Society is gradually developing, personal life is also tending to be diversified, and the number of people who choose to be single is increasing. Of course, some of them are forced to "choose to be single" for their own reasons. And as far away as the Republic of China, in that period when the society still retained a strong feudal habit, there was a person, and still a woman, who really and truly chose to be single and never married in the case of countless suitors, she was Lü Bicheng.
When Lü Bicheng was 12 years old, her father died suddenly in the capital, and her mother Yan Shi returned to her hometown in Anhui to deal with the affairs of her deceased husband. Because the Lü family had four daughters and had never given birth to a son, the clan members began to think about it, intending to seize the ancestral property of the Lü family, and in the name of no queen, they took advantage of it, and even hired bandits to abduct the mother and daughter, and the situation was temporarily critical. Fortunately, Lü Bicheng, who remained in the capital, heard the news and wrote several times to his father's protégé and old friend for help, and under the mediation of a large number of people, the crisis was resolved.
However, after this incident, Lü Bicheng's fiancé's family was surprised by Lü Bicheng's boldness, and expected her to be a difficult figure to grasp, and resolutely withdrew from marriage, regardless of the damage to Lü Bicheng's reputation. And Lü Bicheng's mother and daughter were also inconvenient to argue and agreed to withdraw from marriage.
Yan Clan then took four daughters to his brother Yan Fengsheng, and this residence was seven years. The daughter who married out spilled out the water, and the clan was dissatisfied with the Yan family's long-term dependence on his brother's life, and even designed to make the Yan family and the youngest daughter fall into the cave, and the two still took poison for the sake of honor. The eldest sister of the Lü family, who was already married, tried her best to maneuver, asked for reinforcements from neighboring provinces, rescued the two, and healed in time to save the life of the mother and woman.
In 1902, coinciding with the establishment of the Tianjin Women's School, Lü Bicheng came up with the intention of enrolling in school, and proposed this idea to her uncle, who was reprimanded by her uncle for not observing the way of women, and she ran away from home in anger and took the train alone to Tianjin. This exodus caused her fate to change dramatically, and she went from being a deep lady to the first female editor of the Ta Kung Pao.
After being employed by the Ta Kung Pao, Lü Bicheng published poetry works for several months, which was highly appreciated, and he won the title of "the last female lyricist in three hundred years". She subsequently published a series of articles on the importance of women's liberation and women's education, which was highly appreciated by new women and won herself a large number of male suitors. But Lü Bicheng concentrated on his career and insisted on being single.
In 1904, Qiu Jin, the "Lady of Jianhu Lake", went to Tianjin specifically to visit Lü Bicheng, who had been friends for a long time, and the two met and hated each other late, and were booked as a textual exchange, and after that, they often exchanged letters, which were called "Double Heroes".
Lü Bicheng also promoted women's education with practical actions, and she exerted her personal influence and financial resources to travel around, visit celebrities, and hire famous teachers for the upcoming "Beiyang Girls' Public School". In September 1904, the "Beiyang Women's Public School" was established, which liberated women to a certain extent, enabling women to receive modern education and protect them from the devastation of feudal culture.
On July 15, 1907, Qiu Jin died tragically in Shaoxing, and everyone was in danger, and no one dared to go out and collect his body. Lü Bicheng did not betray the friendship between the two, and managed to steal his body out and bury it, so that it could be buried in the ground. At this point, it is difficult for the "double hero" to become a pair.
Perhaps disappointed in the chaotic world, in 1930 Lü Bicheng broke away from the red dust and became a layman, with the legal name "Manzhi", and there was no longer Lü Bicheng in the world. Thirteen years later, the legendary woman died at the age of sixty-one, and after her life was cremated, she threw her ashes into the South China Sea, which was like "frustrating the bones and raising ashes". After a lifetime of freedom, she did not want to be bound after death.
Lü Bicheng was such a good woman, the chaotic world could not hide her brilliance, there were so many people who either loved her appearance, or loved her soul, or both. But she had never loved anyone, and any love was just a disguised binding of the soul to others, and she did not want to.
bibliography:
"The Legend of Lü Bicheng"