Wall of Shame at the Puppet Emperor’s Palace 伪满洲皇宫

Some of you might have heard of the Last Emperor. It was a movie about the tragic life of the Qing’s and China’s last emperor, Puyi 溥仪. Puyi rose to power when he was not even three years old. He happened to be the only eligible one at the time his predecessor, Guangxu 光绪 died. As you can imagine, there was no way a three year old kid can run an empire, what more an empire as large as the Qing empire, which more or less already covers most of modern China. No doubt a spoiled brat, but nonetheless revered as a god but his people. Like most of the emperors of the latter dynasties, he also stayed at the Forbidden city until he abdicated on the formation of the Republic of China.

He was said to have collaborated with the Japanese to gain back his throne which the imperial Japanese took as a chance to invade China. Upon the Japanese occupation of northeastern China, called Manchuria. They established a puppet state called Manchukuo 满洲国. True to their word, the Japanese made Puyi the “leader” of this puppet state, which the Chinese naturally rejected. The imperial palace of Puyi was built at Changchun where it is now a museum of sorts. Thus Puyi was made emperor again for the second time until the fall of Manchukuo when the Soviets invaded.

History, as they say, it written by the winners, in this case, the Chinese. There were at least two rooms which I would call rooms of shame which display the images of people who collaborated with the invading Japanese troops even ones who served the Manchukuo government. Puyi himself was said to have relentlessly pushed for the restoration of Qing rule, however it would be obvious that there wasn’t any real power involved here since it is the Japanese who still controlled the show. However, it is these acts of treason by collaboration which incense the Chinese so much that these people will forever be branded as traitors, no matter how noble their goals were.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/PuppetEmperor’sPalace.kmz} zoom=19]