China's first female doctor, the first female lawyer, or the first provincial high-ranking female official, the last years are miserable
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the mainland faced turmoil not seen in centuries. Internal national strength is gradually weakened by various external factors, and externally it is invaded by many powerful countries, and the survival of the country is seriously threatened. Just in the important period of the destruction of the country and the death of the family, a large number of patriotic young people and people with lofty ideals appeared on the mainland, many of whom were women, and it was one of them that we want to introduce today, she is Zheng Yuxiu.
Zheng Yuxiu was very famous at that time, his grandfather Zheng Yao, who came from a poor background, later made his career in Hong Kong, became a big businessman, once helped the Flood of the Yellow River, and later joined the bourgeois revolutionary party led by Sun Yat-sen - the League. She had a lot of enthusiasm, she had launched a series of revolutionary movements, and she had also served as a provincial official, and there was no woman in such an important position in the society at that time, and she was the first woman to be so highly valued by the government.
She not only flourished in the official arena, but also had high achievements in literature. She participated in the drafting of legal documents from the Republic of China period, becoming the first woman on the mainland to have such an honor. Later, after studying hard, Zheng Yuxiu obtained a doctorate and was the first woman with a high degree in the mainland.
Zheng Yuxiu had many differences from ordinary people when she was a child, and when she was very young, she had a strong rejection of the feudal system in the old times, opposed a series of bad customs such as foot binding, and examined society with the civilized eyes of modern people, which can be said to be a special existence in the environment at that time.
Most of the women under the influence of the feudal system were at home to take care of their husbands and discipline their children, but Zheng Yuxiu never thought so, she was eager to learn, eager to contact advanced culture and ideas, so in 1905, she went to a school in Tianjin to learn Western culture.
However, most of the schools in China at that time were run by churches, and it was impossible to truly understand the advanced culture of the West and the customs and customs of the West in school, so in 1907 Zheng Yuxiu decided to go to Japan. While living abroad, she was introduced by a friend to join the League of Revolutionary Organizations led by Sun Yat-sen. What the League saw and heard made her realize that China was on the brink of survival, and soon she still chose to return to China, and after returning to China, she began to engage in revolutionary movements.
The Uprising of the League experienced many failures, but in order for China's revolutionary cause to continue, on January 9 of the first year of the Republic of China (January 9, 1912), the League decided to directly assassinate Yuan Shikai, the prime minister of the cabinet at that time. At that time, as one of the important members of the Alliance, Zheng Yuxiu actively participated in the activities and even disregarded his own safety and personally carried the bomb used for assassination. Unfortunately, the assassination failed.
After that, they summed up the lessons of the failure, and all the members of the League decided to arrange the assassination again, and after investigation and research, they finally set the target of this assassination as Liangbi. At that time, the person responsible for the assassination task was the revolutionary Peng Jiazhen, who was in love with Zheng Yuxiu's sister at the time, and Zheng Yuxiu's sister was heartbroken.
Zheng Yuxiu was also very sad, but for the sake of the revolutionary cause, he still resolutely supported Peng Jiazhen's assassination.
Liangbi had the leadership of a certain number of troops and was an important figure among the Qing government executives. However, because he was a Manchu, he was born under the influence of feudal ideas, following the old ideas against the new ideas. His resolute opposition to the abdication of The Qing Emperor Puyi was an obstacle on the road to revolution. In the end, the aspiring young people represented by Peng Jiazhen and Zheng Yuxiu formulated a meticulous assassination plan, and under their precise deployment, the assassination operation was successful.
Zheng Yuxiu, who has been active for several years, suddenly found that to save the country and save the people, only enthusiasm is far from enough, and it is necessary to have advanced ideas and technologies in order to have a real place to use.
"Zheng Yuxiu was forced to study abroad in 1914. Because she was hunted down and killed by Yuan Shikai. After arriving in France, she entered the Sorbonne, the predecessor of the University of Paris.
Moreover, at the Paris Peace Conference, which was manipulated by the Western powers, the treaties were unfavorable to China, and the failure of China's diplomacy triggered the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal May Fourth Movement at home. During his studies, he encountered the forced persecution of China by various countries at the Paris Peace Conference, and she was full of nationalist feelings at the time, so she used her status as a student to successfully contact the foreign-related government executives at that time, and then successfully prevented China from signing the contract and gave up control over Shandong's sovereignty.
In 1924, Zheng Yuxiu received her Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Paris, becoming the first Chinese woman to receive this award. After that, she first returned to Sichuan, where she lectured, publicized advanced ideas from abroad, and defended women's legal rights. Soon after, she went to Shanghai to start a law firm, becoming the first female lawyer in China.
Zheng Yuxiu successively served as the director of the Shanghai Local Court, the director of the Supervision Department, the president of the Shanghai Provisional Court, and later the president of the Shanghai Law and Politics College and the vice minister of education. After that, her husband Wei Daoming successively served as ambassadors of many countries, and her identity was also changed to the wife of the ambassador.
In 1947, Zheng Yuxiu's husband, Wei Daoming, went to Taipei. Because of the needs of her work, she went to Taipei with her husband, but the stable life lasted for a long time, and in the following year, Chen Cheng replaced her husband as the chairman of Taipei Province.
Without a position, the couple had no reason to stay in Taipei urgently, so the two of them moved to the United States, no longer concerned about national affairs, and later, in order to settle down, they went to Brazil, thousands of miles away from China, to engage in business activities. Because of the failure of the business, the two lived a life of wandering.
At this time, Zheng Yuxiu's situation was very tragic, he wanted to return to Chinese mainland but could not, he wanted to return to Taipei, Jiang "slowly issued" their passes, so the couple has been wandering outside. However, as he grew older, Zheng Yuxiu's body began to have various conditions, and a serious lesion occurred in 1954. At that time, her arm became cancerous, and after surgery, doctors removed her diseased arm.
Forced to be physically crippled, Zheng Yuxiu can no longer fight for the revolutionary cause, which is a big blow to her, and after being sad, she decides to leave this place where she once struggled. After changing to a new environment, she lived alone with an unsound body, thinking that she could forget the various experiences of the past and spend the rest of her life plainly.
However, in this cold city, all that was left for her was endless loneliness. This miserable life led to the suffering of illness in her later years, after which she died in Los Angeles on December 16, 1959, at the age of 68.