CHINA said “goodbye to the woman who held up half the sky” after the first female tractor driver and national icon Liang Jun died in Harbin at the age of 90 on Monday after a long illness.

Her son Wang Yanbing said that “she put up a good fight” and passed away peacefully.

Her image, which adorned the 1962 set of the country’s one-yuan notes and many posters, was said to be the “symbol of women in China.”

She was among China’s first group of national model workers following the 1948 revolution and remained an influential figure.

Ms Liang was born in Heilongjiang’s Mingshui County in 1930 and was admitted to a teachers’ college aged just 17.

In 1948 she became the only woman out of a class of 70 to enter a training programme for tractor drivers.

She joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 1949, when Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

After graduating she played a leading role in the CPC’s national campaign to develop China’s “great northern wilderness.” 

She became an iconic figure representing not just the ideal worker in China but also the opportunities opening for women, going on to become an engineer and a politician.

Ms Liang’s life was portrayed in many textbooks and films made about her life. 

She was credited with inspiring many women to become tractor drivers as the CPC was keen to promote a growing agricultural workforce in efforts to build the socialist state.

Tributes poured in for Ms Liang, who was revered in China.

“She showed that whatever men can do, women could do as well," said a post on social media site Weibo.

“She worked hard and became the heroine of her generation,” another post said. “Goodbye Liang Jun. We salute you.”