| Coordinates | 38°12′32″N48°01′32″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Empress Wan Rong |
| Native name | 婉容皇后 |
| Spouse | Xuantong Emperor (m.1922) |
| Reign | Empress of China: 1922-1924 Empress of Manchukuo: 1934-1945 |
| Father | Gobulo Rong Yuan |
| Mother | Princess Aisin Gioro |
| Date of birth | November 13, 1906 |
| Place of birth | Manchuria |
| Date of death | June 20, 1946 |
| Place of death | Yanji Prison, Jilin Province, Republic of China |
| Posthumous name | Empress Xiao Ke Min (孝恪愍皇后) |
| Full name | Gobulo Wan Rong 郭布羅·婉容 |
| Date of burial | 2006 |
| Place of burial | Western Qing Tombs |
Empress Xiao Ke Min (); also known as Empress Wan Rong (; Wade Giles: Wan-Jung) (13 November 1906 – 20 June 1946) was the last Empress Consort of the Qing Dynasty in China, and later Empress of Manchukuo (also known as the Manchurian Empire). She was Daur.
At the age of 17, Wan Rong was selected from a series of photographs presented to the Xuan Tong Emperor (a.k.a. Puyi), who resided in the Forbidden City as a non-sovereign monarch of China, as potential candidates for the post of Imperial consort. The wedding took place when Puyi reached the age of 16, and many expensive gifts were given to the bride and her family, although Puyi never showed much interest (sexual or otherwise) in either Wan Rong or his concubine Wen Xiu.
Empress Wan Rong started using opium when she was a teenager. According to Puyi's memoirs, it was fashionable for educated girls to smoke cigarettes at that time, and a small amount of opium was often added by the Chinese as an analgesic.
After Puyi was forced out of the Forbidden City by the Chinese warlord Feng Yuxiang in 1924, he fled with Empress Wan Rong and moved to the foreign concession in Tianjin. There, they resided in the "Quiet Garden Villa" in the Japanese Concession in Tianjin. In Tianjin, Wan Rong grew to despise Puyi and they led increasingly separate lives.
With hope of restoring the Manchu Empire, Puyi accepted Japanese offers to head the new state of Manchukuo, and relocated to Changchun, Jilin Province, which had been renamed Hsinking, in March 1932. He lived in the Russian-built Salt Rates Palace, a tax office that had been converted into a temporary palace while a new structure was being built. Relations between Wan Rong and Puyi remained strained, and she lived in a separate room, rarely coming out or eating meals with Puyi. Even after the move into the new and luxurious Wei Huang Gong, Wan Rong continued to sleep in separate quarters. Realizing her husband was only a puppet ruler with no real political power, and having all the burdens of an Empress but none of the advantages, Wan Rong's addiction to opium started to become serious. She was taking about two ounces of opium a day, a huge quantity, between July 1938 and July 1939.
Rumour has it that in 1940, Empress Wan Rong became pregnant by one of her servants, her driver Li Tieh-yu. Instead of having him executed, as he could have, Puyi paid him off and told him to leave the town. When Wan Rong gave birth, the doctors killed the baby girl with a lethal injection. It is also speculated that in his memoir, Puyi wrote that he had thrown Wan Rong's baby into a fire, but records such as this were deleted upon inspection before his memoirs were published. It can only be speculated how this may have affected Wan Rong's mental health, and indeed from that moment she lived in a near-constant opium haze.
During the Evacuation of Manchukuo during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945, Puyi attempted to flee Manchukuo, leaving behind his empress (Wan Rong), his concubine (Li Yuqin) and some other imperial family members, ostensibly because his immediate entourage was at risk of arrest and the women would be safe.
Empress Wan Rong, her sister-in-law Hiro Saga and the other members of her group attempted to flee overland to Korea, but were arrested by the Chinese communist army in Talitzou, Manchukuo, in January 1946. In April, they were moved to a police station in Changchun, eventually released only to be rounded up again and locked up at a police station in Jilin. Wan Rong's opium supply had long since dried up and she was suffering the effects of withdrawal. When Chiang Kai-shek's army bombed Kirin, Wan Rong and Hiro Saga were both moved to Yanji Prison in Jilin Province (吉林省延吉监狱).
Empress Wan Rong died in Yanji Prison in June 1946 from the effects of malnutrition and opium withdrawal, aged 39. However, Puyi did not receive the news until three years later.
In October 2006, Empress Wan Rong's younger brother, Gobulo Runqi (1912–2007), had a tomb built for Wan Rong at the Western Qing Tombs.
A dramatization of the life of Prince Pujie and Hiro Saga appeared as a television drama on TV Asahi in Japan in the autumn of 2003, under the title Ryuuten no ouhi - Saigo no koutei (流転の王妃・最後の皇弟).
Category:1906 births Category:1946 deaths Category:Manchu people Category:People of Manchukuo Category:Qing Dynasty empresses
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