Tip: Today, when talking about this matter, some people tend to "complain" about the Americans, but it should be seen that there is another profound reason behind it, that is, the national army is clearly too dependent on the Americans and lacks the spirit of self-reliance. In April 1947, Bai Chongxi suggested that Chiang Kai-shek "establish an institute of atomic physics," and Chiang Kai-shek instructed in the official documents he submitted: "At present, the state treasury should be rich in expenditure, and foreign exchange must also be used sparingly. It is not difficult to see that there is still a problem of insufficient determination and confidence as a leader.
Albert Coady Wedemeyer (July 9, 1897 – December 17, 1989) was a U.S. soldier. He was promoted to brigadier general in July 1942. In October 1944, Stilwell, chief of staff of the Allied Chinese Theater and commander of the U.S. forces in China, was removed from the united states at odds with Chiang Kai-shek. The United States appointed Weidmey to succeed Stilwell. He held this position until March 1946. Known as the "last foreign chief of staff" in China.
Yu Dawei (1897-1993), originally from Shaoxing, Zhejiang, was born in Changsha, Hunan Province, and studied at Fudan University Preparatory School, Nanyang College and St. John's University in his early years. Later, he went to Harvard University in the United States and the University of Berlin in Germany for further study. In 1929, he returned to China as a counselor of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and in 1933 he became the director of the Military Engineering Bureau of the Nationalist Government, with the rank of lieutenant general in the army. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the leading military enterprises adhered to production, provided important equipment support for the Chinese army, built a certain scale of military production and research and development system, and cultivated a large number of outstanding talents.
Wei Dewei and Yu Dawei had a good personal relationship, and once when the two met, Wei Dewei asked Yu Dawei: "Do you want to send someone to the United States to learn how to build an atomic bomb?" Yu Dawei felt that this was a great and good thing, and immediately made a report to Chiang Kai-shek. Subsequently, the dream of the Kuomintang army's atomic bomb was put on the agenda, and they planned to send people to the United States to study the development of atomic bombs.
Today, there is not much to tell in this regard, mainly for two reasons: First, in the words of the common people, the eight characters have not been skimmed; second, the work at that time was "confidential," and it was only known that it was responsible for Chen Cheng, minister of the Military and Political Department, and Yu Dawei, deputy director and director of the Military Engineering Bureau. It is said that at that time, Chiang Kai-shek secretly allocated a sum of money, and the responsible persons Chen Cheng and Yu Dawei instructed the Ordnance Engineering Bureau to vacate a large auditorium as an "atomic bomb research room.", which can be regarded as a place for scientific research.
Studying the atomic bomb is not as simple as finding a chicken to lay an egg, and with a place, you have to find people and talents, so the next thing is Yu Dawei Zhang Luo talent. The first person he found was Wu Dayu (September 29, 1907 – March 4, 2000), pen name Hong Dao, Xueli, a high-ranking person in Guangdong, born in Panyu County, Guangzhou Province (now Guangzhou), a famous physicist and educator. From 1933 to 1934, he studied spectroscopy, atomic and nuclear physics in the United States. After returning to China, he taught at Peking University and Southwest United University, and successively served as a professor of physics at Peking University and a professor at Southwest Union University.
Yu Dawei thought and went to wu Dayu because Zeng Zhaozhuo (May 25, 1899 – December 8, 1967) studied chemical engineering and chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, received a doctorate in science from the school in 1926, and returned to China in the same year. He has successively served as a professor in the Department of Chemistry of Central University, the head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, the professor and director of the Department of Chemistry of Peking University, and the professor of the Department of Chemistry of Southwest Union University. The two were related: Zeng Zhaozhuo was the great-grandson of Zeng Guofan, Yu Dawei was Zeng Guofan's great-grandson and cousin, and Zeng Zhaowei's wife, Yu Gang, was yu Dawei's sister and was also a relative of Yu Dawei— Zeng Zhaowei should be called Yu Dawei's brother-in-law.
Wu Dayu and Zeng Zhaoyu found Hua Luogeng (November 12, 1910 - June 12, 1985), and in 1931, entered the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University as an assistant, during which time he taught himself English, French, German and Japanese, and published 3 papers in foreign Chinese journals. In 1933, he was promoted to teaching assistant. In September 1934, he was promoted to lecturer. In 1935, the mathematician Norbert Wiener visited China, noticed the potential of Hua Luogeng, and strongly recommended it to the British mathematician Godfrey Harold. In 1936, Hua Luogeng went to the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and spent two crucial years. By this time, Hua Luogeng had already achieved many results on the Waring's problem, and benefited from the influence of the Hardy-Littlewood School in Britain, publishing several papers, one of which on Gauss won a reputation in the world.
The three of them went to Chongqing together to meet with Chen Cheng and Yu Dawei, and the result of the meeting was that everyone agreed that "there are people who have bullets", that they need to select and send talents to the United States for further study, and that they also need considerable expenses. Chen Cheng and Yu Dawei stated that money is not a problem, and also instructed Wu Dayu, Zeng Zhaoyu, and Hua Luogeng to find talents to go to the United States to study, Wu Dayu was in charge of talents in physics, Zeng Zhaowei was in charge of talents in chemistry, and Hua Luogeng was in charge of talents in mathematics. It was the autumn of 1945, and Wu Dayu recommended Zhu Guangya and Li Zhengdao, as well as Xu Xianxiu, who was already in the United States; Zeng Zhaozhao, who recommended Tang Aoqing and Wang Ruiyu; and Hua Luogeng recommended Sun Benwang.
After nearly a year of preparation, in August of the following year, these people left the motherland by ship from Shanghai and went to the United States, and the National Government also set up the "Atomic Energy Research Committee" with the development of atomic bombs as the core task, and secretly and officially activated the Chinese atomic bomb research program, which included 11 core figures including Yu Dawei, Wu Dayu, Zeng Zhaoli and others. But when scientists who went to study and study arrived in the United States, their hopes and confidence were quickly extinguished—Americans were reluctant to pass on the technology of developing atomic bombs to Chinese.
There is an important reason for this: on August 6 and 9, the U.S. military dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, forcing Emperor Hirohito to issue an edict on August 15 announcing Japan's unconditional surrender. The Americans certainly would not tell other countries about the atomic bomb technology that "can end the whole war." Although Weidmeier returned to the United States at the end of his term in March of that year, how could he decide such a big matter? In this way, the national army's atomic bomb dream was shattered by the "change" of the Americans.
Today, when talking about this, some people tend to "complain" about the Americans, but it should be noted that there is another profound reason behind it, that is, the national army is clearly too dependent on the Americans and lacks the spirit of self-reliance. In April 1947, Bai Chongxi suggested that Chiang Kai-shek "establish an institute of atomic physics," and Chiang Kai-shek instructed in the official documents he submitted: "At present, the state treasury should be rich in expenditure, and foreign exchange must also be used sparingly. It is not difficult to see that there is still a problem of insufficient determination and confidence as a leader.
History is always very interesting, known as the "last foreign chief of staff" in China, the first to propose to the Nationalist army to learn to build atomic bombs in the United States, although he "reneged on his word" in this matter, but in 1947, he formed a survey mission to visit China, accurately "predicted" China's subsequent domestic situation - the Kuomintang was militarily inferior, and the People's Liberation Army was likely to liberate China. To this end, he suggested that the United States promise assistance to the National Government, but President Truman firmly opposed it, and the report he wrote was classified as "confidential" and shelved. What is even more interesting is that the scientists who went to the United States but did not learn the technology of atomic bomb development from the Americans later became the two bombs and one star experts and founders of new China.