Early Communist Party member and Mao Zedong's second wife, mother of 毛岸英 and his two brothers. She was arrested in Changsha and executed by the Nationalist authorities. Mao's poem mourning her opens 我失骄杨, 'I lost my proud poplar'.
Yang Kaihui was only twenty-nine when she was martyred.
Tips
history
Her father, 杨昌济, was Mao's teacher in Changsha and later taught ethics at Peking University; she married Mao at the end of 1920. After her arrest she was offered her freedom if she publicly broke with Mao, and refused.
culture
The full line is 我失骄杨君失柳, 'I lost my proud poplar, you lost your willow'. It answers 李淑一, her old classmate, whose husband 柳直荀 (柳 'willow') was killed in 1932.
