Editing Puyi (section)

=== Eunuchs and the Household Department ===
[[File:China Under Empress Dowager (1914, p 039).jpg|left|thumb|[[Prince Chun (醇)|Prince Chun]] with his two sons, Puyi (standing) and Pujie]]
Separated from his family, Puyi lived his childhood in a regime of virtual seclusion in the Forbidden City, surrounded by guards, eunuchs and other servants who treated him like a god. The emperor's upbringing was a mixture of pampering and mistreatment, as he was required to follow all the rules of rigid Chinese imperial protocol and was unable to behave like a normal child.{{sfnp|Puyi|Jenner|1999|pp=29–74}}

The eunuchs were virtual slaves who did all the work in the Forbidden City, such as cooking, gardening, cleaning, entertaining guests, and the bureaucratic work needed to govern a vast empire. They also served as the emperor's advisers. The Forbidden City was full of treasures that the eunuchs constantly stole and sold on the black market. The business of government and of providing for the emperor created further opportunities for corruption, in which virtually all the eunuchs engaged.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|pp=72–73}}

Puyi never had any privacy and had all his needs attended to at all times, having eunuchs open doors for him, dress him, wash him, and even blow air into his soup to cool it. At his meals, Puyi was always presented with a huge buffet containing every conceivable dish, the vast majority of which he did not eat, and every day he wore new clothing, as Chinese emperors never reused their clothing.{{sfnp|Behr|1987|pp=77–78}}

After his wedding, Puyi began to take control of the palace. He described "an orgy of looting" taking place that involved "everyone from the highest to the lowest". According to Puyi, by the end of his wedding ceremony, the pearls and jade in the empress's crown had been stolen.{{sfnp|Puyi|Kramer|Tsai|1987|p=132}} Locks were broken, areas ransacked. Puyi's next plan of action was to reform the Household Department. In this period, he brought in more outsiders to replace the traditional aristocratic officers to improve accountability. He appointed [[Zheng Xiaoxu]] as minister of Household Department, and Zheng Xiaoxu hired [[Tong Jixu]], a former Air Force officer from the [[Beiyang Army]], as his chief of staff to help with the reforms. But on 27&nbsp;June 1923, a fire destroyed the area around the Palace of Established Happiness, just at the moment when the emperor had ordered to carry out the inventory of one of the imperial warehouses. Puyi suspected it was arson to cover theft. The emperor overheard conversations among the eunuchs that made him fear for his life. In response, a month after the fire, he evicted the eunuchs from the palace with the support of the Beiyang Army. The reform efforts did not last long before Puyi was forced out of the Forbidden City by [[Feng Yuxiang]].{{sfnp|Puyi|Kramer|Tsai|1987|pp=137–142}}