As one of Chiang Kai-shek's two major secret service systems, the rigor of its organization and the rigor of its discipline are beyond doubt. Moreover, Dai Kasa, the head of the military command, had absolute prestige in the system and at the same time won the trust of Chiang Kai-shek. Therefore, during the period when Dai Kasa was in charge, although there were many small groups within the military command, and there were also attacks between various small groups, because of the existence of Dai Kasa, a political strongman, the contradictions within the military command did not intensify. After Dai Kasa's death in a plane crash in March 1946, the internal struggle for military command was in full swing.
During the period when Dai Kasa was in charge, there were three main factions within the military command, namely the Zheng Jiemin faction, the Mao Renfeng faction, and the Tang Zhong faction. After Dai Kasa's death, the three factions first fought for the property left behind by Dai Kasa. Zheng Jiemin took possession of a large mansion left by Dai In Shanghai; Mao Renfeng and Tang Zhong also seized one each. In addition, Dai Kasa left behind four new cars donated by the US secret service, Chiang Kai-shek and He Yingqin each got one, and Zheng, Mao, and Tang were three.
After a battle for one for each of Zheng and Mao, Tang Zhong was very dissatisfied because his power within the military command was relatively weak compared to Zheng Jiemin and Mao Renfeng, so he only got an old-fashioned sedan. The struggle at the top made "many people in the military command want to emulate and often quarrel over things", so Dai Kasa's death made the hidden factional struggle within the military command surface. In 1946, the military command was reorganized, and its public part was merged with the Second Department of Military Orders of the Kuomintang Military Commission to form the Second Department of the Ministry of National Defense, with Zheng Jiemin as the director; the core part of the internal part was renamed the Secrecy Bureau, with Mao Renfeng as the director. Through this restructuring, a system of two groups has emerged in the military command.
After the completion of the organizational readjustment, Zheng Jiemin, who was in charge of the external secret service organization of the Military Command, in order to prevent Mao Renfeng from monopolizing power within the Secrecy Bureau, sent his close associate Zhang Jixun to be the director of the bureau's office, and stipulated that documents from all places should be sent to the bureau chief's office first; in addition, Zheng Jiemin also sent his fellow villager Wang Qing as the office commissioner. Zheng Jiemin hopes to control the internal information of the Secrecy Bureau through personnel arrangements and empty Mao Renfeng. In this situation, Mao Renfeng chose to confront Zheng Jiemin with Tang Zhong, who was already the director of the National Police Department. In order to gain Tang Zhong's support, Mao Renfeng gave several cars to the General Police Bureau and agreed to Tang's call of the secrecy bureau cadres. Subsequently, Mao Renfeng took advantage of the contradiction between Shen Jiemin, who was in charge of finance in the Secrecy Bureau, and Zheng Jiemin's wife, Ke Shufen, to instigate Shen Jiemin to make a big fuss for Zheng Jiemin's fiftieth birthday, and hinted at other subordinates to send Zheng Hou gifts; at the same time, he instructed the survivors of the military command to ask for a pension on Zheng Jiemin's livelihood day. Subsequently, Mao Renfeng reported the situation of Zheng Jiemin's livelihood to Chiang Kai-shek in order to strike at Zheng Jiemin.
In the face of Mao Renfeng's framing, Zheng Jie found out the reason for it and began to attack him. He targets the financial drunkenness of the head of the business, hoping to retaliate against him by finding evidence of embezzlement through the drunkenness. However, he was unable to do so because he was drunk and had no financial problems. Subsequently, Zheng Jiemin shifted his target to Shen's subordinates, and found out that the director of general affairs, Deng Yifu, had sold foreign locks privately, and used this as an excuse to shoot Deng. As a result, the contradictions between the two factions have completely intensified.
In order to overthrow Zheng Jiemin, Mao Renfeng instructed Shen Drunken to secretly collect information on Zheng Jiemin's corruption and give the information to Chiang Kai-shek after verifying it. Eventually, Chiang Kai-shek dismissed Zheng Jiemin from his posts in the Second Department of the Ministry of National Defense and the Secrecy Bureau. As a result, Mao Renfeng successfully squeezed out Zheng Jiemin and took sole power within the military command. After that, in order to establish absolute authority within the Secrecy Bureau, Mao Renfeng began to eliminate the Zheng forces in the Secrecy Bureau. He first drove away Zhang Jixun, Wang Qing, and others who were placed by Zheng Jiemin's side; subsequently, he completely controlled the organs originally controlled by Zheng Jiemin. After completing the purge of the headquarters, he also took action on the peripheral and local organizations of the army.
He sent his cronies to take over the shanghai police headquarters inspection office and the chief traffic police; later, he attacked Ma Hansan, the director of the Beiping Civil Affairs Bureau and zheng Jiemin's economic support, and took advantage of Chiang Kai-shek's dispute with Li Zongren to frame Ma Hansan for secretly supporting Li Zongren and shooting him. Through this series of operations, Mao Renfeng successfully dismantled the forces of Zheng Jiemin within the Secrecy Bureau and completed the control of the Secrecy Bureau.
Resources
[1] Shen Drunkenly: "The Inside Story of Military Command"