The Hall
of Supreme Harmony is the place where the last Qing Emperor Puyi ascended the throne in 1908 at the age of three. He was so scared at
the complicated procedures that he kept crying and shouting: "I
don't want to stay here, I want to go home." His father tried to
soothe him and said, "It will soon be over." The civil and
military officials got stunned when they heard of this saying, for they
thought it suggested that the dynasty would soon be over. Three years
later, the Qing Dynasty that had lasted 267 years did collapse.
The last
Emperor Puyi and the royal family still stayed in the inner court
of the palace until 1924. Then he left for Tianjin and disguised himself
as a Japanese merchant. Supported by the Japanese, puyi was made a puppet
emperor of "Manchuria" in 1931, with Changchun as its capital.
He was captured by Soviet Red Army at the end to the Second World War
in 1945 and was sent back to China after the founding of the People's
Republic of China. Puyi was imprisoned until 1959 when he and some other
war criminals were given amnesty. After that, he was assigned a job
in Beijing in the Institute of Botanical Garden under the Chinese Academy
of Sciences and started a new life. He wrote a book about his first
half-life, entitled From Emperor to Citizen. He died of kidney cancer
in 1967 at the age of 61.
Beijing Tour Routes Includes Forbidden City:
Photo of Forbidden City
    
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