China's last emperor, Puyi, was forced to abdicate in 1912 (he was six years old at the time). The young emperor, or rather his family, relinquished power in exchange for certain benefits, which included a steady income from the state, luxurious living conditions (the family continued to live in the Forbidden City for some time), and the rank of a foreign head of state in hospitality.
The emperor received personal privileges: the honorary title of emperor, a large state pension, and personal protection.
Puyi served as China's emperor one more time, for twelve days in 1917, when the monarchist general Zhang Xun restored his rule by force. At that time, a Republican plane dropped three bombs on the Imperial Palace. The incident is considered the first case of aerial bombing in East Asia.
After the incident, Puyi, already a private citizen, continued to live in the Forbidden City until 1924. He was later exiled from Beijing to a Japanese concession in China. The Japanese, after their aggression against China in 1931, established the state of Manchukuo in the northeastern part of the country, and Puyi was appointed its president (he was 28 at the time). He was merely a puppet of the Japanese, who signed all their decisions.
After the USSR declared war on Japan in 1945, Manchukuo was hit. Puyi had to evacuate and was taken into Russian captivity, where he remained until 1950. He was then handed over to the People's Republic of China, where he spent nine years in a prison for war criminals.
As a result of an amnesty, he left prison and took a job as a gardener in a botanical garden and later as an archivist. He died in 1967, probably of kidney cancer.
