The age-old feudal society in China ended with the Qing Dynasty. In the year 1908, Empress Dowager Ci Xi was struck down by a serious illness. She proclaimed Pu Yi, then three years old, successor to the throne. Within two days after this, Emperor Guang Xu and the empress dowager both passed away.

Within three years after Pu Yi's accession, the 1911 Revolution in China broke out under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. The feudal system that has lasted for 2,000 years collapsed. However, Pu Yi stayed in the palace for another 13 years until 1924 when he was driven out of the palace. In 1934, he was again crowned by the Japanese as emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo. in 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, he was captured by the Soviet Red Army who handed him over to China five years later. He was jailed as a war criminal and stayed in prison for 10 years. After his release at the end of 1959, he worked as a gardener in the Beijing Botanical Garden and died of cancer in 1967.

Pu Yi lived for 61 years. For much of it he was surrounded by eunuchs and concubines and treated as a God. He didn't know how to live as a normal person until he was imprisoned. It was during these 10 years that he learned to wash clothes, do manual labor, study history and learn to criticize himself. When he returned to Beijing, he could, for the first time in his life, ride a bicycle or go on a bus.