(A series brought to you by Feminist Global Resistance)
The Series:
Patriarchy ensures that male (almost exclusively white colonizer) history is remembered though a few women shine through or are given a twisted footnote.
More often, women are relegated to lost tomes and forgotten lore. Some shine through in song and tales while others, more recently, are beginning to have their stories told (progress?)
Throughout history, women around the world have stood to fight patriarchy, some winning, some losing, but they often brought revolution and change, their lives given for the just causes of freedom, liberty and justice.
This series will focus on the stories of some of those women who have stood up to patriarchy fighting oppression and colonization; confronting violence and abuse; And sacrificing everything in a fight for freedom, justice, and human rights. There have been many. I have chosen just a few of those who inspire me by their bravery and resolve.
Learn their names, learn from them, let them inspire you to do great things.
Part 7: Qiu Jin, “Woman Knight of Mirror Lake”
Feminist, Revolutionary, Poet, Martyr – Qiu Jin – Chinese: 秋瑾; pinyin: Qiū Jǐn; Wade–Giles: Ch’iu Chin; (8 November 1875 – 15 July 1907)
China has had a long history of revolutionary action fighting the oppression of the people and the “classes”. Many of those who organized revolt often belonged to beautifully named secret societies; many based on religion and others based on social issues; their membership were the outcasts of the accepted society, the oppressed and the renegades. Names like “White Lotus”, “Heavenly Kingdom”, “Harmonious Fist “,“Yellow Sand” or “Yellow Gate”, “Red Spear”, and “Red Lantern”, and “The Restoration Society” are scattered like fallen leaves through its history.
The Qing Dynasty (1636 to 1912)
In 1616, near the end of the Ming Dynasty, Manchu forces from northeastern Asia invaded and defeated the Ming army and occupied several cities on China’s northern border.
By 1636, the last of the imperial dynasties in Chinese history, the Qing Dynasty, was officially proclaimed. A full scale invasion of China and surrounding areas, mounted by the Manchus, soon followed. China and the Ming armies were defeated in 1644, with Emperor Shunzhi establishing the Qing Dynasty.
The new dynasty had seized control of Beijing, then spread to Taiwan and China proper, and expanded into inner Asia. By 1722, the dynasty experienced and put down multiple rebellions by the Hans and attempted invasions by Russian Tsarist forces. They had expanded their reach into Siberia.
Once the new dynasty was established, there was a conservative shift in governance. Many of the peoples under the dynasty began experiencing discrimination and oppression at the hands of the Manchu dynasty:
- Han men were required to cut their hair in Mongolian fashion or face execution; Han intellectuals, criticizing the rulers through literature, were rounded up and beheaded; Han people were also relocated from the power centers of Beijing.
- Increased penalties for homosexuals.
- Increased demand for purity in women which led to a mass refusal of men to accept widows as their brides. This led to significant growth in suicides of widows, and the creation of homes for widows where interactions with men was limited.
- Emperor Kangxi (1735), believed that sorcerers were targeting Manchurians and created a system of torture to find those “sorcerers” and created a program in which thousands of Chinese books that had even the slightest disparagement of Manchurians were destroyed.
- The conservative shift in governance included a general turn against literature and stage plays that were deemed subversive. Books were routinely banned, and theaters shut down.
Opium Wars
In 1840, a two-year conflict between China and Great Britain began.
Opium had been used medicinally in China for centuries, but by the 19th century it became very popular recreationally. After the conquest of India by Great Britain, the British began the mass cultivation and exportation of opium to China, flooding the country with the drug.
An addiction crisis followed. The rulers of China attempted a full ban of this importation and smoking opium outlawed. The British traders worked with black marketers in order to bypass laws.
A military confrontation ensued and British forces began shutting down Chinese ports. Among the many concessions the dynasty made to the British in order to reopen ports for trade was that China was forced to give up Hong Kong to the British.
A second Opium War was waged from 1856 to 1860 against the British and the French which brought even more concessions by the dynasty. This resulted in Christian missionaries flooding the country and western businessmen were now free to open factories in the country. Ports were leased to foreign powers, allowing them to operate within China according to their own laws. Addiction to opium was on the rise.
White Lotus and Taiping Rebellions
The White Lotus sect, a secret society in China, rose up in a rebellion leading poor settlers against the tax system imposed by the Qing dynasty. It was soon suppressed after an eight-year rebellion, lasting from 1796 to 1804.
The Eight Trigrams sect (branch of the White Lotus sect) rose up in 1813, taking several cities and entering the Forbidden City before being defeated.
The deadliest rebellion was the Taiping Rebellion (aka, Taiping Civil War), between the dynasty and the Hakka, (Part of the Han), lasting from 1850 to 1864. An ethnic Hakka, Christian religious fanatic, Hong Xiuquan (who claimed he was the brother of Jesus the Christ), believed he needed to convert all the Han to his specific form of religion, then overthrow the Qing dynasty. They over threw and occupied the city of Tianjing (Nanjing) establishing, what they called, the Heavenly Kingdom, then expanded to gain control of a significant part of southern China. Holding the area for over a decade, they commanded a population of approximately 30 million people. Over that decade, the resulting battles and military actions, against the Qing dynasty, resulted in the deaths of 20 million Chinese people.
Boxer Rebellion
In the late 19th century, another secret society, the Yihequan or “Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists” (aka, Fists of Harmony and Justice”) known in the West as the “Boxers” (Due to the membership’s practice of the martial arts at the time, called “Chinese Boxing” or “Yi-he boxing”), rose up in rebellion.
Originating in the Shandong and Hebei provinces, the “Harmonious Fists” movement was comprised of independent local village groups, many keeping their identities and membership secret in order to prevent detection as they grew in number. Estimates are that the group number 100,000 or more.
The movement, comprised mostly of peasants, idle youth, ruined artisans and laid-off workers, originally, was intent on lessening the grasp of the Qing government throughout China through violence, but expanded its focus to include the government as well as all foreign influence, particularly Christians (Christians were said to be “tainting the purity of the Chinese culture”), in China. In 1896, they attacked German missionaries in Western Shandong and later took complete control of the region.
By 1898, the smaller Boxer groups fell under direct leadership when an established structure was introduced to the movement in order to form ranks. Also, that same year, the government fell under the control of the conservative, anti-foreign forces within the dynasty. In spite of objections by foreign governments and even the Empress Dowager CiXi (now ruler of the Qing dynasty), the Boxers were persuaded to drop their opposition to the dynasty, join with the supporters within the Imperial Court, and fight to destroy the foreign elements that had descended in China. The Boxers began, openly, agitating the population in the streets.
The violence increased and, by 1900, the movement was at its peak with the support of members of the Imperial Army. In Beijing, many of their forces were placed under direct command of members of the Imperial Court, including the Manchu Prince Duan. The Boxers multiplied their violent actions against Chinese Christians and missionaries. The groups now, boldly, seized the property of Christian missionaries and, attracting militant followers, they moved into the cities, attacking and killing foreigners.
In late 1900, the “Eight Nation Alliance” (British Empire, Japan, Russia, Germany, United States, France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary) descended on the nation. Their lucrative interests in jeopardy, the nations formed a multinational military coalition that invaded China to suppress the rebellion and destroy the Boxer movement.
The Empress Dowager was now forced to side with the Boxers against the foreign invaders. She declared war on the invaders but, by 1901, the Imperial Army was defeated; The boxers were outnumbered and, without modern weaponry, were destroyed.
The forces didn’t stop there. They took full control of Beijing and proceeded to pillage Beijing and Northern China for an entire year, as a “punitive” measure, until the signing of “Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Russia, Spain, United States and China—Final Protocol for the Settlement of the Disturbances of 1900” (aka, Treaty of 1901, Peace Agreement between the Great Powers and China, as known in the West) or “Xinchou Treaty” in China.
The resulting “Treaty” allowed for large scale reparations to be paid (in gold, on rising scale, at a 4% interest) to all the Alliance nations (“The Powers”) invested in China, sanctions on China and even more concessions to the foreign powers allowing them to deny imports of munitions and weaponry into China, forcing foreign forces to be based in Beijing, and the punishment of Boxer and Imperial Army leaders to include execution, deportation, or life imprisonment.
The Treaty further weakened the Qing rule.
After the Empress Dowager died in 1908, Xuantong, known as “The Last Emperor,” took the throne, but he wouldn’t reign long.
Her Story:
“Don’t speak of how women can’t become heroes…”
In 1875 in Fujian, China (southeastern coast of China), Qiu Jin was born into a wealthy Han family – her grandfather was a bureaucrat with the Xiamen city government and was responsible for the City’s defense; Her father, Qiu Shounan, was a government official; Her mother came from a distinguished literati- Rofficial (government officials and prestigious scholars in China forming a distinct social class) family.
Her family’s wealth and status allowed Qiu Jin an excellent education, more so than most female children at that time. At an early age, Qiu Jin’s feet were bound (at a time when the practice was coming under increased scrutiny) and she learned to write poetry but, unlike most other girls, she was also trained to ride horses, use a sword, participate in martial arts and drink wine – activities that were reserved only for boys and men of the time.
Qiu Jin was introduced early to political philosophy and revolutionary thought. She was born and raised in a time of upheaval and rebellion against the dynasty and the cultural demands that it embraced as well as the anger at the aggression of imperialist European/Western nations occupying China, repressing the people, and getting rich from China’s resources while pushing the “westernization of China”.
In 1896, Qiu Jin’s father arranged a marriage, for his daughter, to a wealthy son of a merchant, Wang Tingjun. Qiu Jin was never satisfied in the marriage though she bore two children.
It was when her husband took a new position, moving the family to Beijing in 1902, that Qiu Jin was introduced to more radical ideas and current events. She became engaged in political and philosophical discussions with her new found friends; she was introduced to feminist writings and education. The more she learned, the more dissatisfied she became with her marriage. As she became aware of the difficulties in her country and more exposed to revolutionary thought, she felt a growing desire to learn more and to be a part of the change she saw necessary for the nation. She was becoming a revolutionary – devoting herself to change..
Qiu Jin took the radical action of leaving her husband and children, selling her jewelry, donning the clothes of a man, and traveling aboard a ferry boat from Shanghai to Japan to further her education. It was in Japan, that Qiu Jin began to develop her persona.
Qiu Jin had fully adopted a revolutionary style to match her passion. She unbound her feet, began carrying a Japanese sword, wore men’s clothing, and practiced martial arts; she openly defied the stereotype of a Chinese woman. She began identifying with her sobriquet “Heroine of Jian Lake” or “Woman Knight of Mirror Lake” (a nod to the concept of “Knight-Errant” – a symbolic representation, established in the Han dynasty, of a prototypical male figure known for swordsmanship, bravery, faithfulness, and self-sacrifice); She took the name “Jingxiong,” meaning “competition” or “power,” as a means of suggesting gender equality in her revolutionary pursuits.
While in Yokohama, Japan, she began lecturing on revolution and gender equality, writing revolutionary articles for journals and speaking out for the improved access to education for women, against oppressive marriage and foot-binding. In the journal, “Vernacular Journal” ( aka, “Baihua Bao”), she published her manifesto, “A Respectful Proclamation to China’s 200 Million Women Comrades.” Qui Jin outlined her belief that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the Qing government that was in power at the time.
Qiu Jin joined the anti-Qing secret society, Guangfuhui, which merged with other overseas Chinese revolutionary groups to form the Tongmenghui, led by Sun Yat-sen,( statesman, physician, and political philosopher, who later served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China after the 1911 Revolution that brought down the Qing dynasty)
She became known as an eloquent orator and passionate revolutionary author. By 1906, she had founded the radical feminist journal, “China Women’s News” (Zhongguo nü bao) with her friend and fellow poet, Xu Zihua, in Shanghai. They published only two issues before it was closed by the Qing authorities. In the first of the two issues, Qui Jin wrote an editorial encouraging women to “be the forerunners of waking the lion, be the vanguard of civilization, be the boat across the ford of confusion, be the light of the dark room, so that within the world of Chinese women a magnificent splendor will be released, to stir the hearts and dazzle the eyes of all mankind.”
In 1907, Qui Jin was offered a position as head of the Datong school in Shaoxing, founded by friend and fellow revolutionary, Xu Xilin. The school, purportedly, was for “sport teachers”, but was in actuality, a school for the military training of revolutionaries. While teaching at the Datong school, she kept in secret communication with local underground organization, “The Restoration Society” (an organization focused on the overthrow of the Manchu government and restoration of Chinese rule).
Both Qiu Jin and Xu Xilin continued organizing and planning actions secretly. They recruited members to The Restoration Society and trained them in the use of arms and fighting, running secret drills to make sure they were battle ready. She established the Restoration Army.
In May of 1907, she reported to the Society that the army was now ready. An uprising was planned for July 6, 1907, to take place in Anqing in Angui Province.
On July 6, 1907, Xu Xilin, Qiu Jin’s friend and the Datong school’s co-founder, was arrested and tortured for information about the uprising. He was executed the next day
The Qing authorities soon arrested Qiu Jin at the school. She was tortured but refused to admit any involvement or knowledge of the uprising. Instead, the authorities used her own writings as “incriminating evidence” against her. A few days later, she was publicly beheaded in her home village, at the age of 31.
Qiu Jin inspired revolutionaries across the country with her verse and her teaching; She inspired women to rise up to free themselves by fighting for personal and economic freedom. She also urged them to unite in the struggle to save China.
The Revolution, for which she gave her life, began in October, 1911.
