Princess Huisheng

This name uses Manchu naming customs. The family name is Aisin Gioro.

Not to be confused with her younger sister Husheng.

Aisin-Gioro Huisheng (26 February 1938 – 4 December 1957), better known simply as Huisheng or Eisei, was a Manchu-Japanese noblewoman. She was born in the Aisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan of the Qing dynasty. She was the elder daughter of Pujie, the younger brother of Puyi, the last emperor of China. Her mother was Hiro Saga, a Japanese noblewoman who married Pujie in 1937.

Huisheng
Huisheng and her parents
Born	Aisin-Gioro Huisheng (1938-02-26)26 February 1938 Xinjing, Manchukuo
Died	4 December 1957(1957-12-04) (aged 19) Mount Amagi, Japan
Burial	Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan
Partner	Takemichi Ōkubo (1956–1957)
Names Aisin-Gioro Huisheng
House	Aisin Gioro
Father	Pujie
Mother	Hiro Saga

Aisin-Gioro Huisheng
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	愛新覺羅·慧生
Simplified Chinese	爱新觉罗·慧生
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Àixīnjuéluó Huìshēng
Japanese name
Kanji	愛新覚羅·慧生
Transcriptions Romanization Aishinkakura Eisei

Life

Huisheng was born on 26 February 1938 at Xinjing Special Municipal First Hospital in Xinjing (present-day Changchun, Jilin, China), the capital of Manchukuo to Pujie and Hiro Saga. Her uncle, Puyi, ruled as the puppet emperor of Manchukuo under Japanese control during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Her younger sister was Husheng (嫮生; b. 1940). She lived in Manchukuo until 1943, when she was sent to Japan to live with her maternal grandparents. She was educated in various prestigious private schools, including the Gakushūin. She was very interested in Japanese and Chinese literature.

After the end of the war, Huisheng's father was captured by Soviet forces and held in a prison camp for five years before he was extradited to the People's Republic of China in 1950. He was then incarcerated in the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre. Huisheng's mother and younger sister were also captured and imprisoned in Shanghai before they were repatriated to Japan in 1947. However, even though Huisheng had been reunited with her mother and sister, her father was still imprisoned and out of contact with them. During this time, Huisheng wrote in Chinese to Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, requesting that he put her in touch with her father. Zhou was moved by her letter and granted her permission.

In April 1956, Huisheng was enrolled at the Gakushuin University, in June, she began a relationship with her classmate Takemichi Ōkubo (大久保武道, Ōkubo Takemichi), the son of a railway executive. Later, in February 1957, Huisheng's mother strongly opposed her daughter's decision to marry Ōkubo, either because Ōkubo was a commoner, or because Huisheng had been considered as a potential candidate to marry the then-Crown Prince Akihito.

Death

Huisheng (age 19) and Ōkubo (age 20) disappeared on 4 December 1957 and were later found dead on Mount Amagi in the Izu Peninsula. Huisheng, wearing a golden ring on her finger, lay with her head cradled in Ōkubo's left arm. Ōkubo held a pistol in his right hand. Above their heads was a twisted piece of tissue paper containing snips of their hair and fingernails – an element in the ritual of a Japanese love suicide.^[1] This murder-suicide incident was known as the Amagisan shinjū (天城山心中, Love Suicide at Mount Amagi).

At the request of Ōkubo's father, Huisheng and Ōkubo's ashes were interred together first at the Saga family plot in Nison-in, and then at the Aisin-Gioro family plot in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi.

Ancestry

See also: Prince Chun (醇) § Family tree

Ancestors of Princess Huisheng
16. Daoguang Emperor 8. Yixuan 17. Imperial Noble Consort Zhuangshun 4. Zaifeng 18. Deqing (德慶) 9. Liugiya Cuiyan 2. Pujie 20. Changshou (長壽) 10. Ronglu 21. Lady Uja 5. Youlan 22. Linggui (靈桂) 11. Lady Aisin Gioro 23. Lady Sun 1. Huisheng 24. Saga Sanenaru 12. Saga Kinto 25. Tsuru 6. Saga Saneto 26. Nakayama Tadamitsu 13. Nakayama Nakako 3. Saga Hiro 7. Hamaguchi Naoko

^[2]

References

1. "天城山心中の事件現場と真相 愛親覚羅慧生と大久保武道※画像あり". 生死無常事件史 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2019-04-12.
2. Edward Robb Ellis and George N. Allen; Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-3474 (1961) Doubleday & Company, Inc.; Traitor Within: Our Suicide Problem https://archive.org/details/traitorwithinour033019mbp