| Hiro Saga | |
|---|---|
 Hiro Saga in 1937 | |
| Born | 16 April 1914 (1914-04-16) Tokyo,Japan |
| Died | 20 June 1987 (1987-06-20) (aged 73) Capital Medical University Beijing Friendship Hospital,Beijing,People's Republic of China |
| Burial | Shimonoseki,Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | Huisheng (1938–1957) Husheng (b. 1940) |
Hiro Saga (嵯峨 浩,Saga Hiro, 16 April 1914 – 20 June 1987) was a Japanese noblewoman and memoir writer. She was the daughter of Marquis Saneto Saga and a distant relative ofEmperor Shōwa. She was married in 1937 toPujie, the younger brother ofPuyi, the last monarch of theQing dynasty of China between 1908 and 1912 and the ruler of Japanese-backedManchukuo between 1932 and 1945. After her marriage to Pujie, she was known as, and identified herself as,Aishinkakura Hiro (愛新覺羅•浩) orAixinjueluo Hao in Chinese.
The Saga family was of thekuge court nobility and a branch of the Ogimachi Sanjo branch (正親町三条家) of thenorthern Fujiwara lineage, she shared the same great-great-grand father withEmperor Meiji, Ogimichisanjo Sanetomo. Saga was born inTokyo in 1914 as the eldest daughter of Marquis Saneto Saga (嵯峨実勝,Saga Saneto) and Naoko Hamaguchi (浜口 尚子,Hamaguchi Naoko). She was educated at the women's branch of theGakushuin Peers' School.
In 1936, Saga was introduced toPujie, the younger brother ofPuyi, the ruler ofManchukuo. Pujie was then attending theImperial Japanese Army Academy. Saga and Pujie were wed in anarranged marriage. Pujie had selected her photograph from a number of possible candidates vetted by theKwantung Army.[1] As his brother Puyi did not have a direct heir, the wedding had strong political implications, and was aimed at both fortifying relations between the two countries and introducing Japanese blood into the Manchu imperial family.
The engagement ceremony took place at the Manchukuo embassy in Tokyo on 2 February 1937 with the official wedding held in the Imperial Army Hall at Kudanzaka, Tokyo on 3 April. In October, the couple moved toXinjing, the capital of Manchukuo. They had two daughters,Huisheng andHusheng, and what appeared to be a happy marriage.
During theEvacuation of Manchukuo during theSoviet invasion of Manchuria, Saga was separated from her husband. While Pujie accompanied Puyi in an attempt to escape by air, Saga and her younger daughter Husheng were sent by train towardsKorea together withWanrong (Puyi's wife). The train was captured by Chinese communist forces at the town ofDalizi [zh], now inLinjiang, Jilin, in January 1946. In April, they were moved to a police station inChangchun, eventually released only to be rounded up again and locked up at a police station inJilin in the north. WhenKuomintang forces bombed Jilin, the prisoners were moved to a prison inYanji.[2] Saga and her daughter were then taken to a prison inShanghai and eventually repatriated to Japan. In 1961, after the release of Pujie from prison, the couple was reunited with permission from Chinese premierZhou Enlai. They lived inBeijing from 1961 until her death in 1987.
Saga and Pujie are buried in an Aisin-Gioro family plot inShimonoseki,Yamaguchi, with their eldest daughter, Huisheng.
Hiro Saga and Pujie had two daughters:Huisheng andHusheng. Huisheng was born inXinjing and educated inGakushuin University. She died atMount Amagi on 10 December 1957 in what appeared to be a murder-suicide case. Husheng was educated inGakushuin Women's University in Tokyo. She married Kenji Fukunaga (福永健治Fukunaga Kenji) in 1968 and had five children with him.
Hiro Saga published her memoir,Vicissitudes of a Princess, in 1959.[3][4] It became a hugely popular bestseller of the time, and in 1960 was adapted into a film,The Wandering Princess, by directorKinuyo Tanaka.
Saga is a minor character in theAcademy Award-winning 1987 filmThe Last Emperor, where she is played by Chinese actress Cheng Shuyan.[5]
In 1960, Kinuyo Tanaka produced and directedThe Wandering Princess (流転の王妃, Ruten no ōhi?), a film adapted from Hiro Saga’s memoirs published in 1959, with Machiko Kyō and Eiji Funakoshi in the roles of Hiro Saga and Pujie.
Pujie and Hiro Saga's story was adapted into a television drama,Ruten no Ōhi - Saigo no Kōtei [ja] (流転の王妃・最後の皇弟), shown onTV Asahi in 2003.Takako Tokiwa, who portrayed Hiro Saga in the drama, was a classmate of Saga's grandson (Husheng's son) in real life.[citation needed]
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