Early life Jiang was born as
Jiang Tangzhen () in
Yixing,
Jiangsu province on 9 April 1899. Her father Jiang Meisheng was a scholar and poet who wrote a book on the
Zhuangzi, and her mother Dai Qingbo was a poet. In 1911, her parents betrothed her to Zha Zihan, who came from an influential family of
Haining,
Zhejiang. In 1925 Xu returned to China alone to gather more funds leaving Jiang in Paris. However, Jiang was pregnant and she returned to China where she had a son, Xu Boyang, in 1927 and a daughter, Xu Lili, two years later. After they returned from their tour of Europe via Russia, her husband and Sun Duoci would go on sketching trips with other students. The gossip was too much for Jiang to bear and in her anger she destroyed artworks at Xu's studio which featured Sun. At the time Xu was unwilling to divorce Jiang and Sun left the university - without a degree. In 1938, Xu made a public announcement in a newspaper that he would sever his relationship with Jiang, but Sun still rejected him and married someone else. The reality of Xu's affair with Sun has been questioned in later accounts. In her biography of Xu,
Liao Jingwen states that there was never any improper relationship between him and Sun Duoci. Instead, the rumours about Xu's affair were spread by
Zhang Daofan, who was attempting to separate Jiang from her husband.
Relationship with Chang Tao-fan Jiang and Xu agreed to separate in 1935. The following year Jiang renewed her friendship with
Chang Tao-fan (Zhang Daofan) who she had known in Paris in the 1920s. Chang had married but he had always admired Jiang and now the two of them exchanged love letters. It was said that the Japanese were to bomb the city so Chang Tao-fan arranged for her to leave the city and join him in
Chongqing. Here they were able to correspond more freely but Jiang could never meet formally except at official functions. Chang still had a French wife and a child. Chang was vice-minister of education and Jiang was able to re-use the skills she learnt in Paris by teaching French at the local university. In 1938 Xu published in the local newspaper that Jiang and his relationship had now ended, the relationship did not end formally. Jiang Biwei moved to
Taiwan when the
Kuomintang government lost the
Chinese Civil War and retreated to the island. Chang Tao-fan later became
President of the Legislative Yuan (equivalent to Premier) of the
Republic of China on Taiwan. They lived together for ten years, but never appeared together in public. In 1958, Chang's wife returned to Taiwan, and Jiang left his life. When Chang Tao-fan published his memoirs, he did not mention Jiang Biwei at all. He died in 1968. Jiang published the memoir
Reminiscences of Jiang Biwei in 1964. Composed of two volumes,
Beihong and I and
Daofan and I, the book revealed details of her relationships with both Xu Beihong and Chang Tao-fan, and was thought to be detrimental to Chang's reputation. On 16 December 1978, Jiang died of a
cerebral hemorrhage in
Taipei. ==Legacy==