Tang Na

In middle school, he was actively involved in leftist stage performances and secretly joined the Communist Youth League of China.

In the spring of 1935, Tang wrote an enthusiastic review of the performance of Jiang Qing, then an actress known by her stage name Lan Ping, in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, calling her a “brilliant new star” and boosting her rising fame.

[1] On April 26, 1936, Tang and Lan married in a group ceremony in Hangzhou alongside other celebrity couples, including Zhao Dan and Ye Luxi.

Later in the same month, when the Shanghai edition of Tai Kung Pao was founded, Tang became an editor for its weekly supplement of film and drama.

This revelation led Tang to write a long letter to Zheng Junli, allegedly exposing Lan’s deception and infidelity.

This letter would later implicate Zheng during the Cultural Revolution, as he was unable to produce it when Lan, by that time Madame Mao, wanted it destroyed to avoid political consequences.

Unfazed, Lan moved on with a public relationship with theater director Zhang Min, who had just left his wife and children to be with her.

[1] After the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Lan left Shanghai for Yan'an, where she changed her name to Jiang Qing, and after a few whirlwind relationships with other men, married her fourth husband Mao Zedong in 1938.

Following the fall of Shanghai in 1937, Tang relocated to Wuhan where he created the anti-Japanese war play Long Live China.

Soon after, he relocated to the war capital of Chongqing, where, in March 1938, Zhao Dan introduced him to a young actress, Chen Lu.

In 1939, under the pen name Jiang Qi, he wrote the plays Chen Yuanyuan and The Road to Life in the isolated island of Shanghai.

At that time, Jiang, then wife of Mao Zedong in Yan’an, learned of his dire situation and arranged for a monthly allowance of 10 yuan to be sent to him through intermediaries.

It was only in the final days of the Sino-Japanese War that Tang's fluency in English helped him secure a position at the British Embassy’s news department in China, which relieved him from his years of poverty.