84. Jiang Qing  江青 (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.

85. Wang Renmei 王人美  (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.

86. Chen Yanyan 陈燕燕  (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.

87. Gong Qiuxia 龔秋霞 (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.

88. Yuan Meiyun 袁美云 (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.

89. Bai Hong 白虹 (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.

90. Chen Yunshang 陳雲裳 (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.

91. Yin Guifang 尹桂芳 (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.

92. Zhou Xuan 周璇  (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.

93. Shangguan Yunzhu 上官雲珠 (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?

94. Bai Yang 白楊 (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.

95. 紅線女 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.

96. 嚴鳳英 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.

97. 張志新 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.

98. 林昭 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!

99. 孫維世 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

100. 傅索安 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.