In 1951, in order to consolidate the nascent people's power, a vigorous counter-revolutionary movement was launched throughout the country, and a large number of counter-revolutionaries who committed crimes against the motherland and the people in different historical periods were arrested one after another and were punished as they deserved. Among them, Liu Yutian and Zhang Benzheng, the biggest traitors in the Dalian area who had defected to the enemy as early as the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, were the most distant historical counter-revolutions in this town counter-movement.
Liu Yutian was born in 1870 in Dalian Pulandian to a landlord family; Zhang Benzheng, born in 1865 in Lushun Shuishiying, was a young farmer and businessman. At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Zhang Benzheng defected to the Japanese agent Takahashi in Weihai, Shandong, and betrayed the intelligence of the Qing army to him. On October 24, the Japanese landed at Huayuankou and immediately attacked Jinzhou, Dalian, and Lushun. Just as the patriotic officers and soldiers and the people of the brigade rose up against the enemy, Liu Yutian, together with his father, defected to the Japanese spy Shenwu Guangchen Shaozuo (pseudonym Zheng Yongchang) and served as a guide for the Japanese Kou. What is particularly shameless is that when Jinzhou City fell on November 6, Liu Yutian carried an Oriental battle knife at his waist and together with his father, 10 large cars full of clothes and food, greeted the culprit of the invasion, Nogi Kite, and his subordinates at the city gate. When Nogi saw the slaves of the traitorous father and son, he immediately rewarded him with a poem, two of which were: "The yuanmen tribute table is submitted to obedience, and Liu Yutian, a remnant of the Ming Dynasty." At the same time, Zhang Benzheng also returned to the northeast with the Japanese army. On November 21, under the leadership of Zhang Benzheng, the Japanese army launched a general attack on Lushunkou, and after the city was destroyed, it was bloodily slaughtered for 4 days and 3 nights, killing more than 20,000 of our innocent compatriots.
After the end of the Sino-Japanese War, after the "intervention of the three kingdoms to restore the Liao", the Japanese army once withdrew from the brigade area, and Liu Yutian and Zhang Benzheng were also arrested by the Qing government for the crime of traitorous crimes and fled to Japan and Shandong respectively. After Liu Yutian fled to Japan, he was greatly appreciated by his master for his meritorious service in betraying the country, and actually entered the Army University, the highest school of learning in the Japanese army, as a professor of Chinese literature; Zhang Benzheng continued to live under the wing of the RiteGaoqiao in Shandong and ran a business for him.
From 1904 to 1905, an unjust war broke out between the two imperialists of Japan and Russia to divide Korea and northeast China. Driven by the master, Liu Yutian and Zhang Benzheng, the two lackeys, returned to the northeast and once again acted as guides for the Japanese army. Liu Yutian landed with the Japanese 2nd Army at Monkey Stone (present-day Xingshutun Town, Jinzhou District, Dalian), while Zhang Benzheng led the Japanese army in the Lushun Offensive and Defense Campaign to attack Dongjiguan Mountain. Because of Liu Yutian's high level of education, he also assumed the duties of Japanese staff officer and logistics, and "appeased the people" for the executioner. As a result, Nogi Nogi appreciated him even more, not only summoned him many times, but even asked him to participate in the negotiations and ceremonies of the Russian Army's Lushun Fortress Commander Strassell surrendering to the Japanese army at the Water Division Camp, and the two took a special group photo at the ceremony.
During the period of Japanese colonial rule, Liu Yutian and Zhang Benzheng continued to engage in traitorous activities. After the Xinhai Revolution, Liu Yutian, together with Prince Shanqi of Qingsu, organized the Sectarian Socialist Party, with the support of the Japanese Kou, to engage in the criminal activities of the restoration of the Qing Dynasty and the "independence of Manchuria and Mongolia", while at the same time enslaving and educating the people of Dalian. Zhang Benzheng used all his steamships to support the enemy during the "128" and "813" wars, and after the outbreak of the Pacific War, he actively launched the "donation of funds and donation of aircraft" activities, looting the people's fat and people's paste, "donating" 44 aircraft to the enemy, and personally going to Japan to participate in the naming ceremony. Even more disheartening was the fact that when Dalian was in short supply in 1943, Zhang Benzheng openly shouted: "The people of the prefecture (that is, the so-called "Kanto people", the Japanese colonial authorities call the Dalian people) can eat acorn noodles to make up for the lack of food." "As a result, the number of people in Dalian who died of hunger was dried.
From the Russo-Japanese War to the victory of the War of Resistance, the people of Dalian groaned under the enslavement of the Japanese fascists for more than 40 years, while Liu Yutian and Zhang Benzheng soared because of their traitors. The Japanese Emperor received these two traitors many times, among which Liu Yutianxun was awarded the fifth class merit and the sixth class merit, and appointed him as the "entrustment" (senior adviser) of the Kanto Governor's Office; in 1940, when Japan was "2600 A.D.", Zhang Benzheng was invited to participate in the commemorative activities, during which he was awarded the gold medal of "Fifth Class" by the Japanese Emperor, and he successively held 49 important pseudo-positions, such as the director of the Zhenglong Bank, the member of the Bureau Committee of the "Kanto Prefecture" (dalian administrative division during the Japanese colonial rule period), and the "Kanto Prefecture" Member of the Central Implementation Committee of the Spiritual Mobilization, member of the "Kanto Prefecture" plan reviewer, counselor of the "Kanto Prefecture Department", member of the Dalian City Council, and president of the Dalian Chinese Merchants Council. At the same time, the two traitors "gain fame and fortune" and the rich side. Liu Yutian founded the Liaodong Bank in 1916 and merged it into the Manchurian Bank in 1923 with a capital of 1 million yuan; Zhang Benzheng started with the confiscation of two ships of Zhang Delu, the tsarist general (translator), after the Russo-Japanese War, and founded the "Zhengji Steamship Company" with a capital of 740,000 yen. In the 1940s, in order to support the Japanese Kou in the Pacific War, Liu Yutian once sold 1,200 acres of land and 200 houses to donate two "Yutian" aircraft; Zhang Benzheng provided 32 ships and donated dozens of planes to the Japanese Kou. And all of this is only a dime a dozen for the two traitors.
On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender. On the 22nd, the Soviet Red Army entered Dalian, Lushun. In order to escape the punishment of the people, Liu Yutian fled in disguise to Shenyang, Jilin, Changchun and other places, and finally hid in Xi'an (present-day Liaoyuan) under the cover of farming. Zhang Benzheng gathered the traitors and the dead party, cobbled together the so-called "Chinese Association," which was later renamed the "Dalian Local Public Security Maintenance Association," and stepped up collusion with Kuomintang agents to form a reactionary armed force to welcome the "acceptance" of the Kuomintang authorities. After being arrested by the Dalian Municipal Democratic Government and publicly interrogated, in order to facilitate the division and disintegration of the remnants of the enemy and the puppets, coupled with the special status of the Dalian area at that time, it was still necessary to implement the "Regulations on the Punishment of Traitors" promulgated by the National Government, so it was leniently sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment, deprived of citizenship for life, and all property was confiscated except for the living expenses that must be left to the family members at their discretion. On March 18, 1947, Zhang Benzheng fled Dalian on medical parole and went to Shenyang, Shanghai, Tianjin and other places under Kuomintang rule to continue his counter-revolutionary activities.
After the suppression of the counterrevolutionary movement began, Zhang Benzheng and Liu Yutian were arrested in Tianjin and Liaoyuan and escorted back to Dalian. On June 10, 1951, Zhang Benzheng was taken to the execution site (according to eyewitness recollections at the Houshan TV Tower in Dalian Labor Park) for execution amid the sound of thousands of people's scolding. On September 10 of the same year, Liu Yutian also applied for justice after a public trial in Xinjin County (present-day Pulandian City). At this time, it had been exactly 57 spring and autumn months since the Sino-Japanese War.