When Saga Hiro married Aixinjueluo Pujie, younger brother of the last Qing Emperor Puyi, 65 years ago, many people including her husband believed she must be a spy for the Japanese Imperial Army, which occupied northeast China during the 1930s and 1940s under the puppet government of the so-called State of Manchu.
There were too many mysteries about the family of Emperor Puyi of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the short-lived puppet regime, and the marriage between Pujie and his Japanese wife Saga Hiro, who was also a member of the Japanese imperial family.
Jia Yinghua, a Chinese writer and a well-known researcher of China's last imperial family, has tried to uncover all these mysteries and study the war-torn Sino-Japanese relations in the history.
A Biography of Pujie, Brother of the Last Emperor recently came off the press in Beijing and is likely to serve as a non-official commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between China and Japan, Jia said.
A few years ago, the Chinese writer established his reputation at home and abroad, when he published his first book on the latter half of the life of China's Last Emperor, in collaboration with Li Shuixian, the last wife of Puyi.
"I'm much concerned over the timing for publishing this new book," said Jia, sitting in his home in downtown Beijing, "because Mr. Pujie had done a lot for developing people-to-people relations between the two countries, and in his last days, the old man was thinking about nothing but building long-term, peaceful Sino-Japanese ties."
Jia's new book has aroused great interest among local and overseas people including historians, media and readers, according to Jia. Some people have been negotiating with him on the rights to turn this book into a movie as early as possible.
In addition to the books on the Last Emperor and his brother, Jia has also published several others on the last marriage of Puyi, China's last eunuch, and the relations between Puyi and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. He also wrote a book on how the Last Emperor chose a crown prince, though he never had a child of his own.
(China Daily April 8, 2002)
