Li Yuqin

Infobox Monarch|royal|consort
name = Li Yuqin


spouse = Puyi (1943-1957)
date of birth = birth date|1928|7|15
date of death = death date and age|2001|4|24|1928|7|15
place of death= Changchun

Li Yuqin ( _zh. 李玉琴), also known as the "Last Imperial Concubine" ( _zh. 末代皇娘), (July 15, 1928 – April 24, 2001) was the fourth wife (or third concubine) and last Imperial Concubine of Puyi, the last Emperor of China's Qing Dynasty.

Li Yuqin was 15 years old in 1943 when she became the fourth wife of China's last emperor—Aisingyoro Henry Puyi—of the Manchu minority that ruled China for over 300 years (1644–1911). She died at age 73 in the northeastern city of Changchun after a six-year battle with cirrhosis, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Puyi, who was deposed as emperor in the 1911 Chinese revolution, and became a puppet emperor in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, picked Li Yuqin as his concubine, but abandoned her after World War II, when Manchukuo fell amid Japan's defeat. Li Yuqin remained in Manchuria after Puyi was taken to Russia by Soviet troops. After the Communist Party seized power in China in 1949 she continued to live in China and became a librarian during 1956 in Changchun.

In May 1957 she formally divorced Puyi and later married a technician, and had two sons. The prison authority once tried to persuade her to give up the divorce for the sake of the Puyi's transformation into a new person. Later, her son recalled with the comment: "My mother had the right to pursue her own happiness."

External links

* [http://english.people.com.cn/english/200104/28/eng20010428_68871.html Ex-wife of China's Last Emperor Dies]