On Feb. 12, 1912, the last Qing emperor of China was forced to abdicate the throne in the face of a revolution that would establish a republic without a monarchy. It was the end of imperial rule over lands who had been governed by one empire or another for over 2,000 years.
Emperor Puyi, who had been selected to reign at the age of two with his father as regent, abdicated the throne at barely six years old. Because of that cooperation, he and his family were allowed to continue living in Beijing's Forbidden City, the imperial complex. The family was later kicked out of the palatial estate during a 1924 military coup.
As Japan began to rise as a regional power in the first few decades of the 20th century, it started eyeing other nearby lands it could conquer to establish its own sphere of influence. In 1932, Japan swarmed and took over Manchuria (basically northeast China, for our purposes here). It established a new state there, dubbed Manchukuo, and put Puyi in charge in a bid for legitimacy first as chief executive and then emperor.
During World War II, conflict broke out between China and Japan again. Puyi was forced to flee and ended up in the hands of the Soviets, where he confessed that he had basically no power in Manchukuo and claimed he had been forced to do the job. The two-time emperor was imprisoned in 1950 in what had by then become the People's Republic of China, and "re-educated." When he got out of prison, he renounced his actions as emperor and went on to work as a street sweeper as a normal citizen.
You can read more about Puyi at History Hit.
