Zheng Pingru (1918 – February 1940) was a Chinese socialite and spy who gathered intelligence on the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
. She was executed after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate
Ding Mocun, the security chief of the
Wang Jingwei regime
The Wang Jingwei regime or the Wang Ching-wei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China ( zh , t = 中華民國國民政府 , p = Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guómín Zhèngfǔ ), the government of the pu ...
, a puppet government for the Japanese. Her life is believed to be the inspiration for
Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang ( zh, t=張愛玲, s=张爱玲, first=t, w=Chang1 Ai4-ling2, p=Zhāng Àilíng;September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995), also known as Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing, or by her pen name Liang Jing (梁京), was a Chinese-born A ...
's novella ''
Lust, Caution
''Lust, Caution'' () is a 2007 erotic period espionage mystery romance film directed by Ang Lee, based on the 1979 novella by Eileen Chang. ''Lust, Caution'' is set in Hong Kong in 1938 and in Shanghai in 1942, when the city was occupied by t ...
'', which was later adapted into the
eponymous 2007 film by
Ang Lee
Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popula ...
.
Early life
Zheng Pingru was born in 1918 in
Lanxi, Zhejiang Province,
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
.
Her father, Zheng Yueyuan (), also known as Zheng Yingbo (), was a
Nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
revolutionary and a follower of
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...
. While a student in Japan, Zheng Yueyuan married a Japanese woman, , who adopted the Chinese name Zheng Huajun ().
They had two sons and three daughters; Pingru was the second oldest daughter.
From her mother, Zheng Pingru learned to speak
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
fluently. She grew up in Shanghai, where her father taught at
Fudan University
Fudan University () is a national public research university in Shanghai, China. Fudan is a member of the C9 League, Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First Class University identified by the Ministry of Education of China. It is als ...
. She studied at the Shanghai College of Politics and Law.
Zheng admired famous actresses
Hu Die
Hu Die (; 1907 or 1908 – April 23, 1989), also known by her English name Butterfly Wu, was a Chinese actress during the 1920s and 1930s. Like many artistes and writers, she was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
Biography
Early ...
and
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu (born Ruan Fenggen; April 26, 1910 – March 8, 1935), also known by her English name Lily Yuen, was a Chinese silent film actress. One of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, her exceptional acting ability and suicid ...
and wanted to be a well-known actress, performed with a group of actors from
Datong University. But her father was very traditional and conservative, and was very opposed to her idea.
She became a well-known socialite and appeared on the cover of the popular pictorial ''
The Young Companion
''The Young Companion'', known as ''Liángyǒu'' () in Chinese, was a pictorial with captions in both Chinese and English, published in Shanghai beginning February 1926. Although the direct translation of ''Liangyou'' is "Good Companion", the m ...
'' (''Liangyou'') in 1937.
At the time, she was also becoming known as a musician and actress.
Although her family was half-Japanese, they were strongly opposed to Japan's aggression toward China. When Japan
invaded Manchuria in 1931 and
attacked Shanghai in 1932, Zheng and her siblings joined anti-Japanese protests.
Wartime spy
When Japan
invaded China in 1937 and occupied Shanghai following the
Battle of Shanghai
The Battle of Shanghai () was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan
The also ...
, Zheng secretly joined the resistance movement and became an underground
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
(Nationalist)
spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
. Her ability to speak Japanese and the connections to her mother helped her to spy on and collect information on the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
.
Zheng was involved in a plot to assassinate
Ding Mocun, the security chief of the
Wang Jingwei puppet regime headed by
Wang Jingwei
Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), born as Wang Zhaoming and widely known by his pen name Jingwei, was a Chinese politician. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in oppositi ...
. Ding was hated for collaborating with the Japanese and gained the nickname "Butcher Ding" for executing anti-Japanese resistance fighters. As Ding had formerly served as the principal of Zheng's secondary school, she was tasked with seducing him and luring him into a trap.
Beginning in March 1939,
Zheng arranged several "chance" encounters with Ding, and became his girlfriend.
On 10 December 1939, Zheng invited Ding back to her home at the end of a date where assassins waited inside, but Ding refused her invitation and the plan failed.
On 21 December 1939, Zheng accompanied Ding to dinner at his friend's house. After the dinner, Zheng requested Ding to drop her off at
Nanjing Road
Nanjing Road (; Shanghainese
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified ...
, Shanghai's famous shopping street. When the car drove by the Siberia Fur Company, Zheng said she wanted to buy a fur coat and asked him to help her choose one. Two Kuomintang assassins had been waiting nearby for a chance to kill Ding. While inside the store, Ding grew suspicious when he saw the men outside, and abruptly ran across the street to his car. Caught off guard, the assassins shot at Ding, but missed him before his driver sped away.
After the failed assassination attempt, Ding knew that Zheng was a spy and contacted her to meet him. Zheng hid a Browning pistol and drove to 76 Jessfield Road, when she was about to enter, she was arrested by
Li Shiqun
Li Shiqun (; 1905 – September 9, 1943) was a politician in the Republic of China. During the Japanese occupation, he was the head of the secret police ''Tèwu'' (also known as Jessfield 76, after the address of its Shanghai headquarters) of ...
and held at Ding's intelligence headquarters.
Wang Jingwei's wife
Chen Bijun
Chen Bijun (, 5 November 1891 – 17 June 1959) was a Chinese politician. She was the acting head of the Canton (Guangzhou) government for four months in 1944–1945.Lily Xiao Hong Lee: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: v. 2: Twentieth C ...
and others attempted to persuade Zheng to join the Wang Jingwei regime, but she refused. Wang held Zheng Pingru as a hostage and tried to coerce her father to become the Minister of Justice for his regime, but he refused as well. This angered the leaders of the Wang Jingwei regime and they unanimously advocated to kill Zheng. In February 1940, Zheng was secretly executed near the Zhongshan Road in western
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
, at the age of 22.
Family
After Zheng Pingru's execution, her father soon fell ill and died in 1941. Her brother, Zheng Haicheng (), was a fighter pilot in the
Republic of China Air Force
The Republic of China Air Force, retroactively known by its historical name the Chinese Air Force and unofficially referred to as the Taiwanese Air Force, is the military aviation branch of the Republic of China Armed Forces, currently based i ...
who died in battle on 19 January 1944. Her fiancé, Colonel Wang Hanxun (), also a pilot who fought alongside her brother, was killed in action near
Guilin
Guilin ( Standard Zhuang: ''Gveilinz''; alternatively romanized as Kweilin) is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the west bank of the Li River and borders Hunan to the nort ...
on 7 August 1944.
Her mother later moved to Taiwan and died in 1966 at the age of 80.
Legacy
The Kuomintang government in Taiwan formally declared Zheng a "martyr", and the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
called her an "anti-Japanese heroine". A memorial with a statue of Zheng was unveiled in
Qingpu
Qingpu District, is a suburban district of Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality. Lake Dianshan is located in Qingpu.
The population of Qingpu was counted at 1,081,000 people in the 2010 Census. It has an area of .
Qingpu District is the western ...
, Shanghai in 2009.
Zheng's story is generally believed to have inspired the character of Wang Jiazhi (Wong Chia-chih) in the novella
''Lust, Caution'', written by
Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang ( zh, t=張愛玲, s=张爱玲, first=t, w=Chang1 Ai4-ling2, p=Zhāng Àilíng;September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995), also known as Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing, or by her pen name Liang Jing (梁京), was a Chinese-born A ...
in 1979.
Chang had learned about Zheng from her ex-husband
Hu Lancheng
Hu Lancheng (; Feb 28, 1906 – July 25, 1981) was a Chinese writer and politician who was denounced as a traitor for serving a propaganda official in the Wang Jingwei regime, the Japanese puppet regime during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He was ...
, who served as a propaganda official in the Wang Jingwei regime.
In 2007, the novella was made into a film, ''
Lust, Caution
''Lust, Caution'' () is a 2007 erotic period espionage mystery romance film directed by Ang Lee, based on the 1979 novella by Eileen Chang. ''Lust, Caution'' is set in Hong Kong in 1938 and in Shanghai in 1942, when the city was occupied by t ...
'', directed by
Ang Lee
Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popula ...
.
In the novel and the film, Wang Jiazhi's assassination plot failed because she had fallen in love with her target. There was protest in the way that Wang Jiazhi was depicted since it was felt that her story "perversely twisted the heroic deeds of her prototype, Zheng." The Zheng family in particular felt that character based on Zheng dishonored her memory.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zheng, Pingru
1918 births
1940 deaths
Chinese spies
People from Jinhua
Female wartime spies
Chinese people of Japanese descent
People from Shanghai
20th-century Chinese women
20th-century Chinese people
Executed Chinese women
Executed spies
Chinese casualties of World War II
Chinese socialites
Women in war in China
Women in World War II