Puyi

In 1908, Empress Dowager Cixi chose Puyi to succeed the childless Guangxu Emperor; he ascended at age two with his father as regent. The Xinhai Revolution forced his abdication in 1912, though he kept his title and stayed in the Forbidden City under the Articles of Favorable Treatment. Loyalist general Zhang Xun restored him for twelve days in July 1917. Expelled from the palace by warlord Feng Yuxiang in 1924, he fled to Tianjin, then rode the Japanese invasion of Manchuria to a second throne - emperor of Manchukuo in 1932. The Soviet Red Army captured him in 1945; he testified at Tokyo, then spent a decade in Chinese custody. Released in 1959, he published an autobiography under government pressure, worked as a gardener, and later became a researcher at the Central Research Institute of Culture and History. Zhou Enlai shielded him during the Cultural Revolution. He died in 1967, leaving no children.