Zhao Yiman
Zhao Yiman was a female Chinese resistance fighter against the Imperial Japanese Army in Northeast China, which was under the occupation of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo. She was captured in 1935 by Japanese forces and executed in 1936. She is considered a national hero in China, and an eponymous biopic was made for her in 1950. The 2005 film My Mother Zhao Yiman was based on her son's memory of her.
Early life
Zhao was born Li Kuntai to a landlord family in Sichuan who had eight children. As a youth, she rebelled against foot binding traditions and sought the right to go to school.In 1913, she attended a private school and demonstrated outstanding academic achievements. During this time, she began her interest in politics through left-wing journals and newspapers and in 1924, with the help of her elder sister and brother-in-law, she joined the local communist youth movement. On the same year, she published an article for the radical left-wing women magazine Women's Weekly where she denounced her elder brother for his refusal to fund her education.
Revolutionary career
During the May Thirtieth Movement in 1925, she led students to block British kerosene tankers from docking in the pier in Yibin. In 1926, she was admitted to a girls' middle school in Yibin. She also joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1926. By October of that year, Zhao became one of the first women to join the Wuhan branch of the Whampoa Military Academy, the official military academy of the Republic of China.She went to the Soviet Union to study at the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University. In 1928, she married fellow CCP member Chen Dabang. She returned to China in the winter of 1928, and engaged in the underground work for the CCP in Shanghai, Jiangxi and Hubei at time of the then head of the Nationalist Government Chiang Kai-shek's campaign to exterminate 'leftists and radicals'.
Campaign in the Northeast China
The Mukden Incident in 1931 led to the Japanese annexation of Northeast China. That year, Zhao went to Manchuria to engage in intelligence work and guerilla warfare against the Japanese forces. She left her two-year old son in the care of her in-laws.In November 1935, the Imperial Japanese Army and the Manchukuo troops encircled the 2nd Regiment of the 3rd Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. Zhao Yiman, who was political commissar of the regiment, was seriously wounded. Several days later, the Japanese found Zhao in a farmhouse where she stayed. In the ensuing fighting, she was wounded again and captured.
Imprisonment
Zhao was cruelly tortured after an argument with the questioners. In view of her political value, the Japanese sent her to a hospital to receive treatment. In the hospital, Zhao converted and recruited Han Yongyi, a female nurse, and Dong Xianxun, a guard. Han and Dong helped her to escape. Zhao was recaptured not far from the guerrilla base and suffered further torture due to her escape.The guard, Dong, who helped Zhao to escape, soon died in the prison after torture.
The Japanese forces executed Zhao on 2 August 1936. Her farewell letters to her son state, "I hope you will not forget that your mother sacrificed herself for the nation."
Memorial
Zhao's experiences are portrayed in textbooks and museums, as well as in media like film and comics series.Zhao is featured as one of the revolutionary heroes in the Northeast China Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Hall located at 241 Yiman Street in the Nangang district of Harbin.
The 1950 film Zhao Yiman depicts her work as a political mobilizer for workers and peasants in occupied Manchuria through her 1936 execution by the Japanese forces.
In 1989, the Party History Office and the All-China Women's Federation of Yibin, Sichuan, published a biography of Zhao.
The 2005 film My Mother Zhao Yiman was based on her son's memory of her. Unlike the 1950 film, the 2005 remake includes flashbacks of Zhao's earlier years and is narrated by the character of her son.