Li Yuqin (15 July 1928 – 24 April 2001), sometimes referred to as the "Last Imperial Concubine" (末代皇娘), was the fourth wife of China's last emperor

Puyi Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...

. She married Puyi when the latter was the nominal ruler of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 after the Japanese ...

, a puppet state established by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent form ...

during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific T ...

Biography

Li Yuqin was a Han Chinese woman who was born in Changchun to a middle class family from Shandong. Her father, Li Degui was a translator to a local missionary organisation, while her mother, Wang Xiuru, was the owner of a small silk farm in Changchun’s outskirts. Both sides of Li’s family served the imperial court, with her paternal great grandmother being the wet nurse to the Xianfeng Emperor’s daughter and her maternal family being court physicians. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, many people who worked in the imperial court were banished by republican forces to the countryside provinces, which is how the Li family ended up in the commoner class. Li had two brothers and three sisters and had a relatively happy childhood. Li attended Nanling Girls' Academy (新京南嶺女子優級學校) in Changchun, then known as Hsinking, the capital of

. In February 1943, Li and nine other girl students were taken by their principal Kobayashi and teacher Fujii to a photography studio for portraits. Three weeks later, the school principal and teacher visited Li's home and told her that Manchukuo's emperor

had ordered her to go to the palace to study. She was first taken directly to Yasunori Yoshioka, who thoroughly questioned her. Yoshioka then drove her back to her parents and told them Puyi ordered her to study at the palace. Money was promised to the parents. She was subjected to a medical examination and then taken to Puyi's sister Yunhe and instructed in palace protocol. Li then became a concubine of Puyi and was given the title of Noble Lady Fu (福貴人). She lived a lavish lifestyle and had many servants. Li stated that she and Puyi only consummated their relationship once and never had sex again. In 1945 the

regime collapsed following the Japanese surrender at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Li attempted to flee from Changchun, alongside

, Empress Wanrong and other remaining members of the old Qing court. She, as well as the rest of Puyi's family was evacuated with him by train from

Changchun Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 ...

to Dalizigou. From there, however, Puyi continued by plane with only two of his sisters, his brothers, three nephews, his physician and a servant to

Mukden Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu name Mukden, is a major Chinese sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. Located in central-north Liaoning, it is the provinc ...

, where he was arrested and taken to the Soviet Union.Puyi (Swedish): ''Jag var kejsare av Kina'' (I was the emperor of China) (1988) According to Puyi, Li Yuqin was very frightened and begged to be taken with him, when he left from Dalizigou to Mukden, but he assured her that she and Wanrong could reach Japan as well by train. Some documents state that Puyi let the women go by train in the belief that women would be better treated by the military than men. They were shortly arrested by Soviet forces and sent to a prison in Changchun. Empress Wanrong was experiencing significant opium withdrawal symptoms at that time. Empress Wanrong died shortly in the same year before Li was released in 1946 and sent back home. She worked in a textile factory and in a library in Changchun, studying the works of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

. In 1955 she began visiting Puyi in prison. After applying to the Chinese authorities for a divorce, the government responded on her next prison visit by showing her to a room with a double bed and ordered her to reconcile with Puyi, and she said the couple obeyed the order. Li officially divorced

in 1958. She later married a technician named Huang Yugeng (黃毓庚), with whom she had two sons. During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

Li became a target for attack by the

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

because she used to be Puyi's concubine. She died on 24 April 2001 at the age of 73 in

after a six-year battle with

cirrhosis Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue rep ...

Notes

External links

Ex-wife of China's Last Emperor Dies
People's Daily Online, April 28, 2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Yuqin 1928 births 2001 deaths Manchukuo royalty Deaths from cirrhosis People from Changchun