"The front is tight, the rear is tight", this is the most appropriate description of the Nationalist government under the old Chiang Kai-shek in modern times. Since the death of Mr. Zhongshan and the fall of government power to the old Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist government has changed from its original patriotic purpose to a platform for the old landlord bureaucrats and conservatives. The famous four major families are typical representatives of the magnates, with wars in the front and drunken fans in the rear.
The luxury of the four major families is well known, and the arrogance is also unbeatable, the Kong family alone earns millions of dollars from the government every year, and the wealth hidden behind the scenes is also innumerable. Around 1948, the situation of the Nationalist army was unfavorable, and the four major families were arranged to retire to Taiwan, and with it a huge amount of wealth and countless antique treasures, especially the amount of gold and silver reached an astonishing level.
At the end of 1948, the Kuomintang army collapsed in the frontal battlefield and lost the city and land all the way. And there were also many internal contradictions, and the then vice president Li Zongren directly asked the old Chiang Kai-shek to go to the field, and there were many echoes. Faced with this dilemma, the old Chiang kai-shek chose to retreat to Taiwan and taoguang to cultivate obscurity.
In order to ensure that there is enough capital to make a comeback, the old Chiang Kai-shek has repeatedly emptied the gold and silver in the treasury. At that time, the Nationalist government plundered a large amount of gold from the hands of the common people by issuing gold coupons, and at the end of 1948, there were still more than 4 million taels of gold in the treasury, but after some counting in the liberation of the country, the treasury of the local government was already empty, and Lao Jiang swept all his wealth away.
According to later investigations, Lao Jiang began to systematically transport gold from the treasury at the end of 1948, transporting a total of 5 batches, of which several times were transported to Xiamen Gulangyu Island for storage, and finally flowed to Taiwan. The amount of gold transported by Lao Jiang in these five times reached more than 4 million taels, equivalent to a market value of about 400 million US dollars at that time.
Obviously, this is a huge asset. In order to transport gold, Lao Jiang also made detailed arrangements, each time by his cronies through various names of secret transportation, there are few insiders, high confidentiality. The transport of the first batch of gold was personally responsible for Chiang Ching-kuo, and a smuggling boat was called to be responsible. In the secret archives later seized, we can know that the total amount of gold was 2 million taels, and on the night of November 30, 1948, the "Starfish" was secretly sent to the Bund in Shanghai, and then transported away urgently.
In order to ensure that this secret was not leaked, the gendarmerie was arranged to be in charge of the whole process, and even the escorts were unaware of the goods. For safety reasons, the "Starfish" was transported in several times, of which the second ship transported about 600,000 taels of gold, and was arranged to the underground warehouse of Gulangyu Island. It was not until August 1949, after the liberation of Fuzhou, that the gold was again transferred to Taiwan. With the tension of the situation, the second and third batches of gold were also urgently transferred to Taiwan, and Lao Jiang used warship escort and aircraft transportation for it, and finally emptied the mainland treasury through careful planning!
Because old Chiang was meticulous and tried his best to hide, a series of Kuomintang officials were kept in the dark, and it was not until the later period when the financial deficit was insufficient that old Chiang's plot was revealed. For a time, the crowd was indignant, and Li Zongren took the opportunity to ask for the return of this gold as a military salary, but chen Cheng, who took over Taiwan at the time, refused, and this huge wealth fell into the pocket of lao Jiang.
So later, how was this gold used? Opinions also differ on this result. The only certainty is that later, because of the tension, Chiang Kai-shek once transferred 600,000 taels of gold back to the mainland to maintain military consumption, while the total value of gold left in Taiwan was 7 million taels.
Scholars who study Taiwan's history have explained that most of this gold was used as a reserve for the New Taiwan dollar to help maintain Taiwan's social economy, but this claim has not been universally recognized. To this day, the whereabouts of this batch of gold are also a mystery, and it may not be safely stored in the warehouse! Although he took away a large amount of wealth, Old Jiang had already lost the hearts of the people, never returned to the mainland for half a step, and even if he had any layout, he had already gone with the wind!