Talk:Murder of Liu Mengying

Thanks for making the English article, I'm the blogger konomama who posted the photos of Tao & Liu in my blog post.

Regarding the location of the Supreme Court, I noticed Howard Chiang’s mistake when I read his book earlier. My hypothesis about the error is this: in news articles such as 陶思瑾案最高法院将提陶到京审讯 (Shishi Xinbao, 1932-09-28), Nanjing was simply referred to as “京”. For someone not acutely aware that “京” casually referred to Nanjing rather than Beijing at that time, mistaking Nanjing for Beijing is understandable since nowadays “京” almost exclusively refers to Beijing.

Here is the wiki article on Republican era Nanjing in Chinese so you can see that 南京 is shortened as 京 when it was the capital of the Republic of China. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B8%82_(%E4%B8%AD%E8%8F%AF%E6%B0%91%E5%9C%8B)

The railway connecting Nanjing to Shanghai used to be called "京沪铁路" in the same era. https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E6%B2%AA%E5%AE%81%E9%93%81%E8%B7%AF

Based on Republican-era supreme court's history, it's clear that in 1932-1933, the court is in Nanjing instead of Beijing. The Beiyang government ended in 1928(Beijing was renamed Beiping when that happened, so "京" is reserved for Nanjing exclusively), and the Supreme Court moved from Beijing.

I do not know how to add this information to the English article properly as there is an error in the cited source itself, and it's a common knowledge error. Correcting it is not based on any original research.

If you can address this that will be great! Beodat (talk) 06:07, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your advice here. I'll correct it and write up a footnote to note the discrepancy. And thank you for making those pictures easy to find online! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 06:56, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Following up on a request from my talk page. Note that I don't read Chinese fluently. However, based on Google, there appears to be some great sources out there. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 20:21, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

• Li Shi-peng (李世鹏) (September 2017). 公众舆论中的情感和性别——陶思瑾案与民国女性同性爱话语 [Emotion and Gender in Public Opinions: Tao Sijin Murder Case and Female Homosexual Discourse in the Republic of China]. Journal of Chinese Women's Studies (in Chinese). Vol. 5, no. 143.
  • Notes:
    • Offers context on lesbianism in Republican China, particularly among students
    • 大众对于同性恋的看法，从 20 世纪 20 年代到 40 年代经历了“由松到紧”或“由极具争议性到较一致的 谴责”的变化⑦。
    • Both women were allegedly unresponsive at the time of discovery, resulting in Xu being blamed. Tao apparently only confessed after her relationship with Liu was discovered (p. 62).
    • Liu Wenru was a woman (p. 62).
    • Maid was Chen Zhugu (陈竹姑, p. 62)
    • Xu was apparently out of the house at the time of the murder because he was out with yet another woman, Gao Dehui (据结案陈词载: “午后许钦文送其女友郭德辉至江干北仙桥学校…", p. 62, footnote)
    • This report says that Tao was making tea in an outer kitchen (which explains the kitchen knife) at the time of the attack, and that the confrontation had followed the women between different rooms, and that Tao had attempted to defend herself (long quote, will send off-Wiki, p. 62, footnote)
    • Xiong Yuezhi, ed., "A General History of Shanghai", apparently attributes the rampant press coverage to the need for a distraction from the conflict in Shanghai (similar to how the murder of Wang Lianying's coverage is attributed to the need for a distraction from the Warlord Era)
    • Is it worth contextualizing press coverage by mentioning the mosquito press? Li mentions that yellow journalism was increasingly prevalent in contemporary Shanghai (p. 63).
    • Also part of the scandal was the prominence of Xu and Tao Yuanqing, which to be fair doesn't come across when both are redlinks. Tao had apparently worked with Lu Xun? (p. 64)
    • Press coverage of the murder lasted for at least two years (1932 －1934 年，陶、刘、许三人的照片频繁见诸报端, p64)
    • The case was adapted to stage within two months, and continued for a bit even after litigation trying to stop them (陶案案发不到两个月，上海的各大剧院甚至都排演出以陶刘惨案为主题的戏剧( 见图 1 至图4瑏瑥) ，各戏院纷纷派出专员赴杭州调查、跟进陶案，即使当事人亲属对此进行起诉也未停止相关戏剧的上演瑏瑦，演出时间更长达半个月之久，观者不绝。, p65). Figures 1 through 4 appear to be newspaper advertisements for these performances.
    • Xu Qinwen submitted a pseudonymised retelling of the case to Shibao (stand up guy, clearly..., p66)
    • Tao also apparently played up the press, reciting a poem to a reporter before her Huangzhou hearing and writing her own retelling after receiving her death sentence (pp. 66–67.