At number 632 on the intersection of Xuchang Road (许昌路) and Huimin Road (惠民路) in Shanghai’s Yangpu District, there is a six-story building that is locally known as the ‘Little Red Mansion.’
The Red Mansion has everything to do with Zhao Fuqiang (赵富强), a man who made headlines in September of 2020 when he appeared before a Shanghai court in relation to gang-related crimes.
Zhao Fuqiang and 37 other defendants were found guilty of leading and participating in organized crime, rape, prostitution, fraud, bribery and corruption. The court found that Zhao had been active as a criminal underworld leader since 2004. During this time, he recruited women and forced them to engage in prostitution for his organization.
The Shanghai Second Intermediate Court gave Zhao the death penalty, while the other 37 defendants were given various sentences, ranging from 30 months to 20 years of imprisonment. One higher government official in Yangpu District by the name of Lu Yan (卢焱) was sentenced to 17 years in prison for taking bribes and serving as an umbrella for Zhao and other criminals.
Zhao Fuqiang
Zhao was the owner of the Red Mansion. Throughout the years, Zhao, who is originally from Taixing in Jiangsu, was able to earn a fortune through his large and powerful business and government network. He ventured into the restaurant industry with his Huichi Huihe (汇吃汇喝) company and ran businesses in Shanghai, Beijing, and Taixing.
The Red Mansion case went trending on Chinese social media this week after China Business Journal (中国经营报) published about it on December 3rd. One article is titled “Uncovering the Secrets of the ‘Little Red House’ – Its Inside Story Is Unimaginable” (“‘小红楼’秘闻被揭开 内情令人难以想象“). The other in-depth article by reporter Cheng Wei (程维) is titled “Exploring the ‘Red House’ in Shanghai” (“探秘上海”红楼”“).
Cheng’s article is a detailed description of the building and its layout, with many photos showing the extravagant rooms and peculiar layout design. Although the reporter gives enough information for readers to get a hint of what was going on in the building before 2020, the other article gives more insights on what actually took place there.
The original title of that article was “In 19 Years, He Turned the Dilapidated “Little Red House” Into Hell on Earth for Victimized Women” (“19年时间他将一座破旧的“小红楼”，打造成迫害女性的无间地狱”). It was published on December 1st by 10PM Reading (@10点阅读) on the Netease news platform, but has since been deleted, although it is still available on some other platforms.
From ‘Hairsalon’ to Mansion
The main article explains how Zhao Fuqiang, originally a small-town tailor, first arrived in Shanghai in 2000 in search of the big money and that he became active within the world of organized prostitution. His own wife, who studied dance, allegedly first became a prostitute before he recruited a bigger group of young female migrant workers through his wife’s network.
The author claims that Zhao used threats and physical violence to get these young, rural women to work for him. After being raped, beaten, and scared into thinking that nude photos of them would be sent to family and friends, these women ended up having sex for money in one of Zhao’s two newly established Shanghai ‘hair salons,’ where men would pay 150 yuan ($23) per visit. The women would never see a dime of the money they earned for Zhao.
With the money Zhao earned through his ‘hair salon’ business, he ventured out into the world of subletting shops in the city. Through the help of his dubious yet powerful network, Zhao got his hands on over 1000 shops which he was able to sublet without ever making a big investment. In a timeframe of nearly two decades, Zhao probably made around one billion yuan ($156 million) from this.
Since his business was anything but legal, Zhao needed a safety net to protect him. Higher officials and big business figures could not be seen visiting one of his ‘hair salons,’ so he needed a more secure place to welcome his guests.
At the six-story so-called Little Red Mansion in Shanghai’s Yangpu district, Zhao would invite high-level governmental and business people. The security cameras within the building recorded them, potentially serving as blackmail material.
The place that once was the ‘Red Mansion.’
The article tells the story of one of the girls who was recruited to work at the Red Mansion. Chen Qian (陈倩) was a fresh graduate, studied in the U.S., and she first came to Zhao after seeing an appealing recruitment ad in the media that offered a high salary for a job at Zhao’s restaurant company.
After it became clear to Chen that her job would actually involve having sex with Zhao’s clients, there was no way for her to escape in a heavily secured environment. When the young woman finally had an opportunity to leave the premises to go to a bank in 2017, she asked the staff to alert the police to tell them about her situation and that of the other women who were held captive as sex slaves by Zhao.
It did not end well for Chen, since the police doubted her story. Zhao, who brought Chen’s mother to the police station, was able to convince the local authorities that it was just a matter of domestic dispute, and Chen was later put on house arrest without access to her phone, and she was beaten for her attempted escape.
To make matters worse, Zhao had also thought of an additional way to exploit the women he controlled: egg donation. Chen was one of the women who reportedly was forced to have a surgical procedure to sell her eggs to (illegal) fertility agencies in order for Zhao to make more money.
In Chen’s case, the procedures for egg retrieval at the clinic caused an abnormal build-up of fluid in the abdomen, and she eventually became infertile because of it.
The Red House Prison
A dance teacher by the name of Cui Qian (崔茜) was another victim of Zhao. Like Chen, she was also forced to donate her eggs, leaving her depressed and anxious. Having a Shanghai household registration, she was eventually forced to marry Zhao in order for him to officially become a Shanghai resident.
Women like Cui and Chen were not just imprisoned by the actual walls of the Red Mansion; Zhao made sure that their social circumstances would make it virtually impossible for them to leave by also recruiting their family members as helpers or cleaning staff. The Red House was not just where they all worked, it was all where they all lived.
When Cui filed for divorce in 2019, and again filing a report against Zhao for rape – an earlier report in 2018 was ignored by authorities – things finally started rolling. In front of the court, Cui Qian told about Zhao’s practices of bribery and forced prostitution, along with naming a number of people within higher-level positions as accomplices.
Cui’s actions led to Zhao’s downfall. Later that year, in 2019, he would finally be arrested after nearly two decades of running his illegal businesses.
However, the tragedy does not end with Zhao’s arrest. Besides the trauma experienced by his victims, the women in the Red House also gave birth to babies who allegedly were left without official registration, making it impossible for them to attend school or receive healthcare.
Exploring the Mansion
In the article by reporter Cheng Wei, we can see what the Red Mansion looked like after it was abandoned in 2019.
The author describes how the building, which once was a hotel and a teahouse, was somewhat of a mystery to locals, who had no idea what was going on there.
The Red Mansion after its closure in 2019.
The reporter describes how the first few floors of the building were basically all storage rooms, while some floors (such as 2nd floor) also had beds and rooms which looked like migrant workers’ lodging.
The building’s fifth floor had some basic guests rooms, some more luxurious than the others, just like any regular Shanghai hotel.
The sixth floor is the building’s most luxurious one, where the reporter saw upscale guest suites and a reception hall that one would expect to see in a palace.
Some of the rooms even had iPhone and iPad boxes and manuals in the bedside drawers, suggesting that guests would even find these kinds of complementary devices in their rooms besides the lavish bathrooms and closets filled with lingerie.
One of the rooms in the abandoned building, image by Cheng Wei.
The sixth floor was also home to the so-called “Fourteen Beauties Suite,” the largest room with seven bunk-beds, accessible through a hidden door (which looks like a regular mirror).
The mirror in this room is actually a door. From the other side, there’s also a concealed door leading to a closet which then leads to the women’s dorm. Photo by Cheng Wei.
On the same floor, there is also a dressing room and bathroom with enough space for up to 4-7 people.
According to the reporter, all closets in the suites have women’s clothings, from lingerie to role playing outfits and stockings.
The main rooms and corridors are equipped with digital combination door locks, so that people can’t enter any floor or room without knowing the required codes.
Besides discovering concealed doors, the reporter also found some left-behind documents, including time schedules for women’s training classes (dancing, performance) and books relating to female self-cultivation and etiquette.
Online Anger
On Weibo, the Red Mansion story has blown up and is also being censored. The hashtags used by China Business Journal in its post have also been taken offline. Meanwhile, hundreds of netizens are still putting together the pieces on what happened at the Red Mansion.
“I’m reading and screenshotting at the same time,” one Weibo user writes:
“I initially just thought this obviously was a prostitution case, but then I came to find out it was not just that..There are too many questions about officials shielding one another, the social grievances, and so on. Thinking your back was leaning against a big tree, only to find out it actually is a man-eating tiger. I’m slowly starting to understand what it means to speak out. This issue will probably be forgotten once again within a short while, but the memories of one person are also the memories of millions!”
“How many Red Mansions are there out there?” some other commenters wonder，with others writing: “How on earth is it possible that this place was able to exist for such a long time?!”
Many people are angered because Zhao allegedly was able to continue for so long through the help of people working for local authorities.
Others are also angry because the topic is being censored online, saying that the women who were victimized by Zhao are being silenced once again.
“When I first read this, I thought it was something that happened long ago,” one commenter writes: “But this is all so recent!” Others also write that they are shocked that this could happen in downtown Shanghai right in front of everyone, without anyone knowing.
Although many say that Zhao deserves nothing but the death penalty, which he already was given, they also call for more transparency regarding the local authorities who made it possible for him to run his ‘business’ for nearly two decades.
“These people can’t be punished enough,” some say.
“This is just too dark,” another Weibo user writes, suggesting that some of the secrets behind the ‘Little Red Mansion’ might just be too dark to ever come to light.
By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes.
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