Editing Puyi (section)

=== Collapse of Manchukuo ===
On 9&nbsp;August 1945, the Kwantung Army's commander General [[Otozō Yamada]] told Puyi that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria|the Red Army had entered Manchukuo]]. Yamada was assuring Puyi that the Kwantung Army would easily defeat the Red Army, when the air raid sirens sounded and the Red Air Force began a bombing raid, forcing all to hide in the basement. While Puyi prayed to the Buddha, Yamada fell silent as the bombs fell, destroying Japanese barracks next to the Salt Tax Palace.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|pp=259–260}} During the invasion, 1,577,725&nbsp;Soviet and Mongol troops stormed into Manchuria in a combined arms offensive with tanks, artillery, cavalry, aircraft and infantry working closely together that overwhelmed the Kwantung Army, who had not expected a Soviet invasion until 1946 and were short of both tanks and anti-tank guns.{{sfnp|Stephan|1978|p=324}}

Puyi was terrified to hear that the [[Mongolian People's Army]] had joined Operation August Storm, as he believed that the Mongols would torture him to death if they captured him. The next day, Yamada told Puyi that the Soviets had already broken through the defence lines in northern Manchukuo, but the Kwantung Army would "hold the line" in southern Manchukuo and Puyi must leave at once. The staff of the Salt Tax Palace were thrown into panic as Puyi ordered all of his treasures to be boxed up and shipped out; in the meantime Puyi observed from his window that soldiers of the [[Manchukuo Imperial Army]] were taking off their uniforms and deserting. To test the reaction of his Japanese masters, Puyi put on his uniform of Commander-in-Chief of the Manchukuo Army and announced "We must support the holy war of our Parental Country with all our strength, and must resist the Soviet armies to the end, to the very end".{{sfnp|Behr|1987|p=260}} With that, Yoshioka fled the room, which showed Puyi that the war was lost. At one point, a group of Japanese soldiers arrived at the Salt Tax Palace, and Puyi believed they had come to kill him, but they merely went away after seeing him stand at the top of the staircase. Most of the staff at the Salt Tax Palace had already fled, and Puyi found that his phone calls to the Kwantung Army HQ went unanswered as most of the officers had already left for Korea, his minder Amakasu killed himself by swallowing a cyanide pill, and the people of Changchun booed him when his car, flying imperial standards, took him to the railroad station.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|pp=260–261}}
[[File:溥仪宣召退位旧址 - panoramio.jpg|thumb|The site of Puyi's abdication in a small mining office complex in {{ill|Dalizi|zh|大栗子街道}}, [[Baishan]]{{sfnp|Wang|2014|p=313}}]]
Late on the night of 11&nbsp;August 1945, a train carrying Puyi, his court, his ministers and the Qing treasures left Changchun. Puyi saw thousands of panic-stricken Japanese settlers fleeing south in vast columns across the roads of the countryside. At every railroad station, hundreds of Japanese colonists attempted to board his train; Puyi remembered them weeping and begging Japanese gendarmes to let them pass, and at several stations, Japanese soldiers and gendarmes fought one another. General Yamada boarded the train as it meandered south and told Puyi "the Japanese Army was winning and had destroyed large numbers of tanks and aircraft", a claim that nobody aboard the train believed. On 15 August 1945, Puyi heard on the radio [[Hirohito surrender broadcast|the address of Hirohito]] announcing that Japan had surrendered. In his address, the Showa Emperor described the Americans as having used a "most unusual and cruel bomb" that had just destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; this was the first time that Puyi heard of the [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], which the Japanese had not seen fit to tell him about until then.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|pp=262–263}}

The next day, Puyi abdicated as Emperor of Manchukuo and declared in his last decree that Manchukuo was once again part of China. Puyi's party split up in a panic, with former Manchukuo Premier [[Zhang Jinghui]] going back to Changchun. Puyi planned to take a plane to escape from Tonghua, taking with him his brother Pujie, his servant Big Li, Yoshioka, and his doctor while leaving Wanrong, his concubine Li Yuqin, Lady Hiro Saga, and Lady Saga's two children behind. The decision to leave behind the women and children was in part made by Yoshioka, who thought the women were in no such danger, and vetoed Puyi's attempts to take them on the plane to Japan.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|p=264}}

Puyi asked for Lady Saga, the most mature and responsible of the three women, to take care of Wanrong, and he gave Lady Saga precious antiques and cash to pay for their way south to Korea. On 16 August, Puyi took a small plane to [[Shenyang Taoxian International Airport|Mukden]], where another larger plane was supposed to arrive to take them to Japan, but instead a [[Soviet Air Force]] plane landed. Puyi and his party were all promptly taken prisoner by the Red Army, who initially did not know who Puyi was.<ref name="Li Shuxian, 73, Widow of Last China Emperor">{{cite news |last=Mydans |first=Seth |title=Li Shuxian, 73, Widow of Last China Emperor |newspaper=The New York Times |date=11 June 1997}}</ref> The opium-addled Wanrong together with Lady Saga and Li were captured by Chinese Communist guerrillas on their way to Korea, after one of Puyi's brothers-in-law informed the Communists who the women were. Wanrong, the former empress, was put on display in a local jail and people came from miles around to watch her. In a delirious state of mind, she demanded more opium, asked for imaginary servants to bring her clothing, food, and a bath, hallucinated that she was back in the Forbidden City or the [[Salt Tax Palace]]. The general hatred for Puyi meant that none had any sympathy for Wanrong, who was seen as another Japanese collaborator, and a guard told Lady Saga that "this one won't last", making it a waste of time feeding her.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|pp=265–270}} In June&nbsp;1946, Wanrong starved to death in her jail cell.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|p=270}} In his 1964 book ''[[From Emperor to Citizen]]'', Puyi merely stated that he learned in 1951 that Wanrong "died a long time ago" without mentioning how she died.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|p=308}}