In the turbulent era of the Republic of China, the lingren, especially the lingren who came from poverty and were sought after by thousands of people, were particularly prone to lose themselves and become the playthings of high-society men. And the one we want to talk about today, although he came out of the slums and shined on the stage, many powerful men such as Yuan Shikai, Xu Shichang, Cao Kun... They all fell under her pomegranate skirt, but she still maintained her backbone, and her name was Liu Xikui.
Liu Xikui was a goddess in the early years of the Republic of China, and someone once wrote poems to describe her beauty: the eyebrows of the distant mountains are rhinoceros, and the spring clouds are the pupils of the autumn waves; the shyness is beautiful and innumerable, and the peony can practice wind and energy. There was even a famous reporter, Liu Shaoshao, who wrote a greasy sentence: "Willing to turn butterflies around the skirt, and smell the afterscent of incense to die." And Liu Xikui's white skin and beauty are not raised in the boudoir of large families, or they are cocooned in slums.
In 1894, Liu Xikui was born in a family of eunuchs in Hebei Province, and after the death of his grandfather who was a waiter in the ministry of works at the imperial court, the Liu family fell into the middle of the road, and Liu Xikui's father, Liu Yiwen, had to come to the arsenal in Tianjin to work and support his family. In this year, the Sino-Japanese War of Jiawu broke out, and Liu Yiwen jumped into the sea to survive the war. After escaping from danger this time, Liu Yiwen gave up his former occupation, took his wife and children to hide his name, and lived in Lushun.
When Liu Xikui was 5 years old, the Japanese carried out a massacre in Lushun, and Liu Yiwen had no choice but to flee to Dalian with his wife and daughter. In those days, there were too many people like the Liu family who fled, and it was thankful that they could retrieve a life, and they could only live in the slums when they came to Dalian. At that time, Liu Yiwen was getting sicker and sicker because of the injuries he had suffered in the previous war, and he could only lie at home and recuperate. Liu Xikui's mother worked hard outside the home to support her family, and Liu Xikui could only play alone at home. And just next door to the Liu family, there lived two Peking Opera tongling classes. Liu Xikui was idle to listen to their rap to pass the time, and as time went on, she became more and more obsessed with Peking Opera and followed suit.
Two years later, Liu Yiwen died of illness, and Liu Xikui followed his mother to Yingkou. It is not easy to make a living, the mother and daughter have suffered the cruelty of fate, and Liu Xikui is not negative, because she has fallen deeply in love with drama and has begun to secretly learn to sing in the drama team. At that time, people had a lot of contempt for the drama, Liu Xikui's mother was furious after knowing it, Liu Xikui pleaded bitterly, and finally convinced her mother. Her mother was an enlightened person, and seeing that Liu Xikui liked it so much and sang likely, she dressed Up Liu Xikui and sent her to the drama team to formally learn the art.
Liu Xikui sang better and better, after leaving the division, he went to the "Chongya Women's Class" for further study, and the Chongya Women's Class was very satisfied with her, and the packaging was sent to the "Zhonghe Garden" performance, and he did not expect to become a hit. It is said that at that time, Liu Xikui's heat had already approached Mei Lanfang, because her appearance was too beautiful, and after only a few scenes with Mei Lanfang, a scandal had already been spread, and it was the most right pair in everyone's heart. It was from this time that Liu Xikui's rotten peach blossoms came pouring in.
One day, Liu Xikui sang a play "West Chamber" in the "Guangde Building", and the red lady she played fascinated Duan Qirui's nephew. After the play, he was unable to get out, and his friends encouraged him to go backstage to flirt with Liu Xikui. This boy was really a bit bold, and in front of everyone, he really ran backstage to hug Liu Xikui and kissed and shouted: "Heart liver baby, I want to kill you." Liu Xikui screamed in fright, and the people around him immediately grabbed Duan Qirui's nephew and sent him to the police station. When he arrived at the police station, he did not dare to say what his identity was, and he had to lose Liu Xikui 50 yuan, and Liu Xikui shouted "pain and happiness".
The second was yi Shifu, a famous scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, who wrote a lot of crazy and explicit poems for Liu Xikui, and even shouted in front of Liu Xikui's house every day: "My mother-in-law!" Here I go again! It really made Liu Xikui angry and helpless, to know that Yi Shifu was 40 years older than her.
The third "braided marshal" Zhang Xun, only saw Liu Xikui once and was haunted by his dreams, so that many means did not dominate Liu Xikui. Later, he took two consecutive concubine rooms, saw Liu Xikui again, and still clamored to marry her home. It was just that he had bad luck at that time, and he was forced to go down by Duan Qirui just about to force marriage, so he had to give up.
The fourth was the "Baoding King" Cao Kun, Cao Kun was the most powerful of these people to get Liu Xikui, after he took a fancy to Liu Xikui, he sent a large number of silver to liu family, Liu Xikui's mother has already relaxed, but Liu Xikui is unwilling, and even fights to the death. In order to avoid Cao Kun's entanglement, Liu Xikui was even willing to temporarily bid farewell to the stage at the golden age and spend it with Cao Kun. Liu Xikui had a green plum bamboo horse named Lu Mian, who usually took good care of Liu Xikui, but after receiving Cao Kun's benefits, he changed the direction of the wind and tricked Liu Xikui into the Cao Mansion on Cao Kun's sixtieth birthday. After Liu Xikui finished singing, Cao Kun forced her to stay and wanted raw rice to cook mature rice. At this critical moment, it was a small officer Cui Chengzi who shouted Cao Kun's Hedong lion roaring wife, Cao Kun's biggest weakness was this wife of the main room, and the wife who was yelled at naturally did not dare to attack Liu Xikui.
Since then, Liu Xikui and Qingmei Zhuma Lu Mian'en have broken off their righteousness, but they have come together with Cui Chengzi, a young officer who was already very admired. Cui Chengzi got the beauty of the crowd, of course, there was a price to pay, and later Lu Mian was promoted all the way to his boss, and his job disappeared overnight. In order to save his small family, Cui Chengzi took Liu Xikui out of Beijing overnight and came to live in the Tianjin Concession. Liu Xikui also had a rich savings in the past, which could be maintained for a period of time. Soon, Cui Chengzi suddenly fell ill and died. It is rumored that Cui Chengzhi's death was Lu Mian's poisonous hand.
Liu Xikui was only with Cui Chengchi for three years, and became a widow at a young age, and since then Lu Mian has come to confess every three to five years, and Liu Xikui has left him a sentence with hatred: "Lu Daren don't say that he wants me to be a concubine, that is, I don't care if the Media is marrying me." Although our family is poor, it is also a clean family. He is just the son of a trumpeter, and if he presses me, he will fight with him to the death, and it will not hurt enough people! What else do you want? ”
(Hebei Zizi,"Northern Beauty")
The Cui family later passed on Cui Chengzi's nephew to Liu Xikui, who vowed not to marry again. After 10 years, Liu Xikui completely bid farewell to the stage, stayed at home, and never saw guests again. After the founding of New China, Tian Han heard that Liu Xikui was living in seclusion in Beijing, and Zhou Enlai ordered him to be invited, and Liu Xikui reappeared on the stage. At the instigation of Zhou Enlai, Liu Xikui became a professor at the Chinese Opera School. In 1964, she died of illness in Beijing and was buried in Babaoshan.
This is Liu Xikui's life, glorious and rich, but for her it is just a floating cloud. She is unwilling to sing for any powerful man, but she is willing to re-emerge for the new China; she does not want to be the little wife of any big official, and is only willing to keep her only true love.