I EXPLAINED to my guide and interpreter Sun Zhengzheng that I knew Puyi had a brother, several sisters, a half brother and a widow still living and I was sure if I could get an introduction to one then access to others would follow.
My objective was to find veterans of the Qing Dynasty and to discover how they'd survived the cataclysmic changes from feudal imperialism to warring republicanism, then to Maoist Communism and now to this capitalist socialism - all in a single lifetime.
I had a further objective which I kept to myself. I wanted to find the man who would be Emperor, the de jure Lord of Ten Thousand Years and Grand Khan of Tartary, the Chinese Pretender. The last legitimate Emperor, Aixinzhueluo Puyi had died childless in1967 but had he died without an heir? So who might have succeeded the Citizen Emperor in 1967? Not certainly his own flesh and blood for in spite of the best efforts of five wives he never became a father. He did, however, have three brothers.
I made a list of possible Pretenders before leaving for China.
1. Despite his obvious ineligibility on generation grounds (a successor had to be from the next generation), the last Emperor's elder surviving brother Beitzu Pujie, hereditary Prince Chun, went to the top of the list: he was, after all, head of the family.
2. A putative nephew: any son of Beitzu Pujen, the last Emperor's half-brother. (The third brother died aged three in 1918.) 3-6. In order of seniority four of the great-grandsons of the Emperor Tao-kuang (1821-50) who had been claimants on the last occasion on which the throne had fallen vacant in 1908, following the death of the Emperor Kuang-hsu (1871-1908). It was unlikelyany of the four candidates - Beitzu Pulun, Beitzu Pucheng; Beitzu Puchun, Beitzu Puwei - were still alive and as same-generation cousins of Puyi they themselves wouldn't be eligible - but they might have eligible sons and grandsons.
7. But it seemed there was a stronger candidate than any of these: an imperial clansman I knew only by his nickname, Little Jui.