On July 20, 1965, Li Zongren and his wife Guo Dejie's plane landed in Beijing, and the trip back to China, which had been brewing for several years, was finally completed.
After returning to China, Li Zongren saw in the press "Chiang Kai-shek's Conspiracy to Assassinate Li Zongren" written by Shen Zui, commissioner of literature and history of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. This drunkenness is not simple, he is Dai Kasa's confidant, the youngest major general of the Military Command Bureau at that time, the head of the special agent, together with Chen Gongshu, Zhao Lijun, Wang Tianmu and called the four king kongs of the military command, and with Zhou Yanghao, Xu Yuanju and called the three musketeers of the military command. When Lu Han, the chairman of Yunnan Province, launched an uprising on the night of December 9, 1949, he summoned Li Mi, Yu Chengwan, Shen Zui, and other military and political officials in Kunming to the official residence and detained them. After shen drunk and detained, he was reformed as a war criminal (identified as an uprising general in 1980), pardoned on November 28, 1960, and assigned to the Cultural and Historical Materials Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as a commissioner of literature and history.
Li Zongren, who saw the article, wanted to know more details, so he invited Shen Drunk to his home as a guest, and during the small talk between the two, Shen Zui told Li Zongren about the past that happened at the end of 1948. ”
The assigned Shen Drunk has a new task
When Shen was the station manager in Yunnan, he took a group photo with his family
In November 1948, the telecommunications officer of the Yunnan Station of the Secrecy Bureau reported to the station director Shen Drunk: "Director Mao (Mao Renfeng) has an urgent telegram, so you can fly to the headquarters of the Nanjing Bureau tomorrow and say that there is an important task. ”
Shen was drunk and suddenly became suspicious, since he was assigned to yunnan station from the position of chief of general affairs, Mao Renfeng basically ignored him, how could he suddenly let him go to Nanjing, and it was not clear in the telegram that the reason was, what kind of task required him, a major general station commander who was far away in Yunnan, to personally go out on the horse?
During the period of military unification, Mao Renfeng's fox tail was hidden very deeply, so Shen Drunk, the director of the General Affairs Department, and Mao Renfeng, the chief secretary, cooperated well, and the relationship between them was also "intimate". Shen drunk and heavily burdened by Dai Kasa, at the age of 28, he became the chief of the general affairs department of the major general, becoming the youngest major general in the military command. The gold content of the major general of the military command is very high, and it should be known that although the scale of the military command is very large, the nominal rank is not very high, and even Dai Kasa is a major general, and the lieutenant general is still posthumously awarded.
After Dai Kasa's death, the military command was reorganized into the Secrecy Bureau, with Zheng Jiemin as its director. Mao Renfeng had always coveted the position of bureau chief, so he joined forces with Shen Drunk and others to search for Zheng Jiemin's "black materials." Shen Renfeng boasted that he was clever, believing that the "honest man" Mao Renfeng was much better than Zheng Jiemin, but unexpectedly, when Mao Renfeng squeezed out Zheng Jiemin to become the director of the bureau as he wished, the first thing he did was to take the "meritorious man" Shen Drunk and open the knife, dismiss him from the post of general affairs director, and transfer him to Yunnan as the station chief.
There are many theories about why Mao Renfeng "unloaded and killed donkeys" for Shen Drunk, according to Shen Drunk, he was the backbone of the Dai Kasa period and knew too much about the inside story, so Mao Renfeng sent him to Yunnan out of jealousy. However, some military commanders believed that Shen Drunk was too clever and wandered between Zheng Jiemin, Tang Zhong, and Mao Renfeng after Dai Kasa's death, so after Mao Renfeng came to power, he thought that Shen Drunk was too dangerous and disloyal, so he sent him to Yunnan. No matter which way you say it, you can see that Shen Drunk is indeed a powerful character.
It was precisely because of this that Shen Drunk went to Nanjing with great doubts, and he even thought at one point that Mao Renfeng was not even willing to let him be the head of the Yunnan station, and was ready to deceive him into going to Nanjing and dismiss him from all posts in the Secrecy Bureau.
President Jiang smiled brightly
Mao Ren Feng
After Shen Drunk arrived in Nanjing, he went to report to Mao Renfeng at the headquarters of the Secrecy Bureau, and Mao Renfeng enthusiastically took Shen Renfeng's hand and said: "Now there is an important task, you must not, you first go to rest, tomorrow the president (Chiang Kai-shek) summons." ”
Shen Drunken looked surprised and asked, "What task do you still need to see the president?" ”
Mao Renfeng said: "It is related to Li Zongren, remember not to ask too many questions when you see the president tomorrow." ”
Early the next morning, Mao Renfeng came to Chiang Kai-shek's official residence with a drunkenness, and after waiting for several hours in the parlor, the two were finally allowed to meet.
When Chiang Kai-shek saw Shen drunk, he smiled and kindly inquired about his work in Yunnan and the situation of his family.
After a while, Chiang Kai-shek stepped into the main theme and said: "This task is related to the overall situation, and you will deploy it as soon as you go back, prepare it in the fastest time, and act immediately as soon as the time is ripe to ensure that nothing goes wrong." ”
Regarding the content of the task, Chiang Kai-shek was extremely evasive in his conversation, and only kept exhorting, that is, he did not make it clear, and Mao Renfeng and Shen Intoxi tacitly agreed to it, and only vaguely agreed.
Chiang Kai-shek said to Shen Drunk: "When the plane of Yunong (Dai Kasa) crashed, you volunteered to search for it, which shows that you are a reliable person. So, this mission is up to you. ”
Then, Chiang Kai-shek shook Shen Renfeng's drunken hand and said to Mao Renfeng: "This is our most loyal and courageous comrade, and you must take more care of you in all aspects in the future, and there are difficulties to be solved." Mao Renfeng said yes.
The conversation lasted about half an hour, and after the end, Mao Renfeng and Shen Drunk immediately returned to the headquarters of the Secret Service bureau and began to deploy the plan for the implementation of the mission, at this time, Mao Renfeng gave Shen Drunk the bottom line, and the task given to him was to "assassinate Vice President Li Zongren."
Why assassinate Li Zongren?
Li Zongren
So, why did Chiang Kai-shek choose to assassinate Li Zongren at this point in time?
It all started in April 1948, when Lee Jong-in was elected vice president. Originally, Chiang Kai-shek's preferred candidate for vice president was Sun Ke, but when the election results came out to be Li Zongren, Chiang Kai-shek was so angry that he broke the radio on the spot.
Chiang Kai-shek has always been quite jealous of the new Gui clan headed by Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, and after Li Zongren was elected vice president, the threat to him was even greater. In order to crack down on the Gui clan, shortly after Li Zongren was elected president, Chiang Kai-shek dismissed Bai Chongxi from the post of defense minister and was succeeded by He Yingqin, who was sent to central China as commander-in-chief.
Bai Chongxi attached great importance to the post of defense minister, refused to take office in a huff, and ran to Shanghai to "recuperate." Huang Shaohu, an elder of the Gui clan, personally came to Shanghai and said to Bai Chongxi: "If you and Degong are both in Nanjing, then you are always under chiang kai-shek's control, and when you take office in Wuhan, you can take back control of the Guangxi troops. When the time comes, it will not be the stage of the Gui family. ”
After Bai Chongxi heard this, he felt that it was very reasonable, and he happily went to take office.
As Huang Shaohu expected, with the liberation of Jinan, Jinzhou, Changchun, and other important cities, the kuomintang's call for Chiang Kai-shek to "go to the wilderness" became louder and louder, and the United States was also extremely disappointed in the performance of Chiang Kai-shek and his army, and had the idea of supporting Li Zongren to come to power. This was naturally intolerable to Chiang Kai-shek, and he decided to attack the Gui clan first, and in view of the fact that Bai Chongxi had a large number of guards in Wuhan with heavy troops in hand, Li Zongren in Nanjing became the preferred target of "sanctions".
Everything is ready, just waiting for orders
Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi
After Chiang Kai-shek issued an order to Mao Renfeng to "sanction" Li Zongren, Mao Renfeng initially decided to put Ye Xiangzhi, director of the Operations Department of the Secrecy Bureau, in charge, but when Chiang Kai-shek learned that Ye Xiangzhi was a man of letters, he was worried that he would not be able to perform this task, so he asked Mao Renfeng to send an old senior agent of the military command to take charge.
Because of Li Zongren's special status, Mao Renfeng controlled the scope of his knowledge very small, and only he, Shen Zhui, Ye Xiangzhi, and Pan Qiwu (Mao Renfeng's office director) knew the specific content of the action.
Mao Renfeng decided to set up a "special action group, with Shen Xiangzhi and Pan Qiwu as the group leader, Ye Xiangzhi and Pan Qiwu as deputy group leaders to cooperate with Shen Intoxi's work, Ye Xiangzhi was responsible for providing assassination equipment, the selection of killers, and so on; Pan Qiwu was responsible for logistical support; Mao Renfeng specifically instructed Ye Xiangzhi and Pan Qiwu to meet all the requirements of Shen Intoxi, ask for money to be given, and ask people to give it to people.
The initial assassination plan drawn up by Shen Zui and others was: ambush around Li Zongren's official residence in advance, and suddenly rush out to carry out the assassination when Li Zongren was out in a car one day. Shen Drunk was a famous sharpshooter in the military command, led by him to execute the team, in addition to selecting a few spies with good marksmanship, Ye Xiangzhi found someone to make a bomb and prepare to drop the bomb after shooting.
In order to find out Li Zongren's travel rules, Mao Renfeng sent people to set up a book stall near Li Zongren's official residence, disguised by secret agents as vendors, and stalked them uninterruptedly every day. Another advantage of the book stall is that it allows the agents to pretend to be customers reading books, and once they really want to do it, the agents of the book stall can arrive immediately.
The plan for assassinating Li Zongren was revised several times, and finally Mao Renfeng believed that it was most appropriate to assassinate Li Zongren's home, because if he assassinated outside, it would be easy to attract the surrounding military police and gendarmes, and it would not be easy for the assassination agents to escape. If you choose to be in Li Zongren's home, as long as the spies can enter, then Li Zongren will be unable to escape with his wings.
How do you carry out an assassination at home? After discussion, Mao Renfeng, Shen Zui, and Ye Xiangzhi formulated the following plan: Cut off the power supply to Li Zongren's house, and the agents disguised as workers repairing transformers would enter, and as soon as Li Zongren's door was opened, the agents immediately rushed in to commit the crime. In order to ensure that the operation was foolproof, Mao Renfeng also specially equipped the "Special Operations Group" with small submachine guns.
After the plan was formulated, Shen Zui, Ye Xiangzhi, and others secretly went to the vicinity of Li Zongren's official residence to step on the spot several times, and when everything was ready, they waited for Chiang Kai-shek to formally issue a "sanction order" for the two of them.
Assassination abruptly aborted
By the end of December 1948, the "Special Operations Group" had entered the most tense stage, Mao Renfeng inquired about the preparations several times a day, and Shen Drunk and Ye Xiangzhi were also always ready, waiting for an order to be issued, and immediately led people into Li Zongren's official residence.
At the beginning of January 1949, Mao Renfeng suddenly stopped asking about the work of the "Special Operations Group", and Shen Was very surprised that no one cared about it for several days, so he took the initiative to find Mao Renfeng, and Mao Renfeng smiled bitterly and said: "I am afraid that the operation is going to be canceled, you are ready to go back to Yunnan." ”
By the beginning of January, the entire northeast had been liberated, the northeast field army had also entered the border, and the troops of Fu Zuoyi, commander-in-chief of the "Suppression General" in North China, were successively destroyed in the battles of Xinbao and Zhangjiakou, and Fu Zuoyi began to seek the road to peace. In the Battlefield of the Central Plains, the regiments of Huang Baitao, Huang Wei, and Sun Yuanliang of the Kuomintang army had already been destroyed, and Du Yuming and Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi's regiment were trapped in Chen Guanzhuang, and they were also about to be destroyed.
The elite of the concubines on which Chiang Kai-shek relied for the maintenance system of governance were exhausted, and Bai Chongxi of the Gui clan supported the army with self-respect and self-esteem, and in this case, Chiang Kai-shek's best way out was to go to the wilderness and push Li Zongren out to divert the contradictions. In this way, the assassination of Li Zongren will not be solved, and Chiang Kai-shek at this time needs Li Zongren to "block the gun" for him in front of the stage.
After listening to Shen Drunken's recounting of this past, Li Zongren had a lingering feeling in his heart and said indignantly: "Chiang Kai-shek and I were brothers who exchanged posts back then, and although I had a grudge with him, until now I still call him Mr. Jiang." I used to respect him, and I won't call him that anymore. ”
In fact, not only Li Zongren, Xu Chongzhi, Feng Yuxiang, and Zhang Xueliang, who were calculated by Chiang Kai-shek, did not also change posts with Chiang Kai-shek?