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 to Hsinking, the capital of Manchukuo, where Puyi was then the Emperor. Life in Manchukuo As Puyi had no children, Pujie was regarded as first in line to succeed his brother as the emperor of Manchukuo; the Japanese officially proclaimed him the heir presumptive. However, Pujie was not appointed by his brother as the heir to the throne of the Qing dynasty, as imperial tradition stated that a childless emperor should choose his heir from a subsequent generation instead of from his own generation. While in Manchukuo, Pujie served as honorary head of the Manchukuo Imperial Guards. He returned briefly to Japan in 1944 to attend the Army Staff College. At the time of the collapse of Manchukuo during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, Pujie initially attempted to escape to Japan with his brother. However, as it became apparent that no escape was possible, he opted to return to Hsinking in an unsuccessful attempt to surrender the city to forces of the Republic of China, rather than have the city fall into foreign hands. Pujie was arrested by the Soviet Red Army and first sent to a prison camp in Chita, and then to another in Khabarovsk along with his brother and other relatives. He spent about five years in the Soviet prison camps until 1950, when the Sino-Soviet rapprochement allowed him and his fellow captives to be extradited to the newly founded People's Republic of China. Life in the People's Republic of China On his return to China, Pujie was incarcerated in the War Criminals Management Centre in Fushun, Liaoning. A model prisoner, he was eventually pardoned and released from prison by the Chinese government in 1960. He joined the Communist Party and served in a number of positions. In 1961 with permission from Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, he was reunited with his wife and younger daughter Husheng and settled in Beijing, while his daughter would later return to Japan and became a citizen there. In 1963, his daughter returned to stay with him and his wife for one year before returning to Japan again.