# Writing > General Writing >  100 Famous Women in China

## xlwoo

1. Leizu (discoverer of silk)

Leizu (?--?) was the wife of Xuanyuan Huangdi (Huangdi literally meaning Yellow Emperor, living round 2550 BC. Chinese people, i.e., Han tribe, deem themselves the posterity of Huangdi.) A legend had it that Huangdi had a war with another tribe, whose leader was Chiyou, who, it was said, had the ability to raise heavy fog so that the army of Huangdi could not find the way where to go. And it was also said that Huangdi invented a guide cart, on which there was a flat plate with a magnet in the shape of a big spoon. The spoon could turn round and the handle of the spoon always pointed south. It was the earliest type of compass. 
When Huangdi defeated Chiyou, he returned in triumph and had a feast of celebration. All of a sudden the goddess of silkworm came to offer the silk to Huangdi for congratulations. Huangdi gave it to his wife, who loved the glistening thin thread very much. She began to breed silkworm and wove the thread into silk cloth and made a gown for her husband. She also taught people to breed silkworm. She was thus called Lady Silkworm, and in later history was deemed the Goddess of Silkworm. She died on the way in company of Huangdi when he traveled over the country.
But there was another legend about the original goddess of silkworm. A girl and her father lived together. The father went to fight for Huangdi. There was a horse in the house. One day the girl thought of her father badly, and she said to the horse, Oh, horse, if you can bring back my father, I will marry you. the horse ran away immediately and after some time the father came home on the horseback. The girl was glad, but she forgot her promise to marry the horse entirely. However, the horse remembered it and got sick. The father asked his daughter about the sick horse. The girl was reminded of her promise and told it to her father, who, of course, would not let her daughter marry a horse. Therefore he killed the horse and flayed the hide of the horse. Then he lay the hide on the ground in the sun to make it dry. The daughter came close to the hide and said, You, horse, how can I, a human, marry you, a horse? Then she stamped her foot on the hide. Suddenly the hide flew up and wrapped around the girl. The girl was frightened out of her senses and ran off from home to the nearby woods with mulberry trees. Then she began to eat mulberry leaves and spewed out silk threads.

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## Pompey Bum

Thanks, xiwoo. The stories of old China are really fun (I had never heard the story of the lovesick horse, but it is wonderful). I hope you will tell us about all 100 of these women.  :Smile:

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## xlwoo

2. Jiangyuan (mother of planting)
Jiangyuan (?--?) was born in the present Wugong town of Shaanxi province and was the wife of Gao, the great grandson of Huangdi. One winter day, she was walking in the countryside and saw a giant footprint by the Wei river. She trod in it and when she was back home, gradually she felt that she was pregnant. She conceived the baby for twelve months and then gave birth. The baby looked ugly with a very big head. The mother thought that it was a monster and so deserted it for three times. But every time the baby was saved. At last the mother took it back and brought it up. So the baby was named Qi (meaning to desert). Later he was called Huoji. The mother gave him good education. He was the earliest ancestor of Zhou dynasty (1121—476 BC). From early boyhood he was interested in plants and when he grew up, he taught people how to grow grains, etc. that was the beginning of agriculture in China. People remembered his mother and historians gave her the title of mother saintess.

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## xlwoo

3. Su Daji (cruel beauty)

Su Daji (?--?) was the wife of King Zhou (?--1046 BC), who was the last king of Shang dynasty (1765—1122 BC), and proud of his great strength. She came from Su clan. Her father was Su Hu, the chieftain of the clan. She was a pretty girl and could dance. In 1147 BC, King Zhou conquered Su clan. Su Hu had to give his daughter to King Zhou as his trophy. It was the tradition in ancient China that the conqueror always demanded valuables and pretty girls from the defeater. Since Daji was very beautiful, the king made her his queen after he got some pretense to kill his original queen. This queen had two sons, who were exiled. The king did these to please his new queen, if not secretly required by her. As the new queen could dance, the king ordered the palace musician Shijuan to compose some decadent music. Daji danced to the obscene music to please the king. The king was so doting on her that he would grant all her wishes, no matter how absurd and cruel her desire was. There were some facts recorded in the history books.
The king had a garden built having a pond filled with wine and a forest with dried meat fillets hanging from the boughs of the trees. He often held a banquet there, with as many as three thousand officials gathering there. They played and chased each other naked among the trees. The king and the queen liked to row on the wine. Anyone could drink the wine from the pond. 
Daji ordered a huge deep pit dug and put in hundreds of snakes. She would have her offenders thrown into it to feed the snakes. She also invented some torture equipment. The most cruel one was a bronze pillar with inside vacant. Then firewood and coal filled it and burned. When the pillar was hot, a criminal was brought and made to embrace it till he was burned to death with shrill bitter cries. 
Once in winter when she saw an old man walking on ice with bare feet. He seemed not to feel cold. She thought that he might have something special in the bone of his shin. Therefore she ordered to have the man brought to her presence and to have his foreleg cut down to see if anything special inside his bone. 
Another time, when she and the king sat on the terrace to look at the street. At the time, a women with child walked by. She said that the woman would have a girl while the king said that she would have a boy. So they bet who would guess right. Then the woman was brought in and her belly was cut open to see it was a boy or a girl. Two lives lost for their absurd bet. Besides these, all the courtiers who criticized their misbehavior were executed. Finally they lost the support of courtiers and people and was at last subdued by Zhou dynasty. The king burned himself and Daji hanged herself.

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## Pompey Bum

I've heard of the wine lake before, but wasn't there some particular cruelty associated with it, too?

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## xlwoo

[please read last two paragraphs]

4. Qi Wenjiang (an able and adulterous woman)
Qi Wenjiang (733—673 BC) was the second daughter of Duke Xi (?--698 BC) of Qi dukedom bordering on the East Sea. She had a sister Qi Xuanjiang. Both girls were beautiful, well-known to all states in China at the time. It was in the first warring period (770—221 BC) in the history of China. All the dukedoms, marquisates, and earldoms etc. became independent though the king of Zhou dynasty was still in reign in name only. His power could only reach within the territory of his kingdom. 
Duke Ling (540—493 BC) of Wei dukedom wanted to have the elder sister Xuanjiang to be the wife of his son. Her father agreed and sent her to Wei dukedom. But when Duke Ling set eyes on the girl, her beauty stunned him, and he took the girl as his own wife, to the disappointment of his son. There was even a folk song to sing the praise of her beauty. Since that day, Duke Ling stuck to his young wife day and night. If he could not see her even for a moment, he would look like his soul had left his body. 
Then Duke Xi declared that he would find a husband for his second daughter. The news spread and all the sons of the rulers of other states came to the capital of Qi dukedom to seek for the hand of the girl. It happened because of two reasons. Firstly, the girl was a beauty known in all states. Secondly, Qi Dukedom was a big state. If a small state had the relationship with a big state, the small state would have more safety against other neighboring small states. In that period, there were much more small states than big states. They often wanted to merge others to become big. Among all the suitors, the girl selected the son of Zheng State. But when the son went back to his own state, he regretted of the marriage and broke the agreement, because he was afraid that the daughter of a big state would certainly bully the son of a small state. He would not be bullied by his wife. When the girl learned the decision of the boy she had chosen, she turned irritating and then woeful. She became languish and sick, because the breech of the marriage from the boy's side was an insult to the girl in the public eye, which meant that the girl might have some defects in her moral or character. 
She had a brother and they played together since childhood. As the brother knew that his sister was sick, he came to see her, desiring to comfort her. Young girl and young boy, no matter what was their relationship, when meeting in certain condition, would easily give themselves up for love action. At that time, there were no moral rules for such things like in present days. A beautiful girl and a handsome boy were surely a destined pair. 
Lu dukedom was just next to Qi dukedom. Duke Huan (731—694 BC) of Lu state just succeeded to the throne and was in need of a wife. Qi dukedom was a large state while Lu dukedom was a bit smaller, and not so strong. Duke Huan thought that if he got a wife from a big state, he would have a strong support for his rule. So he married Qi Wenjiang though he knew the abnormal relationship between the girl and her brother. Different people have different ideas to a certain thing. Duke Huan did not care for it as long as he had a beautiful wife and strong support. After the wedding, the husband and the wife got along well and they had two sons. 
After several years, Duke Xi of Qi dukedom died and his son, the brother, turned to be the new duke, called Duke Xiang (729—686 BC). The rulers of other states went there for the ceremony. Duke Huan of Lu dukedom went there, too, but he did not bring his wife together, though the wife begged to go with him. He feared that if the sister and the brother met again, their fire of love might rekindle. However, if he never took his wife back to her mother state, it would look weird to other states. So after eighteen years, he did go to visit Qi dukedom with his wife, who was already in her forties. But women in forties are still in need of that. 
Duke Xiang was glad that his sister came at length after long years of separation. He recalled their happy time together. When the duke of Lu state and his wife settled down in the guest room in the palace, the duke of Qi state asked his sister to see his wife in the rear of the palace. The duke of Lu state could not say NO to this request. Once in some back room, the brother and the sister fell into action right away like dry wood caught fire. For several days, the duke of Lu state was left alone and so one day he trespassed into the rear palace and witnessed their action. He slapped his wife on the face and dragged her away from the room. He and his wife started immediately back to Lu dukedom. He let his wife go ahead and he himself attended the farewell party given by the duke of Qi state, the brother. He left the palace in a coach after bidding adieu, but was killed in the coach by a knight of Qi dukedom. The knight overtook the wife and reported to her of the death of her husband. The wife clearly knew what had happened to her husband, but she said nothing. She let the knight go to back to tell the news to her brother, who hurried here to meet his sister. The sister stayed on the border of the two dukedoms for a while. And the brother often came to meet her. Finally she had to return to Lu dukedom with the news that the duke of Lu state died suddenly on the way back. Although the courtiers of Lu state suspected something, but they had no evidence, and had to keep silent. Later the knight was executed on some excuses to keep the murder a secret. But on the execution spot, the knight told the secret to all the people present at the top of his voice. 
When Lu dukedom was informed of the sudden death of their duke, the elder son of the diseased duke became the ruler. He was Duke Zhuang. As he was still young and so his mother, Qi Wenjiang, helped him to manage the state affairs. She was a capable woman and made Lu dukedom strong and once defeated Qi dukedom in a battle, though Qi dukedom was her parental state. Anyway, Qi dukedom should not fight Lu dukedom as they were brother and sister.

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## Pompey Bum

Okay, I get it. No questions till the end.  :Frown:

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## xlwoo

[lovely rabbit. I like it.]

5. Xishi (the first beauty of the four beauties)
Xishi (?--?) lived in the first warring period, later than Qi Wenjiang, who lived in the earlier time of that period. Xishi was born in Ningluo village in the suburb of Zhuji town in Zhejiang province. Her real name was Shi Yiguang. As Ningluo village was divided in two parts, the east part and the west part. Since Shi Yiguang lived in the west part, and so she got the nickname “Xishi” (Xi means west).
She was one of the four beauties, the earliest one, in the history of ancient China. The other three were Wang Zhaojun, Diaochan, and Yang Yuhuan, whose story was told in another book of mine titled “Love Tales of Ancient China.” There were so many beautiful women in the history of China, why were these four women that grouped as the four beauties, not others? None nowadays can tell the reason. We just tell the stories as they were. Xishi often washed gauze clothes in a stream in her village, and thereby she got another nickname “gauze-washing girl.”
There were two states bordering each other: Wu kingdom and Yue kingdom, both in the present Zhejiang province. In the latter part of the first warring period, the Zhou kingdom already perished. Therefore, all survived states after merging called themselves kingdoms. In 494 BC, Wu kingdom defeated Yue kingdom and captured the king of Yue kingdom, Gouqian by name. Guoqian (520—465 BC) showed himself to be a very tame captive and vowed that if he could be allowed to go back to his own state, he would always be loyal to Fucha (?--473 BC), king of Wu kingdom. Guoqian also bribed Bopi, a favorite courtier of King Wu to throw good words for him. King Wu was a good-for-nothing while King Yue was a capable man. Why Yue kingdom was defeated by Wu kingdom was because a very famous strategist as well as an able general served Wu kingdom. This famous strategist Sun Zi (545-470 BC) had written a world renowned military book titled Arts of War. He was deemed as martial saint. Some famous rules in the book are “know your enemy as well as yourself so that you can always be victorious,” “always give your enemy a false move so as to mislead them.” 
At length, Guoqian was released and went back to Yue kingdom. Every year, Guoqian sent a lot of tributes to Wu kingdom to show his faithfulness. But secretly he wanted to have revenge. One of his courtiers, Fan Li, suggested a strategy that Guoqian should send the King Wu some dancing girls so that King Wu would always enjoy the dancing and neglect his state affairs, which would provide Yue kingdom a chance to conquer Wu kingdom. 
Fan Li (536—448 BC) began to look for beautiful girls within the state and he found Xishi one day when she was washing her gauze by the stream. As soon as he set eyes on her, he felt that she was the right girl he was looking for. So he took the girl to the palace to be taught singing and dancing. After some special training, she was sent to King Wu, who liked the girl very much and did indulge in singing and dancing of the beauty. She could dance clog-dancing and she had plenty of tiny bells sewed on her skirt so that when she danced the bells gave out tingling to the rhythm of her dancing. The king made her his queen and had a new palace built for her, inside which there was a special corridor called “clog-sounding corridor.” It was built like this—hundreds of big vats were put side by side and wooden planks were laid on top of them. When the girl danced on the planks, wearing clogs, the empty vats echoed with a hollow sound to meet with the rhythm of the dancing. The king did neglect his state affairs, and seeing this, Sun Zi left Wu kingdom and lived somewhere as a hermit. Wu kingdom was finally defeated by Yue kingdom. King Wu made suicide. 
There were two legends about the end of Xishi. The first one was that when the king of Wu kingdom died, she was drowned in a river. The second one was that Fan Li took her with him, fearful that if King Yue saw her, he might be charmed by her beauty and also neglect his state affairs. Fan Li became a merchant and lived with Xishi happily till the end of their lives.

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## xlwoo

6. Zhong Wuyan (an ugly and wise woman)
Zhong Wuyan (?--?) (wuyan literally meaning no beauty) was ugly, but wise and could fight. How ugly was she? There was a description: a big belly, a big head, her forehead and eyes looking like sucked in, and her skin very dark and course. She was suspected that her mother or father came from abroad, not the offspring of Han tribe. Most famous women in Chinese history were beautiful. Only this one was ugly. As she was so ugly, no man would marry her. She was still single when she reached the age of forty. 
At that time, King Xuan (?--301 BC) of Qi state was on the throne. He was not a capable man with a quick temper. He liked flattering. There was corruption all over the state and other states were watching for some opportunity to invade Qi state. The famous Mencius had come to give him advice, but he would not listen. Qi state at the time had a clever premier Yan Ying (?--500 BC), who was short in stature. Qi state had three haughty knights at the same time. They even sometimes refused to obey the king. So Yan Ying was afraid that they might endanger the state. One day there came a chance. There grew a peach tree in the palace. The peach tree produced some large fruits that day. Yan Ying suggested to the king to give two of the peaches to the three knights. One knight ate one and another knight ate the other. The third one had none. Yan Ying said to him that it was a disgrace to him that he could have none to eat while the other two ate theirs. The third one was ashamed of himself, and drawing out his sword, he killed himself. The other two knights said that the three of them were like brothers. They should not eat the peaches without thinking of their brother. They felt ashamed of themselves for the neglect. Therefore, they killed themselves on the spot. This event in the history was called “Killing three knights with two peaches.”
One day the king went hunting with Yan and met Wuyan in the forest. Wuyan was an ambitious woman and had certain opinions about the state. She seized the opportunity to come forth to talk to the king. She analyzed the dangerous situation the state was now in and made good suggestions to him. Therefore, at the advice of Yan, the king took her to the palace and made her his queen. When Yan state, which was to the north of Qi state, sent a messenger there to test the wisdom of the king. The messenger brought two jade rings connected together. The king was asked to separate them. Just when the king did not know what to do with it, Wuyan came out. She brought a small hammer and used it to knock one ring into two pieces. The rings were thus separated. However, Yan state yet sent the army in an intention to conquer Qi state. Wuyan led the army of Qi state to meet the army of Yan state and defeated it. She helped the king to make Qi state strong.

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## xlwoo

7. Mother of Mencius (392—317 BC) (a considerate mother)
Mencius (372—289 BC) was naughty when a boy. His father died when he was only three. Her mother brought him up and educated him. In his teenage, he liked to imitate whatever he saw. At first they lived in the countryside, close to a graveyard. When people came to bury corpses, crying. He would dig a small pit in the ground and put in a piece of wood, and cried. When his mother saw it, she thought that this was not a good place to live. They moved into the nearby town, close to a market. There were a slaughter house to slay pigs and also a black smithery with noises of striking iron. All such distracted her son from studies. Besides, the son imitated how to sell things like merchants in the market. Then they moved to the east side of the town, close to a school. Therefore, the son imitated how the students read and write in the classroom. The mother liked the place and settled down forever. So Mencius became a famous scholar. This story was called “three moves of the mother of Mencius.” The story shows that neighborhood is very important in grow-up of children. 
Another story told us how the mother of Mencius educated her son. Once her son played truant at school. The mother was weaving a cloth at the loom when the son came home. The mother cut the cloth on the loom into two. The son curiously asked why. The mother said that her son played truant while learning was just like she severed the cloth in the process of weaving. 
We can still visit the grave of the mother of Mencius at Mt. MaAn (meaning saddle) in Anhui province.

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## xlwoo

8. Zhao Ji (mother of the first emperor)
Zhao Ji (?--228 BC) was the mother of the first emperor of Qin dynasty. (Hence we call him Emperor Qin in this story.) At that time King Zhaoxiang (325—251 BC) was on the throne. He appointed his son Anyangjun as the crown prince. Anyangjun had more than twenty sons. One of them was Yiren. When Qin kingdom and Zhao kingdom had a war, Qin kingdom was beaten. As a rule, Qin kingdom must send a royal family member as hostage to Zhao kingdom. Yiren was chosen and went to live in the capital of Zhao kingdom. 
There was in Zhao kingdom a jewelry merchant, by name of Luu Buwei (292—235 BC), who was very clever and knew how to calculate his profits. His famous quotation was, “If I invest in fields, I can get profit ten times . If I invest in jewelry, I can get profit a hundred times. If I invest in supporting an emperor, I can be rich and powerful all my life.” He pinned his hope on the hostage Yiren. He bribed the guardsman to let him get in touch with Yiren. Then he befriended the hostage and satisfied him for any demands he had. Then he got acquainted with the sister of Ladyship Huayang, who was the wife of the crown prince, the father of the hostage. As ladyship Huayang had no children of her own, she was persuaded to adopt Yiren as her son. Every wife or concubine of the royal family wanted her son to be the crown prince. So ladyship Huayang persuaded Anyangjun to make Yiren his crown prince when he became the king after the death of his father, the present king. 
Then he selected a pretty clever dancing girl and offered her to Yiren. She became his formal wife. Afterwards, she gave birth to a boy, who was later the first emperor of Qin dynasty. Yiren was soon summoned back to Qin state. Not long before, King Zhaojiang died and the crown prince Anyangjun became the king, King Xiaowen. And his son Yiren was naturally made the crown prince. 
As King Xiaowen led a life of dissipation all day long, his health worsened quickly and died soon. Accordingly, Yiren succeeded to the throne. He was King Zhuangxiang (281—247 BC). He made his son the crown prince and Luu Buwei the premier for all he had done for him. Lately, Buwei turned to be more powerful. Yiren got on alert, fearful that Buwei might kill him and make himself the king. It was not impossible. Buwei also felt that the king might harm him. So he advised Zhao Ji, the wife of the king, to do something about it. Zhao Ji reached the position as queen through Buwei. She was grateful to him, and besides, he was her favorite man while her husband Yiren was only their tool to get rich and powerful. 
Zhao Ji induced the king to drinking and merry-making, which caused his health to deteriorate fast and the king died soon. Then the crown prince was put on the throne at the age of thirteen, too young to handle state affairs. Therefore, Zhao Ji was now the queen dowager and Buwei handled all things. Although the boy was young, he was shrewd and ambitious. He knew that Buwei was a bad man for power. And Buwei knew that the young king was not an ordinary boy. There was a rumor that the king was the son of Zhao Ji and Buwei. 
Before Buwei gave up Zhao Ji to Yiren, they had already made love to each other. Now that Yiren died, how could Zhao Ji quenched her thirst for love? She and Buwei met secretly. But they were afraid that their relationship might be discovered by the young king. Then Buwei found a man called Miudu, whose specialty was to have a giant penis. Buwei sent him into the palace disguised as a eunuch to satisfy Zhao Ji so that he himself could be away from danger. Presently, the queen dowager was pregnant. She feared that her son, the king, might find out. Therefore, she told her son that she wanted to travel. The son did not doubt anything yet and consented. So she went to live in a temporary residence with Miudu. They had two children.
When the new king came of age, he took all power back in his own hands. When he was on the throne for nine years, in 238 BC, someone informed him that Miudu was a fake eunuch and had two children with the queen dowager, who promised Miudu that if the king died, she would make one of their sons the king. At that time, the king was twenty-two. As Miudu was told that the king learned their secret, Miudu immediately decided to attack the palace with his followers. The guards of the palace fought them. The latter was put to rout and Miudu was captured and executed. The two children were killed too. Luu Buwei was exiled and drank poison to end his life. As for the queen dowager, his mother, she was driven out of the palace to live somewhere else. The son vowed that he would never see the mother for the rest of his life. Four years after the death of Buwei, Zhao Ji died of grievance.

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## xlwoo

9. Empress Luu (the first empress who had political power)
Empress Luu (241—180 BC) was the wife of Liu Bang (256—195 BC), the first emperor of Han dynasty (206 BC—220 AD). Liu Bang was at first only a petty officer in Pei town, where the father of Empress Luu was a wealthy resident. Once when it was the birthday of the father, as he was a close friend of the mayor, Liu Bang had to go for the celebration. He did not bring any gift, but he lied that he had given a precious gift. When the father found it out, he was angry and wanted to expel Liu Bang. However, when he looked at Liu Bang, he changed his mind because he could read face. The face of Liu Bang showed that he would be a noble man in the future. Therefore, he married his daughter to him. It was towards the end of Qin dynasty. 
There were many revolts at that time. Liu Bang was the leader of one among them. When Liu Bang was riotous, his wife was arrested and put in jail by the local yamen. She experienced all the hardship of the prison. At last Liu Bang managed to get her out. From the day she was released, she lived among the army with her husband. Generally there was no woman allowed in the army, especially a woman who could not fight. 
Another rebellious group was led by Xiang Yu (232—202 BC). They both aimed at Qin dynasty. They wanted to replace Qin dynasty. Xiang was the first to enter the capital of Qin. He overthrew Qin dynasty and burned their palace. The fire lasted for months. Now as the old dynasty no longer existed, the two groups fought each other to decide who would create a new dynasty. In 205 BC, the two groups had a war and Liu Bang was defeated and his wife was captured by Xiang Yu. Then Liu Bang gathered his troops and met Xiang Yu's army again. Xiang Yu had his wife brought out to the front of his array. He said to Liu Bang that if Liu did not surrender, he would cook his wife like a pig. Liu Bang answered smilingly, “If you cook her, please give a piece of her flesh to me.” Xiang Yu felt that his ruse of threat was useless, and they fought once more. As no one could subdue the other, they had a truce, and the wife was released and returned to Liu Bang after two years as a captive. 
Not long afterwards, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu had battles again. Finally, Liu Bang used the tactics of Han Xin (231—196 BC), a famous general in history, to lay ten ambushes and conquered Xiang Yu, who had only a handful of followers left. He was advised that he could go back to where he came from. There he could gather more supporters and fight Liu Bang once more. But he always thought of himself a hero. A hero should never fail. Now he failed and was ashamed of himself. He refused to go back and killed himself at Wu River. His homeland was just across the river. He was a real hero while Liu Bang was a rascal in his character and doings. People of that time thus thought of each of them. 
Now as no rivals any more, Liu Bang founded a new dynasty known as Han dynasty. His wife was duly the empress. She had born two children for Liu Bang. The son, Liu Ying, was made crown prince later, then became Emperor Hui (210—188 BC) after the death of his father. The daughter was Princess Luyuan. Liu Bang had also a pretty concubine called Ladyship Qi, who bore a son, Prince Ruyi. Since Ladyship Qi was the favorite of the emperor, she tried to persuade the emperor to make her son the crown prince, but courtiers all opposed. So her plan failed. But Empress Luu began to hate her. 
Chen Xi (?--195 BC) was a general of Liu Bang. In 197 BC, when Liu became the emperor, he was given the title of Marquis Xinyang. He was originally under Han Xin. That year when Liu Bang suspected him for rebellion and summoned him to the capital, intending to kill him, he had to rebel. So Liu Bang led a large army to fight him. Empress Luu stayed in the capital to control the situation. When she was told that Han Xin would support Chen Xi to rebel, she made some excuse to send for Han Xin to the capital. When Han Xin arrived, she killed him. Some historians commented that if Han Xin rebelled too, he might defeat Liu Bang and became the emperor of another dynasty as he was a great strategist, but he was not a politician. He did not have political insight. Former historians said that it was a pity that such a great strategist was killed by a woman. The woman was an excellent politician. At last Chen Xi was defeated and killed in the fight. 
When Liu Bang died, the crown prince was still under age, and so Empress Luu became the empress dowager and administrated the empire. She then used pretenses to eliminate some powerful Liu family members one by one, and gave some important positions to her Luu family members. The young emperor disagreed to what his mother did, but he could do nothing about it. Then Empress Luu poisoned Prince Ruyi and had his mother Ladyship Qi's four limbs cut off, her eyes blinded and her ears deafened. Her body was put in a pig pen. She was called human pig. Such a cruel thing did happen, recorded in the history. The young emperor grieved to the heart. So he gave himself up for drinking and merry-making and died young. Empress Luu maintained her power till her death. Then her Luu family members were all eliminated by Liu family members.

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## xlwoo

10. Beauty Yu (a woman died for her lover)
Beauty Yu (?--202 BC) was the concubine of Xiang Yu (see above). She was beautiful and could dance with swords. When Xiang Yu became the leader of rebels in the area of Suzhou city, where lived Beauty Yu's family, Beauty Yu admired him. Xiang Yu had great strength and was looked upon as a hero. A beauty always felt for a hero. So she married him. But historians called her concubine, not wife. She followed him everywhere in battles and danced the sword dance for him at night in his tent. 
After several battles with Liu Bang, escaped from ten ambushes, Xiang Yu was surrounded at Wu river. He could broke through and crossed the river, but he wound not do it (see above). Beauty Yu danced her last dance for him in the tent while she sang. After she finished, she cut herself at the throat with the sword in her hand. She died like a heroine. She sacrificed her dear life for her lover, the hero in her eyes. Then Xiang Yu ended his life with his own hand, too. Her story touched people at large to the heart. The name of Beauty Yu was handed down and turned into a well-known Beijing opera. An Anonymous poet in Qing dynasty wrote a poem about it in the words like what she would say:
My hero breathed his last breath in the south of Yangtze River;
It was not right for my humble person to enter Han palace*.
My loyal blood would turn into the grass by the river;
And the blossoms would be redder than azalea flowers.
*It means that she would not surrender and be taken to Han palace—the palace of Liu Bang.

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## xlwoo

11. Empress Dou (an empress dowager through four generations)
Empress Dou (205—135 BC) was the wife of Emperor Wen of Han dynasty. She was born in a common poor family. Her father was drowned falling into a river. Her mother died early, too, leaving behind three orphans. In her teenage, she became a palace maid. She thought that she would be a maid all her life, but she was satisfied because she lived better than before. At the time, Liu Bang was the emperor. When Liu Bang died, Empress Luu gave each of the remaining Liu princes five maids. As her home was close to Zhao fief, she bribed the eunuch who was in charge of the distribution. But the eunuch forgot and sent her to Dai fief. So Empress Dou was given to Prince Dai, who liked the pretty girl and married her. She bore two sons and a daughter for him. After the death of Empress Luu, Prince Dai was supported by all courtiers to be the new emperor, Emperor Wen (202—157 BC), and his wife was made the empress, Empress Dou, and his elder son was made the crown prince, later Emperor Jin (156—87 BC). Empress Dou never dreamed when she was a maid that she could be empress. But some years after she was the empress, misfortune befell her. She was blind. 
Then she was no longer the favorite woman of the emperor. His new favorite woman was concubine Shen. But Empress Dou kept her mind peaceful and never showed any sign of jealousy. She was always lenient. That was why she could live through four generations without anyone to vie for her position. 
When her husband died, her elder son, Emperor Jin, succeeded the throne. She was empress dowager. But as a matter of fact, Empress Dou liked her second son, Prince Liang, better. She wanted Prince Liang to be the successor of his brother. Emperor Jin was a filial son and could not refuse the request of his mother, but all the courtiers opposed it because it was the rule in the feudal system that the son succeeded the father. No one should break the rule. Anyway, as she was a talented woman, she helped her son to handle the national affairs. Then, after the death of her son, her grandson became the emperor, Emperor Wu. Now she was grand empress dowager, and the first grand empress dowager in the history of China.
The grandson was an independent young man and would not let her grandmother to interfere with his administration. She had to retire to the back palace to enjoy the rest of her life. In the reign of Emperor Wu, the Han dynasty expanded its territory. The emperor adopted the works of Confucius as the reading stuff in schools. Confucius was thus made well-known since then.

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## xlwoo

12. Wang Zhi (from a common woman to the empress)
Wang Zhi (?--125 BC) was the second wife of Emperor Jing (188—141 BC) of Han dynasty. She was born in a common family and married an ordinary man called Jin Wangsun, and bore a daughter for him by name of Jin Su. Presently, Wang Zhi deserted her husband and daughter, and entered the palace of the crown prince disguised as a virgin. Emperor Jing made her his concubine. His first wife was Empress Bo, who had no children of her own. Another concubine Li Ji had three sons and the eldest son was made the crown prince. Then Wang Zhi bore for the emperor three daughters and a son. At four years old, the son got the title of Prince Jiaodong.
As Empress Bo did not give any birth, the emperor wanted to depose her from the position of empress and make Li Ji the empress. Emperor Jing had a sister Liu Piao, who had a daughter named Chen Ah Jiao. Liu Piao wanted to marry her daughter to the crown prince. The concubine Li Ji did not like Ah Jiao, and so did not grant the wish of the mother. Therefore, the sister hated Li Ji. When Wang Zhi learned the relationship between Liu Piao and Li Ji, she said that she was willing to let Ah Jiao marry here son, the future crown prince, who turned out later to be Emperor Wu. Therefore, the sister married her daughter to her son, Emperor Wu. 
Then the sister told Emperor Jing that if he made Li Ji the empress, when her son, the present crown prince, succeeded the throne, and as Li Ji was a cruel woman, she would certainly make Wang Zhi, his favorite concubine, be the second human pig. The only solution, she added, was to decrown the present crown prince, the eldest son of Li Ji so that she could never be empress dowager and could never do any harm to Wang Zhi. At first emperor Jing did not believe her. Once he wanted concubine Li Ji to promise that when he died, she should treat other concubines well, but Li Ji did not make the promise. Therefore, Emperor Jing decided not to make Li Ji the empress, and moreover, decrowned the crown prince and made him Prince Lingjiang. Li Ji got seriously sick and died soon. 
In 149 BC, Emperor Jing made Wang Zhi the empress and her son the crown prince. In 141 BC, Emperor Jing died and the crown prince became the emperor, Emperor Wu (07/14/156—03/29/87). And Wang Zhi was then empress dowager. 
When Emperor Wu learned that his mother had a daughter Jin Su with her ex-husband, he sent someone to look for her. As Jin Su knew that someone was after her, she was afraid and escaped and hid herself somewhere. At last she was found and brought to the presence of the emperor, who let her go to see the empress dowager, her mother. Empress Dowager was happy for the reunion with her first daughter. In 126 BC, Wang Zhi died and was buried with Emperor Jing. 
Emperor Wu was a great emperor of Han dynasty. He conquered the minority in the north and expanded the territory of Han dynasty to the west.

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## xlwoo

13. Chen Ahjiao (a quick-tempered empress)
Chen Ahjiao (?--?) was the wife of Emperor Wu, and was made the empress. When both were children, the mother of the girl, who was the sister of Emperor Jing, held the young Emperor Wu on her lap. There were an array of palace maids waiting on them. The mother asked the boy, “When you grow up, do you want to get married?” the boy said, “Sure.” then the mother pointed to the maids and asked the young Emperor Wu, “Who do you like?” The little boy said that none of them he liked. Then the mother, pointing to her daughter Ahjiao and asked, “Do you like her?” The little boy answered that if he could get her, he would build a house of gold to let her live in. This story is known to all Chinese people.
When they both grew up, Emperor Wu did marry Ahjiao and made her his empress. Emperor Wu wanted to have some kind of reform, but was opposed by some powerful courtiers. Even the grand empress dowager Dou had different opinions. But Ahjiao supported him and her parents supported their son-in-law, which made the emperor tide over the crisis. 
Ahjiao was a girl with a quick temper, and besides, she did not have any children for the emperor for ten years. Gradually the emperor got tired of her. The emperor always had many girls round him. The most favorite one among them was Wei Zifu (?--90 BC). Out of jealousy, Ahjiao went to see the emperor and chided him for neglecting her. The emperor blamed her not to have any children for him. That was why he should have another girl for the posterity's sake. He must have at least a son to succeed the throne. Ahjiao could have nothing more to say and had to retire to her own room. She sent for a doctor after another in hopes of being pregnant, but in vain. 
Ahjiao wanted to get rid of Wei Zifu, but Wei was with the emperor everyday, and she had no chance to have her wish fulfilled. Then she found a witch and asked her to exercise her magic power to win back the favor of the emperor, but no result for several months. The emperor heard of this and was infuriated. He ordered the witch to be executed and confined Ahjiao in Changmen Hall after she was deposed from her position of empress. She died in melancholy. Wei Zifu was made the empress.

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## xlwoo

14. Wei Zifu (from a singer to the empress)
Wei Zifu (?--90 BC) was the second wife of Emperor Wu. Wei Zifu was originally a sing-song girl in the residence of Princess Pingyang and her husband Marquis Pingyang. Once Emperor Wu visited the princess and saw the girl. He liked her on the spot and took her back to the palace. 
When Wei Zifu was taken into the palace, the empress then was Ahjiao, who hated the beautiful new-comer and made her a maid only. And she could not see the emperor, who seemed forgot her entirely. Once the emperor let all the maids gather in his presence and wanted to dismiss some old ones. Wei Zifu was then among them, and she asked the emperor to let her leave the palace. The emperor saw her and refreshed his liking of her. He gave her the title of Ladyship Wei, next to the empress. In 128 BC, she bore a son for the emperor, named Liu Che, and thus was made the empress, since the ex-empress had already been deposed and confined in Changmen Hall. In 122 BC, the son was declared the crown prince. 
When grown up, the crown prince showed himself a lenient and clever man. His father, the emperor, liked him very much. But as now the empress grew old, the emperor ignored her. He always preferred new young pretty girls. He had later Ladyship Li, Ladyship Xing, Ladyship Yin and Ladyship Zhao. Ladyship Xing and Ladyship Yin were more jealous of each other and wherever Ladyship Xing was present, Ladyship Yin would not come, and vice verse. 
There were some wicked courtiers. The most wicked one was Jiang Chong. He often slandered the crown prince before the emperor. He knew clearly that when the crown prince became the emperor, the new emperor would certainly punish him for his evil doings. But the emperor would not listen to him. At the time, some witches exercised black magic of cursing the emperor for his death. It was found out and all the witches were executed. Then the emperor let Jiang Chong investigate who was behind all this. Jiang Chong seized the opportunity to frame the crown prince. He sent someone secretly to bury a wooden doll with the birthday of the emperor engraved on it. This was used at the time for curse of death of someone whose birthday was engraved on the wooden doll. 
The crown prince was a clever man and knew that Jiang Chong would do something to harm him. He would act first. He went with his bodyguards to see the emperor intending to reveal the scheme of Jiang Chong, just when Jiang Chong led some soldiers to his residence intending to dig up the doll and take it to the emperor so that it would be a proof that the crown prince was cursing the emperor for death. They met in the street and fought each other. At last Jiang Chong was killed. 
The emperor sent a messenger to see what was happening. The messenger came back and reported untruthfully to the emperor that the crown prince was rebelling. So the emperor sent army to subdue the rebellion and the crown prince was defeated, because he really did not want to rebel and had few fighters with him. The crown prince had to escape and hide himself somewhere. Afterwards he was detected and hanged himself. When his mother, the empress, heard of it, she hanged herself, too. She held her position of empress for thirty-eight years, a very long period of time. Finally the truth was known to the emperor, and he killed all those who joined in the pursuit of the crown prince. 
By the way, Empress Wei Zifu had a stepbrother, Wei Qing by name. He was a famous general in defense of the northern frontier of Han territory. He was promoted to the position was because of his stepsister, the empress. If he was an ordinary man, he would not have the chance to be promoted to the generalship.

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## xlwoo

15. Zhao Feiyan (a good dancer of an empress)
Zhao Feiyan ( 45—1 BC) was the wife of Emperor Cheng (51—7 BC). She was so beautiful and a legendary woman in the Han dynasty. When she was born, her parents put her in the fields, supposed to let her die. But three days afterwards, when the parents went to check on her, she was still alive. So her parents took her home and brought her up. In her girlhood, she was sent to the residence of Princess YangA to learn dancing. She was so skillful a dancer and had a special style like a flying swallow. So she was later known as Zhao Faiyan (meaning flying swallow). She was said to be so light and lean physically that she could dance on the hand of a big man. Literary men often compared her with the Imperial concubine Yang, who was on the chubby side. The comparison showed a lean beauty with a fat beauty. 
Emperor Cheng liked merry-making and once visited Princess YangA. When he saw Feiyan dancing, he immediately fell in love with her and took her to the palace and made her a concubine. Not long after, he deposed the empress and made Feiyan the empress. She did not bear any children for him. But the emperor did not live long. After his death, the sons of other concubines vied to be the new emperor. Prince Dingtao became the emperor, Emperor Ai (25—1 BC), because his mother bribed Zhao Feiyan. In return Feiyan was made the empress dowager. Only several years later, Emperor Ai died. The next emperor was Emperor Ping (9 BC—5 AD). He was the nephew of Emperor Cheng and a cousin of Emperor Ai. When he became the emperor, he was only nine years old. A courtier Wang Mang seized the power. He deposed the empress dowager Feiyan and confined her somewhere. She at last made suicide.

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## xlwoo

16. Ladyship Ban ( a poetess)
Ladyship Ban (?--?) was a concubine of Emperor Cheng (51—7 BC). She was not only beautiful, but also versed in poetry, with a good temper. She would do everything properly, to the palace etiquette. Once the emperor wanted to go out and let Ladyship Ban sit beside him on the coach, but Ban refused, saying, “Your Majesty, your humble concubine read books from olden time that a wise emperor let his good courtier sit beside him. A stupid emperor let his favorite beauty sit beside him. If your humble concubine sits beside Your Majesty, does it mean that Your Majesty is a stupid emperor?” The emperor thought that she was right and let her go.
When the empress dowager learned it, she really appreciated Ban. She said, “There was Fan Ji in Chu State (in the first warring period). She refused to eat meat because the king liked to hunt. People respected her. Now there is Ban in our palace. She can be compared with Fan Ji in moral.”
Zhao Feiyan, the great dancer, was not the empress yet at the time. She was jealous of the empress and Ban. She always slandered them both, saying that they were cursing the emperor to death. Since the emperor now preferred her to other women, he often believed what she said. So he deposed the empress and made Zhao Feiyan the empress. The emperor also sent for Ban to blame her for cursing him. Ban pleaded herself, saying, “Your Majesty, your humble concubine heard that life and death, wealth and nobleness are all fated by Heaven. If there are deities, they know everything. They won't grant the wish of anyone who curses his master. If there are no deities, what is the use to curse? So I won't do anything like curse,” The emperor thought that she was right and did not punish her. On the contrary, he gave her a hundred catties of gold as a reward.
Ban knew that she was in danger, and offered to live with the empress dowager and wait on her. She died there. She had written a poem “Gauze Fan”. The fan at that time was composed of a round frame of wood or bamboo, with a piece of gauze fixed on it. The poem goes like this:
Newly cut the gauze from Qi area,
It is as white as frost and snow.
It is cut to make a Happy-Union* fan,
As round as the bright moon.
It is stored in your sleeve,
It gives breezes when waved.
I often fear that the autumn comes;
The cool wind takes away the heat.
The fan will be deserted in a box,
The love for it will end midway.
In this poem the poetess meant that she was like a fan. When it was not needed, it was just thrown in a box and forgotten. 

*It is the name of the fan. The couple share the fan and feel in happy union.

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## xlwoo

somehow it repeated. so I deleted it.

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## xlwoo

17. Shangguan Xiaomei (the youngest empress)
Shangguan (double surname) Xiaomei (89—37 BC) was the wife of Emperor Zhao (94—74 BC), and the daughter of Shangguan An (126—80 BC) and the maternal granddaughter of Great General Huo Guang (130—68 BC), who was the most powerful man at that time. Her paternal grandfather was Shangguan Ji, Left General, (140—80 BC). Left general and right general were the titles of generals, just under the great general.
In the second moon of 87 BC, Emperor Wu died. His son succeeded to the throne, and was Emperor Zhao, who was then only eight years of age. Therefore, all courtiers decided that Princess Eyi should move and live in the palace to take care of the boy emperor. Princess Eyi (117—80 BC) was the daughter of emperor Wu and big sister of the present emperor. The father and the grandfather of Xiaomei both went to the palace to befriend Princess Eyi. When the emperor was twelve, he reached the age to have a wife. The father of Xiaomei wished his daughter to be the empress. She was then only six. As she was so young, her maternal grandfather, Great general Huo Guang, did not consent. 
Princess Eyi had a lover called Ding Wairen (?--80 BC). When the husband of Princess Eyi died, she found him, who was an acquaintance of her son. Then the father of Xiaomei went to see Ding and asked him to persuade Princess Eyi to let his daughter be the empress, promising that Ding would be given an official title when his daughter became the empress. So Ding went to see Princess Eyi and made the request. Princess Eyi agreed and in 83 BC, Xiaomei was made the empress, the youngest empress in the history of China. 
To keep the promise to Ding, the father and the grandfather of Xiaomei both went to see great general Huo Guang to ask him give Ding a title. But Huo Guang rejected. So the father and the grandfather, and also Princess Eyi had a grudge against Huo Guang. They plotted to kill him, but Huo Guang learned their scheme and sent troopers in his control and killed the father and the grandfather and Ding. Princess Eyi made suicide. 
Empress Xiaomei was then only eight years old. She knew nothing about the coup d'état and so she was safe. Besides, she was the granddaughter of Huo Guang. When she was grown up, she did not bear any children for the emperor. When Emperor Zhao died in 74 BC, as he did not have a son, Huo Guang and courtiers decided that Prince Changyi, a grandson of Emperor Wu, should be the new emperor, and Xiaomei be the youngest empress dowager. But Prince Changyi was a lewd man and disappointed Huo Guang and courtiers. After twenty-seven days, he was deposed. Then after serious discussion, they made Liu Xun, the great grandson of Emperor Wu, be the emperor, Emperor Xuan (91—48 BC). According to Chinese generation sequence, Xiaomei, the present empress dowager, should be the great grandmother of the new emperor. So she was now the grand empress dowager. She was at the time only fifteen years old, the youngest grand empress dowager in the history. 
The wife of great general Huo Guang poisoned the wife of Emperor Xuan, the legal empress, with the intention to marry her daughter to the emperor and to be the empress. In the third moon of 68 BC, the great general Huo Guang died. Both the grand empress dowager and the emperor attended the funeral, a great honor to the diseased. But in the fourth moon of 67 BC, the Huo family members rebelled and were conquered. As the grand empress dowager, though she was the granddaughter of Huo Guang, did not even know the rebellion, her position as grand empress dowager was not affected till she died at the age of fifty-two. She was buried with her husband, Emperor Zhao. It was the tradition in the feudal China.

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## xlwoo

18. Wang Zhaojun (the second beauty of the four beauties)
Wang Zhaojun (52—19 BC) was one of the four beauties, the second beauty in the sequence of the year. She was a great beauty at the time, but with a bitter destiny. She was clever, and could read and paint. She could also play lute and chess. In the spring of 36 BC, when she was seventeen, Emperor Yuan (75—33 BC) gave the edict to select beautiful girls and sent to the palace. He would choose the most beautiful ones among them to be his concubines, and the rest of them would be the maids. As there were so many girls, the emperor was busy and could not see every girl himself. Therefore, he ordered the palace painter Mao Yanshou to draw a portrait of each of them and presented them to the emperor. It meant that the emperor would choose from portraits.
Almost every girl bribed the painter and asked him to draw her a bit prettier than she really was. But Wang Zhaojun did not bribe him as she was so confident of her beauty. So the painter drew her with a bit of contortion. As a result, she was not selected. She did not have any chance to see the emperor for three years. 
Han dynasty since establishment was in continual war with a northern minority called Xiongnu tribe. The chieftain of the tribe, Uhaanyehe by name (58—31 BC), at that time was weary of war and wanted peace for his people. Therefore, Chieftain Uhaanyehe came to the capital ChangAn city to see the emperor. He requested to have some girl in the palace to be his wife so that the relationship between him and the emperor would be close as relatives, and then there would thus have long peace for the two peoples. The emperor liked the idea. When the emperor was considering who would be chosen as the wife of the chieftain, Wang Zhaojun came forth, offering herself to be the one. 
At the feast held for the departure of the chieftain and his chosen wife, Wang Zhaojun should surely be present, fully attired. When the emperor saw such a beauty, he did regret letting her go. But he could not go back on his words in the presence of the chieftain while the chieftain was so happy to have such a beauty for his wife. After the feast, the chieftain and Wang Zhaojun left the capital for the north to the homeland of the Xiongnu tribe. Then the emperor found out the truth why he missed her. It was because the painter drew her with a contortion. So he had the painter beheaded. 
The people of Xiongnu tribe welcomed Wang Zhaojun warmly and looked upon her as the guarantee of peace. But life for Zhaojun in the strange land was hard. First, she was not used to such food she had never eaten before. Then the life style was also different to her as her former life style. In 31 BC, Chieftain Uhaanyehe died. He had a son who succeeded to the position of chieftain. The son was the stepson of Wang Zhaojun. According to the tradition of Xiongnu tribe, the son could marry his stepmother. So Wang Zhaojun became the wife of her stepson. She bore two daughters for him. In 20 BC, the stepson died. Wang Zhaojun became the widow. One year later, she died at the age of thirty-three. She was buried in the southern suburb of the present Hohhot city, at the foot of a green mountain and by the Yellow River. Her tomb was called Green Tomb by people in later dynasties.

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## xlwoo

19. Ban Zhao (a blue stocking, a female scholar)
Ban Zhao（49—120 AD）was the first female historian and a literary woman. She inherited her family talent. Her father, Ban Biao (3—54 AD) was a famous learned scholar at the time. He had been the mayor of Xu town before he retired. Her eldest brother Ban Gu (32—92 AD) was a historian. Ban Zhao also helped her eldest brother in the writing of a history book, titled “Book of Han.” As a matter of fact, this history book was begun to be written by her father. When her father died, her eldest brother Ban Gu continued the work while her second brother Ban Chao (32—102 AD) joined the army and became a famous general, fighting at the frontier.
When Ban Gu died, she continued the work, too, till it was finished. It was a great work after the “Records of History” by Sima Qian (145—87 BC). When Emperor He (79—105 AD) read her book, he greatly appreciated it and sent for her into the palace. The emperor wanted her to be the tutor of the empress and his concubines. The empress dowager Deng also liked her. At the age of fourteen, she had married to Cao Shishu (?--?), who died early and she became a widow, and never married again.
At her old age, she was still writing. Another famous book of hers was the “Female Commandments.” she wrote this book with the intention to tell the female members of her family what females should do and what they should not. At first it was only read within the family. Then people outside the family copied it and circulated it till the book became circulated. 
The gist of the book was that women must obey men. Especially wife must obey husband. Thus it began the non-equality between men and women for thousands of years till the beginning of the republic. The topics in her book were three obediences and four moral rules. The three obediences were those that before marriage, women must obey parents; after marriage, women must obey their husbands; and after the death of husbands, they must obey their sons, i.e., when they became widows and if they had different opinions from their sons, they must listen to their sons. But there were exceptions for this. As many sons were taught to be filial, any of them would listen to their mothers. And a woman could not remarry after the death of her husband while a man could marry as many times as he liked. It would be looked upon as a shame if a woman remarried, though many a woman did remarry in the history because of some reason or others, like she was too poor to keep her children alive or the mother of her late husband drove her away, etc. 
Four moral rules were that a woman must be demure, quiet, avoiding misbehavior; a woman must not gossip and must say everything fit to the situation and listeners; a woman must keep proper appearance, wearing clean suitable dress; a Woman must be able to weave, sew and cook for family members and guests.

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## xlwoo

20. Cai Wenji (a female musician and poetess)
Cai Wenji (176--249 AD) was the daughter of the famous literary man and calligrapher, Cai Yi (133-1932 AD). He also knew mathematics, astronomy, and music. Growing up in such a family environment, Cai Wenji was talented and versed in music. She was a musician as well as a poetess. She could play zither and had the ability to tell which string on the zither was broken by the sound when other people were playing and a string suddenly broke. 
She was married to Mr. Wei, but he died after only one year. As she did not bear any children for him, she was sent back to her father's home. Then when Xiongnu tribe in the north invaded the area where she lived, she was captured and was forced to marry the chieftain at the age of twenty-three. She gave birth to two sons for him, and stayed there for twelve years. She learned to play the reed pipe, a musical instrument of the tribe, and also learned their language. 
When the warlord Cao Cao (155—220 AD) was in power, he thought of Cai Wenji, the daughter of Cai Yi, who had been his tutor when he was young. So Cao Cao sent a messenger to give the chieftain a thousand taels of gold and a pair of white jade to redeem Cai Wenji, who was then back to her family alone, leaving her two son with the father. Then she was married to Dong Si and bore a son and a daughter for him. Her father already died. She wrote down four hundred articles of her father's writing from memory. It was because in the warring chaos, most of her father's writings were lost. She handed down to us only a long autobiographic poem and song words to the music of the reed pipe, called “Eighteen Beats of Reed Pipe.” (A beat means a stanza in her poetic song words.) These were her own composition.

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## xlwoo

21. Xun Guanniang (a kungfu girl)
Xun Guanniang (303—360 AD) was the first girl in the history of China, who had kungfu and could fight on horseback. She was born a hundred years earlier than Hua Mulan (412—502 AD). She was the great great granddaughter of Xun Yu (163—212 AD), who was a famous adviser of the warlord Cao Cao.
It was in the second warring period (265—589 AD), and in the third moon of 317 AD, when Xun Guanniang was only thirteen. Her father, Xun Song (263—329 AD) was a general guarding Wan town. Du Zeng, a magistrate, wanted to betray the emperor and took Wan town as his base. He commanded his two thousand soldiers and came to surround the town. There were only one thousand men for the defense. The attack lasted for several days and Du Zeng could not take the town yet. But casualties on both sides increased. Besides, the provisions were less and less in the town since it was surrounded by the enemy. The situation was so serious that someone must volunteer to break enemy's surrounding line to get reinforcement from other cities. For a couple of days, no one volunteered. General Xun Song wanted to go himself. But as he was the commander, people could not defend the town without his leadership. At that critical moment, the girl of thirteen stood forth for the difficult task. Others were doubtful whether a girl of such age could succeed. She analyzed that the enemy's soldiers were all exhausted. They looked okay in the daytime, but in the night they must fall in sound sleep. She added that if she could have a few bravest fighters with her, they could steal through enemy's line under the cover of night. No one could disagree, or they would all die, if not in combat, but of starvation.
Thus they broke through the line with little fighting. When they reached the nearest city, the magistrate there agreed to help. So when the reinforcement came to attack the enemies from the back, the defenders in the town went out to attack from front. Du Zeng was defeated and the town was safe. The girl was praised by all the townsfolk that she could finish such a difficult job at so young age.

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## xlwoo

22. Liu Lanzhi (a woman of tragic death)
Liu Lanzhi (?--?) was the wife of a petty official, Jiao Chongqing (?--?), living in Lujiang town of present Anhui province, towards the end of East Han dynasty (25—220 AD). She was a nice girl from a well-to-do family. She could weave at thirteen, could make dress at fourteen, could play harp at fifteen, and could read classics at sixteen. She married her husband at seventeen.
Jiao family consisted of the old widow, his mother, her mother-in-law, and his young sister. At first the couple lived a harmonious life. But his mother was very picky and fastidious. She did not like her daughter-in-law for no reason at all. Perhaps, like other old widows, she depended on her son as her life company after the death of her husband. Now the daughter-in-law came and it seemed as if she took away her life company and left her alone. Therefore, she hated the wife of her son and tried to drive her away. 
She often complained to her son that his wife was not nice to her and disobeyed her. In fact, the daughter-in-law was very nice and filial to her. She listened to her mother-in-law for whatever she said. Anyway, the mother decided to get rid of his wife. In old China, there were seven rules for a wife to be driven back to where she came from, i.e., the house of her parents. The seven rules were that she disobeyed her mother- or father-in-law; that she did not bear a son (a daughter did not count); that she was lewd; that she jealous if her husband had concubines; that she had severe diseases; that she liked to gossip; and that she stole from her husband's house for the family of her parents. She did not bear any children for her son yet. 
Jiao Chongqing was a filial son and under the pressure of his mother, who often threatened her son with suicide if he did not send his wife away. He had one day to harden up his heart and bid farewell to his wife. He promised her to get her back some day when he persuaded his mother to accept her. But Liu Lanzhi had no confidence about it. She went back to the home of her parents, to whom it was a disgrace that their daughter was sent back. So they had to marry their daughter to another man. The daughter could not disobey her parents and agreed to marry again. But in her mind, she determined to end her life to the rule that a woman should never remarry. The night before her wedding day to another man, she went out and threw herself in a pond near her home. When Jiao Chongqing heard of the death of his ex-wife, he hanged himself on the branch of a tree in the courtyard of his home. They were buried together at the foot of Huagai Mountain. Local people grew pine trees and cypresses around their grave. An anonymous poet wrote a long poem about their sad story. 
A legend developed that there were a pair of mandarin ducks flying about the trees, crying bitterly. Young couples in the subsequent dynasties came to visit their tomb in hopes that the deceased couple would bless them to have a happy result for their love.

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## xlwoo

23. Diao Chan (the third beauty of the four beauties)
Diao Chan (?--?) was the third beauties of the four beauties in the history of China. (As for the fourth beauty Imperial Concubine Yang, please read my book Love Tales of Ancient China.) Her surname was Ren and her given name was also unknown. Her own parents were unknown, too. Being beautiful and clever, she was selected at the age of fifteen to enter the palace and appointed to be a handler of headwear for the empress and concubines. Her job title was Diaochan. Hence, historians called her Diaochan. 
Then there was a riot in the palace, and Diaochan escaped from the palace. She was then adopted by Wang Yong (137—192 AD) as his daughter. Wang Yong was an official of high rank towards the end of East Han dynasty. At that time, Dong Zhuo was in power as head of courtiers. He was a corrupt man. Wang Yong and other courtiers wanted to kill him. Once Cao Cao, a petty officer then, went to assassinate him, but failed and escaped. The event was that Cao Cao had a good dagger and knew that Dong Zhuo liked good weapons. Therefore, carrying the dagger, he went to see Dong Zhuo, who was then napping. When Cao Cao was about to draw out the dagger to stab Dong, suddenly Dong opened his eyes and asked Cao what he was doing. Cao said that he got a good dagger and came to offer it to Dong. As Dong took it, Cao bade farewell and fled out of the capital secretly. 
So Wang Yong had no chance to kill Dong. When he adopted the girl, a wonderful idea struck him. Dong was a lewd man and liked beautiful girls. Therefore, Wang Yong made up a scheme called “Beauty Entrapment.” Dong Zhuo had an adopted son by name of Luu Bu (?--199 AD), who was known as the bravest and more skillful knight at the time. Luu was young and still single.
The trick was carried out like this. First Wang Yong invited Luu for dinner at home. When dinner went on midway, Wang let Diaochan come out to toast Luu. At the first sight of the girl, Luu fell in love with her right off as she was such a beauty. Wang thereby promised to marry the girl, declared as his daughter, to Luu. Luu was glad and grateful.
Next day, Wang Yong invited Dong Zhuo for dinner at his home. When Dong came, Wang let Diaochan come out to toast Dong. The girl was declared to be a singsong girl to entertain guests. As she was so beautiful, Dong liked her at once. When dinner was over, Dong took the girl with him even without asking for the permission of Wang. If the girl was declared as Wang's daughter, Dong could not take her away so freely. But a singsong girl had no status in society, Dong could do anything with her as he liked. Because Dong was so powerful, Wang could not say NO to him. If the girl was declared to be his daughter, Wang could say NO. That was the point of the trick. So far so good for the ruse.
A few days later, Luu Bu came to ask when the wedding could take place. Wang was silent. Luu inquired again, and again no answer. At last, Luu forced Wang for an immediate reply. Want sighed and said with tears in his eyes, “A few days ago, I invited your (adoptive) father for dinner. When he saw my daughter, he just took her away without even asking my permission.” Hearing this, Luu began to hate Dong for robbing him of his wife. But he did not go to see Dong to demand an explanation. He was a bit afraid of his adoptive father. 
One day, Luu came to Dong's residence and met Dong in the Fengyi Arbor in the garden. Chinese people liked to give names to their arbors and pavilions so that when they mentioned the names they knew where they would meet. When they were talking in the arbor, Diaochan intentionally came bringing cups of tea. She looked at Luu with teary eyes as if saying that she really loved Luu, but was unwillingly taken by Dong. Luu met with Diaochan's eyes, but he could say nothing before Dong. Dong detected the love eye contact between the girl and Luu. He flared up and wanted to kill Luu, but Luu ran away. When Dong told it to one of his advisers, he said that Dong should not offend such a brave general for a girl and that Dong should give the girl to Luu so Luu would be thankful to him and even willing to die for him. Dong considered it over and over and made his final decision to follow the advice. When he talked to the girl, she started to cry bitterly, saying that she did not like Luu, and that if she was forced to leave Dong, she would rather kill herself. Finally Dong let her stay with him. The trick went on smoothly.
At last all courtiers encouraged and instigated Luu to kill Dong. They said that as a young hero, Luu should not let his wife be occupied by another man and that he must take her back. The only way to take the girl back was to kill Dong. Luu thus made up his mind and killed Dong. Then he took Diaochan to his residence and married her. 
No long afterwards, some Dong's followers revolted and Luu escaped with Diaochan to a small town called Xiapi. Wang Yong was killed by the followers. After the death of Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao rose in power and conquered the followers. Then he attacked Luu Bu, who was killed. As for the end of Diaochan, there were two legends. One was that she hanged herself to follow her husband Luu Bu to Hades. The other was that Cao Cao captured her after the death of Luu, and no one knew what became of her later.

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## xlwoo

24. Xie Daoyun (a famous poetess)
Xie Daoyun (350—405 AD) was a famous poetess in the history. With the above two, Ban Zhao, Cai Wenji and she were known as the three talented women in the early history of China. She was the niece of Xie An (320—385 AD), a famous politician and general, and the daughter-in-law of Wang Xizhi (303—361 AD), a renowned calligrapher. The most known event of her was that one day in winter when it was snowing heavily, the flakes were hovering down. Xie An, one of his nephews and the girl were gathering to look at the flying snow flakes. Xie An asked who could use something in comparison to describe the flying snow flakes. The nephew said, “Casting salts into the air is the right comparison.” But the girl said, “It's better to compare it to the catkins flying in the wind.” Catkins were better comparison than salts to the snow flakes. So poets in subsequent dynasties said that she had catkin talent. 
It was a tradition that on the third day of her marriage, a girl could return to the home of her parents and the parents would inquire her what she felt about the marriage. So did her parents to her, she was dissatisfied with he husband. When her parents said that he was a good man without any defects in his character. She answered that he was okay, but a good-for-nothing while his cousins and his brother were all talented and had their own careers. Once the brother (also a famous calligrapher as the father) of her husband was cornered in a debate by a quest. She came out to his rescue. She put the guest in a corner by her eloquence and reasoning. 
Then some rebels came and killed her husband. When she heard of it, she ran out with a sword, but was captured after she killed several rebels. The leader of the rebels respected her bravery and faithfulness to her husband, and let her go. She lived the rest of her life as a widow. The magistrate learned her fame and came to visit her. She had a screen put between herself and the guest. They had a pleasant conversation. After it, the magistrate expressed his admiration of her talent.

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## xlwoo

25. Liu Chuyu (having thirty love mates)
Liu Chuyu (446—465 AD) was princess Shanyin. Her husband (446—482 AD) was the son of an official of high rank. Once the princess said to the emperor, his brother, “We come from the same father. Although we have the difference of sex, why you can have many women while I can have only one man? It's not fair to me.” Therefore, the emperor, Liu Ziye (449—465 AD), got thirty handsome men for her. Courtier Zhu Yuan (435—482 AD) was very handsome. But he was an upright person. 
However, the princess wanted to take a look at him first, secretly, to see if she liked him. The emperor sent for the courtier in his royal study, and the princess peeped at him from behind a screen. After she set eyes on him, she liked him very much. She asked the emperor to let him accompany her for ten days. So the emperor ordered Zhu Yuan to stay in a special pavilion for ten days. In the night of the first day, the princess went to see him and wanted to sleep with him. But as soon as the princess approached him, Zhu Yuan stood up to salute the princess. For the whole night, he stood there with little move about. The princess said, “You look a man, but you don't act like a man.” He replied, “As a man, I can't do such a thing.” Whatever the princess did to force him, he would never give in. On the last day of the ten days, the princess had to let him go. 
Liu Yu (439—472 AD) was the uncle of the emperor. He always thought that the throne should belong to him. Then on the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh moon in 465 AD, he sent someone to kill the emperor and made himself the emperor, Emperor Ming. Next day, he gave an edict in the name of the empress dowager to order the princess to commit suicide for the reason that she was a lewd woman. The princess must obey the order of her mother. Therefore, she hanged herself.

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## xlwoo

26. Pan YuEr (a woman who could whip the emperor)
Pan YuEr (?--?) was not only beautiful with white skin and fine figure, but the most famous feature of her beauty was her lovely little feet. She was born in a vendor's family. Her father, almost illiterate, gave her the name called Nizi (literally meaning “Little Girl”). Such a name was deemed vulgar. But her beauty attracted everyone who caught sight of her. They lived from hand to mouth, and so, when she grew into teenage, she often went to help her father sell things. She was familiar with market and trading. Once her mother had a chance to enter the palace as a wet nurse to feed the crown prince. 
It was not until 498 AD when the crown prince succeeded the throne and became the emperor. As he often heard the mother, his wet nurse, talk about the girl, he had always yearned for her. Now he sent for her to the palace and made her the imperial concubine. Her beauty stunned him as he first set eyes on her. Her white skin glittered like pure jade. So he changed her name to YuEr (literally meaning “Jade Girl”). He had a new hall built for her. The floor was covered with engraved lotus patterns so that every step of her landed her on a lotus pattern. It was called that her steps produced lotus flowers. 
Her feet were so small and lovely. He was a foot fetishist. He liked to caress her white feet and kiss her toes one by one and licked them in turns. Sometimes he bit her big toe and when she felt a big painful, she beat his back with a stick. And he liked it. He was a masochist. In the long Chinese history, Pan YuEr was the sole concubine who could beat the emperor like whipping a slave. Instead of a concubine waiting on the emperor, this emperor liked to wait on her. He made tea for her and massaged her back and legs. 
Once she said to the emperor that she had liked the life in a market place. Therefore, he built a market for her, and let maids and eunuchs play the roles of traders and customers. Sometimes, the emperor would let some traders pretend to offend some rules and be brought to the presence of Pan YuEr, who would decide how to punish them. She enjoyed this very much. Once YuEr pretended to be the owner of a wine shop and stood behind the counter to sell wine, and the emperor played the part of the customer. And sometimes the emperor acted like a butcher standing behind a booth to sell pork, and the concubine came as a buyer. 
This life style of the imperial couple enraged courtiers. Some of them criticized the emperor. The emperor killed them. He even killed his kinsfolk till one day his brother, afraid of being killed, too, could no longer endure it. He marched his troops to surround the capital and killed the emperor. He gave the girl to one of his generals as a reward for his merits. The general held a banquet to celebrate it. When all the guests wanted to see the beauty that they had heard of so much and so long, the general led them to his bedroom, where the girl should stay to wait for his arrival for the night. But as the door was opened they saw the girl hanging herself from the beam, and still looking beautiful.

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## xlwoo

27. Xu Zhaopei (the woman having makeup on half of her face)
Xu Zhaopei (?--549 AD) was the wife of Emperor Yuan of Liang dynasty (502—557 AD), which was a short dynasty during the second warring period. In the twelfth moon of 517 AD, she went to where the emperor lived. On her way there, there were strong winds that blew down houses, then snow storm came. When she arrived there, there were pealing thunders that shattered a pillar. All these were considered as bad omen. 
After marriage, she bore a son and a daughter for him. As the emperor had one eye blind, Xu did not like him and was often rude to him. The emperor disliked her, too. Once when he went to her room, she only put the makeup on half of her face to imply that the emperor had only one eye good. So the emperor was enraged and seldom to see her ever since. 
She then had adultery with some other people. The first one was a monk and she often went to his temple. The second one was Ji, a favorite courtier of the emperor. They had the action in the temple, too. After the action, they lay on bed and composed poems to each other. 
Xu was a jealous woman. Whenever the emperor liked someone, she would find a way to murder her. Although the emperor disliked her, he liked her son and made him the crown prince. But the son died in a battle. The emperor forced her, the mother, to commit suicide. Finally she threw herself into a well and drowned inside it. Then the emperor revealed her lewd action to let people know it so that he forced her to make suicide was not without reason.

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## xlwoo

28. Lou Zhaojun (she married a common man, but became emperor finally)
Lou Zhaojun (501—562 AD) had a legendary life. Her father was a courtier of high rank. When she grew up, many official families came to see her father to ask for her hand, but she denied all the suitors. She wanted to find a man fit to be her husband. 
One day, she saw a man, a general, called Gao Huan (496—547 AD), doing some work at the battlements. She knew how to read the face. His face showed that he would be a leader of a state some day. Therefore, she married him. Although a general, he had no money. She gave him money and let him use it to make friends with all the known heroes of the time. Besides, she offered stratagems so that he could win merits in battles. He was promoted to be the premier. 
When Gao Huan got powerful enough, she helped him to establish a new state, named North Qi. Gao became the emperor and she was the empress. She had born six sons and two daughters for him. Three of her sons were emperors in different times. Her daughters both became empresses of other states. She was frugal by nature. As the empress she would weave and sew herself. She treated her own children and the children of other concubines equally. Once she made sacrifice for her husband.
To strengthen his power for the situation, he should marry the princess of Ruru State. When he asked his empress if this was right for him to do, Empress Lou gave her ascent without hesitation. When Princess Ruru came, she let her be the empress and herself be the concubine. For that, she was praised by people in the small empire. The emperor had one wife and ten concubines. He had fifteen sons and three daughters in all. 
Once when she was pregnant and got into hard labor, someone wanted to send urgent massage to the emperor, but she would not agree. At last she gave birth to twin babies, a son and a daughter. When the emperor returned and learned the condition, he was greatly moved. 
Once he was defeated. A general came to offer to lead an army for the revenge. The emperor was glad and about to consent, but empress Lou said no. She explained that if the general had an army under command, whether he won or lost in the fight, he would never come back to obey him any more. He would be independent with an army in his control. So the emperor did not let the general go. The general later did betray another emperor in another state.
When the emperor, Gao Huan, died, his eldest son Gao Cheng became the emperor. Lou Zhaojun, as empress dowager, controlled the power. When Gao Cheng died, her son Gao Yang took the throne. Not long later, Gao Yang died, too. His son, Gao Yin, succeeded the throne. Gao Yin was the grandson of Lou. As Gao Yin was not a good emperor, the empress dowager deposed him and made him Prince JiNan. Then her another son Gao Yan was made the emperor. Not long afterwards, Gao Yan also died. She made her another son Gao Zhan the emperor, and made two other sons the princes. She died at the age of sixty-two.

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## xlwoo

29. Mu Huanghua (an empress became the bawd)
Mu Huanghua (?--?) was the third empress of the emperor Gao Wei, the last emperor of North Qi dynasty. Her mother was a maid in the family of some courtier. Then she was raped by the coutier and bore the girl. When the girl grew up, she went to the palace. At first she was the maid of the first empress of the emperor. Once the emperor saw her and liked her. She became his concubine. In 572 AD, she was made the empress when the original empress died. In 577 AD, another state invaded North Qi and took the capital. The emperor and Mu had to escape. But the emperor was captured, and Mu ran away to ChangAn city, where to make her living, she opened a brothel and became the bawd. Her brothel was at the time well-known on both sides of the Yangtze River. This was a weird experience to her from an empress to a bawd.

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## xlwoo

repeated. so deleted.

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## xlwoo

30. Hua Mulan (the first of the four heroines)
Hua Mulan (412—502 AD) was one of four heroines in Chinese history, fighting in the battlefield. The other three were Fan Lihua (Tang dynasty), Mu Guiying (North Song dynasty), and Liang Hongyu (South Song dynasty). Her story goes back to the second warring period. She had an elder sister and younger brother. But both of them could not fight. When Mulan was still young, a minority in the north invaded her country. Then an order was issued that every family must have one man to join the army for defense against the invasion. Mulan's father was too old. Her brother was too young. When a little girl she liked to learn how to fight as her father knew the fighting skills. She was just grown up, and so she offered to go instead of her father, but in disguise of a young man, using her brother's name,. 
At that time, the government of the country did not supply a fighter with necessary equipment such as weapon, horse, armor and helmet, etc. Therefore, she had to go to the market to buy all these for herself. She was attired as a man should wear. Then she rode to the registration at the recruit's site. She was sent to the frontier with other recruits. She fought bravely in the battlefields and won a lot of merits. No one knew that she was a woman. After twelve years, she returned victoriously. Then she was known to her fellow fighters that she was a woman, which was at the time deemed cheating. The emperor received her and for her great merits, she was pardoned for the cheating of a good kind. The emperor wanted to let her be an official of high rank in the government, but she excused herself, saying that her father was old, and she must go home to take care of him. So the emperor let her go. 
Her legend was written down in a long poem called “Song of Mulan.” In Tang dynasty, a temple was built in memory of her, and a statue of her was carved and put in the temple.

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## xlwoo

31. Yang Lihua (sharing the title of empress with other four women)
Yang Lihua (561—609 AD) was the wife of Emperor Xuan (559—580 AD) of North Zhou dynasty (557—581 AD), a short dynasty in the northern China in the second warring period. Her father was Yang Jian (541—604 AD). Later he began a new dynasty, Sui dynasty, and became emperor Wen. Sui dynasty ended the second warring period and united China. Her mother was Empress Dugu. 
In 573 AD, when she was only thirteen, she married Emperor Xuan and became one of the four empresses. It was the only emperor in the history, who made all his four women empresses. Then he liked the wife of his nephew, who had to rebel and was killed. The emperor took the nephew's wife as his fifth empress. As the emperor led a lewd life, all the courtiers opposed him. Yang Jian at the time was a powerful courtier and supported by others, he deposed the emperor, who died soon after. Then Yang Jian became the emperor of Sui dynasty (581—618 AD). Yang Lihua, his daughter, could not still have the title of empress, and so her father made her Princess Lepin, till her death at the age of forty-nine.

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## xlwoo

32. Zhang Lihua (empress with special long hair)
Zhang Lihua (560—589 AD) was the favorite concubine of Chen Shubao (553—604 AD). When Chen Shubao was still the crown prince of Chen dynasty (557—589 AD), located to the south of Yangtzer River towards the end of the second warring period, Zhang Lihua was then only ten and entered the palace as the maid to a concubine of the crown prince. When she grew up, she was so beautiful and clever. The most conspicuous thing about her was her long black hair, more than two meters long. She was proud of her long hair. Every morning she spent a lot of time to comb her hair and did her hair up into a stylist knot. When the crown prince saw her one day, her beauty was so attractive to him that he took her as his concubine. He liked her long hair very much, which was unique. The crown prince was a famous poet.
In 582 AD, the crown prince succeeded the throne and Zhang became his favorite concubine. This emperor was talented in music and literature. His poems were so well-known and many handed down to us. One of his famous poems runs as follows:
Up on west tower alone, wordless,
The moon looks like a hook.
With the solitary Chinese parasol,
The deep backyard locking the cool autumn in.

Scissor'd, but not sever'd,
Put in order, yet in disorder,
Is the parting sorrow;
There's an unusual sensation at heart.
As Zhang Lihua could dance gracefully, the emperor composed a famous piece of music, and Zhang Lihua danced to it. The imperial couple led a lewd and dissipated life. At that time, all the separate independent states to the north of the Yangtze River were conquered by Sui dynasty. Only the Chen dynasty to the south of the Yangtze River still survived. In 589 AD, Sui army came to the capital. When the imperial couple was reported that Sui army entered the city, they tied themselves together and jumped into a well. But as the well was an old one without water in it, they did not die. Then Sui soldiers got them out. Zhang Lihua was killed because the commander thought that as she was so beautiful, if the Sui emperor saw her, he would take her to be his concubine, which might cause Sui dynasty to collapse like this Chen dynasty. The Chen emperor was captured and taken to be imprisoned and died a few years later.

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## xlwoo

33. Empress Dugu (empress who'd not let emperor have other women)
Empress Dugu (543—602 AD) was the wife of Yang Jian (541—604 AD), Emperor Wen of Sui dynasty (581—618 AD). She bore a daughter, Yang Lihua (see above), and sons, Yang Yong (568—604 AD) and Yang Guang (569—618 AD). 
Dugu married the emperor at fourteen. She was a very jealous woman. When she married him, they had an agreement that he would never touch any other women. She abolished the system that an emperor could have many concubines. She would not allow her husband to have any concubines. Once he had an action with a girl in the palace, the girl was later killed by Dugu. Luckily for her, she had born children for him. She also forbade her sons to have more than one woman. She forbade the palace maids to put on makeup and to gain access to the emperor without her permission. She even interfered with the courtiers in their marital affairs. Once a courtier's wife died, and he married another woman. Dugu let the emperor demote him, because her idea in marriage was that if a man could not be faithful to his wife and needed another woman, how could he be loyal to the sovereign? So she wanted to maintain one husband and one wife system. Besides, if a woman was not allowed to remarry as a tradition, a man should not be allowed to remarry, too. 
Anyway, she was just in dealing with state affairs. She often offered her opinions to the emperor and he always thought that her opinions were right. Once one of her cousins committed some severe crime, and according to the law, he must be executed. However, the emperor, considering his relationship with the empress, intended to pardon him from his death sentence. When Dugu learned it, she said that the law must be just, and could not be disregarded owing to special conditions. The cousin thereby was executed. 
Once an official presented to her a box of costly pearls. She said to him, “This is not what I need. You can use them as rewards to soldiers who are fighting at the frontier.” She never gave her relatives positions of high ranks. At first, as Yang Yong was the eldest son, he was made the crown prince. Nevertheless, he sought obscenity and merry-making, which the emperor and empress disliked. Besides, the crown prince had four concubines and ignored his wife. All that was against the wishes of the empress. Therefore, he was deposed and his brother Yang Guang was made the crown prince. The empress died before the emperor in the eighth moon of 602 AD, at the age of fifty.

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## xlwoo

34. Xiao Meiniang (an empress married many times)
Xiao Meiniang (582 AD--? ) was the wife of Emperor Yang (Yang Guang) of Sui dynasty. He was the second and last emperor of Sui dynasty. She was a princess of Emperor Ming (542—585 AD) of West Liang dynasty (555—587 AD). As she was born in the second moon, superstitious tradition said that a girl born in the second moon could not bear sons. So she was given to the uncle, and when the uncle died, she was adopted by her maternal uncle, who was poor, and she must do all the housework. 
When Yang Guang was still crown prince, his father wanted to choose a wife for him. The superstitious tradition had it that the birthday and birth time of both the girl and the boy should be given to a fortune-teller, who would tell if that of the girl and that of the boy were fit to each other. If they were not fit, and the girl and boy married, misfortune would befall them. All the girls in the area were not fit to be the wife of the crown prince by the calculation of the fortune-teller. Finally a fit girl was found. She was Xiao Meiniang. Therefore, she became the wife of the crown prince. When the crown prince succeeded the throne, she was made the empress. She bore two sons and a daughter for him. 
The emperor was a lewd and corrupt man. But he had a great job done. It was the Great Canal, beginning from Luoyang city to Hangzhou city. It made the transportation of goods from south to north easier than before. It was finished by connecting some natural rivers through a lot of digging. But some historians said that the purpose of the emperor wanted to make the Great Canal was that he wanted to travel comfortably on the ship to Yangzhou city, where the most beautiful peonies grew. And it was also said that women in Yangzhou city were all beautiful. When he stayed there to enjoy his extravagant days, he was murdered by a general he trusted. Then there rose many warlords all over the nation.
There were two legends about her end. One was that after the death of the emperor she left the palace and wandered with her grandson like vagabonds till her death without remarrying. The other was that she was taken by the general who had murdered the emperor. When the general died, a warlord got her. Then she was captured by the chieftain of a minority in the north. Finally the famous Emperor Taizong (599—649 AD) of Tang dynasty (618—907 AD) conquered the minority and took her back to the capital. It was said that she became the wife of the Tang emperor.

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## xlwoo

35. Hongfu (literally meaning red duster)
Hongfu (?--?) was the nickname and her real name was Zhang Chuchen. But better known as Hongfu in the history. Her father was a general and killed in a battle. Her mother was taken by Yang Su (544-606 AD) a general, and later the first courtier of Sui dynasty, as a wet nurse. She brought her daughter with her. So Hongfu grew up in the residence of Yang Su, and in her girlhood, she became a waiting girl to Yang Su. She often stood a little behind him when he sat on the chair to receive guests. On such occasions, She often held a red duster in hand, hence her nickname. 
There was a young man by name of Li Jing (571—649 AD). He was a man of talent and ambition, a strategist as well. Therefore, he came to the capital to seek for fame and a bright future. As he could not directly go to see the emperor, he went to see Yang Su first and became one of Yang's hangers-on, which meant people having food and board in Yang's residence working like advisers. At first, Yang did not think much of Li Jing as he had so many hangers-on in his residence. Once Yang had a talk with him and came to know that this man was talented. But he did not recommend him to the emperor, which was what Li desired. Therefore, Li was disappointed. 
When Yang had the talk with Li, Hongfu was present and had also such opinion of him. She admired him to much that one night she went to see him in his room, just as Li was sad and uncertain of his future. When he heard the knock at his door he opened it and saw the girl who had stood behind Yang in his conversation with Yang. When Hongfu was invited in and sat down, she revealed her purpose to come. She offered herself to be his life mate. Li was so happy and accepted. Then they eloped under the cover of night. 
The couple were disguised as merchants and went to ChangAn city where another Li family lived as magistrate, and afterwards, this Li family united the whole country and established Tang dynasty (618—907 AD). Li Jing went to visit Li Shiming, the famous Emperor Taizong later, to offer his service. Li Shiming thought highly of him. When Sui dynasty collapsed with the murder of the Sui emperor, there arose many warlords. Although there were constant wars among the warlords, historians did not define this period of time as a warring period, because it lasted very short, only for seven years and the whole nation was united by Tang dynasty. As Li Shiming wanted to unite the nation,he accepted all the known heroes that came to serve him. In the wars conquering other warlords, Li Jing and Hongfu, who could fight, achieved a lot of merits. When the Tang dynasty united the country, Li Jing was rewarded with the title of Duke Weiguo. And Hongfu was his ladyship.

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## xlwoo

36. Princess Pinyang (a female commander)
Princess Pinyang (580—623 AD) was the sister of Emperor Taizong by the name of Li Xiuning. She was the only woman in the history who organized and commanded an army. Other women before her, if they could fight, just fought as a female general, not commanding an army. 
In the fifth moon of 617 AD, Li family decided to subdue all the warlords and united the country. At the time Princess Pinyang was in ChangAn city while the Li family lived in Taiyuan city. She was married to a general and lived in ChangAn city with her husband. When she got the information that her family would take up arms against all the warlords, she started to recruit enough men to form an army. Her husband went to Taiyuan city first to join in the combats. There were some small groups of rebels. She sent someone to persuade them one by one to join her army, which enlarged greatly. She even defeated several attacks from the army of Sui dynasty. 
After the death of Emperor Yang of Sui dynasty, there were warlords occupying separate independent areas. It was the duties of Emperor Taizong now to wipe out all the warlords. And the princess only stayed in the pass called Woman Pass, which was the throat to enter where there was the base of Li family. She must guard it. Her task was very important. If any warlord entered the Pass, the safety of her family would be threatened. Anyway, she defended the Pass well against any attacks till the unity of the nation. The name of the Pass was in memory of her. When she died, the army under her command held a military funeral for her. It was the only funeral that was held by an army for a female in the history.

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## xlwoo

37. Empress Changsun ( a virtuous woman, never jealous)
Empress Changsun (03/15/601—07/28/636 AD) was the wife of the famous Emperor Taizong (599—649 AD) of Tang dynasty (618—907 AD). Her father was a general in Sui dynasty and died when she was only eight years old. She was brought up by her maternal uncle. She married Emperor Taizong at the age of thirteen when Emperor Taizong was then only Prince Qin. She was the ladyship of the prince Qin. The crown prince was the eldest brother of Prince Qin, and he had a younger brother. The three of them vied for the throne, of course, like in many dynasties. The crown prince was no good as a ruler, and the younger brother was a fighter, not fit to be a ruler. To be a ruler needed many qualities. Only Prince Qin had such qualities. Therefore, all the generals of Tang dynasty supported him. It was not just because they thought Prince Qin was a talented man, suitable to be the emperor, but also because they had fought together with him so long in the process of subduing all the warlords. 
On the second day of the seventh moon in 626 AD, there was a coup d'état. Helped by the generals, Prince Qin killed his two brothers and became Emperor Taizong. His father was on the throne at the time, but he could not control the situation as all the generals did not listen to him, and only obey his second son. Therefore, after the coup d'état, the father gave up the throne to the son and became the retired emperor. Ladyship Zhangsun was due to be the empress. She bore for the emperor three sons and four daughters. Later her youngest son became the crown prince and then the emperor, Emperor Gaozong, the husband of Empress Wu the Great. That's another book I wrote. 
She was a virtuous woman, never jealous. She treated other concubines and maids and eunuchs nicely. So the palace was peaceful, no competitions between concubines for the special favor of the emperor. She often educated the children, no matter those of her own or those of other concubines, equally that they must be frugal, not extravagant. She always gave the emperor good advice, and whenever the emperor made any mistakes, she would persuade him to correct them. She even dissuaded the emperor to give her own brother a powerful position, lest the brother turned arrogant because he had power and then made unpardonable mistakes. 
When she was seriously sick, the emperor wanted to have a ceremony in a temple to pray for her quick recovery, but she disagreed to it. She was not a superstitious person. She did not believe in prayer to make sickness better. She died at the age of thirty-six. When she was sepulchered in imperial grave, the emperor did two things for her that no other emperors did before or after for their spouses. Firstly he had a collage built in front of her grave and let some maids live there like to wait on her as if she was still alive. Secondly he had a high tower built in the palace so that whenever he thought of his empress, he could mount it to watch her grave. However, for this tower, he accepted the advice of a courtier later and demolished it.

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## xlwoo

38. Fan Lihua (the second of the four heroines)
Fan Lihua (?--?) lived in the reign of Emperor Taizong. She was one of the four heroines. Her father was originally a general of the Sui dynasty. When this dynasty was overthrown, he escaped to a minority in the west of present China. When Tang dynasty sent army to conquer that minority, Fan Lihua helped her father to resist Tang army. But once when she saw the son of the commander of Tang army, who came out of the camp, to fight, she fell in love with him. Therefore, she and her father surrendered to Tang dynasty and Fan Lihua married the son of the commander of Tang dynasty. She had great fighting skills and knew strategies. She helped the Tang army to conquer the minority. Later when some tribe in the northwest invaded Tang dynasty, Her father-in-law was made the commander of Tang army again. She went as a female general and fought together with her husband against the invaders. 
When her father-in-law died in the battlefield, she, not her husband, succeeded the position of the commander, as she could fight better and knew how to use stratagems while her husband could only fight. They returned after victory and owing to her great merits, she was given the title of Marquise of Weining. She bore four sons. The third son was a naughty one, and often did something wrong. Once, by accident, the third son killed a prince. That was a serious crime. Therefore the whole family were executed. Only Fan Lihua and two of her sons escaped before the execution happened.

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## xlwoo

39. Wu Meiniang (the sole female sovereign in China)
Wu Meiniang was the concubine of Emperor Taizong, and after the death of emperor Taizong, she was the empress of emperor Gaozong, the son of emperor Taizong. Such thing happened in the history of China. After the death of emperor Gaozong, she was the empress dowager, and then the empress sovereign. (I wrote a separate book for her titled “Empress Wu the Great.”)

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## xlwoo

repeated, so deleted.

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## xlwoo

40. Princess Wencheng (the princess married to Tibet) 
Princess Wencheng (623—680 AD) was the daughter of Emperor Taizong. She was pretty and clever, and was familiar with Chinese culture. She believed in Buddhism. 
Tibet was then independent of China. It became a vassal state to China only in Qing dynasty, but still only in name. It ruled itself independently, even under KMD government, till CPC sent its army into Tibet and actually ruled it. At that time, sometimes it was friendly to Tang government and sometimes invaded Tang territory. It depended on who ruled Tibet. At the time, Songtsen Gampo was the king of Tibet. 
It was a leap year in 640 AD. The lunar calendar has a double month in the leap year. There were two tenth moons in that year and in the bissextile tenth moon, the king of Tibet sent someone to the capital of Tang dynasty with five thousand taels of silver and hundreds of gems and other valuables, asking for the hand of one of the princesses. Emperor Taizong was on the throne at that time and agreed to marry Princess Wencheng to the Tibetan king.
On the fifteenth day of the third moon in 641 AD, Emperor Taizong ordered Prince Jiangxia, his cousin, to escort Princess Wencheng to Tibet for the wedding ceremony. When the princess arrived, the king was very happy and had a palace of Tang style built for her. The king also liked the clothes and etiquette of Tang style. Whenever he went to see the princess, he put on gauze clothes of Tang style. According to the history record, the princess brought Tang culture there together with silkworm eggs, which affected the life and customs of Tibetan people. They began to breed silkworms and made silk clothes. She also brought a statue of Sakyamuni, and the king built Ramoche Temple for it. The princess was the second queen of the Tibetan king. His first queen was a princess from Nepal. 
In the fifth moon of AD 650, died the king of Tibet, the husband of Princess Wencheng and so the brother-in-law of the present Emperor Gaozong, son of Emperor Taizong, who already died. Emperor Gaozong was the brother of Princess Wencheng. The son of King Songtsen Gampohad died early and so his grandson was made the king. As the grandson was a child, the prime minister Ludongzan had all the power to rule Tibet. He was talented and so Tibet became strong. 
In the second moon of 679 AD, another king of Tibet died, and his son, eight years old, succeeded to the position of king. In the tenth moon, the sad news of the death of the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo, her husband, sent by Princess Wencheng, who was still alive, arrived in the capital of Tang Dynasty. A courtier Song Lingwen was sent to attend the funeral.
During the tenth moon of 680 AD, Princess Wencheng died in Tibet.

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## xlwoo

41. Princess Taiping (a lewd and ambitious woman)
Princess Taiping (670—713 AD) was the daughter of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu the Great. She was pretty and ambitious like her mother. Her real name was Li Lingyue and Taiping was her Taoist name. Once the king of Tibet wanted to marry her and sent a messenger to the capital. The emperor and empress would not let her marry so far, and so let her become a female Taoist, but only in name, because a female Taoist could not marry so that she could refuse the king of Tibet without offending him. Hence, historians call her Princess Taiping (literally meaning peace). Instead, Princess Wencheng married the king of Tibet (see above). 
In 681 AD when the princess was sixteen, she married her husband, the nephew of Emperor Gaozong. This was her first marriage, which ended in 688 AD, because the brother of her husband joined in a rebellion and was executed. Her husband, though innocent, was put in jail and starved there. 
Her second husband was the nephew of Empress Wu. The couple lived for twenty-two years and the husband died one year before her. During her second marriage, she often had adultery with whomever she liked, sometimes a courtier, and sometimes a monk, who was stout and could have longer action than others. Her husband did not dare to say anything as she was the favorite princess. Empress Wu liked her this daughter better than her other children, because she was more like her mother in appearance and character. To please her mother, she sometimes brought strong men into the palace to entertain her mother. The monk was one of them. When the monk became the favorite of empress Wu, he turned to be arrogant and did a lot of things against the law. The monk was later killed because of his misbehavior. 
When Empress Wu grew old, she made her son Li Xuan the crown prince. In 705 AD, Premier Zhang Janzhi (625—706 AD) had coup d'état and forced Empress Wu to retire and give the throne to the crown prince, who was Emperor Zhongzong (11/26/656—07/03/710 AD). His wife was Empress Wei. She had a daughter, Princess Anle (?--710 AD), who yearned for power, too, and even asked the emperor to make her crown princess so that she could be the successor to the throne. At the same time, Princess Taiping became more powerful as she had supported the emperor to get his throne. 
Empress Wei did not love the emperor. She was also an ambitious woman, and wanted to be the empress sovereign like Empress Wu, who was them dead. So she conspired with her daughter to poison the emperor, her husband. After the death of Emperor Zhongzong, her brother, Princess Taiping and Shangguan WanEr (see next) drafted the will of the diseased emperor to make Prince Wen the crown prince. Empress Wei was the regent and supplanted members of Li family and supported members of her Wei family. So the two family members fought each other. At last, Li family gained the day and killed empress Wei and her family members. In this event, Princess Taiping had a finger and she supported Li Dan (662—716 AD), another son of Empress Wu, also her brother, to be the emperor, who was Emperor Ruizong. 
In the seventh moon of 712 AD, Emperor Ruizong retired and gave the throne to his son, who became Emperor Xuanzong (09/08685—05/03/762 AD), who was the husband of the famous Imperial Concubine Yang, the fourth beauty of the four beauties in the history. Princess Taiping vied with Emperor Xuanzong for power, but she failed at length, and was forced to hang herself at home.

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## xlwoo

42. Shangguan WanEr (a poetess and talented woman)
Shangguan (double surname) WanEr (664—710 AD) was a poetess and worked as a secretary for Empress Wu the Great. When her grandfather was killed by Empress Wu, because he opposed her to be the empress, she and her mother were taken to the palace as slaves. She was then still a child. Under the education of her mother, she became a girl of talent. She developed a good memory. Later when Empress Wu found her talent, she liberated her from slavery and also her mother. As she could write well and exercise good calligraphy, Empress Wu made the girl her secretary and let her draft edicts for her. She endeavored to please Empress Wu and soon became her favorite. Empress Wu let her handle some state affairs and by degrees, she got some power. 
In 705 AD, during the rule of Emperor Zhongzong, the emperor let her draft all the imperial edicts, which was a very important position. The emperor trusted in her so much that her power grew as well as her ambition. It was said that she had adultery with the emperor. Next year, she had adultery with Wu Sansi, a nephew of Empress Wu. In the seventh moon of 707 AD, the crown prince led his bodyguards to attack the residence of Wu Sansi and killed him. The crown prince wanted to kill Shangguan WanEr, too, because she supported Wu family. WanEr escaped to the palace and the emperor's mother, Empress Wei, protected her. Then the imperial guards came forth to defeat the crown prince, who was killed in the combat. 
In 710 AD, when Princess Taiping became more powerful, WanEr tended to support Princess Taiping. When Emperor Zhongzong was poisoned by Empress Wei, she and Princess Taiping drafted the will of the late emperor to make Prince Wen as the crown prince and Empress Wei became the regent. In the seventh moon, Prince Linzi, son of Emperor Ruizong, led the imperial guards to enter the palace and killed Empress Wei, her daughter Princess Anle, and also Shangguan WanEr, who was thought to be the follower of Empress Wei. When the son later became Emperor Xuanzong, he admired the poetic talent of WanEr and gave order to collect her poems into a book. One of her poem runs as follows:
Just as leaves fall on the Tongting Lake,
I think of you ten thousand miles away.
The dew is dense and the scented quilts are cold;
The moon sets and the brocade screen is empty.

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## xlwoo

43. Yang Yuhuan (the fourth beauty of the four beauties)
Yang Yuhuan was the imperial concubine of Emperor Xuanzong, the fourth beauty of the four beauties in the history of China. Her story was included in the book titled “Love Tales of Ancient China.” She was the fat beauty as fatness was the fashion of the beauty in Tang dynasty, while the other three beauties were thin and lean, like what we like nowadays.

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## xlwoo

44. Xue Tao (a famous poetess and a courtesan)
Xue Tao (768—832 AD) was a famous poetess in Tang dynasty. She was born in ChangAn city, the capital. Her father was a petty official and moved to Chengdu city. When her father died, she lived in this city ever since. 
She could write poems and knew music at the age of eight. Once her father composed a couplet, “There is an old tree in the courtyard, Its tall trunk rising into clouds.” He wanted his daughter to write another couplet so that the four lines could make a poem. She immediately wrote, “Its boughs welcome birds from north to sough, Its leaves send away winds coming and going.” Her father was glad and proud of her. But historians said that these two lines were the exact description of her own fate as she later became a courtesan that welcomed visitors coming and saw visitors going.
After the death of her father, her family, mother and herself, fell into poverty. She had to become a singsong girl in a whorehouse at the age of sixteen. As a singsong girl did not have love-making with any visitors. She only entertained them with her song or music play, or wrote a poem or painted something for them. As she was beautiful and talented, she was well-known in the area. Her visitors were all local officials and men of letters. Her nickname was “Poetic whore.”
The governor of that time liked her talent very much and often sent for her to his residence to entertain his guests by chanting poems of her own composition. Thus she made acquaintance with many famous poets and scholars at the time. She even fell in love with one of them, but their love had no result. The governor adored her poetic talent, and tried to get an official title for her from the central government, but of no avail. When this governor died, the next governor came. He liked her too, and canceled her registration in her prostitute record. She became a free ordinary woman. Then she always wore a Taoist costume. She seldom had visitors now. She lived a quiet life in old age. She made a kind of paper called Xue Tao paper, which was slightly pink. The paper was widely used at the time.

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## xlwoo

45. Yu Xuanji (a famous poetess and a female Taoist)
Yu Xuanji (844—871 AD) was a famous poetess in the late Tang dynasty. At first her name was Yu Youwei. In 894 AD when she was five, her family moved to another town and she started her study at a local school. In 854 AD when she was ten, the family moved back to her hometown, where she began to get acquainted with a famous poet at the time. They wrote poems to each other ever since. 
In 858 AD, she was fourteen. A scholar Li Yi (?--?) wrote a poem on the wall of Chongzhen Temple. It was traditional for ancient poets to write poems wherever they could, such as on the walls of a temple, of a wine house, or even on a cliff wall of a scenic spot. When the girl read it, she liked it and then married Li Yi as a concubine through the introduction of her acquainted poet. As Li had a wife, Yu could only be a concubine. His wife was so jealous that Li did not dare to bring the girl home. He just let her stay in Xianyi Temple. 
A few years later, her husband deserted her because he was a man liking new love partners, except his wife, whom he was afraid of. Yu began to travel east in the autumn of 861 AD. Next spring, she returned to where she started her trip, ChangAn city. In 866 AD when she turned twenty-two, she became a female Taoist in Yanyi Temple and changed her name to Yu Xuanji, which was better known to us. In that period of time, many men of letters came to seek her favor, but she favored none. She treated everyone coming to visit her equally as a friend. She did not remarry anyone. She kept writing poems, fifty-one in all that we know today. Although she was a Taoist, she was a famous woman, and had a maid to wait on her. Once she was so angry with her maid that she beat her accidentally to death. For this crime, she was executed. A famous couplet from one of her poems is so written:
It is easy to get a precious antique,
But hard to have a boy of true love.

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## xlwoo

46. Du Qiuniang (a famous poetess)
Du Qiiuniang (971--? AD) was a poetess. At the age of fifteen, she became a concubine of Li Qi (741—807 AD), who was a relative of the imperial family. He was a corrupt official and once when the emperor wanted him to go to the capital, he was afraid that he would be killed. Therefore, he rebelled, but failed and killed. Du Qiuniang was then taken to the palace. She became a concubine of the emperor, who died in 820 AD. Then the crown prince succeeded the throne and was Emperor Muzong (795—824 AD). Now Du Qiuniang was a middle-aged woman. The new emperor let her be the nanny of his son. When she grew too old, the emperor let her go back to her hometown, Nanking city, where she was born. She died naturally. Her famous poem is thus:
I advise you not for gold-woven dress to care,
But advise you for precious time of youth to care.
If flowers are in full bloom and worth picking, just pick,
Don't wait till no more flowers, then on empty boughs pick.

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## xlwoo

47. Ladyship Pistil (a humorous poetess)
Ladyship Pistil (?--976 AD) was her nickname. She was a favorite concubine of the king of the present Sichuan province. As she liked flowers, such as peony, the king gave her this nickname, which was known to us. She was pretty and clever, and could write poems. The king led a lewd dissipated life and his kingdom became weak. At that time, outside Sichuan province, the whole country was under the rule of Song dynasty. Therefore, in 965 AD, Song dynasty sent army to invade the kingdom. The king surrendered, and of course died later. The ladyship was captured. It was said that she became the concubine of the emperor of Song dynasty till her death. There was a famous and humorous poem we know till today, which is:

The king puts up the flag of surrender on battlements;
How can his lady know in the deep palace?
Forty myriad soldiers take off armors in unison; 
No one of them is a man. (meaning no one fighting to death.)

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## xlwoo

48. Mu Guiying (the third of the four heroines)
Mu Guiying (982--?) was one of the four heroines. The other three were Hua Mulan, Fan Lihua, and Liang Hongyu. All are included in this book. There was a Yang family in Song dynasty. All the family members were fighters, including females, two daughters and seven daughters-in-law. Mu was married to the sixth son. Her fighting skills were the first among all the females. Her father was originally the chieftain of outlaws. They camped on a mountain, called Mu Camp. The government sent Yang family to conquer the Mu Camp, and the sixth son of the family came out to challenge. The daughter Mu Guiying galloped out to face the challenger, whom she captured after a few rounds. She wanted to marry the son and then surrendered to the government. It was thus settled. The heroine became a member of Yang family. 
Then Liao tribe in the north invaded Han dynasty, and Yang family was sent again to defend the territory. The heroine was the commander and by using some ruse, defeated the Liao tribe. They never dared to invade Song dynasty till later the tribe was conquered by Jin tribe. That was her great merit. Then when a revolt took place in Guangxi province in the south, she and her husband went there to subdue it. So she was conferred the title of Marquise Huntian. When a minority state called Xixia in the west invaded the country, she and all other female fighters went to resist the invasion. At the time, all males in the family died in different battles or occasions. The survivors were all widows. In one of the combats with Xixia, Mu was killed in an ambush of the enemy, but the remaining women vanquished the Xixia army.

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## xlwoo

49. Li Qingzhao (a very famous poetess)
Li Qingzhao (1084—1156 AD) was a famous poetess in Song dynasty ((960—1279 AD), born in Mingshui town of Shandong province. Her father was an official and a famous writer of the time as well. And her maternal grandfather had been a premier. When she was still a young girl, her well-written poems were known in the capital in the literary circle. In 1101 AD, she married Zhao Mingcheng (1081—1129 AD), who was also an official. In 1107 AD, the couple moved to Qingzhou town. They liked to buy books, especially books of old and precious editions. Every time when the husband bought a good edition from the market after work, the couple would enjoy reading it together after supper. Their life was simple and pleasant. 
At that time, there was a minority in the north, named Jin tribe, that often invaded into Song dynasty. In 1127 AD, when the poetess was forty-four, the army of Jin tribe marched south and attacked the town, they had to escape south across the Yangtze River, and next spring they arrived in Jiangning city. As they had to desert their belongings when they fled from the Jin tribe, now they lived in poverty. 
After the death of her husband, she moved to Shaoxing town in Zhejinag province, and lived alone in the house of a local family. In the third moon of 1131 AD, the only things, some old paintings, that left to her, were all stolen overnight. Next year, she went to Hangzhou city to marry another man, but was divorced a few months later, because she found that the man was a corrupt official, who was put in prison afterwards. Then she lived alone and always kept writing poems till the end of her life. But she had only forty-five poems handing down to us. All were well-known to us. I introduced one of them here.

Seeking, seeking; lonely, quiet; gloomy﹐grievous﹐glum.
When it just turns warm, but still cold, it’s hardest to have a rest full.
Two or three cups of light wine, how to fend the evening wind so strong?
The wild geese pass—I feel heart-broken—since they are my old acquaintance.
All over the ground the yellow flowers in heaps.
Languished as I am, who will now pick them?
Keeping myself at the window, how can I fare alone till nightfall?
Phoenix trees, plus drizzles on them, dripping and dripping till evening;
At this moment, what can I do with the word “sorrow”?

（version in rhyme）

Seeking, seeking; lonely, quiet; doleful, rueful, woeful.
When it just turns warm, but still cold, it’s hardest to rest full.
Two or three cups of light wine, how to fend the strong wind in the evening?
The wild geese pass, they being my old acquaintance, heart-broken I’m feeling.
All over the ground, in heaps, the flowers yellow.
Languished as I am, who will pick them now?
Keeping myself at the window, how can I fare alone till night falling?
Phoenix trees, plus drizzles on them, dripping and dripping till evening;
At this moment, what can I do with the word “sorrow”?

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## xlwoo

50. Liang Hongyu (the fourth of the four heroines)
Liang Hongyu (1102—1135 AD) was famous to us as a fighter against the Jin tribe invading Song dynasty. Her family fled from north to south to avoid the slaughter and pillage of the Jin tribe. They came to where the general Han Shizhong camped his army. Somehow, she became a military singsong girl and came to know the general Han. She was a special girl, who knew how to use sword. Therefore, the general Han married her. 
She fought together with her husband Han (1089—1151 AD), the commander of an army. In the third moon of 1129 AD, the Jin tribe army took two towns and was about to invade the capital. The emperor and courtiers were in panic. A couple of courtiers wanted to betray the emperor, but were afraid of commander Han, who was then at the frontier defending the Song territory. So they took his wife Liang Hongyu as hostage. When Han marched his army towards the capital, they had to release Liang. When Liang joined Han, they came to the capital to kill the traitors. The emperor was ecstatic and gave Liang the title of Ladyship Yangguo. In addition, the emperor gave her monthly salary, which only male officials and officers could have. As a female she was the first one to have such a treatment. 
Then Liang and Han marched north to defend the border. The number of the enemy was double, even triple greater than theirs. However, they used a better strategy to defeat the enemy. For more than ten years, the Jin tribe did not even dare to advance facing such defenders. So there was temporary peace at the frontier till the death of the couple. The Jin tribe was later conquered by Mongolians, who afterwards marched south and annihilated Song dynasty and established their Yuan dynasty (1271—1368 AD), which was overthrown by Ming dynasty. (see next episode)

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## xlwoo

51. Empress Ma (a virtuous woman)
Empress Ma (1332—1382 AD) was the wife of Zhu Yuanzhang (10/21/1328—06/24/1398 AD), the first emperor of Ming dynasty (1368—1644 AD). She was nicknamed Big Feet, because at that time, women generally bound their feet small as a fashion, but women in the countryside still kept their natural size of feet. So did Ma. 
When Ma was a child, her parents died and she was adopted by a close friend of her father, Guo Zixing (1312—1355 AD). It was then towards the end of Yuan dynasty. There were many groups of rebels against the Mongolians. Guo was one of them. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang was only a poor vagabond. Once he became a monk for a living. When the rebellion rose, Zhu joined Guo's group and fought bravely and achieved great merits. Therefore, Guo married his adopted daughter, Ma, to him. Once at a time, food was scarce and everyone had a limited ration. In this period of time, Guo doubted that Zhu was not faithful to him, and so cut his ration. Ma had to share hers with Zhu furtively.
After death of Guo in fight, Zhu became the leader of the group. With the elapse of time, he got many followers and finally wiped out other groups. At last he overthrew the Yuan dynasty and founded his Ming dynasty. He was Emperor Taizu of Ming dynasty. His wife was the empress. She had born five sons and two daughters for him.. Zhu was a cruel man and when his empire was steadfast, he began to kill the generals, who had helped him to conquer opponents, one after the other. When the empress learned it, she advised him not to do so. His reason to kill the generals was because he was afraid that these powerful generals might, just might, betray him and endanger his empire. The empress saved the rest of them. When the empress was seriously sick, he and his courtiers all wished to hold some ceremony in temples to pray for her longer life. But she opposed it, saying that birth and death were decided by destiny, what was the use of prayer. Her last will to her husband was to treat people and courtiers nicely and trust in them for the good of the country. She died at the age of fifty-one.

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## xlwoo

52. Tang SaiEr (a female leader of rebellion)
Tang SaiEr (1399--? AD) was the leader of the up-rising peasants. She was not illiterate and learned fighting skills from her father. At fifteen she got married, but soon her husband died. Then she shaved her hair and became a Buddhist nun. The second emperor of Ming dynasty, Emperor Chengzu, used a lot of peasant labor to build palace and other constructions, etc., so that the peasants were all angry against the government. Tang then founded a religion called White Lotus and a lot of peasants believed it and joined it. Tang named herself Buddhist Mother. In 1420 AD, White Lotus took up arms and began to attack towns. The mayors of the towns either escaped or were killed. Other groups of up-rising peasants joined them. 
When the emperor was reported of it, he sent a messenger to negotiate with them, only wanted them to surrender. Of course, Tang refused. The emperor send army and his army was vanquished several times. The process of the battle was like this. The government army surrounded the mountain, on the top of which camped the rebels. Tang thought of a stratagem. She sent someone to the government army, saying that there was scarcity of water and most of the rebels wanted to surrender. Only their leader Tang refused. She wanted to break through the line in the east that night. Therefore, the commander of the government army maneuvered most of his force to the east in hopes to wipe out the rebels. But at night, the rebels came down to assault the west side of the government army with not many soldiers there. These soldiers were defeated and the rebels went round to attack the back of the most part of the government army and put them to rout. 
At last when the emperor sent armies that outnumbered peasant force, which was defeated and Tang escaped to no one knew where. No one knew the end of her either. The emperor ordered to arrest all the Buddhist nuns and checked them one by one to see if there mingled Tang, but in vain. Anyway, the believers of the White Lotus religion scattered all over the nation. Only they could not gather enough force to riot again.

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## xlwoo

53. Imperial Concubine Wan (a woman nineteen years older than emperor)
Imperial Concubine Wan (1428—1487 AD) was originally a maid in the palace in charge of apparels of the grandmother of emperor Xianzong of Ming dynasty, and then became his concubine when he took over the throne. When this emperor was still the crown prince, he often went to see his grandmother and saw the maid, who was nineteen years older than he. She joked with him and played with him. They got more and more familiar with each other. As time elapsed, they liked each other. When the grandmother died, he took the maid to his living quarters as his maid. 
When he became the emperor, the empress dowager wanted to choose an empress for him. It was surely done, but he did not like the empress whom the empress dowager selected for him. He liked Wan better and made her his concubine. No one understood why he preferred a woman nineteen years older than he, but not the young empress and other concubines of his age or even younger. Of course, though she was much older than he, she was still a virgin when the emperor married her. 
As a favorite concubine, she did not respect the empress. Once she offended the empress, who ordered her to be beaten by her maids. Wan went to the emperor and complained bitterly. So the emperor deposed the empress and confined her in a separate room of the palace. He wanted to make Wan as the empress, but the empress dowager opposed it because she was too old and had been only a maid. Generally an empress must come from the family of a courtier of high rank. The empress dowager appointed another concubine as the empress. This empress was afraid of concubine Wan and often exercised forbearance and let Wan do whatever she liked. In the feudal China, a husband and a wife should come from the families of almost the equal social status. But a concubine did not matter. Some wealthy families had concubines often coming from poor families, or even from whorehouses. Girls from rich families were not willing to be concubines, who were only a step-up better than maids. Even the parents would not allow that. 
Although Wan was not the empress, she was powerful and acted as an empress. She bore a son for the emperor, who was happy to have an heir. However, the baby died within the month. Then she was jealous of other concubines who were with child. She would let them drink some drugs to abort the child. No one in the palace dared to say anything about it. So the emperor did not know of it. Nor did the empress dowager. 
Once the emperor sighed and regretted that he did not have a successor yet. A eunuch secretly told him that he did have a successor, secretly kept somewhere lest the boy be killed or poisoned. As the emperor often had sex with any concubine or even any maid, he could not know which one was pregnant. Once he had sex with a petty female palace official, who became pregnant soon. There were some female officials in the palace just like male officials in the government, to be in charge of some special departments in the palace. As the emperor never saw this female official again, he did not know that she was with child. But Wan learned it and sent someone to watch over her. If this woman bore a daughter, it was okay and she was safe. If this woman bore a son, she and her son would lose both lives. Then the woman bore a boy and told a eunuch to throw the baby outside the palace and leave it to his fate, lest he be murdered by concubine Wan. The eunuch thought that as the emperor did not have a successor yet, he should keep this baby alive. Therefore, he took it to the deposed empress who hid it and fed it without Wan's knowing of it. 
When the emperor learned it, he wanted to see his son and so the boy of six was brought to his presence. He immediately made this son as the crown prince. Later the emperor had some other sons with other concubines. All the sons were well guarded. Not long afterwards, Wan died.

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## xlwoo

(back from travel and continue to post)

54. Qin Liangyu (a woman with many official titles)
Qin Liangyu (1574—1648 AD) was a female general and strategist with great fighting skills. She had a lot of titles such as left governor (next to governor), magistrate somewhere in Sichuan province, head general of an army somewhere, Marquise of Zhongzhen (literally meaning loyalty), and first-rank ladyship, etc., the only female who had so many official titles in the history. 
In 1592 AD, she married Ma Qiancheng, a magistrate. She helped her husband to train an army, called White Cudgel Army. In 1599 AD, she marched her army and defeated the rebels in west of the country. In 1613 AD, When her husband died, she took over the position and became the high-rank official. In 1620 AD, she sent her brothers, one elder and one younger, with three thousand White Cudgel armymen, to Shenyang city in the northern China, for a defensive combat. At that time, a minority there often invaded Ming dynasty (1368—1644 AD).
In the third moon of 1621 AD, she herself marched her army there and defeated the minority. In the ninth moon of the same year, she was sent by the emperor to Sichuan province and conquered the rebels there. Next year,she took back Chengdu city and Chongqing city occupied then by rebels. In 1623 AD, she wiped out all the rebels in that area in Sichuan province. At that time, the Manchurian turned strong and often invaded Ming dynasty. In 1630 AD, they took four towns and threatened the safety of the capital. No other generals but female general Qin came to the rescue and drove back the invaders. 
In 1634 AD, another group of rebels entered Sichuan province, she went there to drive them away. In 1640 AD, still another group of rebels entered to Sichuan province. Why they wanted to occupy Sichuan province was because the land features were easy to defend and hard to attack, and besides, there produced provisions galore, enough to feed the army or rebels. So the female general went there again to vanquish this group of rebels. In 1646 AD, the Manchurian army occupied Peking, the capital of Ming dynasty and marched south. General Qin was already over seventy and took Sichuan province as her base to resist the Manchurian army. In 1648 AD, on the twenty-first of the fifth moon, she died at the age of seventy-five. She had started her fighting career at twenty-six and fought for forty-four years. She was a unique female in the history.

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## xlwoo

55. Liu Rushi (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls) 
Liu Rushi（1618—1664 AD）was one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. She was the most beautiful girl among the eight girls. She was versed in painting and calligraphy. In 1628 AD when she was ten years old, she was adopted by a bawd and so became a singsong girl later. Before receiving visitors, every singsong girl got special training in many fields such as writing poems, playing zither or lute, painting and calligraphy, singing or dancing so as to entertain visitors. 
As a rule, a famous singsong girl never had any action with male visitors, who were mostly men of letters. They came to see her just to ask a scroll of calligraphy or painting from her own creation, or have a pleasant conversation with the girl to diverse his sad mood or make him happy, or listen to the girl sing or watch her dance. Nothing more. They never thought of having love actions with such famous talented girls. If they needed that, they could go somewhere else. Sometimes, of course, she would fall in love with one of the visitors. So did she, when she met Chen Zilong (1608—1647 AD), who was a petty official in Nanking city, but a learned man. Chen already had wife, who was very jealous. Chen did not dare to take the girl home and they lived together in Songjiang city. Afterwards when the wife came to know it, she went to Songjiang and made a scene. Therefore, Liu went back to where she came from. 
In 1638 AD, when she was twenty years old, she met Qian Qianyi (1582—1664 AD), who was a high-rank official. He was twenty-eight that year. In 1640 AD, they met again. Qian took Liu for a tour among mountains and on streams. They had a happy time of the life. They chanted poems to each other. Liu liked the man very much, though he was over fifty then, while she was only twenty-two. They married anyway. She bore a daughter for him. In 1644 AD, the Manchurian army occupied the capital of Ming dynasty and marched to Nanking city. Many scholars opposed the Manchurian because they were another tribe, not Han tribe. The Manchurian arrested anyone who was against them. In 1647 AD, Qian was arrested too. Next year, Liu went round to see all her friends or even just acquaintances to ask for help. At last Qian was released from the jail. He was so grateful to his wife. 
In 1664 AD, on the twenty-fourth day of the fifth moon, Qian died of some kind of disease. Liu became a widow. The kinsfolk wanted to divide the legacy of Qian. Liu could not endure it and hanged herself on the twenty-eighth day of the sixth moon, only thirty-four days after the death of her husband.

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## xlwoo

56. Ma Xianglan (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Ma Xianglan (1548—1604 AD) was one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. Although she was plain, she was especially talented in painting. She could plain orchid and bamboo very well. A painting of orchid in black ink by her is stored in Tokyo museum in Japan and looked upon as a precious curio of the country. She could sing and dance. She could write poems, besides painting. She also knew music. Once she wrote an opera. She herself conducted a group of troupers to perform it. 
Because of her talent and pleasant conversation manner, she was well-known and had lots of visitors. Almost all the visitors would bring her some gifts, and so she saved quite much money. She had a small cottage built at the riverside, named Orchid Cottage. Sometimes if some young learned men came to see her, and when she accidentally knew that they wanted to go to the capital for government tests, but did not have so much money for the traveling and food and board expenses in the capital, she would donate enough money to them out of her own pocket. 
When she grew old, she was looking for a man who could be her life mate. But none of her visitors became her favorite. At the age of twenty-four, she did meet one, Wang Zhideng (1535—1612 AD), a man of talent and learning. Though they were not married, they were best friends for more than thirty years. Things in the world always go against one's wishes. Once Wang had a chance to go to the capital for an official position. Ma was happy for him. He implied that if he could get promotion, he would come to marry her. When want left, Ma stopped receiving guests. She waited for the man to come back to marry her. But she was disappointed, because Wang was supplanted by his colleagues. When he returned he felt so ashamed of himself that he did not go to see Ma. On the contrary, he moved to live in Suzhou city. Marriage was out of the question.
During these long years, they kept in touch as best friends. Since Wang lived in Suzhou city, and she lived in Hangzhou city, she often went to Suzhou city to visit him. When Wang was seventy years old, she went there to celebrate his birthday. She took tens of singsong girls for the feast and she herself sang for him in spite that she was also growing old. When she returned, she fell sick and died at the age of fifty-seven. Wang wrote a poem in memory of her.

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## xlwoo

57. Gu Hengbo (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Gu Hengbo (1619—1664 AD) was one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. Among all the eight singsong girls, her life experience was simple, but she got the highest social status among them. She was also talented in writing and painting. She also had a lot of visitors. Once a man called Gong Dingzi (1615—1673 AD) came to visit her. He fell in love with her at the first sight. In 1641 AD, she married him, who was a famous scholar. When the Manchurian came and established their Qing dynasty, he became a high-rank official. So many scholars of Han tribe called him traitor. But she got the title of First-Rank Ladyship because of her husband from Qing dynasty. She died of disease in their residence in Peking. She was the only one of the eight singsong girls that had an official title.

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## xlwoo

58. Bian Yujing (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Bian Yujing (1623—1665 AD) was one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. She was born in Nanking city and her father was an official, but died early. She had good education, and so she knew music and could play zither. She could also write poems and paint, and could practice calligraphy. After the death of her father, she had to become a singsong girl for a living. Her charm and ability attracted a lot of visitors. 
Once at the gathering of literary men, she met a man called Wu Meicun (1609—1671 AD), who was a high-rank official. She was fond of him and hinted that she wanted to marry him. But at the time, a brother-in-law of the emperor wanted to take her as his concubine, and so Wu was afraid of getting into trouble and ran away from her. But Bian remained where she was. No one took her away. Two years afterwards, she would marry a man, but when she learned that the man was a good-for-nothing, and therefore, she married her maid to him instead of herself. She left the place, dressed like a female Taoist.
In 1650 AD, she went to Changshu town, where Liu Rushi lived with her husband Qian. The couple knew Wu Meicun. When Wu came to see Qian, they told Wu that Bian stayed here now. Qian wanted to let Bian and Wu meet again. So he let his wife invited Bian to their house. Bian did come, but she said that she did not feel comfortable right then and asked Liu to lead her to a guest room upstairs. She came, but she did not see Wu. Maybe, she was still irritated with Wu for running away. 
Next year, she intentionally went to where Wu lived to see him. She said that she came just to say hello to him. She was dressed in a female Taoist costume. She played zither that night for Wu and some friends. In 1653 AD, an old good-hearted doctor let her stay with him as a friend. She began to believe in Buddhism and refused to see any former friends. She spent three years to copy a Buddhist sutra and gave it to the doctor in return for his good hospitality. She wrote it with her blood, not in ink. She died peacefully at an old age. When Wu learned her death he came to salute her tomb and wrote a poem in memory of her.

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## xlwoo

59. Dong Xiaowan (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Dong Xiaowan (1623—1651 AD) was one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. She was born in an embroidery family in Suzhou city. Dong family was famous for its embroidery. They had a workshop to make and sell products of embroidery. This trade had lasted for more than two hundred years till her time. Her father was a scholar and so she had good education. When she was thirteen, her father died of diarrhea. She and her mother would not continue to live in this old house, because there were too many things to remind them of the diseased. Therefore, they had another house built at a riverside and moved to live there like a recluse. They entrusted the family business to some old employee to manage. 
Then chaos arose with the aggression of the Manchurian. When she and mother went to their workshop with the intention to sell it, they found that it was already bankrupt. They were penniless now. And her mother was seriously sick. She needed money to pay doctors and buy drugs. So she had to become a singsong girl in the famous Qinhuai river area. Owing to her great knowledge and ability, she was soon known to those merry-making young men, who flocked to her like bees to the flower. She could sing for them and accompany them on tours. She liked tours with any visitors that she could appreciate the beautiful scenes. 
There was a famous learned man by name of Mao Pijiang, who, having heard of her name, came to seek for her several times in her absence as she went out to accompany visitors on tours. Once he came late in the evening and she was already back from tours. They got acquainted with each other. As she already knew the name of the young scholar, they immediately liked each other. But Mao wanted to go back to his home town to take government tests. But he failed. After half a year, he came to seek Dong again. 
After the death of her mother, she wanted to marry Mao. Only Mao must redeem her from the whorehouse first. However, as she was so renowned in the area, the bawd would not let her go, no matter how much money Mao would pay. Just at that time, Liu and her husband Qian came to see Mao. As Qian had been an official, through his mediation, the bawd let her go at last. Then they got married. She began to practice calligraphy and continued to paint. Her painting of “Colorful Butterflies” is now stored in the museum of Wuxi city. This painting was painted when she was only fifteen. Their comfortable life lasted only for more than a year. Then Manchurian army came and their valuables were lost when they escaped south. 
After chaos, they went back to their homeland, and found that their house still stood. They lost all the valuables and had to live in hardship. Then Mao was taken ill and she had to wait on him hand and foot, day and night. Several months afterwards, Mao was gradually recovered, but she fell sick, severely. There was no curing for her and she died in peace in the first moon of 1651 AD.

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## xlwoo

60. Li Xiangjun (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Li Xiangjun (1624—1653 AD) was also one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. She was born in Suzhou city and her father was an officer. She had two elder brothers. When her father died, her family turned out destitute. Therefore, when she was only eight, she was adopted by a bawd. She was trained to sing, to play lute, to write poems and knew music. She had a good voice, but seldom sang, unless the visitor was the one she liked. 
When she reached the age of sixteen, she must have her maidenhood done away. She could find a visitor she liked. But the bawd would charge him highly. Then she met a man called Hou Fangyu (1618—1655 AD), a famous scholar at the time. As he did not have so much money to pay the fee, a friend Yuan Dacheng (1587—1646 AD) loaned him the amount. Yuan was a literary man and a dramatist, but he had a low character. He was always ambitious while Hou was not. Afterwards, they quarreled and were no longer friends. It was because Yuan made friends with anyone in hopes that that friend could help him to step up in his official career. However, Hou could not help him there. After their breach, Yuan wanted Hou to pay back the loan. Hou, with the help of the girl, repaid all his debt, by selling her jewels and his borrowing money from other friends and relatives. 
There was a little, but important detail I must mention. On the night when Hou did the girl, he gave her a precious gift, which was a round fan of white gauze with an ivory carved frame, which was his family heirloom. 
At that time when Manchurian occupied the capital of Ming dynasty, a Ming emperor fled to the south of the Yangtze river and made Ninking city as his temporary capital. Yuan then became a high official in the court of the emperor. As Yuan hated Hou, he wanted to frame Hou, who learned it and escaped to somewhere. And Li Xiangjun shut herself up and never received any visitors. But Yuan told the emperor about the famous girl. So the emperor ordered the girl to be fetched to his presence. The girl could not reject the order of the emperor directly. So she knocked her head against a pillar and her blood splashed on the fan. Another friend of Hou's, who could paint, got the fan and painted, based on the blood specks, some red peach blossoms. Hence, the fan was called Peach Fan. 
Yuan, as a dramatist, wrote a drama named Peach Fan. He urged the emperor to send for the girl by force. She had to enter the palace as a singsong girl. In 1644 AD, the Manchurian army approached Nanking city, the emperor ran away further south. The girl stole out of the palace. She did not know where she could go and sat down on a small bridge. Just then a master, who had taught her to sing, came across her by accident on the bridge. As he knew that the girl had nowhere to go, he took her to Suzhou city, where he lived. 
At this moment when the girl was on this bridge, Hou, her man, was not far from her. He came back to look for her. But fate made a joke on them. They missed each other. In 1645 AD, the girl Li went to see Bian Yujing (one of eight singsong girls and they knew each other) in her temple and stayed there for a while. In the autumn this year, Hou found her in the temple and took to his hometown, where his parents and his wife lived. In introduction, he concealed her singsong status, just saying that she was his concubine. As she was nice to everyone in the family, she was welcome and treated well. Therefore, from 1645 to 1652 AD, she led a peaceful and comfortable life. 
Then her husband took a trip to somewhere. Somehow, unfortunately, her singsong status was found out by the family. Especially her father-in-law was furious and drove her out of the family to live in a bleak village fifteen li (half a kilometer) away. At the time, Li was pregnant. So the mother-in-law and the wife were sympathetic with her and with the ascent of the father-in-law, sent a maid there to look after her. When the husband returned, he took her back to live in the family house. But she was feeling unhappy for the discrimination. After she gave birth to the baby, she was suffering from TB—Tuberculosis, and died at the age of thirty.

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## xlwoo

61. Kou Baimen (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Kou Baimen (1624--? AD) was also one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity. She was born in a strange family, who ran the prostitute business. She was demure and beautiful. In the late spring of 1642 AD, at the age of seventeen, she married the powerful Duke Baoguo of Ming dynasty. 
In 1645 AD, the Manchurian army overthrew the Ming dynasty and Duke Baoguo surrendered. Not long after, his family was taken to Peking, which was then the capital of Qing dynasty, founded by the Manchurian (1644—1911 AD). The duke was confined. He wanted to sell all his dancers and maids and singsong girls, including Kou, who was his concubine. But a man could sell his concubine in the feudal China. Kou said to him that if he sold her, he would get at most some hundred taels of silver, but if he could let her go, she would go back to the south and make thousands of taels of silver for him. Therefore, he let her go. She went back to Nanking city. She married a scholar in Yangzhou city, but she felt unhappy with the marriage. So she returned to Nanking city again. Then she liked a scholar Han, who liked her at the first sight and supported her. Then she got sick. One day she still wanted to make love with him, though sick, but he would not allow and leave her room. Later she heard some merry noise next room. When she entered the next room, she found that Han was making love to her maid, who was younger, and beautiful, too, only without fame. She was enraged and her sickness got worse. She died soon.

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## xlwoo

62. Chen Yuanyuan (one of eight famous contemporary singsong girls)
Chen Yuanyuan (1624—1681 AD) was one of the eight well-known singsong girls in the Qinhuai river area, i.e., Nanking city and its vicinity, too. It was round the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368 AD—1644 AD). Emperor Chongzhen was on the throne. When he first became the emperor, he had the ambition to make his empire strong, but he was not a man of talent, and the empire remained weak. In the northeastern China, there was the Mandarin who got stronger and stronger, especially when they united the Mongolians in the west. Now they intended to invade and occupied the territory of the Ming Dynasty. The only blockade to them was the Great Wall. They must enter through Shanhai Pass at the eastern end of the Great Wall. The Ming Dynasty stationed great forces to defend it. But the stupid emperor often changed the commander, which was a disadvantage to the defending army. Supposing when a commander just got familiar with the situation and the move of the enemy, on which he would make his strategy, then he was removed and a new commander came. The new commander must get familiar with everything over again. 
First the emperor appointed the famous general Yuan Chonghuan (1584 AD—1630 AD) as the commander. He defeated Mandarin army a few times. They had to retreat. Then the mandarin sent some spies to the capital of the Ming Dynasty to spread rumor that Yuan Chonghuan was having a peace talk with the Mandarin. The desire of the emperor was to drive the Mandarin back to where they came. So peace negotiation was against the wish of the emperor. Therefore, the emperor summoned Yuan Chonghuan back and put him to death sentence as betrayal. 
Then he appointed Hong Chengchou (1593 AD—1665 AD) as the commander. He was a wise courtier and was the minister of the Military Ministry. When the Mandarin heard the removal of Yuan Chonghuan, they marched their army towards Shanhai Pass again. Hong Chengchou wanted to show that he was an able commander, but in the first battle, he was captured by the Mandarin army. He was brought to the presence of the Mandarin emperor Huangtaiji (1592 AD—1643 AD), who tried to persuade Hong to turn over to the Mandarin. However, at first, Hong Chengchou refused to betray his emperor. According to the history record, one night when Hong Chengchou was sleeping and woke up at midnight, he found a woman lying beside him. He sat up in astonishment and asked who she was. The woman said that she was the empress of Huangtaiji. The empress came to sleep with him. This was a great honor to him. He was moved and surrendered. It was said that he kowtowed only to the empress, not to the emperor, saying that he was the slave to her. The emperor did not care as long as he had surrendered to the Mandarin. Hong Chengchou offered then quite a few ideas how to conquer Ming Dynasty. After Hong Chengchou was captured, Emperor Chongzhen appointed Wu SanGui as the next commander. 
Chen Yuanyuan lived in Kunshan town in Jiangsu province to the south of the Yangtze river. She was very beautiful and could sing and dance. She was a famous prostitute in that area. Many patrons came to hear her sing and watch her dance. 
There at that time gathered large rebels, all of them were peasants, who were under the oppression of the corrupt officials. Their leader was Li Zicheng (1606 Ad—1645 AD). Li Zicheng led his huge army of rebels marching towards the capital Peking. Facing such situation of both threat from the Mandarin and from the rebels, the emperor felt so heavyhearted and melancholy that one of his imperial concubines Tian wanted to make him happy. She asked her father Tian Hong to find some beautiful girls. People thought at that time that all the beautiful girls were in the southern region to the Yangtze river. Tian Hong thereby traveled to the south. He visited brothel after brothel, and at last found Chen Yuanyuan in Kunshan town. He was struck by her beauty and took her back to the capital. He spent two hundred thousand taels of silver to get her. He presented the girl to the emperor, but the emperor was not in the mood to hear her sing and watch her dance. Tian Hong had to take the girl back to his own residence. 
Commander Wu SanGui went with his army to Shanhai Pass to resist the invasion of the Mandarin. He went through the capital and Tian Hong entertained him with the intention that Wu would specially protect his family and his fortune. He let the girl out to dance for Wu SanGui, who, at the first sight, loved the girl very much. He said to Tian Hong that he would try his best to protect him if he gave the girl to him. Of course, Tian Hong complied. Wu SanGui took the girl to his residence in the capital. When he left the capital for the frontier, he had to leave the girl in the capital. 
The rebellious army led by Li Zicheng approached the capital. The emperor did not have enough troops to defend the city, and soon the rebels entered it. The emperor had to hang himself. That was the end of the Ming Dynasty. Li Zicheng occupied the palace and declare himself the emperor of the Dashun empire. One of his generals Liu Zongming killed all the family members of Wu SanGui and took the girl with him. 
When Wu SanGui heard the news, he was greatly infuriated and vowed to revenge on the rebels. He knew that the forces he commanded was still no match to the great number of the rebellious army. So he wanted to ally with the Mandarin and used the allied force to fight the rebels. Thus, the Mandarin army entered the Shanhai Pass and then occupied the territory of Ming Dynasty. They founded their Qing Dynasty till overthrown by the Republic of China in 1911 AD. 
The rebels escaped from the capital Peking. Wu SanGui chased them till he wiped out all the rebels. In pursuit of the beaten rebels, Wu SanGui came across Chen Yuanyuan. When Wu got back his girl, he marched into Yunnan province, which is in the far southwest corner of China. He made it his own territory. He was given the title of king and Yunan province as his fief by the emperor of Qing Dynasty. He accepted the title.
As time proceeded, Chen Yuanyuan grew old and Wu SanGui got some girls younger. Chen Yuanyuan went to live in a Buddhist nunnery for a quiet life. 
Although We SanGui let in the Mandarin army, He did that just for his own purpose. He really did not like the Mandarin. He wished to be independent. So he declared that his fief in Yunnan province was an independent empire and did not obey the Qing Dynasty any more. He set Kunming city as his capital. The Qing government dispatched troops into Yunnan province to attack Wu SanGui and took the Kunming city. Wu SanGui was killed. Chen Yuanyuan was afraid to be captured by the Qing army and insulted. She drowned herself in the lotus pond outside the nunnery. She was buried by the side of the pond. In the nunnery there displayed two pictures of Chen Yuanyuan.
If Chen Yuanyuan never lived, or if Wu SanGui never knew her, Wu SanGui would not let in the Mandarin and Ming Dynasty might continue for longer time. Even if the rebels occupied the capital, the deceased emperor had some sons and one of the sons could gather troops from provinces and drove away the rebels from the capital and restore the Ming Dynasty. That's why people said that a whore changed the history of Ming Dynasty.

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## xlwoo

63. Concubine Xiang (a girl who had scent on her body)
Concubine Xiang (09/15/1734—05/24/1788 AD) was a girl belonging to Uighur tribe in the present Xinjiang Autonomous District. In 1757 AD, some minorities in that area rebelled against Qing dynasty (1644—1911 AD.) At the time, Emperor Qianlong (09/25/1711—02/07/1799 AD) was on the throne and he sent army to quench the insurrection. Two brothers of concubine Xiang helped Qing army to subdue all rebels and the Qing emperor conferred duke titles to them. The brothers wanted to please the emperor and sent their sister to the emperor in return. The sister was twenty-seven at the time. Therefore, the sister became the concubine of the emperor. It was said that the body of the girl would radiate scent by birth. That was why she got the title of Concubine Xiang (literally meaning scent). 
When she came into the palace, a litchi tree, transplanted in the palace, produced more than two hundred litchi fruit. It was deemed as good fortune that the girl brought. So everyone in the palace liked her, from the empress dowager to the maids in common. Let alone the emperor. Emperor Qianlong liked to travel to the south in the region of the Yangtze River because the scenery there was very beautiful. Every time he traveled, he would bring her with him. She was his favorite concubine. When the empress died, the emperor never had an empress any more. And Concubine Xiang acted as the first concubine in the palace. She was then already forty-eight. She died at the age of fifty-five. 
A legend had a different anecdote for her. She was the wife of a muslin chieftain. When the chieftain rebelled and killed by Qing army, she was captured and sent to the emperor. But she refused to obey the emperor, and the empress dowager let her die. Her body was sent back to her homeland and was buried there. There is still her tomb in Xinjiang district, named Tomb of Concubine Xiang.

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## xlwoo

64. Empress Dowager Cixi (a powerful woman causing Qing dynasty perish)
Empress Dowager Cixi (11/29/1835—11/15/1908 AD) was the last empress dowager in Qing dynasty, and also the last empress dowager in the Chinese history. After her death, Qing dynasty was soon overthrown by the first republic of China. 
Her father was an official. And in 1852, she was selected to be sent to the palace. Young girls, when selected into palace, had two choices. Mostly they would be palace maids to do all kinds of services and a few, if the emperor liked them, would be appointed concubines. She was lucky and got the title of Concubine Lan at the age of eighteen. The emperor of that time was Emperor Xianfeng (1831—1861 AD). The empress did not bear any children for him. But Lan bore him a son, who was duly the crown prince. When the emperor died, the crown prince became Emperor Tongzhi (04/27/1856—01/12/1875 AD). She became empress dowager Cixi, and as a rule, the empress became the empress dowager, too, though the new emperor was not her son. She was empress dowager CiAn. They were more easily distinguished from each other by their living quarters. The former empress dwelt in the east, and was thereby called East Empress dowager. The former concubine dwelt in the west, and was thereby called West empress Dowager. Since the new emperor was still a small boy and could not manage the state affairs, the two empress dowagers decided things for him. 
The west empress dowager was ambitious, but she could not make any decisions alone. She was not satisfied. One day she sent some snacks to the east empress dowager, who ate it and died. It was said that the west empress dowager poisoned her. Then the west empress dowager had all the power in her hands. Unfortunately, her son, the new emperor, died young from chicken pox. As a rule, she should choose a close relative's son as her adoptive son and succeeded the throne. She chose the son of one of her brothers-in-law. This son was still a small boy and could administrate the government. So the west empress dowager still made decision for him. That was why she did not choose a grown-up son of the brothers-in-law. This new emperor was called Emperor Guangxu (08/14/1871—11/14/1908 AD). 
Compared with sovereign empress Wu, who made the nation strong and prosperous, empress dowager Cixi ruled the nation badly. At the time Japan in the east always wanted to invade China. If she was a good ruler, she would strengthen the navy, but she used the funds for navy to build her summer palace. So in 1894, China's nave was defeated by that of Japan. In 1900 when the army of Eight-nation alliance occupied the capital Peking, she had to escape. Under her reign, Qing dynasty went to destruction. 
Seeing this, Emperor Guangxu wanted to have reform like Japan. She and some old courtiers opposed the reform and coup d'etat took place. The emperor was confined and reformers were killed. China's hope was strangled in the cradle. The emperor died one day earlier than the death of empress dowager Cixi. It was said that the emperor was poisoned lest after her death, the emperor would refresh the reform.

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## xlwoo

65. Hong Xuanjiao (a female general, later escaped to US)
Hong Xuanjiao (?--?) was a brave female fighter, commanding an army of all female soldiers, and was also the sister of Hong Xiuquan (1814—1864 AD), who was the Heavenly King of the Peace Kingdom (1851—1864 AD). At that time Qing dynasty was suffering a difficult time as Empress Dowager Cixi did not have the ability to administrate the country, but she held the power tightly in her hands. 
Hong Xiuquan lived in Guangdong province in the southwestern China, far from the capital, so that Qing dynasty had loose control over that area. In 1843 AD, Hong Xiuquan founded a religion called God-Worshiping Church. The believers developed and in 1851 AD, they held up arms against Qing dynasty. They formed Peace Army and took city after city. They established Peace Kingdom and then they marched to Nanking city and occupied it. They made it their capital. The Heavenly King was the head of the kingdom. There were other kings, such as East King, West King, South King, North King, Wing King, Loyalty King, etc. They were the other leaders of the Peace Army. 
The sister later married the West King. After they set Nanking city as their capital, the kings started to fight among themselves for more power and benefits. First the sister made a plot to kill the East King. Then North King killed the family of the Wing King, who escaped to Sichuan province. The Heavenly King killed the North King. Therefore, the Peace Kingdom grew weaker and was finally conquered by Qing Army and Nanking city was taken. The Heavenly King made suicide. 
The sister escaped in disguise of an ordinary woman among the refugees. She then went to Shanghai. Finally she followed a priest and went to the United States. She stayed in San Francisco and lived as a herb doctor in Chinatown there.

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## xlwoo

66. Fu Caiyun (a whore having been in foreign states and speaking their languages)
Fu Caiyun (1872—1936 AD) was nicknamed Sai Jinhua (literally meaning surpassing golden flower). When a little girl, she was sold to a whorehouse in Suzhou city. In 1887 AD, she was taken by a high official Hong Jun (1839—1893 AD) as his concubine at the age of fifteen while Hong was forty-eight. Next year, Hong Jun was sent to Russia, Austria, Germany and Holland as an envoy of Qing dynasty. She went with him as his Ladyship because his wife did not like to live in foreign countries. She lived in Berlin for a few years. She had been to St. Petersburg and Geneva. So she had known some German officers. 
When her husband died, the family did not welcome her as she had been a whore. She had to leave and become a whore again for her living. At first she went to Shanghai, and later she went to live in Tianjin city, close to Peking. When she was a whore, she was known by her nickname, Sai Jinhua. 
In 1900 AD, when the allied forces came to Peking, she was living there and had some good relationship with some German officers. It was said that she was familiar with Alfred Graf von Waldersee, the commander of the German troops. She had even tried to dissuade him from burning the Yuanming Garden. In 1903 AD, a young whore was ill-treated to death by her, and so she was arrested. Then she was sent in custody to her hometown, Suzhou city, for the service. When she was released from jail, she went to live in Shanghai. Afterwards, she moved to Peking and led a poor life till she died of severe disease there in 1936 AD.

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## xlwoo

67. Qiu Jin (a female martyr against Qing dynasty) 
Qiu Jin (1875—1907 AD) was born in Amoy in Fujian province. She learned kungfu when a little girl and admired Hua Mulan and Qin Laingyu (see above). She liked to dress in man's apparel. She called herself “Swords Woman of Mirror Lake,” which lake was in her homeland. 
In 1896 AD, she was married to Wang Tingjun (1879—1909 AD), who ran a pawn shop in Xiangtan town. Qiu Jin moved to live with her husband there. In 1900 AD, Wang was assigned an official position in Peking and the couple went to live in Peking. She bore two children for him. 
In 1903 AD, she went to Japan to learn Japanese language at first. During her stay in Japan, she took part in the revolutionary activities with Chinese students there. In July of 1905 AD, she joined Sun Yat-sen's alliance, a revolutionary league against Qing dynasty, and was assigned to be in charge of the revolutionary activities in Zhejiang province. When she returned next year, she became a teacher in Shanghai.
She planned to publish a newspaper named “Chinese Women.” She needed financial aid. She went back to her husband's family and got a large sum of money for that purpose. She set her heart to wage the revolution, and so she asked to be divorced to her husband lest her action should affect her husband. Her desire of divorce was to protect her husband. If in the process of revolution, she was arrested, her husband had nothing to do with her action as they were openly divorced. 
In autumn of 1905, two members of the League founded a normal school in Shaoxing town, really for military training. Qiu recruited six hundred members for the school. In January of 1907 AD, the first issue of the newspaper was published. She wrote articles for female rights and revolutionary ideas. She toured to towns not far from Shanghai for propaganda of revolution. In February that year, she became the school mistress. They planned to rise to arms on the sixth day of July, but the secret was leaked out. The uprising of her comrades in Anqing town of Anhui province failed. Someone betrayed her to Qing government while other comrades tried to persuade her to flee, but she rejected, saying that the victory of revolution must cost blood. She remained. On the fourteenth day of July, she was arrested in the school. In the prison she was tortured, but she confessed nothing. She only wrote, “Autumn wind and autumn rain saddens people.” It was because the first word in her name Qiu literally meant autumn. She was killed on the fifteenth day. 
Her body was at first buried At Xiling Bridge on the West lake in Hangzhou city, but the local Qing government forced it to be moved. Therefore, in 1909 AD, her son moved her body to be buried at Mt. Zhao in Xiangtan town, where her husband's family lived. In 1912 AD, when the first republic was founded, her body was moved back to be interred again in the same place by the West Lake of Hangzhou city. She is admired by all Chinese people for her heroic deeds.

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## xlwoo

68. Xiao Fengxian (a whore who saved a general)
Xiao Fengxian (1900—1954 AD) was her nickname. Her real name was Zhu Xiaofeng. Her father was a business man and went bankrupt, and so she was sold to a brothel in Peking. She had an ability to know who was who. No disguise in her eyes. 
It was said that she had known Cai E (12/18/1882—11/08/1916 AD), who was a general and the governor of Yunnan province. He came to Peking to see doctors. But he would go to some brothels when he was free. That was why he knew the girl. 
At that time, Yuan Shikai (09/16/1895—06/06/1916 AD) wished to be the emperor and he detained Cai E, fearful of his opposition. Cai disagreed to Yuan's idea to restore China into an empire. Therefore, he wanted to be back to his domain so that he could take up arms against Yuan. He succeeded to steal out of Peking with the assistance of the girl. One night, the girl rode in her coach out to somewhere, and hid Cai in her coach in disguise. She sent Cai to Tianjing city, where Cai got on board a ship and escaped to Japan, then went back to his Yunnan province by way of Hong Kong. 
As for the girl, she later married a brigade commander and did not bear any children for him. In 1949 AD, she remarried to a factory worker, who had a daughter of fourteen year old by his ex-wife. When he died, Fengxian lived with her step-daughter. In the early 1951 AD, she went to see the famous actor of Beijing opera, Mei Lanfang (10/22/1894—08/08/1961 AD), who admired Fengxian for her help of Cai E to escape. Under his influence, she was arranged to work in a nursery. In 1952, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died in 1954.

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## xlwoo

69. Pan Yuliang ( a famous paintress and sculptress)
Pan Yuliang (06/14/189506/13/1977 AD) was a famous paintress and sculptress. In 1917, she went to Shanghai to learn how to paint. Next year, she was enrolled in Shanghai Fine Arts School. In 1921, she went to France and was enrolled in Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts  ENSBA in Lyon. In 1923, she entered Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. In 1925, she went to Academy of Beaux-Arts of Rome in Italy. She finished an oil painting titled White Mums, which was later displayed in the gallery of Education Bureau in Nanking city. 
In 1926, she began to learn sculpture. Meantime, she completed two oil paintings. They were Fruits and Ruins of Rome. Her art works were always chosen to be shown in the international exhibition in Italy. Her oil painting Nude had won the gold medal in the above exhibition. 
In 1928, she returned to China and at the end of this year, she held her personal art gallery. Next year, she was appointed the director of the Western Painting Department of Shanghai Fine Arts School. In 1930, she became a professor in Central University (the present Nanking University), and at the same time, she founded the graduate arts school in Shanghai. Then she opened an exhibition in Tokyo in Japan. In 1931, she helped to organize the Chinese Arts Society. 
In 1934, Shanghai Zhonghua Book Company published the Collection of Oil Paintings of Pan Yuliang. In 1937, she went to Paris again for the International Art Exposition. In 1940, when Paris was occupied by Germany, she moved to dwell in the suburb and sold paintings for a living. She resided in France ever since till her death in 1977.

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## xlwoo

70. Soong Qingling (the wife of Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary)
Soong Qingling (01/27/1893—05/29/1981 AD) was the second wife of Sun Yat-sen (11/12/1866—03/12/1925 AD), who founded a revolutionary league. Her father was a priest as well as a business man, and also a friend and comrade of Sun Yat-sen. Hers was a rich family. She had two sisters and three brothers. Her younger sister was well-known to the world. (see next episode.) 
She got her education at McTyeire School in Shanghai. After graduation, in 1907, at the age of fourteen, she went to USA to study at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her English name was Rosamond. She got bachelor's degree of literature. In 1913, she returned to China. However, in 1915, she went to Japan and met Sun Yat-sen there. She became his assistant in his revolutionary career. On the twenty-fifth of October, that year, she married him in spite of her father's opposition. She followed his footsteps ever since until he died of cancer in 1925.
In August of 1927, she went to Soviet Union and then to Europe for four years. She read works of Karl Marx and studied the core problems of the first socialist country and some big capitalist countries. In the Sino-Japanese was, she tended to the Communist Party of China. Therefore, in 1949 when CPC established their republic, she was appointed the vice chairman of the republic. In 1950, she was elected the member of World Council of Peace. In 1952, she was selected the chairwoman of Liaison Commission for Asia and the Pacific. 
In September of 1954, she was made the vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the First National People's Congress. On the seventh of April in 1959, in the first session of the National People's Congress, she was chosen to be the vice chairwoman of the People's Republic of China. In January of 1965, she was once more made the vice chairwoman of the People's Republic of China. In January of 1975, she was again made the vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the First National People's Congress. In February of 1978, she was given that position again. On the thirtieth of August in 1980, she was the executive chairman on the third session of the Fifth National People's Congress. On the fourteenth of May in 1981, her liver cancer and other disease worsened. On the fifteenth, the central political bureau declared that she was the member of CPC. And on the sixteenth, she was given the title of honorary chairwoman of the People's Republic of China. She died on the twenty-ninth in Beijing. 
It was said that besides English, she knew French, German, Russian, Italian and Greek. She could play piano well. She liked classical music of Europe. She could cook good dishes and could paint and embroider. She was all talented.

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## xlwoo

71. Soong May-ling (the wife of Chiang Kai-shek)
Soong May-ling (03/05/1897—10/24/2003 AD) was born in Shanghai and was the third wife of Chiang Kai-shek (10/31/1887—04/05/1975 AD), who was the chairman of the Republic of China. She was then the first lady of the Republic of China. 
In 1903, she was educated in McTyeire School in Shanghai. In 1908, at the age of eleven, she went with her sister Rosamond to USA to study in South Piedmont Community College and in 1912, she went to study in Wellesley College, MA. In 1917, she returned to Shanghai to work for a church and took part in all sorts of social activities. It was said that she had a secret engagement with a friend of her elder brother. 
In 1922, she met Chiang Kai-shek in Shanghai. Chiang started to suit her. But her family opposed it, because Chiang was married and believed in Buddhism. If he wanted to marry the girl, he must first divorce his wife and commence to change his belief in church. So he agreed to the conditions. Therefore, on the first of December in 1927, they got married. In 1930, Chiang had the ceremony in a Baptist Church in Shanghai. 
In 1928, she became the mistress of the school for the young family members of dead soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army. In 1932, she was the general secretary of Aviation Committee of China. In 1934, Soong and Chiang waged the New Life Movement, to promote drinking boiled water instead tea and coffee, learning to read and write instead of illiteracy, having habit of hygiene instead of spitting phlegm everywhere. 
On the twelfth of December in 1936, Chiang was detained in XiAn city by two generals he sent to attack the army of CPC. At the same time, Soong was in Shanghai, being not well. When the news came, she immediately went to Nanking city, the capital of Chiang's government. She talked to other government leaders and emphasized on the importance of solving the dispute peacefully. On the fifteenth of December, she flew to XiAn city to negotiate with the two generals and Zhou Enlai, the representative of CPC. Finally they reached an agreement and Chiang was released and came back to Nanking city in company of Soong on the twenty-fifth.
In 1937, the Sino-Japanese war broke out. Chiang appointed Soong in charge of the air force. She then invited American general Claire Lee Chennault (09/06/1893—07/27/1958 AD) to China to form the “Flying tigers,” the nickname of Chinese air force. Soong was thereby nicknamed “Mother of the Air force of China.” In 1938, Times magazine published in USA put Chiang and Soong as cover figures. In February of 1943, to gain the help of America, Soong went to USA as Chinag's envoy and was received by the first lady of President Roosevelt and stayed in the White House for eleven days. On the twenty-eighth of February, she made a speech in US Congress. It was the first Chinese woman speaking in the US Congress. Then she toured to other cities to speak to American people for support. Statistics showed that almost 250,000 Americans had listened to her speeches. It was just after the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor. 
In November of 1934, when Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang had a conference in Cairo, she went with Chiang as his interpreter since Chinag could not understand and speak English. In 1945, she lived in Chongqing city, which was the temporary capital of China at the war time since the real capital was then occupied by the Japanese army. She squeezed out time to write a novel titled Past Events Have Vanished Like Smoke.
In October of 1946, Soong and Chiang first visited Taiwan. Then they moved to Taiwan when CPC occupied the mainland. In the sixties, she developed hospitals in Taibei city. In 1975, when Chinag died, she went to live in USA. On the twenty-ninth of May in 1981, when her second sister, Rosamond, died in Beijing, the embassy of China in Washington DC told her the sad news and hoped that she could go to Beijing to attend the funeral, but after the second thought, she declined. 
In 1986, she went back to Taiwan to attend the 100 anniversary of Chiang's birthday and made a speech, “I wish that the light of the Three People's Principles will shine over the mainland.” In 1991, she left Taiwan for the United States again, and never returned to Taiwan ever since. In 1994, she moved to live in New York city. In 1995, it was fiftieth anniversary of the end of the second world war. She was invited to attend the ceremony held for her in Congress for her great tributes in the second world war. She died on the twenty-third of October in 2003 at the age of one hundred and six in New York city.

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## xlwoo

72. Kawashima Yoshiko (a Chinese woman becoming a Japanese spy)
Kawashima Yoshiko (05/23/1907—03/25/1948 AD) was the fourteenth daughter of a Mandarin prince. When the Qing dynasty was overthrown, the father gave this daughter to his friend, a Japanese called Kawashima Naniwa in the hope that this Japanese friend could train her as a best spy for the restoration of his collapsed dynasty. Therefore, in 1912, at the age of seven, the girl went to Japan with the Japanese man as her adoptive father for strict training. She was then changed her Chinese name Jin Bihui to a Japanese name: Kawashima Yoshiko.
Several years later, Kawashima Yoshiko was all Japanese. Then she was sent to Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu—a female high school. When she grew up, she cut her hair short like a boy and liked male sports such as horse-riding, fencing, shooting and judo. She began to wear boy's clothes. 
She started her spy career in 1927 at the age of twenty-one. She returned to the Northeastern China, and in Port Arthur, she married a Mongolian, but in 1931, she eloped with the Japanese secret service chief to Shanghai. Then she secretly took part in the September 18th Incidents, which was that the Japanese army in northeastern China first framed Chinese army for the destroy of Japanese railroad there and then attacked and occupied Shengyang city, and afterwards, took all the region of the northeastern China, including all three provinces. 
She also participated in January 28th Incidents, which was that in 1931 right after the September 18th Incidents, Japanese army started to attack Shanghai and drove the Chinese guarding army out of the area. In 1932, she helped to established the so-called Manchukuo, a puppet government in the northeastern China and put on the throne a puppet emperor Peter, who had been the last emperor of Qing dynasty. 
Her purpose was to restore the Qing dynasty, but now as she understood that the Manchukuo was only a puppet government of Japan, not the restoration the Qing dynasty, she was disappointed and used the power in her hands to release some Chinese people arrested by Japanese army. So she was deemed by the Japanese army as a dangerous person. In 1934, she was sent back to Japan in confinement. Anyway, she escaped back to China and opened a restaurant in Tianjin city. 
In October of 1945 when Japan surrendered, she was arrested by the Chinese government and had the death verdict on twenty-second of October in 1945, and was executed on the twenty-fifth of March in 1948 in the First Prison in Peking at the age of forth-two.

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## xlwoo

73. Zhao Yidi (a woman having a long time love)
Zhao Yidi (05/28/1912—06/22/2000) was born in Hong Kong. She was at first the mistress of general Zhang Xueliang (06/03/1901—10/15/2001 AD), commanding the army in the northeastern China, and then became his wife.
In 1928, she went to Tianjin city to attend the Northeast University and got acquainted with general Zhang. Thus she became his secretary as well as his mistress. As Zhang had wife, she could not become his wife. But she followed him everywhere ever since. 
After the XiAn Incident on the twelfth of December in 1936, when he and another general were detained by Chiang Kai-shek, he was confined ever since and the girl accompanied him in his confinement for as long as seventy-two years. When Chiang escaped to Taiwan, he sent Zhang there too. And the girl ensued. 
In 1940, Zhang's wife was diagnosed to have breast cancer and went to USA for treatment. In 1964, Zhang divorced her and married the girl as his second wife. She had a son with Zhang.

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## xlwoo

74. Jiang Zhujun (a CPC member killed by KMD)
Jiang Zhujun (08/20/1920—11/14/1949) was nicknamed Sister Jiang. She was born in Zigong town of Sichuan province. When she was eight years old, her mother left her idle father, taking her and her brother to Chongqing city, where her uncle lived. At the age of ten, she entered a sock factory and worked as child labor. Since her stature was shorter than the machine, the owner of the factory specially had a high stool made for her. Next year, she was sent to an orphanage run by a church. She then worked part time and studied part time. 
In 1939, she joined the Communist Party of China. In 1945, she was married to Peng Yongwu (1915—1948), who was a local party secretary. After the marriage, she worked for the newspaper published by CPC. In the winter of 1947, she was sent to Xiachuandong area to help Peng to organize the armed force. She was a liaison person. In 1948, her husband Peng died in a riot against the KMD government. She then succeeded his position and continued the revolution. On the fourteenth day of June in the same year, she was arrested owing to the betrayal of a comrade. She was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Chongqing city. She was of course tormented, but she refused to give any information of the Party's work. On the fourteenth day of November, 1949, she was executed at the age of twenty-eight. She had a son with Peng, and his name is Peng Yun, who now lives in USA.

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## xlwoo

75. Liu Hulan (youngest CPC member, killed by KMD)
Liu Hulan (10/08/1932—01/12/1947) was born in a peasant's family in Yunzhouxi Village in the district of Wenshui town in Shanxi province. The village was now renamed as Liu Hulan Village. At that time that village was under the control of CPC. At eight years old, she went to a primary school there and accepted the Party's education. At ten, she joined scouts. In October of 1945, she took part in the “Female Cadre Training Class” for a month. When she was back, she became the secretary of the women's national salvation society. In May of 1946, she was promoted to be a female cadre in the fifth district. In June, she joined the Party. 
In the autumn of 1946, KMD army came to Wenshui town, and all the party's cadres escaped to the military base in Luuliang Mountains. The Party leaders thought that she was too young to cause the attention of the enemy, and so she stayed. On the twenty-first day of December of the same year, the communist militia came to kill the village leader, who had rejected to cooperate with CPC. Liu Hulan participated in the action. At the time, places often changed hands between CPC and KMD. Then KMD army came to arrest local militiamen, CPC soldiers and family members of CPC caders, six in all. Then Liu Hulan was betrayed and arrested, too, making the number seven. On the twelfth day of January, 1947, KMD army called all the villagers gathering on a square before a temple there. As Liu Hulan was the youngest, the MKD company leading officer said to her that if she could declare openly to betray CPC, she could be spared. She said never. Then the other six adult prisoners were killed one by one on a hand hay cutter. At last the girl was brought forward and asked the question again. As she would not yield, she was also killed in the same way at the age of fourteen. She was the youngest Party member.

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## xlwoo

76. Yan Shanshan (the first female movie star in China)

Yan Shanshan (1896—1952 ) was the first female movie star in China and also a member of the female bomb squadron during the revolution against Qing dynasty in 1911. 
When she was in Hong Kong Yide Normal School, she got acquainted with Li Minwei (1893—1953) and on 1931 she was married to him. Then she and her husband founded the Hong Kong Meihua film Company, and in 1914, they made the movie called Zhuang Zi Tests his Wife. Zhuang Zi (369—286 BD) was an ancient scholar, who had a book collecting his articles. There was a story about how he tested the faithfulness of his wife to him. Once he feigned to be dead ad buried in a grave. Before his death, he told his wife that she could remarry if the earth on his grave was dry. Then his wife stayed by the side of his grave and fanned the earth in the hope that the earth would be dry faster than normally. 
In this movie she played the role of a maid of the wife, and her husband acted the wife. All the female roles in the movie before were played by males in disguise. That was why she was deemed the first female movie star. Afterwards, she joined Shanghai Xinmin Film Company and starred in Goddess of Peace (1926), Five Revengeful Girls in 1928, and Reviving Romance in the same year. She gave up acting in that year. 
Yan Shanshan was never a jealous woman. On the contrary, when in 1919, she met Lin Chuchu (1904—1979), another actress, she voluntarily introduced her to her husband and let her be another wife of Li Minwei. Li and Lin had formal wedding ceremony on the seventh of January in 1919. In old China it was lawful to have two wives at the same time. Both wives had the equal status in the family. In 1924, Li and Lin starred the movie Rouge as the male and female main characters. So Lin became a movie star, too. Yan died in 1952 at the age of fifty-six.

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## xlwoo

77. Wang Hanlun (from a movie star to a business woman)
Wang Hanlun (1903—08/17/1978) was one of the earliest female movie stars in China. She was born in a big official family in Suzhou city. Then they moved to live in Shanghai. She was early educated in St. Mary's Hall, a female school run by the church in Shanghai. After the death of her father, at the age of sixteen, her brother forced to discontinue her schooling and arranged for her to marry an official, who had the adultery with a Japanese woman not long afterwards and deserted her. She had to teach in a primary school in Hongkou district of Shanghai for her living. Then she worked as a clerk in British-American Tobacco Co. (hk) Ltd., and then as a typist in Siming Foreign Firm, where she knew a female colleague, who was also a shareholder of Mingxing film company. As the colleague knew that she liked filming, the colleague took her one day to see the conductor, who was just looking for a female star for his movie. He told her to perform some actions and make some expressions on the face like smiling, angry, sad and happy. He thought that she was okay to be a star and signed a contract with her. Thus, she began her acting career. 
Therefore, she resigned from her typist job. When her brother learned it, he was angry and wanted to send her back to their hometown Suzhou to punish her by family rules. In old families in that time, there were family rules to punish their sons and daughters who had done something against the rules or even the will of elders. But it was republic now. So Wang Hanlun declared to stop her relationship with the family so that they could not punish her by the family rules. 
Her original name was Peng Jianqing. Now as she severed herself from her family, she changed her name to Wang Hanlun. The self-given name was really taken from Helen by sound, but in Chinese characters. So you can pronounce Hanlun as Helen. 
The Mingxing Film Company was founded in 1922. The movie Wang had a role in it was called An Orphan Rescues His Grandpa. The movie was on in 1924 to the warm applause of the public. She then acted in other three successive movies. She became so well-known to the public that another film company, Changcheng Film Company, came to ask her to work for them and pay her more. She then transferred to that company. For this company, she filmed Deserted Woman and others. But this company did not pay her more, and her complaints came of no avail. She went to work for another company, Tianyi Film Company. As all the film companies paid her not to her satisfaction, she founded a film company of her own called “Hanlun Film Company.” She acted in a movie named Blind Love. All her movies had a tragic end. So she was nicknamed “first tragic star on the screen.” During the recess, she would go on the stage to greet her audience, which got her a lot of fans. 
In 1931, she gave up filming and changed her aim to business. She opened a beauty shop in Shanghai. She was one of the first women who studied the beauty culture in China. When Shanghai was occupied by Japanese army, she had to close the shop. When the Japanese wanted her to work for them, she refused on the pretense that she was sick. So she lived in a poor condition by selling her belongings. In 1945 when Japan surrendered, she wanted to resume her acting. But as she went to a filming company, the owner rejected her, implying that she was too old. She was then in her forties. 
In 1950 when CPC took reign over the mainland, the Kunlun Movie Company invited her to the role of Empress Dowager Cixi in the movie Legend of Wuxun. When Shanghai Film Factory was founded, she was given a job there and got salary as a clerk of something. But she was still assigned some side roles. When the Cultural Revolution began, though she was retired, the red guards came to her home and took away all the old films she kept for so long. She died of disease on the seventeenth of August in 1978 in the hospital.

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## xlwoo

78. Zhang Zhiyun (the first movie queen in China)

Zhang Zhiyun (1904—1975) was the first movie queen in China. She was born in Fanyu town of Guangdong province and in childhood, moved to Shanghai with her family. When her father died, her family fell into financial difficulties. Therefore, she had to cease her education in the middle school. 
At the beginning of 1924, Dazhonghua Film Company was founded and they put an advertisement on the newspaper, “Actresses wanted.” The application letters with a photo must be sent to the newspaper's mail box. Ten days later, they received about ten thousand female photos, but none of them were suitable. Then they found that a reporter working there secretly opened all letters and hid whatever photos he liked. After negotiation, he returned ten photos. Zhang's photo was one of them. 
She was chosen and acted in two silent films, successfully. In 1925 she went to work for Mingxing Film Company. In 1926, the newspaper held an activity to vote for movie queen. Twelve actresses joined in it. Zhang was the first by getting 2146 votes. So she was the first movie queen in China.
She then participated in parties of the upper social circle and became to know Tang Jishan, a tea salesman. In 1927, she gave up her filming and went with him to America to sell tea. Tang just wanted to use her title of movie queen as his spokeswoman to advertise his products. But he did not know that American people never heard of the movie queen in China. So he failed and had to take her back to China. In 1931, he deserted Zhang and lived together with another movie star. 
Then came the ages of sound film. As she could not speak mandarin, she had seldom any contracts. In 1933, she tried to act in a sound film and in 1935, in another sound film called New Peach Fan. But the audience did not acknowledge her success. She had to retire from filming circle again. In forties she got married and in fifties, she moved to live in Hong Kong till she died there.

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79. Xuan Jinglin (first actress with a private car
and showing her bare legs to the public in China)
Xuan Jinglin (1904—01/22/1992) was born in Shanghai. Her father was a newspaper vendor. She went to the school run by Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai for free. As she could not stand the bully of the students coming from rich families, she gave up the schooling and went to learn Peking opera, because her uncle was the accountant in a theater, where Peking operas were performed. When her parents and elder brother fell sick, she was sold to a brothel for money for her family when she was still young. In the brothel she met a young man, who loved her, but his parents would not let him marry a prostitute. 
Therefore, she started to save money her patrons gave her as gifts to redeem herself from the brothel. The bawd found it and took all her saved money away. She could do nothing about it. A poor young girl. By chance, she was found by the conductor of Mingxing Film Company. They had a new screenplay called Last Consciousness. The girl was fit for the role. They could not find other girls fit for it. Therefore, the company paid the money to the bawd for her redemption. She became a movie actress. That was in 1923. This movie was on in 1925. 
Then she acted for the role of a whore in another movie called A Woman in Shanghai, which won her a great fame, as she acted from her won experience. She earned a lot of money and bought a car for herself. She was the first woman that had a car for her own use only. And she was also the first woman actress in China that showed her bare legs to the public. 
The young man still loved the girl, especially she was now a famous movie star. Yet his parents rejected their marriage owing to the girl's whore background. Therefore, the conductor of the film company went to see the parents and persuaded them to accept the girl. Although the parents agreed to their marriage, they had some conditions. Firstly, there was no wedding ceremony. Secondly, the girl could not live in the house of the parents. The new couple had to rent a separate house. But there were always rumors about movie stars. And the husband often suspected her of something. Finally they divorced. 
She filmed thirty-five movies. Another movie was The lady's Fan in 1928. Then when she grew old and there appeared more younger female actresses, she gradually faded from the screen. When CPC ruled over the mainland, Shanghai Film Factory was founded, and she was invited to act in the movie Family in 1956. She died in 1992 at the age of eighty-eight.

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80. Hu Die (first actress in China attending international film festival and getting award)
Hu Die (03/23/1908—04/23/1989) was born in Shanghai and when she was nine, the family moved to Canton. She went to Pooi To Middle School. In 1924, when she was sixteen, the family moved back to Shanghai. That year, the movie An Orphan Rescues His Grandpa was on. It touched audience, including the young Hu Die. So she set her heart on being an actress. She signed up as a candidate in Shanghai China Film School, which was the first such a school in China. She learned drama, film theory, and performing. She liked performing, and next year she was given a role in Exploits, which was her first movie. 
She acted in more than twenty movies with different film companies. Her master piece was Twin sisters. She acted both sisters with different life experience, characters, and social status. It was so successful that it got the highest seat occupancy rate at the time.
When September 18th Incidents took place, a misfortune befell Hu Die. At the time she went with the filming crew to Peking. Coincidentally, the general Zhang Xueliang (see above) was also in Peking. That time, people in northeastern China were furious against the Japanese invaders. To transfer the anger of the Chinese people from Japanese to someone else, Japanese news agency spread a rumor that on the night of the incidents, Zhang was dancing with Hu Die. According to logic, Zhang should be fighting the invaders right on the night as northeastern China was his defending area. The rumor meant that Zhang neglected his duties. So people turned against Zhang and against Hu Die, too. Although she made a declaration openly on newspapers, there were still doubts. 
On the New Year's Day of 1933, for the development of the filming business, the Daily Star of Shanghai proposed an activity to vote for female star queen again. Hu Die won the title by getting 21334 votes. She won another star queen title in 1934. In 1935, Russia held an international film festival in Moscow, Hu die was invited to attend. She was the only female movie star that was invited. 
In November of 1937, when Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese army, they took over the film company. So no film was made anymore. As the husband of Hu Die was in Hong Kong, she went there to join her husband. On the twenty-fifth of December in 1941, Japanese army occupied Hong Kong. In order to gain the support of Hong Kong people, especially of some famous people there, the Japanese asked Hu Die to act in the film Hu Die travels in Tokyo. However, Hu Die declined on the pretense that she was pregnant. On the twenty-fourth of November in 1942, Hu Die stole out of Hong Kong and went to Chongqing city, the temporary capital of the Chinese government at the time. 
Soon she was under the control of Dai Li (05/28/1897—03/17/1946), the chief of the bureau of investigation and statistics of the military council of KMD. Dai always adored the beautiful movie star and wanted her to be his mistress. He even wanted to marry her. But he had an air crash in 1946. So she was free from him and went back to Hong Kong. She began to act in several films. In 1949, her husband died. Then she stopped filming for ten long years. In 1959, she recommenced to act in several films in Hong Kong or Taiwan. In 1960, on the Seventh Asian Film Festival held in Japan, she won the award of the best actress in the movie called Back door. She got the title of Asian star queen at the age of fifty-two. In 1966, she retired from the screen and lived in Taiwan. In 1975, she immigrated to Vancouver in Canada, and died there in 1989. Her last words were, “The butterfly will fly away.” The pronunciation of her name Hu Die literally meant Butterfly.

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81. Li Minghui (an actress in movie and on stage)
Li Minghui (06/1909—12/09/2003) was born in Shanghai. Her father was a famous composer and founded a Song & Dance Ensemble. So as a child, she could sing and dance. At the age of twelve, she began to step up on the stage to sing and she had more than fifty gramophone records as a singer. Her master piece of songs was called Drizzle.
At the age of thirteen, she got her first role, a supporting role, in a film. In 1925, she got another supporting role. From 1925 to 1928, she acted main roles in Little Factory Owner, Transparent Shanghai, and Women, etc. Nine movies in all during that period of time. She also acted some children's plays such as Grape Fairy, and Sparrow and Kids, etc. As she often acted the role of a young girl, she got he nickname “Little sister.”
In 1934, she married the famous football player at the time, who later went to Hong Kong to become a businessman. In 1937, she founded a nursery in Shanghai. When her husband died of liver cancer, she stopped acting career. In 1971, she was assigned the work of the secretary to take care of the daily life of the old curator of history museum. She died in a nursing home in Shanghai on the ninth of December in 2003.

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82. Xu Lai (an actress nicknamed Oriental Beauty)
Xu Lai (1909—04/1973) was born in Shanghai in a poor family. Therefore, she had to work in an egg factory run by a British businessman at the age of thirteen. Later as her family became better financially, she was able to attend school. At school, she was only a mediocre student , but began to like dancing. In 1927 when she was eighteen, she entered the China Song & Dance college. After graduation, she joined the China Song & Dance Ensemble, and married the founder of the ensemble, a Mr. Li. Then she headed the troupe to perform in Canton and Hong Kong. In 1928, the troupe went on the preforming tour abroad to Thailand, Singapore and Java, etc. Her great beauty and wisdom attracted large audience. She got the nickname “Oriental Beauty.” 
In 1933, she was invited to act in a silent film Late Spring. She acted the role of a romantic girl from a wealthy family. The girl was known as a campus belle in the college. So many rich boys came to court her, but at last she made sacrifice for true love. There was even a scene of her in the bath. At that time, such a scene caused severe criticism from old prigs. Anyway, she became welcome and well-known. She received so many letters from her fans that she had hired a female secretary to help her to handle the letters. She was the first movie star in China that had a secretary. In 1935, she acted in the film called Boat Girl. That year, another famous movie star committed suicide. She was so shocked that she gave up filming for ever. 
Then she got acquainted with a man Tang. She divorced Li and married Tang. She and Tang lived in Shanghai till 1949. During their stay, Shanghai was controlled by Japan. Tang came from a family of big landlord and spent money freely. He moved among those Chinese pro to the Japanese. So Tang was deemed as a traitor to Chinese people. But after the surrender of Japan, he revealed his true identity as a secret agent from KMD. So he was a patriot instead of a traitor. In 1949, they moved to Hong Kong. In 1950, Tang went to join the CPC's army and became a general. Tang and the army went south to fight with KMD's army. In 1956, he went to Beijing to work there. So Xu Lai went to live there. In the so-called great cultural revolution, she and her husband were put in jail. It was because when she was in Shanghai as an actress, she knew a lot of the scandals of Jiang Qing, Mao's wife. Almost all actors and actresses who had been in Shanghai at the time were persecuted. Xu was tormented in prison and she died in April of 1973 at the age of sixty-four.

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83. Yuan Lingyu (died early and had largest funeral internationally)
Yuan Lingyu (04/26/1910—03/08/1935) was born in Shanghai. She reached the highest level of acting arts in the time of silent films. Her father died when she was only six years old. She lived with her mother. At the age of eight, she entered Shanghai Shung Tak Female School. She was clever and studied hard. She was one of the best students so that she was often chosen to attend singing and dancing performances. She thus developed her interest in acting.
In 1926 when she was sixteen, she was admitted to Shanghai Mingxing Film Company and began her filming career. Her maiden movie was Couples Only in Name, and others. In 1928, she went to work with another film company and acted in six movies. In 1930, she worked for still another film company. She had the main role in Three Modern Females. She acted in twenty-nine movies all her short life. 
On the eighth of March in 1935, at the age of twenty-five, she made suicide by taking too much sleeping pills. The reason for it was that her husband often ill-treated, even beat her. She could not endure it any more. When the husband found her taking too much sleeping pills, he did not send her to the nearest hospital for treatment immediately, he was first considering whether her suicide would harm his reputation. So he took her to a Japanese hospital far from home. But this hospital did not have emergency room. He then took her to a private clinic of his friend's. But this clinic could not do it. Finally he took her to a big hospital at eleven in the next morning after so many hours. Her life was not saved. 
Her early sad death shocked Shanghai and her fans when newspapers reported it. At the funeral ceremony, even three of her fans made suicide on spot. They left their will, saying that when Yuan was gone, there was no reason for the trio to live in this world. Three hundred thousand people attended her funeral and the procession lasted three li (one and half a kilometer). Next day, the New York Times had the headline like this “The recent largest funeral internationally.”

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84. Jiang Qing (Mao's fourth wife)
Jiang Qing (03/05/1914—05/14/1991) was born in Zhu Town of Shandong province. Her original name was Li Yunhe. Her father Li Dewen opened a carpentry shop. Her mother was his concubine, who had been a maidservant. (She might be hired by Kang Sheng, later a communist party member in YanAn.) In the summer of 1921, Jiang Qing studied in a primary school, but in 1926, was expelled by the school. Her father died of some disease in the same year and her mother took her to live with her brother-in-law in Tianjin city, who was an officer in the army of the warlord Zhang Zuolin (03/19/1875—06/04/1928), who ruled the northeastern China. Jiang Qing had worked for three months as a child laborer in the factory of British-American Tobacco Co., Ltd. 
In 1928, the troop of the brother-in-law moved to somewhere else, and her mother took her to live with her cousin in JiNan city of Shandong province. In spring of 1929, when she was fifteen years old, she learned to be an actress in a theater in the city. In May of 1931, she married a man from a wealthy family, but got divorced in July. Then she went to Qingdao city, close to the East Sea. From July of 1931 to April of 1933, she worked in a library there. 
But in February of 1932, at the age of eighteen, she lived with (not married to) Yu Qiwei, three years older than she. He was a university student, majoring in biography, who was also the leader of the propaganda department of the communist party there, and had contact with those in the circle of so-called communist culture. She had acted a one-scene play named Put down your whip, which could be performed in the street in protest to the Japanese aggression. In February of 1933, she took oath and joined the communist party through Yu Qiwei in a warehouse in Qingdao city. 
In April, Yu was arrested and she ran away to Shanghai. In May of 1933, she attended The Great China University as an auditor student. In July she worked as a music teacher in a primary school in the western suburb of Shanghai, and acted in some amateur plays after work. In September of 1934, she was arrested, but in February, 1935, she was released and went to Peking to live with Yu Qiwei again, who had been released, too. But in March, she returned to Shanghai to join the Diantong Film Company, using her stage name Lanping. She acted the heroine in the play Nara, and got good comments. Afterwards, she played some roles in two movies. In September, she lived with Tanner, a movie commenter. In April of 1936, she married Tanner. The ceremony was held together with other two couples, before Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou city in the moonlight. A romantic ritual. As she still kept in touch with Yu Qiwei, in July, Tanner could not bear it and committed suicide in vain. 
Then She went back to Shanghai and joined the Lianhua Film Company. She had a role in the film Blood on Wolf Mountain. In February of 1937, she acted in the drama Thunderstorm. On the thirtieth day of May, Tanner attempted the second suicide, but still of no avail. Afterwards he went to France and lived there forever. In July of 1937, as the Anti-Japanese War broke out, she left Shanghai, and in August, she arrived in YanAn and changed her name to Jiang Qing. In November, she was enrolled in the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. 
On the tenth day of April in 1938, the Lu Xun Arts College was founded and she was appointed the instructor of the drama department. She acted in two dramas, and in August, acted in a Peking opera. Her efforts were appreciated and soon afterwards, she was promoted to be the secretary in the office of the military committee, close to Mao now. It was said that she often went to see Mao and asked for instructions from him. The intimacy changed their relationship and soon she lived with Mao, in place of his current wife He Zizhen, who was studying in Moscow, Soviet Union, at the time. In 1939, she married Mao. But at the time, she had not been divorced to Tanner yet and Mao had not been divorced to He Zizhen yet. Both committed bigamy. 
Therefore, quite a few communist party leaders opposed the marriage. Zhang Wentian was the chief opposer, who maintained his opinion that He Zizhen was a good comrade and must be respected as a legal wife. Besides, She had been hurt in the long march and could not be ignored like this. Wang Shiying had been in Shanghai and knew all the love affairs of Jiang Qing, which were really scandals. And as the chief leader of the communist party, Mao should not marry a woman with such scandals. So he wrote a letter about the scandals. He asked Nan Hanchen to sign the letter, too, who also worked in Shanghai and knew all these. (both were persecuted to death by Jiang Qing in the cultural revolution.) Only Kang Sheng (1898—1975) supported their marriage.
Then the communist party had a meeting and put up three conditions: 1) Jiang Qing should not interfere with political affairs; 2) Jiang Qing could not take any office inside or outside the communist party; 3) Jiang Qing's main task was to look after Mao in his health and personal life. 
When CPC reigned the mainland, she was a member of National Movie Advisory committee and the head of movie bureau of the propaganda department of the central committee of CPC. In 1963, under Mao's secret instruction, she raised up the leftist thinking in name of Beijing opera revolution as she had learned how to play Beijing opera. She created eight so-called model Beijing operas. All the old things and classics were forbidden. 
In May of 1966, she was appointed the vice leader of central cultural revolution group, and then the proxy leader. At the ninth and tenth national CPC conference, she was appointed a member of the central political bureau of CPC. She instigated the red guards to criticize many old CPC cadres. She secretly instructed her followers to persecute actors and actresses, who knew her scandals in Shanghai and most of whom were tortured to death. In 1971, after the Lin Biao's Incident, she and Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan formed the so-called gang of four. They wanted to seize the power out of the remaining old cadres and ruled China all by themselves. But they failed with the death of Mao. 
On the sixth day of October in 1976, the gang of four were respectively arrested. In July of 1977, she was expelled from CPC at a CPC central meeting. During the period from the twentieth day of November in 1980 to the twenty-fifth day of January in 1981, the gang of four respectively got verdicts. Jiang Qing was sentenced to death, but got two years' probation. Then the sentence was reduced for life. On the fourteenth day of May in 1991, during her release on medical parole, she made her suicide. 
Jiang Qing had a daughter with Mao, born in 1940 and called Li Na, who is alive now in her retirement.

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85. Wang Renmei (an actress nicknamed The Wildcat of Shanghai)
Wang Renmei (12/24/1914—04/12/1987) was born in Changsha town of HuNan province in a teacher's family. Her father was a mathematics teacher in the First Normal School of the province. Even Mao Zedong had been his student. So the girl had good education since childhood. She had brothers and sisters, seven in all, including herself, the youngest sister. Her mother died of stroke when she was only seven and in a primary school. 
In 1926, she graduated from the primary school, and was admitted to the First Female Normal School of the province. She liked mathematics and wanted to be a mathematics teacher like her father. On the nineteenth of September in the same year, her father was stung by wasps and died from it. 
Her eldest brother had been to Germany for university, known Zhou Enlai there. But when he returned, he died of some sort of disease. In 1927, after the death of her father and mother, her family members scattered and she went with her two brothers to Wuxi city, where the family of the wife of her second brother lived. 
At the beginning of 1928, her two brothers took her to Shanghai. She and her third brother entered the Methodist Girls' School, where she learned singing and dancing while her brother learned mandolin. As her second brother knew the founder of the Mingyue Singing & Dancing Troupe, the trio soon worked for it. She was the singer and dancer. Her third brother played mandolin and her second brother was in charge of costumes and the arrangement of the scenes. 
In May of 1928, the troupe made a tour around East Asia, to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Bangkok, Malacca, Jakarta, and Sumatera, and other cities. In 1929, the troupe was dismissed. She went back to Shanghai and learned English for a year in a school. While she was learning English, she rehearsed a children's play called Little Painter, which was a success. Therefore, the school hired her as a singing teacher and she then got pay. 
In 1931, she became a movie actress. She played the main role in the movie Wild Roses. In 1934, she acted in the movie Songs of Fishermen, which continued to show in cinemas for eighty-four days, the longest period among all movies shown. It attracted a million of audience, and in 1935, she won the Honorary Award of the international film festival held in Moscow, Soviet Union. It was the first award for a Chinese movie star to have won. 
Anyway, in spite of the great success, the company discontinued her contract because they thought that a married woman would lose her attraction to the audience. However, she did marry the actor, who was the main male character in this movie. In 1937, when Japanese army occupied Shanghai, the Japanese wanted her husband to make a movie for them, but he declined. In autumn of 1938, with the help of friends, the couple escaped to Hong Kong. In 1939, the couple were invited to act in the movie Wings of China, and they accepted. This movie described the development of the air force of China. 
When the Japanese took Hong Kong, they escaped to Chongqing city, the temporary capital of the Chinese government. Then the couple often lived separately. At the end of 1943, the husband went to Chengdu city and in 1944, invited by the Roc Drama Club, she went to Kunming city to act the drama Peacock. Soon the club was dismissed. To make her living, she had to work as a typist in the supplies department of the American military base there. The husband could not bear the separation, and so they divorced in 1945. 
After the surrender of Japan, she returned to Shanghai, and then moved to Hong Kong. In 1950, she came back to Shanghai again under the influence of the propaganda of CPC. But in 1952, when CPC waged the rectification movement in the film circle, she was slandered to have the intercourse with KMD spy head Dai Li. She was almost insane and was sent to an asylum. Then her second sister took her to Beijing and she was by degrees recovered. Then she was assigned to work in Beijing Film Factory. In 1955, through the introduction of friends, she married a painter. They often quarreled owing to different characters. However, they maintained the marriage till her death. 
In 1957 during the anti-rightist movement, she was sick again and her husband sent her to an asylum again. Anyway, she handed in her applications for joining CPC. During the cultural revolution, she was sent to labor in the countryside. And her husband was put in jail as a KMD spy for seven years. In 1979, she was redressed and her application to join CPC was approved. 
In 1980, she got a stroke and paralyzed on bed. In 1986, she got stroke once more and became human vegetable. On the twelfth of April in 1987, she died in Beijing at the age of seventy-three. In 2003, she was chosen by the film Acting Arts Academy of China to be one of the one-hundred excellent movie stars in the one-hundred years in China. In 2013, Prof. Richard J. Meyer of Seattle University wrote a book about her, titled Wang Renmei: The Wildcat of Shanghai published by the press of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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86. Chen Yanyan (an actress nicknamed Queen of Tragedies)
Chen Yanyan (01/12/1916—05/07/1999) was the daughter of a mandarin, born in Ningpo town of Zhejiang province adjacent to the East Sea. Soon her family moved to Peking. She went to the Moira House Girls School. In 1930 when she was fourteen, she began to like filming. After school, she often went to see film shooting of outdoor scenes by any film companies. 
Once when the movie Spring Dream of Old Capital was in shooting process, she went to the conductor and recommended herself. As she was pretty and lovely, the conductor let her play a side role. She must wear long fur coat and high-heeled shoes, flirting with a bodyguard of some officer. She was only fourteen, and had no such experience. She failed the performance. The part of the film was cut off. Anyway, she was a potential movie star. The conductor went to her home to talk with her parents. As she persevered in her wish to be an actress, her mother agreed first. Originally her father did not like his daughter to be an actress. At last, he yielded to the mother. So the mother accompanied her to Shanghai. Thus she started her filming career. 
At first she worked as a trainee, and sometimes helped in the darkroom. Then she played some side roles. Gradually her performing ability was acknowledged in the film circle. She acted in Maternal light, Three Modern Ladies, etc. She was apt to play young girls. So she had the nickname: Little Pretty Bird. In 1936, she acted in New & Old Times, etc. In 1938, she filmed Story of Lute, etc. In 1942, she acted in Madame Butterfly, etc. When she reached mid-age, she acted some tragic roles and was nicknamed Queen of Tragedies. 
She got married to the cameraman of the company in 1937 and bore a daughter for him. But soon there was a conflict between them and finally they divorced. Afterwards, she married Wang Hao, an actor. In 1949, they moved to Hong Kong. In 1952, they founded a film company of their own. They shot outside scenes in Hong Kong or Taiwan. When the husband betrayed her, they divorced. And she lived single ever since. She stopped acting in 1972. And in 1993, she was conferred the Memorial Award of the Golden Horse Awards. She died on the seventh of May in 1999 at the age of eighty-three.

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87. Gong Qiuxia (a famous actress and singer with silver voice)
Gong Qiuxia (12/04/1916—09/07/2004) was born in Chongming town of Jiangsu province, which is now part of Shanghai. She was known to have the silver voice. In 1930, she was a student in Renshan Girls School in Shanghai, and at the same time she was admitted in a training class for singing and dancing. In 1933, she joined Shanghai Plum Singing & Dancing Ensemble. During that time, she acted in drama and operas, such as Imperial Concubine Yang, Backstage, etc. But she soon felt that it was not a regular acting troupe, and so she left it. Then the troupe was dismissed.
In 1936, she had a part in the movie Parents and Offspring. It was her first movie. She married the conductor. In 1937, she acted in New Year's Money, for which she won great fame. Every New Year's Day in China, parents would give children money put in a red envelope, meaning good luck for the whole year. Another famous movie for her was Strange Case in an Ancient Pagoda. She also sang the theme song of the movie herself. Then she sang theme songs for other movies. Those songs soon became popular. She had a contract with a gramophone company to make records. She was both the singer and actress. 
In May of 1945, she held a personal concert to sing most of all the popular theme songs she had sung in movies in Lyceum Theater, Shanghai. After 1949, she acted in more than sixty movies, such as Flower Street, Harvest Moon, Thunder, and Three Smiles, etc. She played the role of a good wife. After 1956, she had no more gramophone records made. In 1967, she and her husband moved to live in Taiwan. The last movie she acted in 1980 was Rouge. In 1993, she attended the International Film Festival in Shanghai. On the seventh of September in 2004, she died of heat disease in Hong Kong at the age of eighty-seven.

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88. Yuan Meiyun (first actress in China acting a boy)
Yuan Meiyun（1917—02/19/1999）was born in Hangzhou city of Zhejiang province. She began to learn Peking opera at six and acted on the stage at nine. When her father died, her mother, for five hundred yuan, let her daughter of ten learn acting further from an expert in that field. Her performance was applauded by audience, which attracted the attention of a movie conductor. 
In 1932, at the age of fifteen, she acted in the film Little Actress. The heroine in the film had almost the same experience as she, and so she acted the role like living her own life. The film was a great success. She was then nicknamed Little Actress. In 1933, after she finished some more films, she took the main role in a film shooting an Peking opera. As she learned Peking opera as a little girl, her performance in that movie was excellent. Then in the movie Disguised Girl, she acted a boy, which was a comedy. The movie was welcomed by the audience. Therefore, it became a serial. 
In 1937 when Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese, she filmed The Lady of the Camellias, Sunrise, Lady's Fan, etc. In 1938, she went to Hong Kong and filmed Female Master there. In 1944, she acted the hero, not the heroine, in the Red Chamber Dream. Once she had an accident. At that time, all the film studio in China had an underground level like basement. When it was night and she went to her dressing room to change. She missed a step and got the fall. She rolled through the staircase into the basement and fainted. Luckily she only hurt her knees as there were wooden chips and nails. When the film Red Chamber Dream finished, she gained a bit weight and did not look so good on the screen as before. Her health got poor and she stopped acting in 1948. 
In 1938, she and her husband joined the same film company and they began to like each other. Afterwards, her husband turned to be the conductor. When she stopped filming, she helped her husband to make the films. They returned to the mainland in the eighties and lived a retired life there till their last days.

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89. Bai Hong (the first singer queen in China)
Bai Hong (02/24/1919—05/28/1992) was born in Peking in a mandarin family. At the beginning of 1931, Shanghai Mingyue Singing & Dancing Ensemble came to Peking to enroll singers and dancers. At the time she was twelve, lovely with white skin. She was accepted and went to Shanghai with the ensemble. Thus she began her career. 
At first she acted operas on stage, such as Three Butterflies, Grape Fairy, Little Painter, etc. Her acting ability was acknowledged. In 1932, her first song was recorded for the gramophone, and through 1933, she already produced many gramophone records. Then the ensemble put an advertisement to introduce her, which made her popular. At that time, many famous singers sang their favorite songs on radios. They earned income from the radio broadcast with business advertisements. 
In 1934, the newspaper Grand Evening Post in Shanghai held a competition for female radio singers. They would put the information on their newspaper for which singer, at what time, on which radio and what song she would sing. Audience could listen to whichever singer they liked and then voted for her. The competition began on the twenty-sixth of May and ended on the fourteenth of June. The result was that Bai Hong was voted the first with 9103 votes and Zhou Xuan was the second with 8876 votes. Their photos appeared separately on the cover of Singer Illustrated Magazine, which was first published in August of 1935. She was the first singer queen in China. 
In 1934, she acted in the musical film Fairy Maidens and also sang the theme song. In April of 1936, the Mingyue Singing & Dancing Ensemble held a performance for their fifteenth anniversary in Jincheng Theater. The five-scene opera Fairy Maidens was performed. More than sixty famous actors and actresses joined the performance with Bai Hong as the heroine. It was a great success. Afterwards, they went to perform in Nanking city and every night was full house. In July of 1936, the troupe had a tour in the south Asia for one year and returned to Shanghai next July. In 1938, drama acting became popular in Shanghai. She acted the main character in Thunder, and then in Sunrise. 
Between 1938 and 1940, she filmed Lady's Fan, Three Musketeers, and Empress Wu the Great, etc., and also sang the theme songs. From the thirty-first of December in 1940 to the fourth of January in 1941, she performed the European-styled opera Song of the Earth, which described the rebellion of the villagers in the south of the Yangtze River, and which hinted that the Chinese people rose against the Japanese. Therefore, it was forced to stop.
In late 1942, they rehearsed the three-scene opera Song of the Fashion. Round the Chinese New Year in 1943, the opera was shown in Majestic Theater. But as she was exhausted in the rehearsals, once she fainted on the stage. The performance ceased. She was sick for some time. In December of 1944, she held her own concert in Suzhou city. Then two days in January of 1945, she gave her solo concert in Lyceum Theater n Shanghai. The songs she sang were Ave Maria by Schubert, Merry Widow Waltz, Carmen, and many Chinese popular tunes. 
In 1936, she married a composer, who was more than ten years older than she, and they had four children. After the surrender of Japan, for most of her time, she sang on the stage, and her husband was the conductor of the orchestra. But on the twenty-fourth of January in 1950, they declared divorce. Then she went to live in Beijing. In August that year, she married an actor. Afterwards, she joined a military ensemble as an actress. She acted the dramas Sunrise and Mother, etc. 
During the cultural revolution, she was persecuted and put in prison as she had known the scandals of Jiang Qing when in Shanghai. Luckily she survived. She retired in 1979. But not long after, she was diagnosed to suffer from cancer and died on the twenty-eighth of May in 1992 at the age of seventy-two.

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## xlwoo

90. Chen Yunshang (Film Queen of China)
Chen Yunshang (08/10/1919—06/30/2016) was born in Hong Kong, but her family moved to Canton when she was a little child. She had an English name: Nancy Chan. Since a child she learned mandarin, Peking opera, and Canton opera, which means to use Canton dialect in the dialogue. She was beautiful, and could sing and dance. In 1933, at the age of fourteen, she joined a film company. In 1936, she was invited to Hong Kong to act in The New Youth, which earned her popularity. In the subsequent four years, she had more than twenty films made in the dialect of Cantonese. 
In 1938, she was invited to Shanghai to act the role of Mulan in Mulan Joins the Army, in the language of mandarin, which also became popular and for which she won the Film Queen of China held the third time in Shanghai. During the next five years, she had more than twenty films made in mandarin. In ten years she had fifty-seven films in all. An astonishing number.
In 1945, she married a practitioner in Hong Kong, Therefore, she retired from the screen and set her heart on looking after her husband and family. She seldom participated in social activities. She lived peacefully in Hong Kong till her death on the thirtieth of June in 2016 at home at the age of ninety-six.

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## xlwoo

91. Yin Guifang (a famous actress of Shaoxing opera)
Yin Guifang (12/01/1919—03/01/2000) was born in a poor family. Her father died when she was only seven. She was a famous actress of Shaoxing opera or Yue opera, like Beijing opera. Shaoxing is a town in Zhejiang province, which has a simplified name Yue. There are many local operas in China. Beijing opera is only one of them. In every opera, the actors and actresses sing in different dialects. The dialogue or words of songs in Beijing opera are said or sung in mandarin. Those of Shaoxing opera are said or sung in Shaoxing dialect. 
Yin always acted the main male character. In Shaoxing opera, only actresses perform. No actors traditionally. So the male characters were played by actresses attired like actors, yet in female voices. Nowadays, Shaoxing opera had a little reform. Actors were trained to play male roles. 
At the age of ten, she began to learn the acting of Shaoxing opera in Sheng town in Zhejiang province, which was deemed the “homeland” of Shaoxing opera. In 1933, she went with her troupe on a performing tour to Shaoxing, Ninpo, and Hangzhou, and some other towns. At the end of 1934, another troupe needed an actress to play as an actor. Therefore, she was invited to go there. Thus she became famous. 
In 1938, she came to Shanghai and soon in 1940, she became the chief actress in the troupe. Generally the performance of Shaoxing opera was about old stories, that is to say, the costumes were of the old styles like people wore in the ancient China. In 1942, despite the opposition of the owner of the theater, she insisted in playing modern stories, that is to say, the actresses wore modern costumes, like people in the forties of the nineteenth century wore. The owner objected to it because he was afraid that the change might affect his box office earnings. Anyway, the new opera Gold and Beauty was on in June, which was welcomed by the audience. The new notion was a success. 
In spring of 1945, she invited some play writers to write new operas, such as Desert Prince, and The Love's Dream, etc. However, at the same time, they also acted some old operas like Baoyu and Daiyu, both were the names of the hero and heroine in the well-known novel Red Chamber Dream. They did this to meet the wish of part of the audience who liked to watch old stories. In 1946, she and her partner founded their own troupe. Besides the former operas, they had a new opera Begonias, which was the nickname of an actor in the opera. It was a tragedy. 
In 1947, when another famous actress of Shaoxing opera want to have benefit performance for the people in some disastrous regions, she supported the action and gave up her own plan to make a film. In 1948, she was voted to be the “Emperor of Yue Opera” because she acted the male role. In 1952, she performed The Tale of West Chamber and The Tale of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, another tragedy. In 1954, there was a joint performance for many local operas. Their opera Qu Yuan won the first prize for the play, the acting, and the music. The Character Qu Yuan was a patriotic poet as well as a high-rank official in Chu state in the first warring period (770—221 BC). In 1955, she was selected as the so-called people's representative of Shanghai municipal conference. 
In 1959, her troupe was relocated to Fuzhou town in Fujian province across to Taiwan, and she was chosen to be the people's representative of the town's conference. In 1960, she was accepted to be a member of CPC. During the cultural revolution, she was beaten by the local red guards and became handicapped. One of her legs and one of her arms were paralyzed as her spine was damaged. In 1978, after the arrest of the gang of four, she was rewarded with a lot of titles: member of national literary federation, vice chairwoman of Fujian branch of national dramatist association of China, and member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Fujian province. In 1979, though paralyzed, she went to Shanghai to hold her solo concert, helped by Shaoxing Opera theater of Shanghai and the Academy of Arts of China. In the concert, she sang some famous pieces of her tune in her opera Memory of My Country. In 1986, they held the celebration of their fortieth anniversary of their troupe. From the tenth to the seventeenth of December in 1990, the troupe went to perform in Hong Kong. On the first of March in 2000, she died, leaving her arts of Shaoxing opera for her disciples to inherit.

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## xlwoo

92. Zhou Xuan (a movie star and singer with golden voice)
Zhou Xuan (08/01/1920—09/22/1957) was born in Changzhou town of Jiangsu province. She was the second child of the eight sisters and brothers. In 1923, she was kidnapped by her uncle, who liked to smoke opium. The uncle gave her to a Wang family in another town for the exchange of some money. When Wang couple divorced, they gave her to a Zhou family in Shanghai, which gave her the chance to be a movie star. 
She liked to sing, and at school, her grade in the singing class was always the first. In 1928, the family was broke and the adoptive father wanted to sell her to a brothel, but her adoptive mother strongly objected to it. In 1931, she joined the Mingyue Singing & Dancing Ensemble. In 1932, she acted the main role in the musical drama Express Train on stage, and sang the theme song, which became popular and was made in the gramophone record. In the same year, she performed in another musical drama. 
At the beginning of 1934, after her performance on stage for some time, she was invited to sing on radio. Then she was the second in the radio singer competition and got the nickname golden voice. In 1935, she was invited to act in her first film Children of Trouble Time. Only she had a side role. But it was the first step for her to enter the film circle. In 1936 she acted the main role in four films.
In 1937, she acted in the musical film for some business advertisement, which was not so welcome as others, but the theme song When Will You Come Again was very popular. Almost all people in Shanghai knew it and the records sold well. Her most popular film was Street Angel, in which two theme songs were especially welcomed by the public. They were Wandering Songstress and Song of four Seasons. Afterwards, she joined the performing tour in Hong Kong and Philippines. She returned with the troupe in the summer of 1938. 
In February of 1940, she took the part of the heroine in the film Dong Xiaowan (see above), who was a famous prostitute at the end of Ming dynasty. In June of the same year, she acted in the famous love comedy Three Smiles, and in December, she acted in the movie Tale of the West Chamber. In 1941, Shanghai Daily held an activity to vote for film queen. She was voted to be the film queen, but she refused to take the title, because she thought that too much honor was not a good thing.
In June of 1944, she accepted the role of the heroine in the film Red Chamber Dream. It was the first Chinese film that was introduced to Japan. In March of 1945, she began to act in the film Phoenix on the Wing. And in May of the same year, she gave her solo concert for three days in Jindu Theater in Shanghai, singing all her popular songs. 
In winter of 1946, she was invited to fly to Hong Kong and in January next year she began to shoot her first film in Hong Kong. Her theme song Night of Shanghai became a popular song ever since. In the same year, she shot another film, in which she played two different roles: a village girl, kind and naive; a Hong Kong girl, naughty and haughty. In 1948, she acted in the film Secrets of Qing Palace, which was another of her master pieces and which attracted international attention for a Chinese female movie star. 
She returned to Shanghai from Hong Kong in 1950. And in January of 1951, she was invited to play the main role in the film Dove of Peace, but during the shooting, she fell sick and was diagnosed of some kind of nerve disease. She was sent to a nursing home. In July of 1957, she got meningitis and was sent to the hospital. She died of that disease on the twenty-second of September. 
In autumn of 1936, she got engagement with a composer and married him on the tenth of July in 1938. The marriage lasted for three years. Then each suspected the other of having affairs with someone else. After a series of quarrels, Zhou Xuan left home and they got divorced in 1941. Then she lived together with a cloth businessman without a formal marriage. She had two sons with him. Then it was rumored that the man cheated her out of her money. So in 1950, she made open declaration to stop living together with him. Then she knew a painting teacher. But when she prepared to marry him in May of 1952, the teacher was arrested for cheating and sentenced for three years' service. She lived alone till her death.

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## xlwoo

93. Shangguan Yunzhu (a famous actress, also Mao's mistress)
Shangguan (double surname) Yunzhu (03/02/1920—11/23/1968) was born in a small town in Jiangsu province. In 1936, she married a painting teacher, a Mr. Zhang, and next year, she went to Shanghai with Zhang. At first she worked in a photo gallery. In 1940, she was admitted into a drama school to learn acting. In 1941, she first appeared on stage in the drama Thunder and was a success. 
She got divorced with Zhang, with whom she had a son. Then she married a graduate from Yale and bore a daughter in 1944 for him. But she divorced him in 1946. She turned to be a film actress and acted in the following films: An Illusion of Paradise, A river of Spring Water flows East, Hope in the World, and Crow and Sparrow, etc. 
After 1949, she worked in Shanghai Film Factory and acted in Early Spring, and Stage Door Johnny, etc. In 1951, she married the manager of Lyceum Theater and bore a son for him. But they divorced in 1952. 
In the fifties, when Mao came to Shanghai, the mayor Ke arranged her to meet Mao in Jinjiang Hotel. It was said by one of her best friends that when Mao received her, Mao was just putting on a sleeping robe. Mao showed her a slip of note paper, saying that since olden time heroes love beauties. He (Mao) was a hero and she (Shangguan) was a beauty. Afterwards she gave her friend this note to keep for her. For several years she became Mao's secret mistress. Whenever Mao came to Shanghai, she would be summoned to see him. She had once been taken to Beijing, to where Mao lived—ZhongNanHai. Then Mao's liking of her faded. He got younger girls. 
During the cultural revolution, she was persecuted by Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, who ordered to organize a special investigating team to deal with her. They wanted her to confess what she did when she was with Mao. She said what she could and refused to say what she could not. So this was not satisfactory and she was tormented. Finally she made suicide by jumping down from a high building at three a.m., on the twenty-third of November in 1968 at the age of forty-eight. It was reported in the official record. But the truth was later known that she was thrown down by the team from the high building. At that time, she was surely confined in a room in that high building as always in such cases. There was someone watching over her. How could she jump out?

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## xlwoo

94. Bai Yang (international movie award winner)
Bai Yang (04/22/1920—09/18/1996) was born in Peking. In 1931 at the age of eleven, she started to learn acting in a film company. In 1934 she joined a touring troupe. Her career thus began. In 1936, her first film was Crossroads, which brought her popularity. She was even known internationally. The Times in England said that she was the Chinese Greta Garbo.
During the Anti-Japanese war she was in Chongqing city, the temporary capital of the Chinese government since the capital Nanking city was occupied by the Japanese. She acted in a few films such as Wings of China, etc., and performed some dramas on the stage such as Sunrise, etc. In 1946 after the surrender of Japan, she went to Shanghai and had two famous films made: Eight Thousand Li of Cloud and Moon and A River of Spring Water Flows East. 
After 1949, she worked in Shanghai Film Factory first as actress and then as conductor. She was also the vice director of Arts Committee and vice chairwomen of China Film Association. In 1960s, she acted in several films, one of which was Blessing. For her acting of the heroine in the film, she was conferred the special award of the tenth Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. She also published some books about film acting and skills. 
During the cultural revolution, she was beaten by red guards severely. She was put in prison for five years. In 1971, she ended the dark prison life, but was sent to labor in the countryside. She was redressed in 1977. She wrote an article about her sad experience, which was published in People Daily. In 1980s, she played the role of Soong Qinglin (see above) in a TV serial film like soap opera. She died on the eighteenth of September in 1996 at the age of seventy-six.

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## xlwoo

95. Hongxiannuu (a famous actress of Canton opera) 
Hongxiannu (12/27/1924—12/08/2013) was the nickname of Kuang Jianlian and was born in Canton. Her nickname literally meant “Red thread Woman.” She was a famous actress of Canton opera. When she was eight, she learned to sing Canton opera by following the gramophone records. In 1938, as the Japanese invaders came into China, she went with her mother to Hong Kong via Macao. In spring of 1939, she began to take some assisting parts on the stage like maids. In 1940, she joined the troupe founded by her maternal aunt and got the present nickname. In 1941, she went with the troupe to Shanghai. At the end of that year, the Japanese army occupied Hong Kong. The troupe went to perform in the regions that were still under the control of the Chinese government. She married in 1944 and had two sons and a daughter. The husband was much older than she.
After the surrender of Japan, she returned to Hong Kong to learn Beijing opera for three years. Afterwards she performed on the stage Madama Butterfly, etc. In 1946 in Hong Kong, she acted the successful opera Hidden Desire, a full house everyday for a month. Next year this opera was turned into a screenplay and made on a film. At the beginning of 1950, she founded the Red Star Troupe and acted in the Tears of Pearl River. In 1952, the opera Wang Zhaojun (the second beauty, see above) was on. She also tried to turn Shakespeare's plays into Canton operas. 
In 1955, she was divorced, and in the same year, she was invited by Premier Zhou to the mianland, and in 1965, she was invited as a VIP to attend the national ceremony for the seventh anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In 1957, she came from Hong Kong to Canton to work for Guangdong Canton Opera Troupe. 
During the cultural revolution, she and her family were persecuted. Half of her hair was shaved, a sign of insult. She was called by the red guards as the Black Thread Woman. In 1967, she was sent to labor on a tea farm. In 1970, Premier Zhou came to Canton for an international conference, and she was allowed to act for the foreign visitors. In 1975, she married a writer. The husband died of cancer ten years later. During his stay in the hospital, she went there almost everyday to look after him. 
Her daughter Hong Hong was also an actress of Canton opera. Disgusting of the tyranny of CPC, in March of 1984 when she went with the troupe to Hong Kong, she disappeared. Half a year later, on the ninth of October, she appeared in Taiwan and held a press conference, saying that she desired freedom and so left the mainland. Afterwards she immigrated to Canada. It was said that she had secretly gone back to see her mother before the mother died of myocardial infarction on the eighth of December in 2013 in Canton.

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## xlwoo

96. Yan Fengying (a famous actress of Huangmei opera)
Yan Fengying (04/13/1930—04/08/1968) was born in Tong town of Anhui province, where the local opera was Huangmei (literally meaning Yellow Plum) opera. She was the most famous actress of that opera. At the age of ten, she started to learn acting and singing of the opera, and went with the troupe to act some side roles. In 1930s, the troupe entered Anqin, a big city in Anhui province. The opera was so welcomed by the public that they had to play three times a day. But her family did not like her to be an actress of Huangmei opera, and so she had to flee to Nanking city and gave up the acting of the opera. 
During her stay in Nanking city, she had to sing in a public ballroom. At that time in China there were such ballrooms in big cities, where there was a band with female singers to sing to the music. Customers could dance to the music too. There was a dancing floor in the middle. There were also some female dancers, who could dance with male customers for money. The girls did that for a living. 
In 1947, she went to learn Beijing opera, which helped her later in her acting of Huangmei opera. In 1949, Anhui province wanted to develop the Huangmei opera and invited her to come back to Anqin city. In 1952, there was a joint performance of operas in Shanghai. Her acting was widely praised. She was only twenty-two then. In 1954, she had the Huangmei opera Marriage of a Goddess with a Mortal made into a film. It was said that more than one hundred million audience had watched the film. Then she was known the nation over. Other two films were made, too, Female Consort (1958) and Cowboy & Girl Weaver (1963). Both were welcomed by the public.
Right at the start of the cultural revolution, she was persecuted and committed suicide at the age of thirty-eight. The authorities accused her of spy and for the reason to search for a radio transmitter, or a spy camera, they had her abdomen opened and her insides taken out. During the cultural revolution many innocent people were accused of spies, and therefore, persecuted without any evidence. They just wanted to have a reason to persecute someone, anyone, they wanted to torture. However, what they found in her belly was more than one hundred sleeping pills. She thus died a tragic death.

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## xlwoo

97. Zhang Zhixin (a member of as well as a victim of CPC)
Zhang Zhixin (12/05/1930—04/04/1975) was a female member of the Communist Party of China. She was born in a music family. Her father had joined the revolutionary army against Qing dynasty. She learned Russian and worked as a translator. On the National Day of 1955, she got married and in the same year, she joined the Communist Party. Later she had a daughter and a son. 
In the so-called Great Cultural Revolution, she was thrown into prison, though a party member, because she criticized Mao's class-fight theory. At that time, whoever dared to criticize Mao would be a criminal, called Reactionary. As she persisted that she was right in the criticism of Mao's theory, she was sentenced to death. In the prison, she had been repeatedly raped and tortured. Her mouth and tongue was sewed up with iron wires. She was put on her back a heavy burden of 9 kg, and her legs wore heavy fetters. In May of 1970, she was sentenced for death in the local court. But in a higher court of province level, her case was reconsidered. She was thought that she had no action, had only oral criticism, and so her sentence was changed to two years imprisonment, then was changed again to fifteen years. During the long custody, she had shouted “Down with Mao Zetong!” So her verdict was changed for life. At a gathering, she stood up and shouted that Mao Zedong was the cause of wrong action of the party. Then she was changed to death sentence. 
Before she was transported to the execution site, her throat was cut lest she should yell out some words against the Gang of Four to the crowds coming for the sight. When she died, her daughter was twelve and her son was only three. 
On the first of March in 1979, she was redressed and defined as a revolutionary martyr. In August at the second session of the fifth National People's Congress, a cadre of high rank said, “From the wrong case of Zhang Zhixin, we can understand that if there is no socialist democracy and law system, the dictatorship of proletariat will surely become the dictatorship of fascism.” Think she yearned to join CPC and worked for CPC, but as the result, she was killed by CPC.

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## xlwoo

98. Lin Zhao (a victim of CPC tyranny)
Lin Zhao (12/16/1932—04/29/1968 AD) was her pen name, and her real name was Peng Linzhao. She was born in Suzhou city. During the reign of KMD government, her father had been the mayor of Wu town and her mother was the general manager of Dahua newspaper, which supported Communist Party of China. She secretly got donations for CPC, and also set up an underground radio station for CPC, too. She had been arrested for that by Japanese. Therefore, in her family, mother tended to CPC and father tended to KMD politically. Lin Zhao did not know which way she must take. In 1943 when she entered a high school in Suzhou city, the influence of her mother got the upper hand on her. So she tended to CPC. In July of 1949, she was enrolled in a school run by CPC. This school was named the “Revolutionary Cradle.” When CPC wanted her to reveal what her farther had done against CPC, to show her loyalty to them, she had to invent some untruth about her father. Afterwards, she felt sorry for her father. After she graduated from that school, she joined in the land reform movement. The land reform team, to show that they had power to do anything for the peasants, put the landlords in big vats filled with cold water as it was winter. The landlords trembled with cold. Lin Zhao said that she felt cruel happiness. It was revolution. To show to CPC that she had cut off relationship with her father, she changed her name from Peng Linzhao to Linzhao, hence he pen name later. 
In 1954, she was enrolled in the department of journalism in Beijing University. She decided to be a best reporter in Mao Zedong's time. Now as she faced reality, she found that reality was not what she had imagined. So good. As she got mature in thinking, she wanted to write what she thought. Then she became a co-editor of the university magazine. In the spring of 1955, she joined the poetic society of Beijing University and was an editor of Poetry Magazine of Beijing University, which stopped publishing in the autumn of 1956. Then she became a member of the editing committee of “Red Tower,” which was a student's literary magazine. 
On the nineteenth day of May in1957, another member of the editing committee put up a so-called Big-Word Paper criticizing something wrong in reality. The member was later expelled from the committee. Once Lin Zhao said to the member that she felt that she was like being deceived. Anyway, she supported the criticism. 
When the so-called Anti-Rightist movement began, she was defined as a rightist because of her support of the rightist idea. Lin Zhao did not know what to think. She said the truth, but she was told wrong. She swallowed a lot of sleeping pills for suicide, but she was saved. On the twenty-fifth day of December in 1957, the other member was secretly arrested and sentenced for eight years in labor camp. She got only three years, but she did not go to the labor camp owing to her poor health. In Beijing University, out of eight thousand student and staff, fifteen hundred were rightists, though redressed twenty years later. But her bad dream was not over yet.
Instead of laboring in a camp, she labored in the reference room of the department of journalism and in the same reference room a male rightist worked too. They gradually fell in love with each other. When they applied to the authorities for the permission for marriage, their application was denied. They must first reform their thinking, not getting married. In September of 1959, the male rightist was sent to a labor reform camp in Xinjiang Autonomous Region in the farthest west of China. Her sickness worsened and in winter, she coughed blood. She wanted to take leave to go back to Shanghai to get recovered. In the spring of 1960, she was allowed to go to Shanghai. Her mother came to fetch her. 
After some rest her health got better. In Shanghai, she began to know three male students from Lanzhou University. They planed to publish a magazine named “Star and Fire” so that they could have somewhere to publish their writings to criticize the bad current affairs. When their first issue came out, all the members of the magazine were arrested, and so was she in October of 1960. At the beginning of 1962, she was released on medical parole. In September that year, She went to Suzhou city and drafted the program and articles of a political organization called “Fighting Union of Free Youth of China.” Then they asked a foreigner to take out two of their articles “We are guiltless” and “Letter to the Principle of Beijing University” to some foreign countries to publish there. In December that year, she was put in jail again. In the prison when she wanted to write something, she had no pen and paper. So she wrote on white sheets with her own blood. As she did not yield and insisted on what she thought right, she was handcuffed behind the back. Sometimes, they put two pairs of handcuff on her wrists. Even when she had stomach ache or had periods, they did not take off even one pair of handcuff from her. 
On the thirty-first of May in 1965, she was sentenced for twenty years. Then she wrote her declaration for the sentence, still in her own blood. Part of her writing was thus:
“... This is a shameful verdict, but I proudly listen to it. This is the evaluation of my personal action of fight by the enemy. I heartily feel proud of myself to be a fighter. … I must do more to deserve your evaluation. Besides, the so-called verdict is senseless to me. I despise it. Wait and see: the historical court will soon give a formal verdict to people after me. You, those rogues, villains and traitors, will be real criminals. Victory to justice! Long live freedom! Lin Zhao 06/01/1965.”
On the twenty-ninth of April in 1968, she got a new verdict of death. She was shot dead in the airdrome of Longhua, a place in Shanghai. Her body was never delivered to her family. But on the first day of May that year, the police came to see her mother to demand her to pay five cents for the bullet they used to shot her daughter dead. Her father made suicide. Her mother became insane and made suicide on the Bund of Shanghai. 
In April of 2009, her sister Peng Lingfan brought all her personal stuff to USA and donated them to the reference room of the library of Stanford University. Her stuff included her articles written in blood, her open letters and her private letters, also family photos. Let's salute the heroine!

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## xlwoo

99. Sun Weishi (a woman raped by Mao and killed by his wife)
Sun Weishi (1921—10/14/1968) was born in a revolutionary family. She had a brother Sun Yang. Her father died early and she was adopted by Zhou Enlai (1898—1976), who was the premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. She was nicknamed “Red Princess.”
Her father was a friend of Zhou Enlai. Both joined revolution. Once they wanted to meet secretly. Her father carried her in his arms, telling her to look behind his back to see anyone following him. She was then only five years old. When her father met Zhou in a house, the little girl stayed at the window to look out if anyone approached. If anyone appeared in her sight, she was told to make a sign.
In April of 1927, her father was arrested in Shanghai by KMD government and executed later. Her mother escaped with her to Wuhan city, but presently they returned to Shanghai and continued her underground work for CPC. The girl helped her mother to send secret messages here and there. A little girl would attract less attention. From nine to sixteen, she and her mother led a vagabond-like life. During that period of time, she was educated only by her mother. At twelve years old, she attended the Bridgeman Girls' School in Peking. 
In 1935, her mother took her back to Shanghai. At first her mother wanted to resume her school education, but she liked to learn acting. Therefore, through the assistance of someone working for CPC in Shanghai to be enrolled in an acting class run by Touhou Project belonging to Tianyi Film Company. There were some ten students in the class. A few actors and actresses were invited to come to the class to have talks with students. One of the visitors was Jiang Qing (Mao's fourth wife, called Lan Ping at the time), who even gave a photo of hers to the girl. The girl, when finishing the class, had a role in the movie called New Year's Money, which was given to children as their pocket money for the New Year. Afterwards, her mother took her back to Peking to let her study in a school there. 
In 1937 when the Sino-Japanese war broke out, she was in Shanghai and joined in the Shanghai Drama Salvation Troupe performing short plays to call upon people against Japanese invaders in the streets and schools, etc. In 1938, she joined CPC and went to YanAn city to work there. In that year, Jiang Qing went to YanAn city, too. To remind people of the January 28th Incidents that happened in Shanghai, whoever could act rehearsed a play called Shanghai blood Sacrifice, in which Jiang Qing acted the role of the second concubine and the girl Sun Weishi was assigned the role of a daughter. 
In July of 1939, when Zhou Enlai fell from the horseback and broke his right arm bone, he was sent to Russia for the treatment. Sun Weishi wanted to accompany him there. Therefore, she was permitted to enter the Moscow Oriental University. Then she transferred to the acting department and then conducting department of drama college. 
In march of 1940, many Chinese people who were in Russia went back to China to participate in the war against Japan. Sun Weishi was allowed to stay in Russia to further her studies. But she experienced the war in Russia against Nazi Germany. At that time Lin Biao was in Russia for treatment of his health problem. In 1941, before he came back to China, he asked the girl to marry him, but she refused him. In 1943, he wrote a letter to the girl, saying that he got married. In November of 1946, Sun Weishi returned to YanAn city. At the end of that year, she asked to join in the drama troupe in Harbin city and was approved to go there. But on the way she received a telegram saying that she could not go to Harbin. This telegram was sent by the new wife of Lin Biao who lived in Harbin city at that time. The new wife was afraid that if Lin Biao met the girl again, something awkward might happen between them. In September of 1948, she was transferred to a university troupe in Huabei region. She conducted and rehearsed a drama named A False Alarm. They performed the drama to entertain the troops in fighting in 1948. And in 1949 when they entered Beijing, they performed the play in a theater openly to the common people in the city, and got warm applause. 
In December of 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded, she went with Mao Zedong (12/26/1893—09/09/1976) and Zhou Enlai to Russia to see Stalin in Moscow. As she had been to Russia, she knew Russian and was assigned to be the team leader of interpreters. Mao wanted to learn Russian from her. It was said that on the train to Moscow, Mao sent for her to his compartment and raped her. She complained to Zhou, her adoptive father, but Zhou could do nothing to help her, as he was always afraid of Mao. 
Anyway, she was still engaged in her career of acting and conducting. She translated Russian plays and conducted them. She was then assigned to work with the Chinese Youth Art Theater as the general conductor and the director of the Art Committee and the vice theater leader. She was also CPPCC National Committee for the second, third and fourth sessions. She was a director of the National Drama Association, too. In 1952, she conducted the Imperial Envoy by Nikolai Gogol and also conducted Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov. Both were greatly cheered by the public. She translated and conducted the Russian children's play Little Rabbit. In September of 1956, the Cultural Ministry of the People's Republic of China founded the Central Experimental Drama Theater and she was appointed the vice director of the theater as well as the general conductor. 
In September of 1976, when the so-called Great Cultural Revolution was on the swing, Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, said that Sun Yang, a vice president of the Chinese People's University, was a spy. Several days later, he was found dead in a cell of the university. Sun Yang was the brother of Sun Weishi. In December of the same year, Jin Shan, the husband of Sun Weishi, was put in prison on the excuse that he was a spy, too. Then some men were sent to search her home and took away all her personal letters and photos. 
At the midnight of the first of March in 1968, some men broke open her door and took her away by force on the excuse that she was a spy. Then she was put in a dark room and tortured. She was kept in a secret place lest Zhou, her adoptive father, came to her rescue. On the fourteenth of October in 1968, she was beaten to death at the age of forty-seven. She was found with a long nail knocked into her head. All these were plotted by Jiang Qing behind her back. It was said that Jiang Qing hated her because Mao liked her. Besides, Jiang Qing persecuted almost everyone of the actors and actresses in Shanghai because they knew too much of her lewd history in Shanghai, which she would like to conceal. And Sun Weishi had also worked with her in Shanghai

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## xlwoo

100. Fu SuoAn (from a red guard to a spy)
Fu SuoAn (06/05/1949—04/13/1974) was born in a so-called intellectual family in Tianjin city, close to the capital Beijing. It was a harbor city with the Yellow Sea to its east. Her father was a doctor in a hospital. Her mother was a translator of English language in a research institute. She was beautiful and her photo of childhood was enlarged and displayed in the show window of a photo gallery. Her photos had been taken from baby till 1968. But her parents burned them all when she escaped into Soviet Union. 
In 1966 when the so-called Great Cultural Revolution began, she was only a student of the first grade in a high school (equivalent to tenth grade in America). She was a student leader in her class and a vice secretary of the Youth League branch. She was an active girl. Then she became a red guard, and even one among the red guards received by Chairman Mao on TianAn Men Square on the eighteenth of August in 1966. Twenty years later, her younger brother gave a description of her in 1968 as a tall girl, 1.70 meters tall, weighing 55 kilograms, with oval face, regular features, large eyes, black curving eyebrows. She was always wearing a green uniform, with a green cap to match. And a red armband round her upper right arm, bearing the words: Red Guard. 
Then the red guards toured all over the country to create chaos as Mao planned. But most of them just went for sightseeing. However, she was a different girl. She went on the social investigations. During the three months, she had been to the far west region and to the northeastern China and Inner Mongolia. She did not go to cities. Instead, she went to small villages. Qima village was only twenty kilometers from the Argun River, which divided the territory of China and the Soviet Union. In that village, she called an old woman as her dry-mother (almost equivalent to god-mother, but without religious sense). Just a closer relationship than others. Somewhat like a relative. 
At the end of 1966, she returned to her hometown. At the time, Mao called on people to rebel against local governments. That was his second plan to seize power from the local followers of his political enemy: Liu Shaoqi. When she was back to Tianjing city, there were a lot of so-called rebellious groups. As she was an active girl, many groups wanted her to join them. However, she refused. She wanted to organize one of her own. During the cultural revolution, the family background of a student mattered much. Any student who came from the family of landlord or businessman could not join the red guards. If the father or mother of the student was a reactionary, the student could not join the red guards, either. Most rebellious groups did not take such students in. But she accepted all those students who wanted revolution. While general students were criticizing their teachers and school masters, she skipped them and directly criticized the head of the educational bureau of the city. That was why she could be one of the red guards to see Mao on the TianAnMen Square. 
At the time, almost everyone in any group wanted to be the leader. As she took in all sorts of students, there certainly were some ambitious ones who wished to replace her. Therefore, she was supplanted out of her own group. She left with some of her faithful followers. Then she needed a seal to organize another group. She asked a neighbor to engrave one for her, but the neighbor was scared. For secret engraving of a seal without the approval of the police was deemed guilty. Of course, in such chaos, some bold engravers would do it. As this neighbor refused, Fu was angry and hit him on the head. He fell in swoon. He was the clue person in an important case. Therefore, Fu was wanted by the police. She had to escape out of the city to Qima village, to her dry-mother for shelter. 
Only two kilometers from the Qima village, there was another village called Baojia village. They jointly built a small reservoir for irrigation. But the water supply from the reservoir was not enough for both villages. Therefore, they often had disputes. 
As the universities stopped enrolling during the movement, all the high school students were sent to the countryside to live and work with peasants. They lived separately in the homes of local peasants. Fu went to the Qima village in this name, as she had been there before. She wished to help the Qima villagers. So one night, she led a group of Qima villagers to Baojia village. And there arose a fight between the two villages. Five of the Baojia villagers were injured, including three with broken bones and one with a blinded eye. The police came to stop it. She was thought to be the cause of the fight. She was thereby criticized, beaten and confined. She could not stand it and fled, but was caught and handcuffed. She was a clever girl and studied how the handcuff worked. So one night she opened the handcuff and jumped out from a window. She ran away under the cover of night from the village towards the Argun River. She was a good runner at school. When she was swimming across the river to the other side, she was found by a Soviet patrolling boat. Across the river, there was the No. 36 area of the KGB. She was taken to the captain, who wanted to see her ID. But she said that no ID card was issued to anyone in China. When she was asked what was her identity, she replied that she was a red guard. She wanted to lead the conversation to politics, which might benefit her a bit. 
The captain asked again, “If you are a red guard, why you come into our territory?” She replied, “I risked my life to come to you for my political asylum.” Question again, “Why's that?” Answer, “ Because China has deserted Marxism-Leninism. So I want to come to Soviet Union for that.” 
Therefore, the captain reported the event to the headquarters of KGB. Andropov, head of KGB at the time, was struck with a wonderful notion: why not to train the Chinese girl to be a spy for their country. She might be useful some day in dealing with China. So she was sent to Tver Intelligence school. At school, she showed herself to be an excellent spy. 
Her first task was to assassinate the Soviet traitor, Yuri Pavlov, who escaped to Japan and lived in Tokyo at the time. For necessary preparations, she stayed in a private place. A man came to show her how to use a thick pen gun, which, when triggered, would discharge some poisonous gas. The gas would vanish in one or two seconds without leaving any trace to be found. Then A woman came to teach her Japanese, till all the necessary training was completed. 
Yuri Pavlov had been a soldier in the Patriotic War of Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. After the war he was sent to study in a military academy and became a weapons expert. He had used money freely, and too freely that he was always in heavy debt. He also liked beautiful girls. In November of 1967, when he was invited to Bulgaria on lecturing tour. But there he disappeared and betrayed his country. In March of 1968, he got death verdict in the military court in his absence. Later he was found living in Philadelphia. So Soviet Union sent some spies to assassinate him, but failed. The second try was also failed when he was found in Hawaii. About one year ago, he was accidentally found in Tokyo, Japan. KGB concluded that why two tries failed was because the assassins they sent were all his kinsfolk that he was always on the alert of. So this time, if they sent a Chinese girl, it would be out of his expectation. Besides, a beautiful girl might be easier to get access to him.
In April of 1970, Fu used a fake passport, in disguise of a Hong Kong resident by name of Li Nali to travel to Japan to visit her uncle. She went through Japanese customs without a hitch. KGB arranged a mid-aged Japanese man to come to meet her. He was called Takashi Saburo, who was supposed to be her landlord, i.e., she would stay in his house. But he knew nothing of her task. She paid him her board and food, plus some gifts. 
That first night, she took out a photo of Pavlov after his plastic surgery. After impressing his image in her mind for a long while, she was sure that she could recognize him among the crowds. She burned the photo and flushed the ash in the toilet. Next day, she toured Tokyo the whole day. She was surprised to find that the city was exactly the same in even details to the model in the Stereo sand table in KGB office. 
From the third day, she began to follow and watch her target. Pavlov lived in Tanimachi in the south of Tokyo. It was a luxury apartment house, only fifteen minute walk from her lodging place. His daily life was that at six every morning he would walk in a nearby small garden, for forty-five minutes, accompanied by two bodyguards. Then he went to the flyover in front of the garden. There were some newspaper vendors and some shoe polishers. He would buy a newspaper and sat before a shoe polisher to have his shoes polished while reading the newspaper. Then he went home. After breakfast, he would ride in his car to his office, where he would stay till seven in the evening and go home. He lived with his Japanese wife and two pretty female secretaries as well as maidservants. He liked beautiful women. The plan of assassination was to be carried out in his office building. Generally the bodyguards would pay less attention to their protective object when he was at home or in office. Supposedly, the two places would provide more chance for the job. Nevertheless, after she studied the situation in the office building, she found otherwise. She must find some other ways to finish her task. 
She contacted her liaison to get permission to change the plan and got supplies for the job. She disguised her as a newspaper vendor on the flyover. She would use a poisonous smog gun to kill him. The poisonous gas should touch his face for the fatal result. As Pavlov came to buy newspaper, she held out a newspaper, smiling to him. He liked a beautiful girl and bought the newspaper from her. It might be a chance to kill him, but she found that since she was sitting on a low footstool, she could not reach his face unless she should stand up. But any movement from her would catch the eyes of the bodyguards right behind him. She regretted that she did not think of disguising herself as a shoe polisher. She would be in a closer position to aim her gun at his face. 
When Pavlov bought the newspaper from her, he asked, “You are supposed not Japanese?” she said, “No. I came from Hong Kong.” She smiled her best smile. She had to give up this chance. She must change a bit of the details of her action. She needed more people to help her.
It was Monday, the thirteenth of April in 1970. Thirteen is a black day for European people. When Pavlov accepted the newspaper from the girl, he murmured, “Charming Oriental beauty.” As usual, he went to sit to have his shoes polished while he smoked a cigarette, reading the newspaper. All of a sudden, there was the shout “help!” from the girl. He looked that way and saw two big guys chasing the girl. The girl ran his way. Naturally she was holding a rolled-up newspaper, inside which she hid her gun. Pavlov called to her, “Come here!” And to his bodyguards, “Stop them!” Meaning the two big guys. Just then a guy kicked the butts of the girl, sending her forth towards Pavlov. The two bodyguards turned to stop them while the girl rushed to Pavlov, and shot the gun to his face. Pavlov gave out a cry of pain and the girl hid the gun in her clothes and threw down the newspaper. The two bodyguards ran to Pavlov and got him to the hospital, where he died. The girl left Tokyo and flew back to Moscow. 
General Cimbal, the head of the action department of KGB, received her and gave her a gold watch of female style made in Switzerland. She was then sent to a rest home for her nerve and physical recovery from the task. Generally she could rest for two months, but after half a month she was sent to rest in Hong Kong. She realized that she might soon have some new task. 
After that she was assigned several other tasks. She did them successfully. On the thirteenth of September in 1971, she was ordered to fly to Öndörkhaan in Mongolian Republic. On the way there she was told that an airplane from China crashed there and nine bodies were in it. One of them should be that of Lin Biao. As she was from China and had chances to see Lin or his picture before, she had more ability to recognize which body was Lin's. When she reached there, the nine bodies were already covered up by local people. Their faces changed a little through rotten process. She first recognize Ye Qun, the wife of Lin, by her long hair. She was the only one wearing long hair. Others were all men. Then she pointed out which was Lin's body best as she could by his short stature and skulk. 
In 1974, she was found to have severe liver disease and felt painful besides having high fever. Although she had injection to ease her pain, she could no longer bear it. She was found to hang herself in her room by a cloth rope made from torn sheets on the thirteenth of April. Thirteen is indeed a bad number.

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