Shi Liangcai

Who was Shi Liangcai?

Shi Liangcai was a Chinese journalist best known for his ownership of Shen Bao and for his murder at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's henchmen.

Shi was born in Qingpu, now part of Shanghai. He studied at the Sericultural School in Hangzhou and in 1904 founded a sericultural school for women in Shanghai. He lived in a graceful villa at what is now No. 257, Tongren Road, Shanghai from 1904 until his death.

Along with journalists from the Shanghai newspaper Shibao, by 1909 "the most widely circulated newspaper in the Shanghai region," Shi was a regular visitor to "an association known as the Xilou, which Shibao sponsored and where several items of the late-Qing reformist agenda were argued and shaped." When he took over Shen Bao in 1912, he furthered its liberal orientation; he also began a career as a press magnate, and from 1927, he bought up most of the stock of Shishi and Xinwen newspapers. He also expanded his range of business interests, with investments in cotton textiles.