A cat now rules the roost where China's "Last Emperor" once lived. Photo: Yin YepingWhen I heard that Xiyangwei Hutong was home to a prince, I imagined something very different from the messy, narrow place I found. While the lane is about seven meters wide, it's also crowded with vehicles and a huge ongoing construction site that covered everything with a thick shroud of dust.
The door at No. 14, however, caught my eye with the appealing decorations and bright lanterns of one of Beijing's many siheyuan restaurants. While some local news sources said No. 14 was the former residence of Prince Zai Tao (1887-1970), local residents clarified that the prince actually lived in No. 16 instead.
But No. 16 was not as compelling as No. 14. The messily built cluster of houses has them so close they're almost on top of each other. Even knowing the place was home to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) prince (pictured below), it somehow doesn't seem nearly impressive enough.
Fall from graceZai Tao and his brother Zai Feng were the two main powers in the court when the emperor Pu Yi ascended to the throne in 1908. Although the two brothers tried to maintain Qing feudalism, it eventually crumbled just two years later. After that, the government still financially supported Zai's life as a special treatment for the last members of the royal family until the general Feng Yuxiang drove the emperor out of the city in 1924. Having lost that source of income, Zai had to find a way of living by selling his antiques in the local open markets. Yet he and his family were still able to live in a luxury courtyard in Shanlao Hutong, to the north of Xiyangwei Hutong.
Zai's 70-year-old son, Jin Congzheng, still remembers his early childhood in Shanlao Hutong. "Our home included around 100 houses that my friends and I often played hide-and-seek in," he said. In 1951, Zai's family eventually sold their place and moved to former stable houses in No.16 Xiyangwei Hutong.
Although the family renovated the old house and built two new ones when they arrived, the original house was still too shabby to inhabit. One time during the 1950s, a part of the roof collapsed. Somehow, this was heard about by Mao Zedong, who immediately asked that 2,000 yuan be taken from his publishing royalties and put toward the renovation Zai's house.
"That amount of money was a lot at that time. It was enough to renovate the whole house," said Jin. "My father was really moved by Mao's thorough care." In 1950, Zai was appointed advisor to the national artillery headquarters and later gained a seat in the National People's Congress as a representative of the Manchurian ethnic group.
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