From the Flower of Tianjin to the Deposed Empress of Manchukuo — The Cage Called “Empress”
by Satoe | 還暦散歩 (Kanreki Sanpo) — Late Qing Dynasty Series
This article continues Part I — Wanrong and the Ghost Gate: How the Last Empress Entered the Forbidden City.
I. Wandering — From the Prince’s Mansion to the Japanese Legation
After Leaving the Forbidden City
On November 5, 1924, driven from the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang’s coup, Puyi and Wanrong first took refuge at the Prince Chun Mansion in Beijing — the residence of Puyi’s father, where Puyi had spent his early childhood. But they could not stay there long. They next turned to the German Legation, which refused them. With nowhere left to go, the party finally arrived at the Japanese Legation in Beijing.
The Japanese received them into their finest rooms and treated them with great care. But the imperial household’s demands knew no limit, and in time the Legation, too, found them difficult to manage. Eventually it was decided that they would move to Tianjin, where Japan had a larger concession.
✦ Satoe’s Take: Puyi and Wanrong did not turn to Japan because they were “abducted” by Japan. It was their last remaining option after Germany had turned them away. And their life in Tianjin, as we shall see, was so comfortable that it can hardly be called coercion. The story of “victims deceived by Japan” simply ignores this sequence of events.
II. The Flower of Tianjin — The Days of Henry and Elizabeth
Queen of the Social Scene
Life in the Japanese concession of Tianjin may have been the most radiant time of Wanrong’s life. Puyi called himself “Henry” and Wanrong “Elizabeth,” and together they stepped out into Western-style high society. Wanrong set aside the Manchu court robe for Western gowns, high heels, and the new form-fitting qipao — the “China dress” that blended Western tailoring with the old gown and showed the line of the body, something entirely unlike the dress of a Manchu imperial lady. She attended parties where diplomats, merchants, and notables of every field gathered, and her beauty and grace earned her the name “the flower of Tianjin society.”
✦ Satoe’s Take: The China dress was the opposite of the court robe. Worn over little more than underclothes, it showed the line of the body plainly. The woman who had once been wrapped in layer upon layer now let the world see her shape. It was hardly the dress of a Manchu imperial lady. But she was beautiful in it, and Western society loved her for it. Perhaps Wanrong was, in her own way, one of the first influencers of the China dress.
The Watch Engraved “I love you”
During this period, Puyi gave Wanrong a luxury watch set with diamonds. That watch is now held in a museum. On the back, engraved in tiny letters, are the words “I love you.”
A woman who, in the Tianjin concession, dressed in Western clothes, stood on the stage of international society, and received words of love from an emperor — the Wanrong of the Tianjin years was, in every sense, a darling of her age.
✦ Satoe’s Take: This watch tells us the warmth that the relationship between Wanrong and Puyi once held. When we consider that Puyi would later all but ignore her, the weight of those words — “I love you” — stands out all the more. Perhaps the two of them, in Tianjin, still believed together in a future.
III. To Manchukuo — Her Own Choice, and the Reality
A Eunuch’s Testimony — Wanrong Went of Her Own Will
Many Chinese sources record that Wanrong was “deceived” by the Japanese and taken to Manchukuo. But the testimony of a eunuch who served close to her tells a different story: Wanrong went to Manchukuo of her own will.
Why? The answer seems clear. She might have been able to continue her comfortable life in Tianjin. But the title of “empress” would have been lost. For Wanrong, that was not an option.
The Fur Shawl
On the day of departure, after she had climbed into the car, Wanrong told her maid: “I’ve forgotten my fox-fur shawl. Go and fetch it.”
That single remark mirrors what was in her heart. She was not “fleeing” to Manchukuo; she meant to relocate there. She expected to go to a place worth dressing up for.
✦ Satoe’s Take: Would a person who had been deceived send someone back for a fur shawl? Wanrong chose for herself and went to Manchukuo by her own judgment. It was only that her judgment was naive.
The Day She Arrived in Changchun
Film footage of Wanrong’s arrival survives. Her face is downcast. Changchun (then called Xinjing) was not Tianjin. Everything that met her eyes was desolate — no international society, no scent of the West, no glittering parties. The Chinese narrator of the footage says, “That is the face of a woman who has realized she was deceived.” To me, it looks different.
✦ Satoe’s Take: That downcast expression is not the face of a person who was deceived. It is the face of a person who has realized she was naive. This was the reality that met the woman who had sent back for her fox-fur shawl — and that, I think, is what showed on her face. The narrator watches the footage from within the frame of “deceived by Japan.” But the evidence points the other way.
IV. The Cage of Manchukuo — Isolation, Surveillance, Opium
The “Palace” as a Device of Separation
The “imperial palace” of Manchukuo was originally the office of the Jilin–Heilongjiang Salt Transport Bureau, a two-story building of gray brick. Puyi was placed in the west wing, Wanrong in the east wing. The two were deliberately kept apart.
Wanrong was still surrounded by Chinese attendants. But the eyes of Japanese surveillance were on her constantly, and every contact with the outside world passed under their watch.
✦ Satoe’s Take: The division into east and west wings was not a mere matter of architectural convenience. It physically separated the two who, in Tianjin, had stood side by side as “Henry and Elizabeth.” To isolate Wanrong, to cut off her contact with the outside world, and in time to sink her into opium — I cannot help feeling that the first move of that blueprint was this very floor plan.
Opium as “Favorable Treatment”
Wanrong had shown signs of mental instability before, and opium had been used to ease its symptoms. In Manchukuo, the Japanese staff placed no limit whatsoever on her consumption. As “favorable treatment for the empress,” she was given whatever she wanted.
According to court records, in the single year from 1938 to 1939 alone, Wanrong purchased 740 liang of opium — about two liang a day. This level of consumption indicates severe dependency.
The deeper her isolation grew, the more she relied on opium. The more opium she smoked, the more her mind and body were eaten away. From that vicious circle there was no longer any escape.
V. The Empress Her Father Made — The Cry in the Garden
Her Brother Runqi’s Testimony
Her younger brother Runqi recalled a scene like this. One day, Wanrong ran out into the garden and cried out: “I was made by my father.”
Her father Rongyuan had scattered 200,000 silver taels in bribes through the court, nearly ruining the family, to place her on the empress’s throne. To repay his expectations, Wanrong kept clinging to the title of empress. That she set off for Manchukuo with her fur shawl was, too, a product of that obsession.
✦ Satoe’s Take: Chinese sources contain accounts that Wanrong tried to escape. I am doubtful, for two reasons. The first is physical: as I describe below, the Wanrong of her final years could neither stand on her own nor go to the toilet. Hers was not a body that could flee. The second is psychological: to escape would mean losing the title of empress, and that alone she could not have endured. The cry in the garden that her brother describes was, I think, not an attempt to escape but a cry that she was already at her limit. While she could still run, she ran only as far as she could. The garden was the end of that distance. There, facing her brother, she spat out words in which gratitude toward her father and a curse upon him were mixed together.
VI. The Collapse of the Body — What Became of the Flower of Tianjin
Saga Hiro’s Testimony
Saga Hiro, the Japanese woman who married Puyi’s younger brother Pujie in 1937 and moved to Xinjing, left her impression of first meeting Wanrong. Wanrong stood about 168 centimeters tall and wore high heels on top of that — slender, with a striking bearing. To Hiro’s eyes, she was an exceptionally beautiful woman.
Hiro also saw Wanrong in her final period. Nothing was left of the tall beauty she had first met. Wanrong lay in bed all day, smoking opium without cease. The muscles of her limbs had wasted away; she could no longer stand on her own or go to the toilet. Her back was bent, her teeth had crumbled, and pus dripped from her mouth.
As a Dentist, and a Visitor to Care Homes
I am a dentist, and I also visit nursing homes in my work. So I understand, in concrete terms, what Wanrong’s final condition was like.
When a person remains bedridden for a long time, the muscles of the limbs grow thin as sticks. Because the muscles that bend the body come to dominate the muscles that straighten it, the body curls up like a shrimp. That is why the back appears bent. When the body does not move, the bones grow thin as well. Compression fractures come easily, and these push the spine further out of shape.
As bone metabolism worsens, the teeth weaken too. They take on a melted appearance, periodontal disease advances, and pus comes from the mouth. A body that can no longer resist infection discharges pus not only from the mouth but from all over. Control of the bowels is lost. There is a foul odor.
✦ Satoe’s Take: In The Last Emperor, Wanrong slowly descends a grand staircase, spits at a Japanese officer, and leaves the Manchukuo palace with resolute dignity. Beautiful, and proud. But the reality drawn by Saga Hiro’s testimony is entirely different. A woman who cannot stand on her own cannot descend a staircase. The Wanrong of the film is a symbol. The Wanrong that Hiro saw is the reality. A woman who had stood in Tianjin society at 168 centimeters tall in high heels was reduced to that state by opium and isolation. This is what years of it did to a human body.
VII. Flight, and the Burden Borne by Saga Hiro and the Others
Amid the Collapse
In August 1945, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, and Manchukuo collapsed almost overnight. The imperial household was forced to flee. In that chaos, the ones who moved Wanrong were Saga Hiro and the remaining servants.
Unable to stand on her own. Unable to walk. Unable even to control her own bowels. To carry a person in such a state through the chaos of a collapsing empire — what an immense undertaking that was.
✦ Satoe’s Take: Chinese sources, and the film as well, shine their spotlight on Wanrong’s tragedy. But almost no attention goes to the burden borne by Saga Hiro and the servants at her side. To stay beside a person in that condition is, physically and mentally, no ordinary thing. Hiro carried her along in their flight. That was an admirable thing. The story that “the Japanese exploited Wanrong” does not see this.
Saga Hiro pitied Wanrong.
✦ Satoe’s Take: Why did Hiro pity her? I think the reason lay here: Wanrong had no people to cherish, yet she clung to the title of empress. Hiro had been spoken to by Japan’s Empress Dowager before she went to Manchukuo, and she understood that a royal woman stands for her people. Seen through those eyes, a title with no people behind it was a sad thing to hold onto. That is what Hiro pitied. And still, she carried her.
The Silence of the Soviet Soldier
In time, the party fell into the hands of Chinese Communist forces. While they were held there, a Soviet soldier came. He demanded: “I hear the empress is beautiful. Let me see her.” Those around him tried to stop him, but he would not listen.
According to Saga Hiro’s testimony, the soldier went into the room where Wanrong lay. And then he fell silent. He backed away and came out. He said nothing.
✦ Satoe’s Take: What that soldier had meant to do is not hard to imagine. In the last days of a collapsed front, a soldier who said he was going to “see” a beautiful woman had, in all likelihood, one purpose. But he backed away and came out. What changed was not his heart, but what he saw. That silence speaks most eloquently of all about Wanrong in her final period. More accurate than any sentence is the silence of that soldier.
VIII. Puyi’s New Consort — Not a Bride, but a Caregiver
In 1943, Puyi took a new consort: Li Yuqin, a fifteen-year-old girl from an ordinary family in Changchun. According to one source, she was chosen less as a bride than, in large part, as a caretaker for Wanrong. For that very reason, there was no need for her to be of noble birth. What was needed was someone who would take on the care that no one else wanted to do.
✦ Satoe’s Take: Why make a caretaker a consort? Wanrong’s condition could not be shown openly to the world. A nurse brought in from outside would have been a witness. But a woman who entered as a wife became part of the household — and in that era, a woman who married into a family was expected to care for its senior woman, just as a daughter-in-law cared for her mother-in-law. Li Yuqin was a consort in name. In practice, she was brought in to look after Wanrong.
✦ Satoe’s Take: If this record is correct, Wanrong’s treatment at this point was far too cruel. The title of “empress” still existed, but in reality she had become a problem to be managed. The man who, in Tianjin, had given her a watch engraved “I love you” came, in time, to take a new wife to look after his wife. Within that gap lies the whole of Wanrong’s life.
IX. The End — “Fake Empress”
The Prison in Yanji
In the custody of the Communist forces, Wanrong was moved from place to place in northeastern China before being held in a prison in Yanji, Jilin Province. Along the way she was separated from Saga Hiro, and from then on there is no record by anyone close to her.
According to what has been handed down, Wanrong lay on the lower bunk of a two-tier bed in a dark, damp concrete room. Deprived of opium, she suffered terribly, rolling on the floor and screaming. Just before her death she weighed about thirty kilograms. Her eyes were sunken, her teeth gone, she was covered in pus, and the guards said she looked like a skeleton.
And yet only the voice that gave orders to her ladies-in-waiting never stopped. Even lying in her own filth, she went on commanding in the voice of an empress. Opium took everything — her memory, her body, her grip on reality. But it could not take “herself as empress.”
Death and Record
On June 20, 1946, Wanrong died in prison. She was forty by the Chinese reckoning of age. The prison record noted: “Rong shi, age 40, fake empress.” Mocked as a fake empress, her body is said to have been thrown into a ditch beside the prison. Her remains have never been found.
✦ Satoe’s Take: One story, handed down by uncertain means, says that a kind-hearted guard prepared a coffin and buried her secretly in the mountains south of Yanji; another says a young guard quietly looked after her in her final days. I now think these are fiction. History is full of consoling legends that people attach to a death too bleak to bear, placing a single act of kindness at the very end. The truer account, I believe, is the bleak one: jeered at as a fake empress, her body cast into a ditch. That is how it ended.
“Fake empress” — those two words remained as the summary of Wanrong’s life. The name her father spent 200,000 silver taels to obtain was erased, at the moment of her death, by those two words. She could not pass through the gate she was meant to pass through (see Part I). She was not given a place to live as an empress. And after death she was not even permitted to be called one, and her body was discarded like refuse. The gate vanished, the title was erased, and the grave has never been found. Three erasures lie there.
In Closing — The Cage Called “Empress”
Was Wanrong a pitiable victim? It is true that she was exploited. Within the machinery of Manchukuo, she was reduced to a wreck by opium. That is a fact.
But at the same time, Wanrong chose for herself. Just as Puyi, refused by the German Legation, turned to Japan, Wanrong too made a choice. So as not to let go of the title of empress, she left Tianjin and set out for Manchukuo with her fur shawl. As she cried out to her brother in the garden, she had been made by her father, and she clung to the empress’s throne out of duty to him.
Is that pitiable? Or is it to have lived by one’s own will? Seeing Wanrong, who went on commanding in the voice of an empress even as she lay in filth in prison, I think it is the latter. There was, in that woman, something no one could ever take from her.
✦ Satoe’s Take: In my article on Empress Dowager Longyu, I described the tiny court left inside the Forbidden City after the abdication as a goldfish bowl — and Longyu as the woman who fought to keep its residents alive. Wanrong did the opposite. Ten years after the dynasty fell, she chose to enter that bowl. When she was driven out of it, she chose a second, even smaller bowl in Manchukuo — one built by Japan. Longyu struggled to save the people inside the bowl. Wanrong could only be herself inside one.
“Rong shi, age 40, fake empress.” She was invested with a gold seal and a decree. But the emperor who invested her had no country, and an empress has no people of her own without one. She was never the mother of a nation. By the logic of the gates, she was a fake empress from her wedding day.
← Back to Part I — Wanrong and the Ghost Gate: How the Last Empress Entered the Forbidden City
“Satoe’s Take” represents the author’s personal analysis and interpretation. Please read it as distinct from the documented historical record. This article is part of the Late Qing Dynasty Series on the blog Kanreki Sanpo (還暦散歩).
Related: Yoshiko Kawashima Beyond “The Last Emperor”: What Her Japanese Hometown Remembers