Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Qiu Jin
Late Qing revolutionary from Shanyin who joined the Restoration Society and Tongmenghui in Japan, ran the Datong School in Shaoxing, and was executed there in 1907
A thatched pavilion open on three sides stands among tall bamboo; one person sits with their back turned at the veranda rail beside a zither and a stack of bamboo slips, while a stone path runs to a calm pond reflecting clouds and distant hills.
Also known as Zi Xuanqing · Hao Jingxiong · Jianhu Nuxia
Qiu Jin, courtesy name Xuanqing and literary name Jingxiong, called herself the Woman Knight of Mirror Lake; her family came from Shanyin, present-day Shaoxing in Zhejiang, though she was born in Fujian. In 1896 she married Wang Tingjun of Xiangtan in Hunan and later went with him to Beijing. In 1904 she paid her own way to study in Japan, where she joined the Restoration Society and the Tongmenghui. Returning in 1906, she started a women's journal in Shanghai, and the next year she took charge of the Datong School in Shaoxing and agreed with Xu Xilin to rise simultaneously in Zhejiang and Anhui. In July 1907 Xu shot the Anhui governor Enming at Anqing and was captured; government troops then surrounded the Datong School, and Qiu Jin was arrested and beheaded at Xuantingkou in Shaoxing on 15 July. After several reburials her remains now lie beside the Xiling Bridge on West Lake in Hangzhou, and her writings are collected as the Qiu Jin ji.
Life and times
Dates 1875 CE–1907 CE (birth by another account 1877)