionary ideals and he set it up into motion which would eventually be called later on as the disastrous "100 Days Reform".
What the plan entrails is fascinating. Some of the few things he did was cut down on court expenditure by massively reducing household income like food and buying power by shoring the treasury, employ more foreign advisors to retrain the army into a new-age army on how to use actual modern guns and artillery, abolish tons of jobs that does nothing much but sucks more money from the treasury, build the nation's first general university in Peking/Beijing, push for rapid industrialization no matter what ways and most importantly, changing the whole court system from a totalitarian style into a constitutional monarchy.
Cixi initially agreed with all the other terms but upon realizing that the last clause would meant that she would lose power against some pesky minister and "nobody" that the people had picked on how the country would be ran, she flipped and started a backstabbing move against Guangxu with both Ronglu and Yuan Shikai, the only leading military figure in the whole of China with a massive modern force that can basically take on both the Qing's pathetic army and the westerners. With the support of the conservatives who had feared of their positions from being abolished and with the calls of Prince Duan, they started a coup de'tat in 1898 and placed Guangxu in house arrest till his death in 1908.
Now... No one really knew how Guangxu really died except for a few "historians" in the palace. Many speculated that he was poisoned by many factions which included Cixi before she died in fears that he might revise everything she did or his death was done in by Yuan Shikai as Yuan knew he would be executed as a traitorous scum for what he did. However, his policy would have worked as he tried to do it progressively and in control whereas Cixi took it, dumped it all out and did it with a "full steam ahead" philosophy which was a total disaster and poor Puyi had to take the brunt.
A comment and a book are two different things.
Well made documentary
HES BACK
Its a worthy of waiting thanks bro welcome back
Puyi was largely a victim of circumstance, and was cynically used by the Kwantung Army to achieve their ends in establishing Manchukuo in 1931. Everyone in China knew that he was a puppet, and it would not have benefited Mao to execute Puyi.
A bored teenager with access to a phone would make for some interesting conversation. I have to think he discovered crank calling with this thing
Here to support Guy and the Gang.
From what I've read, Empress Dowager wanted changes, but the Emperor did want any changes to his realm. And he never recieved somewhat modern education.
Wow new update
Can you do a feature episode about Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and Northern Expedition
Technically, Puyi was not the last Emperor. The second President of the Republic, Yuan Shikai, restored the Empire in December 1915. He returned Puyi to power, then Puyi abdicated in favour of Yuan Shikai, who was then declared himself Emperor. He reigned for 83 days, after which he was removed by a popular uprising and by international pressure.
Very good but i looking forward more to the dark legacy of Hongwu Emperor and the rest of the episodes about the ming Emperors up to 1644.:D
2nd part?
What happened to the rest of the story? his child's birth and death the bombing of Shanghai ext.... I have seen the movie well not in the last 20 years but I read the book 10-15 years ago and I suggest to anyone who loves history to read the book it's excellent.
What series are the scenes from? I really want to watch it. I love a good period piece.
@TuskTheRipper96 1911
@@kingme974 thank you!
Video credits are in the description :) I used clips from both a few movies and series.
Sun Yat-Sen documentary?
All empires come crashing down, but this was a LONG yet steady decline.
for better or for worse, the Qing dynasty had the most competent roster of emperors, if we ignore the last joker, but the system was too archaic to compete with the western great powers.
why were the previous videos about puyi deleted?
Copyright issues! The legal owners of the 1987 movie 'The Last Emperor' didn't approve of my using clips from that masterpiece to illustrate my documentary...
@@History_of_China oh :c this version is better anyway and has more information on puyi
Xi jin ping is China's final emperor.
The episode is back!!!
New film ! Legend comeback
The story between he and his arraigned wife is one of the saddest tales I have ever read.
Didn’t you already make 2 puyi videos?
Copyright struck
They were unfortunately taken down indeed. This is a reupload, in a somewhat remastered version :)
Waiting for more Ming videos 😊
whoa I just realized I know jack sh** about Chinese history. Subscribed and intrigued.
Puyi just keeps finding a way to come back, doesn't he?
reupload?
Some parts of the video seems to be but he changed parts of the original video so not exactly a reupload
copyright issue
@@Brandonhayhew oh yeah i forgit bro was using scenes from the last emperor movie but now he uses chinese movie scenes which seems like there is little to to copyright
🐐🐐🐐🐐
2 videos in two weeks? What is this sorcery?
I was sure you posted something similar about 3-4 years ago, it's gone now though.
You're right! The originals were unfortunately taken down for copyright issues.
Puyi is easily one of the most complicated figures in Human History, made a monarch as a child, overthrown in a revolution he knew nothing of, exiled and became a horrid puppet dictator, died a repentant old man brainwashed by communists.
absolutely pathetic, a humiliations so great it permanently ended monarchism in China, a blessing in disguise.
Absolutely pathetic tragedy story and he was a puppet his whole life and never had freedom. his true freedom was escape china
i only know Puyi for like my whole life
What a world from a empowered infant to a senile president.
he never was a president he was a senile street cleaner
sad ending of the Chinese imperial system!!!
Babe wake up history of china uploaded a video
So, then... the emperor was actually a queen.
First wife runs away to marry the first random male peasant she sees, the second wife runs away with his chauffeur. Puyi being afraid to marry a Japanese agent, picks up some 12 year old he fancied on the street.
Truely the son of heaven.
He got his comeuppance later on in life 🙂
Hhhmmmm whose copying who?
Damn you, copyright abuse
Do not use the Eurocentric term 'Son of Heaven". The Chinese did not have heaven and the emperor was not the son of anything.
天子 meant the agent from the cosmos. There was bound to be some belief in the supernatural, but it is far more haphazard. Tian is not the heaven but the cosmos.
Minute 20: the law of unintended consequences in full force! Pu Yi contributes money to help japan and the Japanese reciprocate by subverting and destroying his country for the next 22 years!
rewriting history again
Puyi might be gay didn't have children a emperor without no kids he probably didn't like women
he grew up with guys without ducks
He did say that he prefers the "land way" than the "water way" so...
Bad puyi
Puyi whole life he was just a puppet