The last emperor

Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, ascended to the imperial throne in 1908. At the age of 3, he was the Son of Heaven, the Lord of Ten Thousand Years. By the age of 6, he was already forced to abdicate. In 1924, he was expelled from the Forbidden City along with his two wives and thrust into the life of a Western playboy. In 1931, he accepted the tempting invitation from the Japanese to reclaim the throne and quickly became a puppet emperor in the Japanese-controlled state of Manchukuo. In 1945, he was captured by the Russians and five years later handed over to China, where a death sentence awaited him from the communists. However, he spent ten years in prison and left his cell as a changed and purified man. He returned to Beijing at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and became a gardener, freer than he had ever been in his life. He died in 1967.