| Tan Yuling | |||||||||
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| Noble Consort Mingxian | |||||||||
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| Born | Tatara Yuling (1920-08-11)11 August 1920 Beijing,Republic of China | ||||||||
| Died | 14 August 1942(1942-08-14) (aged 22) Xinjing,Manchukuo | ||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||
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| House | Tatara | ||||||||
| Father | Tatara Zhaoxu | ||||||||
Tan Yuling, Noble Consort Mingxian (bornTatara Yuling; 11 August 1920 – 14 August 1942), was aconcubine of China's last emperorPuyi. She married Puyi when the latter was the nominal emperor of the puppet state ofManchukuo during theSecond Sino-Japanese War. Her given name "Yuling" is sometimes translated into English as "Jade Years".
Yuling was born to the prosperousTatara clan in Beijing, her family is aManchu noble family.[1] Her father Zhaoxu was a high-ranking warlord who administered the area around Beijing and Tianjin. Yuling's two aunts were in the Guangxu Emperor's harem asConsort Jin andConsort Zhen. Tan Yuling lost her parents when she was young, and she and her brother Tan Zhiyuan were raised by their aunt.[2] Even after the Qing Dynasty fell, the Tatara clan continued to be very prosperous, but they changed their names to Tan, to avoid being discriminated for their Manchu ethnicity.
In early 1937, when Tan was still attending a middle school inBeijing, she was chosen to be a wife ofPuyi and she travelled toManchukuo's capital Xinjing (Changchun). On 6 April, she married Puyi in the Xinjing palace and was given the title of Imperial Concubine Xiang. Puyi liked her very much and asked Chen Zengju to teach her how to read Chinese books for six years.[3] She became very close to Puyi after their marriage and in time, she became Noble Consort Xiang and became the manager of the Imperial Harem, asEmpress Xiaokemin was not in favour anymore. Yuling reviled the Japanese.
Tan died in 1942 while being treated forcystitis less than a day after her Japanese doctor gave her an injection. The circumstances surrounding her death were suspicious because Tan was said to have resented the Japanese due to their control over Puyi.Kwantung Army staff officerYoshioka Yasunori (吉岡安則), who was an attaché to the Manchukuo imperial household, once urged Puyi to take a Japanese bride, but Puyi had already married Tan, so he ignored Yoshioka. Yoshioka was said to be unhappy about this. Following Tan's death, Puyi was again pressed by Yoshioka to choose a Japanese spouse, but he refused.[4]
Puyi granted Tan the posthumous title of Noble Consort Mingxian (明賢貴妃) and held a funeral for her in Banruo Temple (般若寺) in Xinjing. After the fall of Manchukuo in 1945, following the Japanese surrender at the end ofWorld War II, Puyi ordered Tan's remains to be cremated and the ashes sent to her relatives in Beijing. Puyi kept a photograph of Tan with him until his death in 1967.
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