The Day the Sky Fell: When China's Air Force Bombed the Forbidden City

In July 1917, the fledgling Chinese Air Force bombed the Forbidden City to crush a coup restoring 11-year-old Emperor Puyi. The raid, using a Caudron biplane, caused minimal damage but effectively ended the last attempt to reinstate the Qing Dynasty.

The Day the Sky Fell: When China's Air Force Bombed the Forbidden City

History is filled with strange footnotes, moments so bizarre they sound like fiction. One such event unfolded in the skies over Beijing in July 1917. It was a clash of eras, where ancient imperial ambitions met the dawn of aerial warfare. In a desperate attempt to restore China's last emperor, a monarchist general briefly seized power, only to have his coup d'état shattered by three small bombs dropped from a flimsy biplane onto the sacred grounds of the Forbidden City.

A General's Imperial Dream

In the summer of 1917, the newly formed Republic of China was a chaotic patchwork of rival warlords. Into this power vacuum stepped General Zhang Xun, a man fiercely loyal to the bygone Qing Dynasty. Known as the "Pigtail General" for forcing his soldiers to keep the Manchu queue hairstyle, a symbol of Qing loyalty, Zhang saw an opportunity. On July 1st, he marched his army into Beijing and, with the support of other royalists, declared the restoration of the Qing Dynasty, placing the 11-year-old Aisin-Gioro Puyi back on the Dragon Throne. For twelve fleeting days, it seemed as if the clock had been turned back.

The Republic's Modern Response

The restoration was met with widespread condemnation across China. Republican warlord Duan Qirui, the premier Zhang had deposed, quickly assembled a force to retake the capital. But Duan had a secret weapon, a symbol of the new era that Zhang Xun was trying to erase: a fledgling air force. Stationed at the Nanyuan Airbase just south of the city were a handful of French-made Caudron Type D biplanes. These were not formidable bombers by later standards; they were rickety, fabric-and-wood reconnaissance planes, and this mission would be one of the first aerial bombing raids in East Asian history.

Three Bombs Over the Dragon Throne

On July 12th, a Caudron piloted by Pan Shizhong with Du Yuyuan acting as bombardier chugged into the sky above Beijing. Inside the ancient walls of the Forbidden City, the royal court was in a state of panic. The young emperor, Puyi, later recalled the terror in his autobiography, describing the strange objects falling from the sky. The "bombs" were small, likely hand-dropped improvised devices. The crew dropped three of them. The first landed harmlessly near the Gate of Supreme Harmony. The third's impact was negligible. But the second bomb found a target: it struck the roof of a kitchen, killing a single eunuch and slightly wounding another person. The Forbidden City, a sanctuary of tradition for centuries, had been violated from the air.

A Coup Shattered from Above

The physical damage was, by all accounts, surprisingly minor. A dead eunuch, a damaged roof, and a few pockmarks in the imperial courtyards. The psychological impact, however, was devastating. For the royalists huddled in the palace, the air raid was a terrifying omen. It demonstrated, in the most dramatic way possible, the technological and military superiority of the Republic. Their dream of restoring an ancient dynasty was literally blown apart by a weapon of the new world. Morale collapsed instantly. By the end of the day, the 12-day restoration was over. General Zhang fled to the safety of the Dutch legation, and Puyi was emperor no more. The bizarre air raid on the Forbidden City served as a noisy, strange, and ultimately final nail in the coffin of China's 2,000-year-old imperial past.

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