Hu Lanqi
Hu Lanqi (
Based on her early life, the writer Mao Dun wrote the novel Rainbow (1929), whose heroine, Mei, would become more famous than Hu herself.
She was married and divorced twice. She rejected a marriage proposal from the Sichuan warlord
Early life
Hu Lanqi was born to an affluent family in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in 1901, during the tumultuous late Qing dynasty.[1] Her father Hu Qingyun (胡卿云) was a descendant of the famous Ming dynasty general Hu Dahai.[2] Hu Qingyun refused to serve the Manchu Qing empire, which had conquered the Ming.[3] After her graduation from high school in 1920, her parents arranged for her to marry a businessman cousin. However, soon afterwards she rebelled against the arranged marriage and divorced her husband,[2][4] which was highly controversial at the time.[5]
In 1921, Hu went to
During her time in Luzhou, she befriended Chen Yi, who was working as an editor at the progressive newspaper Xin Shu Bao (新蜀报, "New Sichuan Newspaper"), based in nearby Chongqing.[2] In spring 1925, she married the young officer Chen Mengyun (陈梦云), who, unbeknownst to her, had already been married to a tongyangxi.[6]
Northern Expedition
In the spring of 1926, Hu Lanqi left home for
Exile in Europe
After being blacklisted by the KMT, Hu left China for Europe in 1928. She briefly shared an apartment with He Xiangning in Berlin, and through the introduction of He's son Liao Chengzhi and Cheng Fangwu, she joined the Chinese-speaking group of the Communist Party of Germany.[9][2] He Xiangning also introduced Hu to Soong Ching-ling, the widow of President Sun Yat-sen. When Soong's mother died, Hu accompanied Soong back to China to attend her funeral in July 1931, before returning to Germany.[7] In 1932, her image appeared on the cover of the popular magazine The Young Companion.[7]
In December 1932, Hu was briefly arrested by the German police after attending a protest against the
In 1934, she began writing In a German Women's Prison, recounting her experience in jail with political prisoners and petty criminals.[12] The French newspaper Le Monde published excerpts of the book, and it was soon translated and published in English, German, Russian, Spanish and Chinese, making her a celebrity.[12][11] In the summer of 1934 the Soviet luminary Maxim Gorky invited her to attend the First Congress of Russian Writers, and reportedly singled her out for praise.[12][11] In Moscow she met the Chinese Communist leaders Li Lisan and Kang Sheng, who asked her to go to Hong Kong to act as a liaison between left-wing KMT leaders and the Communists.[11]
Sino-Japanese War
After a brief stay in Hong Kong, where she met the disaffected KMT leader
When Shanghai fell to the Japanese, Hu and her women soldiers retreated inland with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and refugees. They reached Wuhan after many nights of gruelling marches. She gave her written accounts of the corps to the war reporter Fan Changjiang, who distributed them widely and made Hu's corps famous in China. She became the first Chinese woman to be awarded the rank of major general by the Republic of China's Central Military Commission.[14]
Late in 1937, she brought her corps to Nanchang, where she reunited with her old friend Chen Yi, who was by then a top commander of the Communist New Fourth Army. According to Hu's own account, they fell in love and became engaged. She wanted her women's corps to join the Communist rather than the KMT army, but the idea was rejected by the New Fourth Army commander Xiang Ying, who feared it might cause trouble with the KMT leadership.[11]
Hu did not witness the worst atrocities of the war, such as the Nanjing Massacre, but she was present when the retreating KMT soldiers burned down the city of Changsha. In her reports she wrote about the numerous dead and dying soldiers and civilians she had encountered, and her corps was frequently attacked by Japanese bombing raids.[14]
After her corps was disbanded in 1942, she was sent to
Civil War
Soon after the Japanese surrender, the Second United Front between the KMT and the Communists broke apart and the Chinese Civil War resumed.[16] Hu Lanqi again worked under Li Jishen, persuading various KMT commanders to defect to the Communist side.[16] At that time, the Sichuan general Yang Sen was serving as Governor of Guizhou Province, who hired her as Chief Editor of the Guizhou Daily.[16][12] She urged Yang Sen to abandon his support for Chiang Kai-shek, but Yang had commanded attacks against the Communists in the past and did not believe they would forgive him. He eventually retreated to Taiwan with Chiang in 1949.[16]
People's Republic of China
When the Communists won the Civil War and established the People's Republic in 1949, Hu Lanqi was in Shanghai with her Communist friends. She celebrated when the People's Liberation Army entered Shanghai. Her fiancé Chen Yi, whom she had not seen since 1937, was appointed Shanghai's first mayor under the new regime. However, when she tried to contact Chen, she was told that he had already married and did not want to meet her.[16] Disappointed, she helped some Buddhist friends set up a vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai, before moving to Beijing, where an old friend from her European days helped her secure a job as an accountant in a college.[16]
The first years of the People's Republic were relatively uneventful, but she was accused of embezzlement during the
As the Cultural Revolution neared its end, her Rightist label was removed in 1974. She assumed that some of her friends in high positions had survived the turmoil and secured her
Hu Lanqi died in Chengdu on 13 December 1994, at the age of 93.[7]
Memoir
In the 1980s Hu wrote a detailed memoir of her life, in which she harshly criticized her own politics. She described herself as "immature", relying on "enthusiasm rather than analysis", which pushed her to "join whatever cause that struck her as just". She also considered the Red Guards who had tormented her during the Cultural Revolution similarly immature and easily manipulated.[19] Her memoir rarely mentions Mao Zedong, but frequently praises Premier Zhou Enlai, as many other writers did after the Cultural Revolution, contrasting the vengeful Mao with the humane Zhou. She explicitly criticized the morality of Chen Yi for the way he treated her in 1949.[19]
References
- ^ Stapleton (2008), p. 157.
- ^ a b c d e f Zhang Meng (2015-06-15). "她们的激荡青春,让我们看到生命在历史中的归宿". Changjiang Times (in Chinese).
- ^ a b Stapleton (2008), p. 158.
- ^ Stapleton (2008), p. 160.
- ^ Stapleton (2008), p. 161.
- ^ a b Stapleton (2008), p. 162.
- ^ a b c d "胡蘭畦:與陳毅相戀的國軍女將". Sina (in Chinese). 20 April 2010.
- ^ Stapleton (2008), p. 164.
- ^ a b c Dooling (2005), p. 70.
- ^ a b c Stapleton (2008), p. 165.
- ^ a b c d e f Stapleton (2008), p. 169.
- ^ a b c d e f Dooling (2005), p. 71.
- ^ Liu (2010), p. 41.
- ^ a b c Stapleton (2008), p. 166.
- ^ Stapleton (2008), p. 167.
- ^ a b c d e f Stapleton (2008), p. 170.
- ^ Stapleton (2008), p. 171.
- ^ a b Stapleton (2008), p. 172.
- ^ a b Stapleton (2008), p. 173.
Bibliography
- Dooling, Amy D. (2005). Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976 (PDF). Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13216-9. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-06-09. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
- Liu, Lu (June 2010). "On the Front: Women Confronting War" (PDF). New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies. 12 (1): 29–45. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
- Stapleton, Kristin Eileen (2008). "Hu Lanqi: Rebellious Woman, Revolutionary Soldier, Discarded Heroine, and Triumphant Survivor". In Hammond, Kenneth James; Stapleton, Kristin Eileen (eds.). The Human Tradition in Modern China. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 157–176. ISBN 978-0-7425-5466-5.