Mao Zejian (October 1905–20 August 1929) was a cousin of Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

, who was executed by the Kuomintang

Kuomintang

The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

 in Hengshan

Hengshan

Hengshan may refer to the following locations in mainland China or Taiwan:* Mount Heng * Mount Heng * Hengshan , located in Hsinchu County, Taiwan* Hengshan County, Hunan , of Hengyang, Hunan...

, Hunan

Hunan

' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...

.

When Edgar Snow

Edgar Snow

Edgar P. Snow was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution...

 interviewed Mao Zedong for his book Red Star Over China

Red Star Over China

Red Star Over China, a book by Edgar Snow, is an account of the Communist Party of China written when they were a guerrilla army still obscure to Westerners. Along with Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, it was the most influential book on Western understanding and sympathy for China in the 1930s...

in 1936, he recorded Mao Zejian's name as Mao Zehong (毛澤紅) and stated that she was his sister. This error has been carried forward ever since. Although a cousin, she had lived for a long period with Mao's parents, and by custom Mao referred to her as "sister." A guerrilla leader in her own right, she was captured by the KMT in 1928, and was executed in August 1929, at the age of 24.