Mao Zhedongs licentious life may be well known by many people, especially overseas Chinese who are able to talk freely among their acquaintances.
Recently, as there are many people talking on the web about the adultery of Mao and his daughter in law, I recalled what I had known about Mao, and hope it may help those women who had suffered and maybe help release some of their sorrow.
I recall in the 90s, that when I was working in China, a friend told me that there was a very beautiful girl (let me call her G) who was secretly selected from a section of the army posted in Baoding, who was sent to be Maos secretary, or some similar position. When G was sent there, after she was introduced to Mao, Mao told G that his marriage to Jiangqin was not very good, etc. and he hoped to sleep with G, but would like G to agree. G refused persistently. So G was sent back to the army. My friend told me that Gs superiors in the army were very angry with G as they feared that G may have destroyed their chances for promotion. G immediately faced severe persecution and disappeared. Later I found that this was just a little incident among thousands of women that Mao tried to possess. Let me put a few cases here:
Mao had about 15 places for his dalliances with women, other than Zhongnanhai, that were well know by his close guards and many top leaders of the Communist party.
These cases are only a drop in the ocean. For those women who were well known before being raped, they still struggled to have a life afterwards, but the unknown girls that were selected from the masses, after being seduced and sexually exploited, they were either sent to the remote corners of China, or to isolated islands, to remain anonymous for the rest of their lives. It might be possible that some of them may think that their story should be told.
All of you would know, I hope, is that for those girls, who were born later than 1950, I will only talk about their cases, but will not reveal their names.
From those who researched the history of Mao from sources other than publications by communist China, you may know that Maos first wife, Ms Lee, was 6 years older than Mao, and was chosen by both senior members of the family. They were married according to Chinese tradition, and bowed to heaven, earth and their parents, the proper process for a traditional marriage. But Mao left her without explanation a few days after the wedding.
Even when that miserable American journalist, Edgar Snow, thought to please Mao and asked about Maos first marriage, Mao did not even bother to answer him. Mao never showed any respect, compassion or tolerance to ordinary people, and he left his small village and his first wife for good shortly after the marriage.
The first lover Mao encountered was Miss Tao Siyong, who came from Xiangtan county, Hunan province. She was from a very wealthy and famous family, a well educated, very gentle and compassionate lady. She was a classmate of Mao in Changsha First Teachers college, and they were from the same province. From 1919 to 1920, Mao and Tao opened a bookshop together, and they were very much in love during that time. But in the summer of 1920, Tao could not bear the attitude of Mao on rebellion and violence, and besides, Mao had turned his attention to Yang Kaihui.
Yang Kaihuis father, Yang Jichang was Maos teacher in the college. Yang Jichang was a very famous scholar and was invited to teach in Beijing. So Yang Kaihui and her mother lived in Beijing for a while although Yang Kaihui knew Mao, but did not take any interest in him.
On 17th January 1920, Yang Jichang died so Yang Kaihui and her mother returned to Changsha. Mao then visited Yang Kaihui often while supposedly still in love with Tao. Mao and Yang Kaihui decided to get married in mid 1920.
Ms Tao left Changsha for Shanghai. She opened a school called Lida School. Tao died in 1932 when she was only in her early thirties.
Between 1922 and 1926, Yang Kaihui had two sons with Mao, Mao Anying and Mao Anlong. But soon after giving birth to Mao Anlong, Yang discovered that Mao had raped the wife of his comrade, Li Lisan. Yang and Mao had a big quarrel because of this.
Mao had started looking for a political career at an early age, and joined the communist party in it's early stages. The Chinese Communist Party had been established with the guidance and funding of the Russian Communist Party.
In the autumn of 1927, as directed by the Russians, Mao took part in a rebellion which was crushed by the nationalist army, so he fled to Mount Jinggang in Shanxi.
Two days after Mao arrived in the mountain, Mao started to live together with a famous woman of the area, Ms He Zhizheng, a young woman who made a living as an armed robber in the mountain area, and who could fire two guns at the same time. Ms He give birth to a daughter in 1928, while Yang Kaihui was living in Changsha trying to avoid being arrested by the nationalist army because of Maos student activities.
Yang had lived through a very hard period and asked Mao to let her come to Mount Jingggang , but Mao refused to allow her and their two sons to come. During this time Mao and other communists in Mount Jinggang, had committed many robberies and killings, so that many people asked help from the government, to purge Maos gang and stop their crimes.
In the winter of 1929, Yang Kaihui was arrested by the government, but as the governor was a friend of Yangs father, he asked Yang to end her marriage with Mao, so that he could help her case. But Yang refused to renounce her marriage to Mao and she was executed on 14th November 1930.
In October, 1934, Mao was chased out of Jiangxi province by the Nationalist army. Mao and his communists were running for their lives in remote areas for more than a year, but Mao had made Ms He pregnant three times in one year and she had 3 abortions which caused her health to deteriorate badly.
Soon after that they arrived in Shanbei, Yanan area, where, away from the main Nationalist force, Maos situation became easier. But Mao had his new prey, the American journalist, Ms Agnes Smedley and her English interpreter, a young student, Ms Wu Guanghui. One day Ms He witnessed Maos adultery, and was so enraged that she said: "I will get my people to kill these two slugs". Mao then had his people force He Zhizheng out of Yanan.
So that is why many Chinese communist leaders would say nowadays: I have conquered this country, so playing with a few women is not some big deal.
After Ms He was forced out of Yanan, she went to Moscow in the spring of 1938 where she gave birth to Maos sixth child. When the baby was born it had pneumonia, but rather than receive treatment it was sent to the morgue while still alive. Ms He was treated badly by the Russians who understood Maos intentions. Ms He begged Mao to let her go back to Yanan, but Mao sent their three year old daughter to Moscow in return to Ms Hes request. Later, He Zhizheng argued with the hospital in Moscow about her baby being thrown in the morgue, but the hospital locked He Zhizheng in a psychiatric hospital for 6 years!
In the summer of 1938, while Ms He suffered in Moscow, Mao met actress Jiangqin (aka, Lan Ping or Li Yunhe). Jiang had four husbands or lovers during that time. Mao invited Jiang to chat and dine with him, and Jiang slept with Mao that evening.
During that period, there were four beautiful and famous actresses in the Yanan Theatre - they were Feng Fengming, Shun Shiwei, Zhang Xingfang, and Guo Lanying. Mao had his eye on Feng Fengming while sleeping with Jiangqin. Ms Feng had travelled overseas and was a well educated and talented actress, also very beautiful.
One day Mao invited Feng and Jiangqin and other friends to join him for a late night snack after watching the performance. When all the guests were about to leave, Mao asked Ms Feng to stay to discuss the development of culture, but instead, he raped Feng that evening. Ms Feng was very angry and traumatised. She left Yanan and continued her career in Japan and Hongkong, and was very successful there.
In December, 1949, after the communist takeover of China, Mao and Zhou Enlai went to Russia with the Chinese communist leadership team, and Miss Shun Weishi, the adopted daughter of Zhou Enlai, was the translator for Mao. One evening, Mao locked the door as he was taking Russian language lessons from Miss Shun and the next morning, Miss Shun was shocked to find herself waking up naked in Maos bed. Miss Shun was so distressed and frightened, she told Zhou Enlai, and certainly Zhou was not shocked.
After they returned from Russia, Mao asked Zhou if Mao should divorce Jiangqin and marry Shun Weishi. Zhou did not agree, and he married Shun Weishi to the theatre playboy, Jing Shan, who also slept with Jiangqin. Later, Mao said to people around him, well, me and Jing Shan, we dont owe each other anything.
But when Jiangqin heard that Mao had slept with Shun Weishi, she tried to seek revenge on Shun. In 1966, at the beginning of the "Great culturural revolution", Jiang had Ms Shun arrested and sent to jail. The torture of Shun Weishi was well recorded. Shun had been severely beaten, and was not allowed to wore any clothes in jail. She was executed by punching a long nail into her head. The execution order was signed by Zhou Enlai. She was only 38 years old.
In 1951, the Chinese communist army was helping the North Koreans to set up a communist state and split the Koreas. But the three armies of communist China stationed in South Korea, were facing annihilation. General Peng Dehuai went back to meet Mao urgently, but was stopped by Maos guard outside of the door. General Peng was very angry, and pushed past the guard to see that Mao was with a young nurse in bed.
In 1953, the performing troupe which was set up to entertain the army during the war was renamed the performing troup of Zhongnanhai, which meant that the troupe would stay inside Zhongnanhai. In fact, the girls in the troupe had to sleep with Mao in turn every night.
Sometime, Mao liked to change a few dance partners during just one song, and his manner was rude and disgusting. Some girls went to General Peng for help as they could not stand the humiliation. General Peng disbanded the troupe after receiving complaints from the girls.
In the summer of 1956, after Mao arrived in Qingdao, two of the best dancers, Miss A & B of the Qingdao performing troupe were chosen to have a special talk with the minister of the culture department in Qingdao city. After meeting with the minister, Miss A was chosen to work for a State leader as a private assistant. Miss A was sent by car (to use a car was rare in that period) which had all windows covered in black cloth. The driver purposely made many detours during the journey, and finally, they arrived at a mansion with well kept gardens and red carpet underfoot.
The first thing Miss A experienced was being medically checked by two female doctors thoroughly. Miss A was embarrassed as she was a virgin. She asked what type of leader needed such a check to be carried out? The female doctor answered her, you will know, he is famous and always in the newspaper. So Miss A was asked to go to help this leader have a bath while she was naked. She really had no idea what was going on, did not dare to enter the bathroom. Soon, that central leader came out from the bathroom. It was Mao. Miss A was not excited, but cried hysterically in shock. Mao said loudly, who asked you to come?! Then Mao made an excuse and asked people to take Miss A back. The driver told Miss A in the car: remember, nothing happened today! The next day, Miss B was sent in her place, but Miss A was also sent away, to Mount Xinanling in Heilongjiang province, where she had to work as a woodcutter. She was raped frequently by many woodcutters while working there.
In 1978, two years after Maos death, Miss A was 42 years old, but she looked over 60. She was granted permission to return to Qingdao under the condition of forgetting everything.
Miss B who agreed to serve the great leader was sent to the remote mountain of Wuzhishan, on Hainan island, to live a seclusive life after being used up by Mao.
In 1961, after successfully starving 30 million people to death, Mao went to Shanghai to attend a meeting of seven thousand people. Mao stayed in the Xijiao hotel and thought of the famous actress C. Miss C was the most beautiful actress in Shanghai at that time. One evening after the dance party, the Minister for Culture, Zhang Chunqiao asked Miss C to stay, and told her that Chairman Mao had invited her for a late evening snack and to discuss with her about issues relating to the movie industry. Minister Zhang also told Miss C that the relationship of Mao and Jiangqin was not very good, and that it interfered with the national interests and development.
The central leaders in Beijing were all looking for a person more suitable for Mao, who would be beneficial to the future of the country. So Miss C started sleeping with Mao from that night. She stayed with Mao in that hotel for the rest of the week. She was also called to Beijing to stay at Zhongnanhai for a short time. From then on, Miss C refused any proposal from other men, and hoped to become the wife of the great leader Mao. But soon after that, the Cultural Revolution started. Miss C was facing the same fate as Shun Weishi, who was persecuted to death under instructions from Jiangqin.
In 1965, Mao went to Mount Lu. An actress from Jiujiang performing troupe, Miss D, played the Chinese instrument, Pipa. Mao liked her after watching her play, and was sleeping with her during his stay in the Mount Lu region.
Mao died on 9th September 1976. In October 1976, officers came from Beijing and took D away with them. No one knows where about D was sent. The workers in Mount Lu believed that D was sent to a place to be silenced, or to live a seclusive life.
In October 1965, when Mao was staying in Hangzhou, the local army officers found him a very beautiful girl, who was only 28 years old. Ms E was divorced and she was slim and tall. She massaged Mao every morning. Soon, she was pregnant. Mao gave her two thousand dollars and asked her to leave. There was no trace of E later on.
After E left, there was another young massage nurse F.
Mao liked F very much and called her "a fish from Wuchang province". But F was not as obedient as E. Maos personal assistant, Zhang Yufeng (I think everyone known about Zhang Yufengs relationship with Mao, so I do not talk about that here again.) remembered that F had run out of Maos bedroom on a few occasions, crying. Later, F was taken away by the army and no one knows her whereabouts after that.
In 1973, Mao was about to meet the leader from an Africa country. The camera man went to the meeting room a bit earlier than the arranged time to set up the camera and lighting. He found Mao holding a naked woman. The camera man was shocked and so was the woman. She quickly ran to the back of the screen in the room. But soon Mao and that African leader commenced their meeting while the women stayed behind the screen naked during the whole meeting. It was a cold night and if the air-conditioning failed, how would that naked woman stand the cold? Or if the screen had fallen it would have become the most infamous diplomatic meeting in the world.
According to those people who were close to Mao there were thousands of women or young girls who were raped and discarded by Mao.
