“The Red Detachment of Women” is one of the most influential Communist brainwashing works, not only made into a movie, but also adapted into Peking Opera and ballet. As one of the Eight Model Plays, it was used by the Chinese Communist Party to brainwash the Chinese people during the Cultural Revolution.
This fictional story seemed to carry ominous elements, bringing misfortune to many participants. Today, the focus is on the singer of the theme song “Female Soldiers’ Chorus” from the film version of “The Red Detachment of Women”. She not only sang well but was also beautiful. She reached the peak of her artistic career because of this song, but also endured countless sufferings because of it.
Her name is Zhang Qixiu. Today, let’s take a look at her story.
In 1954, a movie called “Bells Ringing in the Mountains, Bandits Coming” swept the nation. Its theme song was melodious, deeply touching the hearts of countless audiences. The singer of this song was Zhang Qixiu, who was only in her early twenties at the time. Her singing voice was clear as spring water, full of power, as if it could penetrate the clouds and reach people’s hearts.
Zhang Qixiu was a cultural soldier in the Kunming Military Region Song and Dance Troupe. Not only did she possess exceptional vocal talent, but she was also captivating in appearance, with a gentle temperament and kind demeanor. During performances at border guard posts, she was always enthusiastically asked by the soldiers to come back on stage repeatedly, with applause lasting long.
A few years later, in 1960, the movie “The Red Detachment of Women” was released, and Zhang Qixiu’s rendition of the theme song “Female Soldiers’ Chorus” propelled her career to new heights.
Her voice spread through radios to thousands of households. In the era when television was not yet widespread, her name was known to almost everyone. Her songs, once played on the radio, would last for half an hour or even an hour.
However, who could have imagined that this shining female singer would soon plunge into endless darkness.
Zhang Qixiu’s talent and beauty not only won the love of the audience but also attracted the attention of high-ranking Communist officials. In a society ruled by the Communist Party without freedom or rule of law, her beauty became a curse from which she could not escape.
As a cultural soldier, she had no right to refuse. Senior CCP officials Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi would specifically request Zhang Qixiu to host, sing, or dance whenever they visited Yunnan. On the surface, this seemed like recognition of her talent, but in reality, it was the beginning of her nightmare.
In various activities, Zhang Qixiu was forced to accompany dancing, swimming, and even suffered more unbearable humiliations. Ding Rongchang, the deputy commander of the Yunnan Military Region and a founding general, used his power to rape her.
Another high-ranking CCP official, founding general Xiao Hua, also took advantage of her for a long time.
Xiao Hua had held positions such as Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CCP and Secretary of the Inspection Committee of the CCP Military Commission since 1956, responsible for supervising the party and military discipline of the CCP. However, despite being the lyricist of the “Long March Suite” and singing high praises for the ideals of the Communist revolution, he had engaged in such acts of exploiting female soldiers under his command, not just Zhang Qixiu.
During the Cultural Revolution, Xiao Hua was overthrown, and his abuses against female soldiers were exposed. It was said that when he was first overthrown, Nie Rongzhen wanted to protect him and arranged for him to stay in Xishan. At that time, there were other military heads living in Xishan, each with a separate villa. Once, Xiao Hua visited Nie Rongzhen’s villa, but Nie Rongzhen and his family were not home, only a female servant was at home.
Xiao Hua actually raped the female servant. The servant wrote a letter in blood, risking her life to report to Mao Zedong. This ultimately led to Xiao Hua’s complete downfall.
Xiao Hua forced Zhang Qixiu to swim with him until three in the morning, and she dared not resist. Zhang Qixiu’s husband was angry but powerless and ultimately chose to divorce her. Her marriage collapsed, leading to mental breakdown, but greater hardships were still awaiting her.
In 1966, the Cultural Revolution swept the country. The military heads who had previously harassed Zhang Qixiu were overthrown, but as a celebrity in the arts, she could not escape this catastrophe.
At the struggle sessions, Zhang Qixiu bravely exposed the sexual assaults by Ding Rongchang, Xiao Hua, and other high officials against her. However, in that crazy era, her accusations not only did not garner sympathy but instead resulted in her being labeled as “morally corrupt” and a “bad woman,” leading to even more severe persecution.
She was stripped of her military status and sent to a remote Yi village in Yunnan for labor reform. The conditions there were harsh, and in order to survive, she remarried. Her husband was a “counter-revolutionary” linked to her.
During those difficult times, the couple had to resort to begging to survive. Most heartbreakingly, when Zhang Qixiu was pregnant, her husband was sent far away to repair a reservoir, leaving her alone without family or friends. She had to fetch water, boil water, and even give birth by herself, eventually delivering twins.
However, the harsh environment led to the premature deaths of the twins. What’s more cruel is that the body of one of the children was taken and eaten by the landlord’s dog. Witnessing this scene, Zhang Qixiu fainted on the spot.
Having endured until the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Qixiu’s nightmare was far from over. Many of the military heads who had been overthrown during the Cultural Revolution were mostly rehabilitated but still held grudges against Zhang Qixiu for her past revelations. They used their power to prevent her from returning to her original job in the arts troupe.
Once back in the city, Zhang Qixiu was jobless, only managing to get by in a run-down rented house. She became pregnant again, and to survive, she had to borrow money from old friends, living in dire straits.
Eventually, she was assigned to work in a toxic leather factory, sinking to the bottom of society.
The once brilliant and beautiful female singer had turned into a swollen, frail old woman with gray hair. Her body was destroyed, her spirit tormented, sometimes even having to rely on begging to survive.
After her youngest son was born, she and her husband were busy making ends meet, so they had to leave the child in a sheep pen to keep company with the lambs. Fortunately, this son survived.
Many years later, Zhang Qixiu’s tragic experience was turned into a documentary titled “The Singer” by her former colleague and director at the Kunming Military Region Song and Dance Troupe, Wang Yunlong.
Wang once idolized Zhang Qixiu and empathized with her experiences. Seeing Zhang Qixiu after the Cultural Revolution, he shed tears and hoped to document her story, letting future generations know about the tragic life of this female singer under Communist rule.
He recalled, “She was once such a radiant star, so admired by others, full of talent. But after being sent to labor reform for six years, she had become a gray-haired old lady, losing all her former grace, swollen, weak, and only able to survive by begging. She was completely crushed by the Cultural Revolution.”
Nevertheless, making this documentary was not easy. In the 1980s, Wang Yunlong wanted to film this documentary. He approached Zhang Qixiu, her husband, and her ex-husband, but they all refused, claiming that the past had passed, scars had healed, and it was better not to touch them again.
Wang understood that the real reason for their refusal was fear. They were reluctant to appear on camera.
Wang said he completely understood their feelings. Having just been rehabilitated, they still felt lingering fear from more than a decade of persecution. Especially when they heard that they needed to face the camera with their true identities, they dared not do so. Even after the CCP military heads who persecuted them had passed away, they remained fearful as if haunted by shadows.
Not only them, but many other people Wang contacted later refused to participate in telling their stories using real names, real locations, for fear of reprisal.
By the time Wang Yunlong began filming the documentary “The Singer,” Zhang Qixiu had already passed away. During the interviews and filming, some people involved distanced themselves, some claimed ignorance, and some outright refused to be associated with the project.
Wang Yunlong also made another documentary highlighting the tragic stories of female cultural soldiers in the PLA, titled “Returning the Beauty to Bu Qin’s Father.” Bu Qin’s fate was even more tragic than Zhang Qixiu’s.
Bu Qin, like Zhang Qixiu, was a cultural soldier in the Yunnan National Defense Song and Dance Troupe of the CCP. During the Cultural Revolution, she had expressed dissatisfaction with Mao Zedong’s persecution of Liu Shaoqi and Peng Dehuai, speaking out for them. As a result, she was falsely accused of being insane, locked up in a military area’s mental hospital, then labeled a counter-revolutionary, enduring torture and humiliation in prison.
In 1970, she was sentenced to death by the Kunming Military Region Military Court in an extremely cruel manner.
Wang Yunlong witnessed Bu Qin’s execution cart passing by him. Recalling the extremely brutal and inhumane scene, he felt that the world was “too terrifying and too dark” at that moment.
Wang Yunlong recalled that at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the Song and Dance Troupe he belonged to in the Kunming Military Region quickly labeled 57 people as counter-revolutionaries, announcing one every 5 minutes. One of the female cultural soldiers was sent to labor reform in the remote, frigid regions of Yunnan for seven years for merely sympathizing with Peng Dehuai by saying, “Peng Dehuai still has merits.”
Another female acrobat had not engaged in any politically offensive behavior but resisted when sent to the Song and Dance Troupe as part of a workers’ propaganda team and was subjected to attempted rape by CCP military propaganda team members. She was falsely accused, sent to prison, and spent a full ten years behind bars, at one point sharing the same cell with Bu Qin.
“March forward, march forward, the soldier’s responsibility is heavy, women’s grievances are deep. … The slaves will rise.” These are the lyrics of the theme song of the movie “The Red Detachment of Women” that Zhang Qixiu sang countless times. Yet, she herself never truly rose from her plight.
Friends, this is not a distant story. This is a true history that happened on the vast land of China.
One wonders, as Zhang Qixiu repeatedly found herself in dire straits, did she ever think about whether, with the advent of the Communist Party, it had become easier or harder for Chinese women to uphold their dignity.
—Producer of “A Hundred Years of Truth”