In 1934, he was declared the Kangde Emperor (or Kang-te Emperor) of Manchukuo and "ruled" until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945. This third stint as Emperor saw him as a puppet of Japan; he signed most edicts the Japanese gave him, including one making slavery legal. During this period, he was largely cooped up in the Salt Tax Palace, where he regularly ordered his servants beaten. His first wife's opium addiction consumed her during these years, and they were generally distant. He took on numerous concubines, as well as male lovers. With the fall of Japan, and thus Manchukuo, in 1945, Puyi fled the capital and was eventually captured by the USSR; he was extradited to the People's Republic of China after it was established in 1949. After his capture he would never see his first wife again; she died of starvation in a Chinese prison in 1946.