On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1903, a theater in Beijing was bustling with people. However, few people noticed that at this time, in the corner of the theater, a woman dressed in ** was holding a folding fan, showing her style in a unique way.
This kind of behavior, which was regarded as "great rebellion" in feudal society, made her husband very angry and reprimanded her for "not abiding by women's morals". However, this bold and reckless woman is none other than Qiu Jin, an outstanding woman in modern Chinese history.
Qiu Jin was born in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and his family served in the Qing Dynasty for three generations, which can be called a scholarly family. Influenced by her family's ancestral home in Fujian, she moved with her father to Yunxiao County, Fujian Province, where she studied at a local academy.
Compared with his brother Qiu Yuzhang, Qiu Jin has been smart since childhood, has an excellent memory, and can write poems and lyrics at a young age, with far-reaching ideas, which makes his grandfather Qiu Jiahe sigh: "If Ah Jin is a man, he will be a dragon and a phoenix among people." ”
This may have inspired Qiu Jin to reflect on women's limitations and their own potential. When she was about ten years old, she took the initiative to follow her cousin to learn martial arts and guns, and often galloped through the mountains and fields like a man.
Qiu Jin's martial arts attainments are becoming more and more sophisticated, and her pride has also increased. During this time, she wrote a number of poems praising ancient heroines, one of which reads: "Ancient and modern women compete for women's ambitions, who says that they are not famous?" ”
Since then, Qiu Jin has vowed to be a heroine like Qin Liangyu and Chen Fangying in ancient times. Once, Qiu Jin heard that a local tyrant forcibly snatched a folk girl as a concubine, so she pretended to be a bridesmaid, appeared at the wedding, and rescued the woman in the chaos.
It is said that seeing Qiu Jin's heroic appearance of drawing his sword to help, the local tyrant was stunned and could only let them leave.
Although Qiu Jin is talented and ambitious, she is still bound by feudal etiquette and cannot get rid of the traditional custom of "the words of the matchmaker of her parents". In the end, with the help of her elders, she married Zeng Guofan's in-law, Wang Tingjun, the son of a wealthy merchant in Xiangtan, Hunan.
At the beginning, when they learned that Qiu Jin was four years older than Wang Tingjun, the Wang family didn't care, thinking that this was not a problem at all for a talent like Qiu Jin. Qiu Jin's family also heard that the Wang family was courteous and polite, and now studying at the famous Yuelu Academy, will definitely be able to rank first in the imperial examination in the future, and the future is immeasurable.
Therefore, they quickly agreed to this family business.
Qiu Jin and Wang Tingjun, a perfect match with both talent and appearance and complementary personalities in the eyes of the world, are facing a huge gap in age gap and talent. Qiu Jin is in charge of big and small affairs, but Wang Tingjun can only have a good skin, and he has not made any achievements in scientific research for many years.
The two of them have very different qualities and talents, which makes communication difficult. Looking at Wang Tingjun, who was hopeless in the scientific expedition, Qiu Jin inevitably felt disappointed and hated that iron could not become steel.
In the end, Wang Tingjun had no choice but to let his family donate money to him as a six-grade petty official.
Qiu Jin lived a stagnant life in her husband's house in Xiangtan, which made her resolutely decide to get out of this shackle and make friends to talk about the world. Here she met Tang Qunying and Ge Jianhao, both of whom had been influenced by the new style of thought, and their knowledge was even more extensive than Qiu Jin's.
Since then, Qiu Jin has been chanting poems with them whenever she has time, talking about the world, and even indulging in drinks, and for a while, feudal etiquette has become useless in their eyes.
This kind of pride and pride made Qiu Jin and others sought after by people of insight, and they were honored as the "Three Heroines of Xiangtan", and later made great contributions to the establishment of New China.
Tang Qunying became the "founding heroine", while Ge Jianhao was known as the "mother of the revolution" and cultivated four ** committee members for China.
Qiu Jin's ideological consciousness has been continuously improved, and the gap between her and her husband Wang Tingjun has gradually increased. In 1904, Wang Tingjun gained a firm foothold in officialdom by donating money, and Qiu Jin also settled in Beijing.
Qiu Jin's husband, who was an official in Beijing, witnessed the cruel social status quo on his way to office, and strengthened his spirit of resistance to break the feudal system. However, when foreign invaders were rampant and the nation was in danger, Qiu Jin's husband indulged in the pleasures of officialdom, and even went to the Qinglou with his colleagues and drank flower wine.
This kind of drunken life made Qiu Jin feel indignant, and she could only try her best to maintain family chores and be a "duty" woman.
Note: The picture shows Qiu Jin's poems] Qiu Jin is different from ordinary women, she is an independent woman, and she will never be imprisoned by the constraints of the world. In a letter to her brother Qiu Yuzhang, she said: "Based on the crisis at the end of the Qing Dynasty, I have elevated my personal misfortune to the misfortune of the women of the group and the deep anxiety about the fate of the country. ”
She aspires to be independent like a man and not be at the mercy of anyone. During the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, Wang Tingjun still didn't go home at dinner time, so Qiu Jin decided to go to the theater by herself, put on her husband's clothes, hold a folding fan, and enter alone.
Her actions are both a challenge to the constraints of tradition and a pursuit of personal independence.
In ancient times, only men were allowed to enter the theater, and women were confined to the house to do household chores. However, Qiu Jin's move angered her husband, Wang Tingjun, who accused Qiu Jin of "not keeping women's morals" and beat her, which brought their marital relationship to a minimum.
Qiu Jin told Wang Tingjun in 1904 that she was about to study in Japan. She saw the future of the nation from a Japanese student named Chen Tianhua, and was deeply moved by his compilation of "Warning Bell", realizing that she should take on the important responsibility of awakening China.
Qiu Jin said that she wanted to be like Chen Tianhua and be the bell that woke up China.
After Wang Tingjun heard Qiu Jin's remarks about studying abroad, his face was flushed with anger, and he shouted angrily: "You women should take care of housework at home, but you are pretending to be a ** to go to the theater and travel abroad, it is simply lawless!"
I don't want to hear such perverse words. Although Wang Tingjun was in a feudal environment and knew the seriousness of such remarks, he still couldn't suppress the anger in his heart.
However, Qiu Jin hated the rules of feudal etiquette, and although she was once again reprimanded as a "great rebellion", she still calmly said to Wang Tingjun: "I have decided to study abroad, don't worry about the expenses required to go abroad, but you must help me solve the way to go abroad." ”
Qiu Jin's persistence] In the late Qing Dynasty, it was still a rare thing for women to study abroad. Although studying abroad is no longer uncommon, there is no precedent for women to study abroad. Wang Tingjun couldn't resist Qiu Jin's determination, so he had to find Shigeko Hattori, the wife of a Japanese teacher at Beijing Normal University, and asked her to help Qiu Jin study in Japan.
Wang Tingjun said: "She is going no matter what, and I really can't stop her." I don't feel at ease when I go with others, so it's better to ask Mrs. to reassure me. ”
So, Qiu Jin, who sold her dowry, embarked on the road to study in Japan with the help of Hattori Shigeko. Although Qiu Jin and her husband Wang Tingjun's children are still young, she knows in her heart that she can't give up her ideals because of her children.
So, after saying goodbye to her husband and children, she resolutely boarded a train to a foreign land. Later, there was such a sentence in the poem she wrote to her friends: "The motherland has fallen, and the family is too infatuated", which may just explain her original intention of making this choice.
Qiu Jin's persistence has made her a pioneer for Chinese women to study abroad, and her story inspires each of us to pursue our own ideals.
During her study in Japan, Qiu Jin became acquainted with Lu Xun, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren and other progressives, who took it as their mission to overthrow the Qing court and restore the Central Plains, and met secretly in private to discuss ways to save the country.
In order to make the people of the whole country understand and participate in their actions, they founded the "Vernacular Newspaper" written in the vernacular, and through the Hongmen Tiandi Society, a youth organization, Qiu Jin was revered as a "white paper fan" for his outstanding talents, which further stimulated Qiu Jin's revolutionary enthusiasm.
However, their revolutionary actions were soon hindered, and the Qing ** learned that they were waging a revolutionary struggle in Japan, and demanded that the Japanese side promulgate the "Rules for the Prohibition of Qing Students", intending to suppress their revolutionary actions.
When the situation forced Qiu Jin and others to advocate returning to China to continue the revolution, another group of students led by Lu Xun chose to implement the curve in Japan to save the country. Qiu Jin was deeply dissatisfied with this, she thought it was some people's cowardice and fear of death.
At a meeting, Qiu Jin suddenly pulled a sharp knife from the boot and angrily denounced the students who opposed returning to China as "cowards." Qiu Jin devoted her life to arming the revolution, and she firmly believed that revolutionaries must have the courage to sacrifice fearlessly.
In one of her poems called "Song of the Sword", she wrote: "Death and life pay a feather, and life comes to this point." This ambition is still impressive today.
After Qiu Jin returned to China, she began to go all out to promote the construction of public schools and worked as a substitute teacher in a girls' school. She was obsessed with the armed revolution and actively planned an uprising with like-minded friends.
Regrettably, however, the plans for the uprising were halted due to internal mistakes within the revolution. However, Qiu Jin was not discouraged, but more actively prepared for women's liberation and prepared the "China Women's Daily".
During this period, in order to raise funds for the revolution, she chose to return to her home in Xiangtan, asked her father-in-law for a sum of money, and ran away from home again. Although Wang Tingjun's family was angry at her behavior, they did not realize that this parting would be that Qiu Jin would never see them again.
Qiu Jin was afraid that her husband-in-law Wang's family would be affected, so she publicly published a newspaper to dissociate herself from the Wang family after receiving the school's funds, emphasizing that the funds belonged to the settling-in fee. She founded the China Women's Newspaper on January 14, 1907, and wrote it in the vernacular so that it could be read by more people.
Qiu Jin's husband began to worry about her safety, and sure enough, Xu Xilin, who had agreed with her to launch an uprising in Anhui and Zhejiang at the same time, died. After learning the news, Qiu Jin firmly said: "The revolution will only succeed if it is bloodshed", rejected the suggestion to leave Shaoxing, and chose to stay in the school.
Realizing that his life was coming to an end, Qiu Jin wrote "Desperate Words" and lamented: "The tears of the new pavilion in vain; The remnants of the mountains and rivers are left, who recruits the souls of the heroes". A few days later, she was imprisoned.
The inquisitor in charge of her case was Li Zhongyue, the magistrate of the county, who was moved by Qiu Jin's righteousness and feat of serving the country and the people, but was unable to protect her due to his humble official position.
On July 15 of the same year, Li Zhongyue had no choice but to escort Qiu Jin to the execution ground, and in order to satisfy her request, he kept her clothes, did not cut off her head, and then reluctantly executed her.
Lee Jong-yue felt deep remorse and was in agony for being the culprit in the murder of the revolutionary heroine. Soon after, he committed suicide in his depression. At the same time, Qiu Jin's husband Wang Tingjun was in pain when he learned of his wife's death.
He cried all day long, even coughing up blood, and eventually became weak and fell ill. Soon after, he also passed away due to excessive grief.
After Qiu Jin's death, her old friend Wu Zhiying organized a memorial service for her regardless of the danger. Another of her friends, Xu Jichen, helped find a cemetery in West Lake. On January 15, 1908, Qiu Jin's remains were officially moved to Xiling, Hangzhou.
However, due to the blows of the Qing ** to Qiu Jin and other revolutionaries, Qiu Jin's tomb was destroyed many times. After many relocations, her grave was eventually moved back to the ancestral tomb of the Wang family in Xiangtan, Hunan by her husband's family.
In the social environment at that time, anti-Qing fighters like Qiu Jin were undoubtedly the key targets of the Qing Dynasty, and they were not allowed to move into the ancestral tomb. However, the Wang family still desperately moved Qiu Jin's grave back to their ancestral grave.
This shows that the Wang family has a deep affection for Qiu Jin.
In her later years, Qiu Jin's friend Wu Zhiying's cemetery finally moved back to her desired place - Xiling, Hangzhou. At that time, Sun Yat-sen, who was **temporary great**, personally presided over the funeral and wrote a couplet: "Determined to serve the country, I feel that the monarch has agreed with the alliance; Sprinkled with blood, ashamed of my chivalrous female soul.
The tomb of King Yue, the tomb of the autumn girl ......Thousands of years of heroism will last forever". Later, Mr. Sun Yat-sen also praised Qiu Jin when he talked about her, saying that she made important contributions to the overthrow of feudalism and made great contributions.
Qiu Jin's life not only made important contributions to the revolutionary cause of New China, but also as she wrote a poem when she was seventeen years old: "Although she is a woman, her heart is stronger than that of a man." Count the liver and gallbladder in life, because people are often hot".
The sons and daughters of Qiu Jin and Wang Tingjun also inherited their mother's revolutionary spirit and made their own contributions to the revolutionary cause. Their son, Wang Yuande, also joined the revolutionary organization when he grew up, and handed over all his land after the Liberation War.
Daughter Wang Canzhi took her mother as an example and went to the United States to study after the establishment of the new **, becoming China's first female pilot and the first female aviation instructor, making important contributions to the training of pilot talents.
Although the relationship between Qiu Jin and Wang Tingjun is controversial, their children firmly believe that their mother chose to serve the country and the people, and they cannot choose family love.
This firm belief and spirit of serving the country and the people are worthy of our study and respect.
Qiu Jin's only daughter is named Wang Canzhi.