Hiro Saga

Hiro Saga (嵯峨 浩, Saga Hiro) was born on 16 April 1914 in Tokyo, Japan, and died on 20 June 1987. She was a member of Japanese nobility and a memoir writer. Her father was Marquis Saneto Saga, and she was a distant relative of Emperor Shōwa. Saga belonged to the kuge court nobility, specifically a branch of the Ogimachi Sanjo family within the northern Fujiwara lineage. She shared a great-great-grandfather, Ogimichisanjo Sanetomo, with Emperor Meiji.

Saga received education at the women's division of the Gakushuin Peers' School. She was the eldest daughter of Marquis Saneto Saga and Naoko Hamaguchi (浜口尚子).

In 1936, Hiro Saga was introduced to Pujie (also known as Aisin Gioro Pujie), the younger brother of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, who ruled Manchukuo from 1932 to 1945. Pujie was attending the Imperial Japanese Army Academy at that time. Their engagement and subsequent marriage were arranged, with Pujie selecting her photograph from multiple candidates vetted by the Kwantung Army. Because Puyi did not have a direct heir, the marriage carried political significance aimed at strengthening relations between Japan and Manchukuo, as well as introducing Japanese blood into the Manchu imperial line.

The engagement ceremony occurred on 2 February 1937 at the Manchukuo embassy in Tokyo, followed by the official wedding on 3 April 1937 at the Imperial Army Hall in Kudanzaka, Tokyo. After their marriage, the couple relocated to Xinjing, the capital of Manchukuo. They had two daughters, Huisheng and Husheng.

During the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the subsequent evacuation, Saga was separated from her husband. While Pujie attempted to escape by air with Puyi, Saga and her younger daughter, Husheng, were sent by train toward Korea along with Wanrong, Puyi's wife. The train was captured by Chinese communist forces at Dalizi in January 1946. In April of that year, Saga and her daughter were detained in Changchun and later transferred to a police station. They were subsequently moved to prisons in Jilin, Yanji, and Shanghai over the course of the following months. Eventually, Saga and Husheng were repatriated to Japan. Pujie was released from prison in 1961, and he and Saga were reunited with permission from Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. They then lived in Beijing until her death.

Saga and Pujie’s children were:

- Huisheng, born in Xinjing, who attended Gakushuin University and died on 10 December 1957 in Mount Amagi in an incident considered a murder-suicide.

- Husheng, who was educated at Gakushuin Women's University in Tokyo and married Kenji Fukunaga in 1968; they had five children.

In 1959, Hiro Saga published her memoir titled *Vicissitudes of a Princess*. The book achieved substantial popularity and was adapted into a film in 1960, *The Wandering Princess*, directed by Kinuyo Tanaka.

Saga has appeared as a minor character in the 1987 film *The Last Emperor*, portrayed by Chinese actress Cheng Shuyan. Her life story was also adapted into the television drama *Ruten no Ōhi - Saigo no Kōtei*, broadcast on TV Asahi in 2003, with Takako Tokiwa portraying her.