Lü Bicheng

Lü Bicheng
Born	1883 Taiyuan, Shanxi, Qing China
Died	1943 (aged 59–60) Hong Kong
Occupation	Poet, newspaper editor, educator
Nationality	China

Lü Bicheng (simplified Chinese: 吕碧城; traditional Chinese: 呂碧城; pinyin: Lǚ Bìchéng; 1883–1943) was a Chinese writer, activist, newspaper editor, poet and school founder. She has been mentioned as one of the top four woman geniuses from the Republic of China.

Lü Bicheng was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi in 1883 during the late Qing dynasty, but is considered a native of her ancestral home of Jingde County, Anhui by Chinese convention. Her father Lü Fengqi (), who earned a jinshi degree in 1877, served as Educational Commissioner of Shanxi Province. Her mother Yan Shiyu (嚴士瑜) was an educated gentry woman. Lü Bicheng was the third of four daughters in the family, and her elder sisters Lü Huiru and Lü Meisun were also known for their literary achievement.

When she was four, her father retired to Lu'an, Anhui. She lived a life of comfort until the age of 12, when her father died in 1895. Because Lü Fengqi had no male heir, relatives of the Lü lineage contested for his inheritance, and Yan Shiyu and her four daughters were forced to move to Lai'an County to live with her natal family. When she was nine, Lü Bicheng was betrothed to a Wang family, but as her own family fortune declined, the Wang family broke off the marriage contract, giving the young Bicheng the stigma of a "rejected woman". The resulting emotional scar is often considered a major factor in her later decision to never marry. Her widowed mother and the Lü girls were not well treated at the Yan family in rural Anhui. When Lü was 15 or 16, Yan Shiyu sent her to live with her maternal uncle Yan Langxuan (嚴朗軒), who was the salt administrator in Tanggu, the port city outside the northern metropolis of Tianjin. Her sister Huiru also joined her later.

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