As one of the founders of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun abandoned medicine and literature, used the pen as a knife, and wrote many articles on the shortcomings of acupuncture. In an essay, he once mentioned a "mermaid" and called it "picked up, but only to smash it."
Lu Xun's "mermaid" is the famous swimming queen in history - Yang Xiuqiong. And the fate of this "mermaid" is indeed as Lu Xun said, at the age of 19, such a youthful and energetic age, he was forced to marry Fan Shaozeng, the "Commander of Hare", who had married the wife of 17 house aunts.
Why was Yang Xiuqiong, who had won a great victory and a crown at the Fifth National Games, and was even recognized by Song Meiling as a dry daughter, be ridiculed and slandered by everyone, and why did she become the 18th aunt of the warlord?
Cardamom years, fame in one fell swoop
Most people are 12 years old and still playing with their friends and worrying about their daily homework. For Yang Xiuqiong, the 12-year-old became famous in the Hong Kong Swimming Competition, winning the double championships of the 50m and 100m freestyles and opening her own swimming path.
Yang Xiuqiong was born in 1918 in a small mountain village in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. Due to dongguan's special geographical location, most of the locals are very good at swimming, and Yang Xiuqiong is naturally no exception. Accompanied by her father, she swam in the pond in front of her home while still toddler, showing great talent.
In Dongguan, a place where everyone can swim, Yang Xiuqiong's talent is not worth mentioning in the eyes of others. In 1928, when her father came to Hong Kong, her excellent swimming skills surprised her classmates, and she was even known as a "swimming prodigy".
Just like that, people didn't put Yang Xiuqiong on the altar, and the turn of events took place in 1930. When Yang Xiuqiong's father discovered his daughter's talent in swimming, he thought it was a good opportunity for both father and daughter, so he sent his daughter to the South China Sports Association for professional swimming training.
In the hard training day after day, Yang Xiuqiong not only developed her talent to the maximum, but also exercised a strong physique and accumulated many experiences and skills. So when she heard that Hong Kong was going to hold a national swimming competition, she knew that the time had come to test the results, so she signed up for the event.
Kung Fu pays off, through Yang Xiuqiong's unremitting efforts in her daily life, she crushed all her competitors in the competition and won the two championships of the 50m and 100m freestyle with excellent results. When she learned the result of the match, she burst into tears of joy, and the national media also noticed the 12-year-old girl.
After winning the crown, Yang Xiuqiong did not relax in training, but participated in the sea crossing competition from Hong Kong to Kowloon. More than 3,000 people participated in the competition, most of whom were adults, which was no small challenge for Yang Xiuqiong. However, unexpectedly, Yang Xiuqiong won the championship again.
The higher you stand, the worse you fall
Yang Xiuqiong's outstanding results have made everyone pay attention to this girl, and at the same time, as she grows older, her good looks have become people's talk of conversation after dinner. During the Republic of China period, when the old and the new alternated, the particularity of swimming required female athletes to wear swimsuits, which was offensive in the eyes of some people.
Even if there was opposition in society, when Yang Xiuqiong won the gold medal in all women's swimming events of the Fifth National Games in 1933, the whole society boiled for her, and the media pointed the flash at her, and the famous Song Meiling also adopted her as a righteous daughter.
It was this competition that allowed Yang Xiuqiong to break through all prejudices and inspire many female swimmers in China. Even in the magazine "Good Friend", Yang Xiuqiong was rated as one of the top ten "standard women", which was juxtaposed with outstanding women in different fields of society at that time, and "first lady" Song Meiling, film queen Hu Die and others.
Yang Xiuqiong's reputation as a "mermaid" has also spread widely with the hype of the media, and at the same time, high society has also extended an olive branch to this good-looking swimming champion. In this way, Yang Xiuqiong became the new favorite of high society, and news about her often occupied the top of the entertainment newspaper list.
However, when Yang Xiuqiong represented China in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games and was eliminated in the preliminary stage because of abnormal performance, the media who had praised Yang Xiuqiong criticized yang Xiuqiong, believing that Yang Xiuqiong had humiliated Chinese in the world competition.
Even, domestic cartoonist Lu Shaofei drew a cartoon of Yang Xiuqiong sitting by the pool holding a big duck egg in the "Time Comics" magazine to satirize her. In fact, after seventeen days of sea voyage, Yang Xiuqiong has long been physically exhausted, coupled with problems such as water and soil incompatibility, it is also understandable to play abnormally.
However, the public in the society only saw Yang Xiuqiong being eliminated in the competition and did not care about her physical condition at all. When she set off for the competition, the media and society had extremely high expectations for Yang Xiuqiong. Just as the so-called higher you stand, the more miserable you fall, and the hype that was once hyped up has also caused a reaction, causing an uproar in public opinion.
Forced to become the 18th house aunt
Frustrated in the arena, Yang Xiuqiong met her soul mate Tao Bolin and began a romantic love with the other party. In 1937, because of the coincidence that the two met, in just two years, Yang Xiuqiong identified Tao Berlin, chose to marry each other, and lived the life of a husband and a godson.
Even if Yang Xiuqiong has gradually faded out of the swimming world, her former style is still imprinted in the hearts of many people, and Fan Shaozeng, the "Commander of Har' in Sichuan", is also the most representative figure. After the competition, Yang Xiuqiong, as the dry daughter of Song Meiling, could not help but know many political figures, and Fan Shaozeng was one of them.
Fan Shaozeng was undoubtedly an outstanding soldier in political and military terms, and he had eliminated two important generals of the Japanese army in two days, and was very brave and good at war. However, in terms of life style, he has always been criticized.
According to legend, the Sichuan general had married forty aunts in his lifetime, of which Yang Xiuqiong was his 18th aunt. Some people even compiled his affair with Yang Xiuqiong into a book called "Seventeen Aunts and Grandfathers", which was widely circulated in the market.
It is said that Fan Shaozeng made Yang Xiuqiongna his 18th aunt wife, and also through forced means to force Yang Xiuqiong to divorce her husband Tao Boling to achieve his goal. Yang Xiuqiong was only 19 years old at the time, in her youth, but she wanted to marry Fan Shaozeng, who was in his twenties, and she also had pains to say.
The 19-year-old Yang Xiuqiong also completely ended her sports career because of this incident and disappeared on social media. Plagued by rumors, she left Hong Kong to marry Chen Zhenguang, an overseas Chinese businessman, and moved to Canada with her husband.
On October 10, 1982, Yang Xiuqiong died of illness in Canada, and newspapers at home and abroad expressed their condolences for her death. As the "mermaid" of Chinese women's swimming, she is also like a meteor in the blink of an eye. However, when time passes, the sportsmanship she represents is always remembered.