Li Huixian

Li Huixian was born in Gu’an, Zhili (now Gu’an County, Langfang, Hebei), four years older than Liang Qichao, and grew up in the official residence of the prefect of Shuntian. In the tenth month of the eighth year of the Tongzhi reign (1869), on the recommendation of the governor-general of Zhili, Zeng GuofanZeng GuofanZeng Guofan (1811–1872) was an official, military commander and Neo-Confucian scholar of the late Qing dynasty, the founder and commander of the Xiang (Hunan) Army. He led that army against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for more than a decade, then governed the Liangjiang provinces and Zhili and helped to begin the self-strengthening projects that brought Western machinery and technology to China.Open the full entry, her father, Li Chaoyi, became intendant of the Yongding River circuit and acting judicial commissioner of Zhili; the circuit’s office was in Gu’an County.⁠[1]

Li Chaoyi had two wives, née Chen and née Gao, seven sons — Li Duanju, Li Duanshu, Li Duangai, Li Duanrong, Li Duanshen, Li Duanqi and Li Duanmu — and three daughters, the youngest of whom was Li Huixian, whose name in the family genealogy was Li Duanhui.⁠[1]

Li Chaoyi held office for thirty-seven years under four reigns, serving in many places in Zhili and Shandong. He began his career in Zhili, helped Sengge Rinchen organise the defences when British and French warships attacked the Dagu forts, and then served as prefect of Shunde, Guangping and Daming; early in 1879 he became salt commissioner of Shandong, then judicial commissioner of Shandong, and in the eleventh month of the same year was appointed prefect of Shuntian. He died in office in 1881.⁠[1]

Li Chaoyi was the uncle of Li Duanfen, who lost his father as a child and, after his early schooling, continued his studies under his uncle Li Chaoyi; Li Huixian was thus Li Duanfen’s cousin. Zhang Chi writes that, compared with Liang Qichao, who came from an ordinary gentry family, Li Huixian came from a family of officials and was a true daughter of a great house, widely read and sensible.⁠[2][3]

Her family is usually described as from Guizhou, and the 1898 list of chief writers of the Nü Xuebao in Shanghai names her as Li Huixian of Guizhu. A 2026 article by Gan Jianhua, comparing two family genealogies, writes that the Li family of Guiyang originally came from Taoqiao in today’s Hengnan, as a branch that moved away two hundred years earlier, its founding ancestor Li Meihai having settled at Hongshanmiao in Qingquan County (now Hongshan Town); on this basis he calls Liang Qichao a son-in-law of Hengyang.⁠[4][1]

In 1889 (the 15th year of the Guangxu reign) Li Duanfen presided over the Guangdong provincial examination, thought highly of Liang Qichao, who passed eighth, and betrothed his cousin Li Huixian to him. Gan Jianhua writes that Li Duanfen had been looking for a good match for his cousin and, after meeting Liang Qichao, at once asked the deputy examiner Wang Kezhuang to act as go-between; Wang Kezhuang, who had also admired Liang’s papers, had privately meant to marry his own daughter to him, but gave up the idea when Li Duanfen asked him first.⁠[3][2][1]

In the tenth month of the lunar calendar of 1891 (the 17th year of the Guangxu reign), Liang Qichao went to Beijing to marry Li Huixian; his teacher, Kang YouweiKang YouweiKang Youwei (1858–1927) was a Chinese scholar, political reformer and calligrapher of the late Qing and early Republican periods and a principal promoter of the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898. After the reform was reversed he spent more than a decade in exile, founded the Baohuanghui (Chinese Empire Reform Association) and argued for constitutional monarchy; in later life he campaigned to make Confucianism the state religion. His works include The Forged Classics, Confucius as a Reformer and the Datong shu (The Great Commonwealth).Open the full entry, saw him off with a poem. Liang Qichao later said that it was thanks to Huixian that he became familiar with Mandarin, the official spoken language, and could therefore make his way across the whole country.⁠[1]

After the marriage she supported her husband, raised the children, cared for the elders and the young of the Liang family, and she and Liang Qichao treated each other with respect.⁠[5]

In 1893 her and Liang Qichao’s eldest daughter, Liang SishunLiang SishunLiang Sishun (1893–1966), courtesy name Lingxian, was the eldest daughter of Liang Qichao and the compiler of the ci-poetry anthology Yiheng Guan Ci Xuan.Open the full entry, was born.⁠[6][1]

Gan Jianhua writes that when the Chinese Girls’ School in Shanghai was being prepared in 1898 (the 24th year of the Guangxu reign), Li Huixian took part in all the preparations and, once the school opened, became its tidiao, a post he likens to today’s vice-principal or director of studies or general affairs, making her one of the first people in China to run a privately founded girls’ school.⁠[1]

A 2018 article by Sun Changliang writes that the Chinese Girls’ School, opened in 1898, was the first institution for girls’ education run by Chinese themselves; its general manager was Jing Yuanshan, the tidiao in charge of daily affairs was Shen Heqing, and the school’s regulations were published just before it opened in the names of the tidiao Shen Heqing and Lai Mayi. The article does not mention Li Huixian.⁠[7]

On July 24, 1898, the Nü Xuebao, a semi-monthly connected with the girls’ school, was founded in Shanghai with an all-female editorial board. The list of the paper’s chief writers in issue 2 includes a Li Duanhui of Guizhu; the list in issue 3, which differs from that of issue 2 in several names, includes Li Huixian of Guizhu, as well as Kang Tongwei of Nanhai.⁠[4]

Gan Jianhua writes that this was the first newspaper in China written and edited entirely by women, with Chen Xiefen, daughter of Chen Fan of Hengshan, as editor-in-chief; Li Huixian was one of its core writers, and Kang Youwei’s daughter, Kang Tongwei, also wrote for it.⁠[1]

After the coup of 1898, when Liang Qichao was wanted by the Qing court and fled abroad, Li Huixian resolutely followed him. Accounts of how she left differ: Gan Jianhua writes that she stayed in Guangdong to settle the family’s affairs, kept calm when officials came to make enquiries, protected herself through what remained of the Li clan’s connections among officials in the north and south, and, having settled the old and young of the household, made her way to Macau and from there sailed to Japan to join her husband; Sudo Mizuyo, drawing on the account of her eldest daughter, Liang Sishun, writes that she calmly settled the family’s affairs and then left Shanghai with the family, likewise going into exile in Japan.⁠[3][1][8]

During the exile Liang Qichao sent her a photograph of himself in a kimono, writing that though his clothes were different his loyalty had not changed, and that seeing the photograph would be like seeing him. She wrote back to encourage him: she alone would take care of everyone from his parents down to the children, and if he died for his country he should not look back.⁠[5]

In Japan she took charge of the children’s education; Liang Sishun said that she was taught by her father only from the age of 17 and until then had been taught by her mother.⁠[8]

In 1899, on his way to America, Liang Qichao was warmly received in Honolulu, and at a banquet given by an overseas Chinese named Ho he met his host’s daughter, Ho Hui-chen, who declared her admiration and love for him; several close friends hoped the two would marry. Liang wrote to Li Huixian, far away in Japan, describing his feelings for Ho Hui-chen in detail; Kenneth K. S. Ch’en’s 1988 article writes that he described these feelings honestly to his wife in two long letters. The 2001 Beijing Youth Daily article writes that Li Huixian understood, agreed to his choice and was even ready to arrange the match herself; in the end Liang let reason win over feeling and broke off the attachment.⁠[5][9]

On April 20, 1901, her eldest son, Liang SichengLiang SichengLiang Sicheng (1901–1972) was a Chinese architect, architectural historian and architectural educator, the eldest son of Liang Qichao and the husband of Lin Huiyin. With Lin Huiyin and others he carried out extensive field surveys and studies of China’s historic buildings, pioneered architectural education at Northeastern University and Tsinghua University, and after 1949 led the design of the national emblem of the People’s Republic of China and of the Monument to the People’s Heroes, while putting forward plans for preserving the old city of Beijing.Open the full entry, was born in Tokyo. Liang Qichao had waited six years for a son, and seeing how frail the child was, he and Li Huixian were both worried.⁠[10][5]

In 1903, with Li Huixian’s consent, Liang Qichao took her maid, Wang Guiquan, as his concubine; Wang Guiquan later bore him six children. The 2001 Beijing Youth Daily article writes that this was done to secure more male heirs, and that while Li Huixian was alive Liang rarely mentioned Wang Guiquan in public, perhaps, the article suggests, because he had broken his own rule of monogamy.⁠[5]

On September 4, 1908, Li Huixian gave birth to her second daughter, Liang Sizhuang, in Kobe, Japan; the birth brought great joy to the whole family.⁠[11]

In June 1911, at Liang Qichao’s invitation, Kang Youwei and his wife He Zhanli moved from Singapore by way of Hong Kong to Japan and shared the house called Shuangtao Yuan in Suma with Liang Qichao’s family. Li Huixian was then 42 and He Zhanli only 21, yet by the rules of the teacher–disciple relationship Li Huixian had to treat He Zhanli as her teacher’s wife. A 2011 article in The Beijing News writes that Li Huixian, from a distinguished family and a cousin of Li Duanfen, held herself in high esteem, while He Zhanli was young and spirited; the two women often quarrelled, which made both households unhappy, and Kang Youwei had to find somewhere else to live and moved out of Shuangtao Yuan.⁠[12]

In 1912 she and Liang Qichao returned to China; their son Liang Sicheng came back with his parents.⁠[10]

From March 1922 Li Huixian convalesced in Manila, the Philippines, where her eldest daughter, Liang Sishun, was living with her husband, Zhou Xizhe, then consul general in Manila; in June Liang Sicheng came to Manila to visit his mother and his eldest sister.⁠[10]

Li Huixian had breast cancer and died in 1924; accounts of the date differ: Gan Jianhua writes that she died in Beijing on September 13, 1924, aged 55, of a recurrence of breast cancer; the chronology of Liang Sicheng’s life published in 2021 by Lin Zhu, Lou Qingxi and Wang Jun also gives September 13 and death from cancer; Sun Wenye writes that she died in the autumn of 1924; and her granddaughter Wu Liming writes that she died in July 1924.⁠[1][10][13][11]

Her eldest daughter, Liang Sishun, nursed her through her illnesses. Liang Qichao later wrote to her that she alone had looked after her mother in each illness and had nursed her day and night, without undressing, for the last half year and more, until her mother died. In another letter to Liang Sishun he wrote that he always felt her mother’s strange illness had been brought on by a quarrel the two of them had had.⁠[14][13]

Sun Wenye writes that Li Huixian, the sister of the examiner at Liang Qichao’s provincial examination, had endured much hardship with him despite her privileged upbringing; after her death Liang often sat alone in gloom and said that he, normally so lively and full of enthusiasm, now felt utterly drained. Sun Wenye also writes that from the winter of 1924, when doctors had given his wife up as beyond hope, Liang developed an unexplained illness that left blood in his urine, sometimes more and sometimes less.⁠[13]

Liang Qichao wrote a funeral address for her, which Gan Jianhua gives under the title “Ji Liang furen wen”; in it he wrote that she had corrected his faults, supported him through his many troubles, discussed every doubtful matter with him, recorded and kept what delighted him, comforted him in his sorrows, made him forget the toil of his work outside, answered his songs and praised what he put forward, and that now, having lost her, he wandered alone with only his shadow.⁠[1]

When his wife became gravely ill, Liang Qichao asked the Zhou family to find a burial ground near the Fragrant Hills; the cemetery lies east of the Temple of the Sleeping Buddha (Wofo Si) in the Fragrant Hills in Beijing, in what is now the gymnosperm section of the Beijing Botanical Garden. Gan Jianhua writes that Liang chose the site himself and asked his children to bury him beside Li Huixian in due course. Li Huixian was buried on October 3, 1925; her two sons Liang Sicheng and Liang SiyongLiang SiyongLiang Siyong (1904–1954) was a Chinese archaeologist and the second son of Liang Qichao. From 1930 he took part in and directed excavations for the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica at Angangxi in Heilongjiang, Chengziya in Shandong and Yinxu at Anyang in Henan, discovered the three-layer stratigraphy at Hougang and gave the Longshan culture its name; he was elected to the first class of academicians of Academia Sinica in 1948 and from 1950 was deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Open the full entry and her two daughters Liang Sishun and Liang Sizhuang were all abroad at the time, and the building of the tomb was left entirely to Liang Qichao’s younger brother, Liang Qixun. Sun Wenye writes that Liang Qixun saw to everything himself, inspecting every brick and stone, and stayed on the hill for nearly two months.⁠[13][1]

The original plan was for two separate graves in the same cemetery, but Liang Qichao refused, and in the end a double tomb sharing one burial chamber was built for husband and wife; the funeral cost more than three thousand silver dollars; Liang then also bought two white marble steles, whose transport cost more than the stones themselves, and wrote that his savings were used up and that the children’s second uncle had advanced more than eight hundred dollars. Liang spent a full day writing his address at the tomb, then two more days slowly reciting and revising it; in the address to his late wife, Madam Li, after her burial, he wrote that heaven and earth have limits but this grief has none, and that whenever he reflected on it he beat his breast and his tears fell like rain.⁠[13]

On January 19, 1929, Liang Qichao died at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, aged 56, and was buried with Li Huixian in this tomb. In front of it stands a stele shaped like the character tu, inscribed on its face with the words “Tomb of my late father, Lord Rengong, and my late mother, Madam Li”, with no account of their lives and not even their dates; the cemetery is now in the North Garden of the China National Botanical Garden in Beijing. Wu Liming records that two stone tablets that had lain fallen on the ground were set upright only more than fifty years later, at the Beijing Botanical Garden’s expense.⁠[1][13]

After the Cultural Revolution the Liang children planted a “mother tree” beside the joint tomb of Liang Qichao and Li Huixian in the Fragrant Hills and set up a stone in memory of Wang Guiquan.⁠[5]

Li Huixian and Liang Qichao had three children: their eldest daughter, Liang Sishun, their eldest son, Liang Sicheng, and their second daughter, Liang Sizhuang. Liang Qichao’s other six children — Liang Siyong, Liang Sizhong, Liang Sida, Liang Siyi, Liang Sining and Liang Sili — were born to his secondary wife, Wang Guiquan.⁠[1]

Liang Qichao asked the children to call Wang Guiquan “Miss Wang” or “Aunt Wang”, but almost all of them were deeply attached to her; they called Li Huixian “Ma” and Wang Guiquan “Niang”.⁠[5]

Liang Qichao affectionately called her his “good friend of the inner chamber”, and the 2001 Beijing Youth Daily article calls her a wife of great understanding who stood by him. Zhang Chi writes that she followed Liang north and south through every storm, went with him even when he was wanted by the Qing court and in exile abroad, and was the quiet support behind this leading figure of his age; he considers the two a well-matched couple.⁠[5][3]

Her eldest daughter, Liang Sishun, wrote of her mother as a virtuous wife; from this Sudo Mizuyo concludes that Li Huixian both ran the household and was responsible for the children’s education.⁠[8]