On New Year's Day 1938, Panmen, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, two Japanese soldiers came to a residence with a big wave, knocked on the door rudely, and after a while, the door opened, and it was a woman who opened the door, the two Japanese soldiers grunted in front of the lady, and then took the woman out of the door, when the three came to the Wumen Bridge not far away, suddenly, a Japanese soldier fired a shot at the woman's back, and the other Japanese soldier then kicked the woman into the cold river under the bridge, and after the woman fell into the water, Two Japanese soldiers saw that she was still fluttering in the water, and shot her a few more times, until they confirmed that the woman was dead.
This anti-Japanese hero, who was regarded as a thorn in the eye of the Japanese army, gave up her precious life, her name is Yang Yinyu.
Once upon a time, Yang Yinyu was the "well-winged principal" in Mr. Lu Xun's "Remembering Liu and Zhenjun".
Yang Yinyu, born in 1884 in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, a family of scholars, is qian Zhongshu's wife Mr. Yang Dai's third aunt, received a good education since childhood, in 1907, at the age of 23, she obtained the qualification for publicly-funded study abroad, crossed to Japan, entered the Tokyo Higher Normal School to study, after completing her studies, she was first hired to teach at the Second Women's Normal School in Jiangsu Province, and then went north to Beijing Women's Normal School in 1914 as a school supervisor.
In 1918, Yang Yinyu went abroad again, went to the United States to study, studied at Columbia University, and returned to China after 4 years with a master's degree in education. After returning to China, Yang Yinyu first taught in Shanghai, and was soon summoned to Beijing by the Beiyang government, and in February 1924, she officially became the president of the National Beijing Women's Normal University, becoming the first female university president in mainland China.
The reason why Yang Yinyu became the "winged principal" in Mr. Lu Xun's "Remembering Liu and Zhenjun" was triggered in Beijing Women's Normal University.
In fact, as early as 1923, before Yang Yinyu became the president, Mr. Lu Xun was already teaching here, he was also a lecturer in the Department of Chinese Literature of Beiping Women's Normal University, teaching the history of Chinese novels.
At that time, Beijing Women's Normal University had no shortage of intellectually progressive young people, who often organized and carried out some demonstrations in order to oppose the persecution of feudalism, and among these students, especially the progressive students represented by Liu Hezhen, were the most active.
For these activities, Mr. Lu Xun fully affirmed and actively supported them. However, Yang Yinyu, as the principal, is strongly opposed, believing that students should study well and should not participate in political movements.
Based on this concept, Yang Yinyu implemented a relatively simple and rude management method in school management, which finally caused strong dissatisfaction among the majority of students, who spontaneously established the Female Teachers and College Students Autonomous Association, with Liu Hezhen as the chairman of the autonomous association, and organized the Yang Expulsion Movement in November 1924.
On August 1, 1925, in order to cope with the student expulsion movement, Yang Yinyu first expelled Liu Hezhen and Xu Guangping from the name of the school council, and Mr. Lu Xun was also dismissed, and then summoned the military police, cut off the telephone line, beat the female students, and forcibly disbanded the four classes of the preparatory department A and B departments.
In the face of Yang Yinyu's various behaviors, the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government not only did not stop it, but fully supported it, adding fuel to the fire, and even forcibly ordered the suspension of the Women's Normal University and replaced it with the National Women's University.
However, the Beiyang Government's Ministry of Education and Yang Yinyu's various perverse behaviors have attracted more fierce verbal criticism from many well-known figures in Beijing's academic circles (such as Lu Xun, Qian Xuantong, Shen Jianshi, Zhou Zuoren, etc.), and Yang Yinyu, as the principal, has borne the brunt of it and has become the number one "target".
By December, the Beiyang government, under increasing pressure from public opinion, had to remove Yang Yinyu from his post to quell public anger.
What Yang Yinyu may not have imagined was that although she left Beiping Women's Normal University in December 1925, she was still involved in the March 18 massacre four months later.
On March 18, 1926, Beijing students protested the aggression of Japanese warships shelling Dagukou and petitioned the Beiyang government, but they were brutally suppressed by the military and police.
After the tragedy, Mr. Lu Xun wrote a famous article "Remembering Liu he Zhenjun" with a sad heart, and in view of Yang Yinyu's previous behavior, Mr. Lu Xun had long identified Yang Yinyu as an accomplice of the Beiyang government, believing that she was "dependent on the Beiyang warlords, promoted feudal slavery education, wantonly oppressed students, and aroused strong opposition from progressive teachers and students." Therefore, at the time of the tragedy, although Yang Yinyu was no longer in the Women's Normal University, she was still written into the article by Lu Xun and became his "well-winged principal".
Since then, Yang Yinyu has also been deeply branded with the label of "reactionary", and Beiping can't stay any longer, so he simply returned to his hometown in Jiangsu and idle for a while. In 1927, she returned to the field of education, teaching at the Suzhou Women's Normal School and teaching foreign languages at Soochow University.
However, at this time, Yang Yinyu, who had long been branded as "reactionary," had long been infamous, the students did not want to see her at all, and the dignity of the teacher was even more impossible to talk about, and even some people wrote articles in the "Suzhou Daily" at that time to criticize her, calling her all kinds of notoriety, such as "despotic demon king," "female oppressor," "cockroach thief in the educational circles," "counter-revolutionaries," and so on.
In 1935, Yang Yinyu, who could not withstand the pressure, resigned from the teaching position again. However, she was destined to be an idle person, with a love for education, and soon founded the Erle Women's Academic Club at her own expense at No. 11 Xiaoxinqiao Lane, Panmen, Suzhou, and served as the president of the company, recruiting female students and continuing to teach and educate.
In 1937, the all-out War of Resistance broke out, and in November, the iron hooves of the Japanese army stepped into Suzhou. After the Japanese army entered Suzhou, it burned and plundered everywhere, doing all kinds of evil, in order to satisfy the animalistic desires of soldiers, searching for women everywhere, as a concentration of female students, the Erle Women's Academic Club naturally became one of the targets of the Japanese army.
In the face of the various atrocities of the Japanese army, Yang Yinyu could not bear it and decided to stand up, so she wrote a protest in Japanese, personally ran to the Japanese military camp, and in front of the Japanese officers, severely condemned the evil deeds of the other side in Japanese.
The Japanese officers did not expect that Yang Yinyu, a female stream, dared to enter the barracks alone without the slightest fear, and then saw that she had an extraordinary temperament and spoke fluent Japanese, thinking that she was a well-known and prestigious figure in the local area, and then thinking that the troops had just entered the city, it was precisely the time to employ people, so they not only ordered their subordinates to return the stolen women and property, but also threw an olive branch to Yang Yinyu, hoping that she could take up an important position in the pseudo-government that was about to be established, but Yang Yinyu refused.
Not only that, after Yang Yinyu took back the women and belongings that were robbed from the Japanese army, the women and children in the surrounding areas came to the Erle Women's Academic Club to seek refuge in order to avoid the abuse and cruelty of the Japanese army, Yang Yinyu, out of a sense of justice and neighborly friendship, accepted them all and could not accommodate them, and she even took out her own savings to expand the house, just to give these people a relatively safe place to live.
However, such a result is naturally not what the Japanese army is willing to see, they see that Yang Yinyu not only does not submit, but also fights in this way, they can no longer tolerate Yang Yinyu so "wanton", and gradually moved to kill.
Thus, the scene at the beginning of the article occurred - Yang Yinyu was shot by the Japanese army in the river under the Wumen Bridge, and a few days later, Yang Yinyu's body was fished up, and the neighbors pooled money to buy a thin-skinned coffin for her, and buried her hastily, ending a bumpy and controversial life at the age of 54.
It is true that although Yang Yinyu was arrogant and domineering in managing the school, he did not waver in terms of national integrity and family and country feelings, and at the crucial moment, he dared to stand up, denounced the barbaric acts of the Japanese army, put forward solemn protests, and even did his best to protect his compatriots until the end of his life.
Writer Chen Qun said in "The Death of Yang Yinyu": "There are various ways to resist Japan, some with guns, some with bare hands, some killing the enemy, some repelling the enemy, and Yang Yinyu's behavior is worthy of the behavior of anti-Japanese heroes."
Deeply believed!