Orchid Emperor

(See front cover')*

In the bitter cold of Manchuria great things were about to happen this week. Squads of police had searched every house in Changchung and confiscated 3,000 rifles and 150,000 rounds of ammunition. Carloads of grain arrived to be distributed to 30,000 poor families while arrangements were made to house 4,000 homeless free. A guard of 5,000 troops was set round the still incomplete Imperial City. In an open courtyard a few handpicked correspondents saw court dignitaries in dragon gowns and fur hats with jeweled buttons bow low to the ground before a stuffed dummy on a lacquered and jeweled ebony throne. Blinking, spectacled Henry Pu Yi was about to become Manchu Emperor of the new state of Ta Manchu Tikuo, until last week Manchukuo, until two years ago Manchuria.

All this had a profound effect on the various nations which so loudly deplored the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. France was expected to recognize Ta Manchu Tikuo, was offering Japan a 15-year credit for locomotives, rails, other equipment for the South Manchuria Railway. Germany longed to do likewise, but refrained from a definite commitment until the Nazi Government could decide whether it would make more money by recognizing Ta Manchu Tikuo than it would lose by insulting the Nationalist Government of China. Even the U. S., most outspoken under the Hoover regime in its criticism of Japan's Manchurian grab, seemed ready for a change of heart last week. Henry Lewis Stimson had published manifestoes and baldly announced that under no condition would the U. S. recognize Manchukuo because it had been set up by force of arms in violation of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact. President Roosevelt was not so sure. Last week he announced at a press conference that the question of recognition following the enthronement of Henry Pu Yi was much too delicate to be mentioned at all.

Only 28 years old, Henry Pu Yi is no stranger to thrones. Twice before has he been proclaimed Emperor of China. The first time was when he was two years old. In 1908 that crafty old mummy the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, who had ruled China since 1861, felt that she had not long to live. A prisoner on an island in the Imperial City was her nephew, the 37-year-old Emperor Kuang Hsu whose offense had been to attempt to modernize China and rid it of the burden of its old mandarins by the device of asking them all to commit suicide. On Nov. 14, 1908 two of the Old Empress's guards are said to have broken into Kuang Hsu's apartments and strangled him. As his successor the old lady had picked Pu Yi, the chubby little son of her nephew Prince Chun.

While the old lady watched, Little Pu Yi was robed in imperial yellow and placed on the dragon throne as the Emperor Hsuan Tung. Next day the Dowager Empress died suddenly. Prince Chun became Regent and the Emperor Hsuan Tung went back to his nursery. At the age of six, he emerged briefly to abdicate after the successful revolution of Canton's great Sun Yatsen. He continued to live in the Forbidden City, studying with his British tutor. Sir Reginald Johnston, a former customs official of Weihaiwei. and attempting to collect the magnificent salary of $4,000,000 that the Republican Government promised him but never paid.

In 1917 he became the Emperor Hsv.r.n Tung again for a few days when swashbuckling General Hsun, so reactionary that he still kept his pigtail, captured

Peiping, and popped him on the throne in the middle of a July night. With Japanese money and the first airplanes used in a Chinese war, ousted Premier Tuan Chi-sui captured the city a few days later and gave Emperor Hsuan Tung 30 minutes to abdicate.

All his life a helpless tool of one agency or another, Pu Yi has longed to dodge the trappings of state and lead the life of a normal western youth. As the last of the conquering Manchus that ruled China since 1644 it was his duty to have at least two wives. He did not want two wives, for he had already picked a beautiful bride from the catalog of a marriage broker. The daughter of a Manchu businessman named Jung Yuang, she had been educated by the Sisters Miriam and Isabel Ingram. Philadelphia missionaries, and preferred to be called Elizabeth. Elizabeth was quite sufficient but on the insistence of his Japanese "protectors" in Tientsin Henry took Wife No. 2.

Wife No. 2 was a saucy baggage called Shu Fei. In 1931 she rushed to the civil courts of China and sued for divorce, claiming that after nine years her marriage was still unconsummated (TIME, Oct. 12. 1931). There are few things about his new Empire that Henry Pu Yi can really direct, but on one point he is adamant: there will be neither concubines nor eunuchs in his latest court. Henry and Elizabeth will get along by themselves.

Bicycling is one of his hobbies. As a Japanese puppet he dares not leave his palace unguarded, so he rides around and around his garden compound, doing tricks. The Emperor of Manchukuo can now pedal on the rear wheel alone, with the front wheel in the air. Photography is another pastime. Henry Pu Yi likes to show his own cinemas after dinner and complains sometimes that visiting tourists never send him copies of the snapshots for which he is always willing to pose.

As the nominal ruler of 30,000,000 Manchukuans, of whom less than 10% are full-blooded Manchus, Henry Pu Yi's intentions are of the best. Month ago he gave his first interview as Emperor-to-be. Henry Pu Yi wore the new khaki uniform of a Manchukuan Field Marshal with which the Japanese Government had fitted him out, complete with embroidered orchids on the epaulets, and gleaming field boots. Though he speaks English perfectly an interpreter solemnly translated questions and answers. He announced:

"During my reign I hope with heavenly guidance to emulate the great Chinese Emperors of the golden Chow dynasty.* Whatever our political differences I am sure that the Manchurian Empire and America can work together for the preservation of peace."

"Will you ask his Imperial Majesty how is his health?" asked a reporter.

Henry Pu Yi forgot the game he was playing and, without waiting for the interpreter, beamed: "Oh, I'm just fine!"

If he could have his way Henry Pu Yi would like to be proclaimed constitutional Emperor of Manchukuo with as simple and comfortable a ceremony as the proclamation of last week's other new monarch, Leopold III of Belgium. But the Japan that picked him from the Chinese discard ten years ago has not paid his bills for nothing. Japan needs him as a symbol before the world of Manchukuo's independence, a hollow-eyed figurehead to distract Manchurian peasants with the pomp of a royal court.

By last week carpenters had built a small replica of Peiping's great open air Altar of Heaven with its ceremonial steps. Ready, too, was an imperial throne of ebony, carved with dragons and orchids. Tailors embroidered robes of imperial yellow and jewelers had carved a Ju Yee or sceptre of jade. Since meteorologists announced that the temperature was likely to be about 20 below zero the enthronement ceremony was advanced from sunrise to noon. For many hours Henry in his yellow robe must make his obeisance to his illustrious ancestors while mandarins kowtow and the traditional orchestra in mushroom hats, red tassels and plum colored jackets, plays 48 drums, 48 gongs, eight long slabs of hardwood to be struck by jade hammers, and 24 flutes of piercing shrillness.

*Painted by Jerry Farnsworth. Robes from an antique Manchu portrait loaned by Upton Close.

*Not Manchu but pure Chinese were the golden Chow who ruled China for 866 years (1122--256 B. C), longest-lived of all China's dynasties. Under Chow emperors Chinese savants were instrumental in discovering the compass. Under them, too, was established the first "league of nations," a League of States to prevent War, in 515 B.C. "How courteous and elegant are all its way" wrote Confucius. "I am for the House of Chow."

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