World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseZheng Xiaoxu was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China in 1860. In 1882, he passed the imperial examinations and entered government service during the Qing Dynasty. In 1891, he became a member of the Chinese legation in Tokyo, Japan. Subsequently, he was named the head of the Chinese consulate in Tsukiji and then a similar position in Kobe-Osaka. He was active in the organization of the Kobe Chinese community in that city. He returned to China at the start of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and served in various positions including some time at the Beijing-Hankou Railway and at the regional government in Guangxi Province. In 1911, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by the Republic of China, he was serving as a high level official in Hunan Province. Refusing to serve the republic, he retired and moved to Shanghai; it was during his years in Shanghai that his hobby in calligraphy blossomed into a career which would not only secure a handsome income for the remainder of his life, but also carving his name in modern Chinese literary history. In 1924, Puyi, the deposed Emperor Xuantong of Qing who had been permitted to remain in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, was forced out; Zheng, having returned to Imperial household service in 1923, arranged for Puyi's relocation first to the Japanese embassy and then to Japanese-controlled area in Tianjin, China in 1925. During the late 1920s, Zheng worked closely with domestic and Japanese forces which were interested in seeing the return of Qing. At the outbreak of the Mukden Incident, he formally appealed to Japan, and from this point on played a key role in the 1932 establishment of the Japanese-sponsored puppet state of Manchukuo in northeastern China; Zheng would write the lyrics of the Manchu national anthem and served as the country's first prime minister. Although he had gained the unsavory reputation as a collaborationist by this time, he viewed himself as a patriot, and devoted himself to running Manchukuo. The Japanese viewed him as a mere nominal leader, however, and often clashed with him, causing Zheng much frustration. In 1935, the Japanese forced Puyi, by now declared the Kangde Emperor of Manchukuo, to remove Zheng from the payroll. Taking the hint but with reluctance, he resigned as the head of government. He passed away suddenly from sickness in 1938 and was given a state funeral. Unconfirmed rumors claimed that he was poisoned by the Japanese.

Photographs

Zheng Xiaoxu Timeline