When compiling Xiang Ying's chronology, she searched for materials related to Xiang Ying's wife Zhang Liang in many ways, but due to the scarcity of historical materials, she always seemed to be covered with a veil...
Zhang Liang, the ex-wife of Xiang Ying, deputy commander of the New Fourth Army, mysteriously disappeared in 1938. Some say she was shot and killed by her husband, Xiang Ying, while others say she ran away with a Kuomintang agent. More than seventy years later, the memoirs of a hundred-year-old Red Army soldier confirm that she was involved in a case and was secretly executed.
How did she lead to the killing? Why didn't Xiang Ying go to save her? This article reveals this secret for you.
Twisty love
Zhang Liang's early life was very vague, no one said where her home was, what the situation was in the family, her daughter Xiang Suyun vaguely heard that she was from Sichuan, and how she got to Shanghai was still a mystery.
The only photograph left by Zhang Liang (right) is in the memorial hall of the first congress site
Zhang Liang's first husband was Wang Yifei.
When Wang Yifei was studying at the Shaoxing Normal School, he listened to Lu Xun and Fan Ainong's lessons, was a student of Lu Xun and Fan Ainong, and later went to the school founded by Chen Duxiu to learn Russian. In 1921, Wang Yifei was sent to the Soviet Union. In 1925, Wang Yifei returned to China and met the young and beautiful Zhang Liang, because the hormones in his body worked, and the two soon lived together.
Wang Yifei talked to Peng Shuzhi's wife Chen Bilan about the reason why he and Zhang Liang had a hasty cohabitation:
"Because I needed a member of the opposite sex, I quickly moved in with this lesbian. Since there is no time for love, it adopts a quick-fix strategy to solve the needs of the opposite sex. ”
This combination without emotional basis is destined not to last long, and soon after they live together, the difference in personality is revealed. Zhang Liang has a straightforward personality, speaks quickly, and sometimes speaks without going through the brain. Wang Yifei is emotionally rich, very talented, and likes gentle and amorous women.
In order to get rid of Zhang Liang, Wang Yifei thought of a way to send Zhang Liang to the Soviet Union to study. As soon as Zhang Liang arrived in the Soviet Union, Wang Yifei married Lu Yuwen. Zhang Liang was so angry that he jumped to his feet in Moscow and scolded Wang Yifei. "If she is at home, she will definitely make a big fuss, at this time she is abroad, the whip is out of reach, and she can only scold and scold."
Wang Yifei and Lu Xiaowen are true love, and during the two years of his marriage to Lu Yuxia, he wrote 51 emotional letters to Lu Huowen, from which it can be seen that he has a deep affection for Lu Huowen.
Wang Yifei and Lu Xiaowen
In 1927, Zhang Liang returned from the Soviet Union to work in the Central Organs of Shanghai and met Xiang Ying, who was engaged in the workers' movement in Shanghai. She and Xiang Ying are both outgoing personalities, hospitable, and fell in love at first sight, and soon married Xiang Ying. In 1931, their daughter Xiang Suyun was born, and when her daughter was born, Xiang Ying had already gone to the Central Soviet District. The following year, Zhang Liang entrusted his daughter to an underground party organization, and he and Chen Chunying and others braved artillery fire to leave Shanghai by steamship and went to the Central Soviet Region to reunite with Xiang Ying.
In the Su District, Zhang Liang gave birth to another boy named A Dog.
In 1934, the Long March of the Central Red Army, Xiang Ying remained in the Soviet area to fight guerrillas. Chiang Kai-shek mobilized a large army to suppress it, and the guerrillas were in a difficult situation, so Chen Yi and Xiang Ying let the personnel of the organs break into pieces and break through. At this time, Zhang Liang was pregnant again, holding a big belly, and the troops were unable to move, so Xiang Ying asked her to transfer from Fujian to Hong Kong or Shanghai with the sick Qu Qiubai, the elderly He Shuheng, and the women's minister who escorted documents, Zhou Yuelin.
Zhang Liang wanted to take her child born in the Su district with him and transfer it, but Qu Qiubai thought it was inappropriate. Zhou Yuelin also said, "Yes, you have one in your belly and hold another one in your hand, how can you move?" ”
Zhou Yuelin said the truth, Zhang Liang listened but was angry, and Looked at Zhou Yuelin and said, "Who is like you, childless, childless, carefree." ”
This shows her brainless personality, in fact, Zhou Yuelin has three children, two children left in the Soviet Union, since then there is no news, one was born in the Soviet union, she endured the pain of sending people. It's just that she put the revolution first and never revealed her concern for her son
Zhou Yuelin was with female soldiers of the Red Army
On their way to transfer, Zhang Liang's unobstructed personality made Qu Qiubai very uneasy. Once Zhou Yuelin chatted with Qu Qiubai and said, "You are not in good health, go to Shanghai or Hong Kong, and quickly be hospitalized." Qu Qiubai instructed her: "I really live in the hospital, you don't tell Zhang Liang my address, and don't let her know your address, she is quick and easy to show her mouth." ”
It turns out that Qu Qiubai's worries are not unreasonable, and Zhang Liang is indeed relatively "fast-mouthed".
On February 26, 1935, they came to Changting, Fujian Province, and because the security regiment guarded the bridge on the Ting River, they could only take advantage of the midnight wading water to cross the Ting River. The warriors tied up a improvised stretcher and carried the frail and highly myopic Qu Qiubai and He Shuheng across the river. Zhou Yuelin tried, the water was not deep, wanted to wade across the river with Zhang Liang, Zhang Liang refused, stood by the river, waiting for the soldiers to carry her across the river.
It took a lot of time for the soldiers to carry stretchers back and forth, and when they all crossed the river, it was already dawn, and the soldiers were soaked in clothes, tired and hungry, and they were cooking on a fire in the nearby village of Xiaoyi, and the cooking smoke they cooked was discovered by the security regiment and surrounded them.
Deng Zihui let the guards return fire while letting Qu Qiubai and the others run up the mountain. He Shuheng did not want to drag them down and jumped off the cliff. Qu Qiubai, Zhang Liang, and Zhou Yuelin hid in a field of grass, Qu Qiubai accidentally bumped into a tree, the security group bluffed, shouting to shoot, Zhang Liang was frightened and pale, and unconsciously shouted: "Don't shoot, don't shoot, let's go out!" ”
After they were arrested, the enemy did not discover their true identities at first, they thought that the arrest of the two women was a burden, and let Zhang Liang and Zhou Yuelin bail out. A candy shop owner who has no children, he bails Zhang Liang out, and lets Zhang Liang give birth to a child for him. A battalion commander of the security regiment took Zhou Yuelin out and asked Zhou Yuelin to be his sister-in-law who was about to give birth as a nanny.
They were not very reassured about Qu Qiubai and asked Qu Qiubai to "pave the way." Qu Qiubai's wife Yang Zhihua and his friend Lu Xun were trying to build a shop to keep Qu Qiubai out, and Qu Qiubai's identity was exposed.
Who betrayed Qu Qiubai
For a long time, people suspected that it was Zhang Liang and Zhou Yuelin, they were arrested together with Qu Qiubai, Qu Qiubai was killed, but they survived, not them or who?
According to Song Xilian, commander of the Kuomintang 36th Division, he was initially unaware of Qu Qiubai's arrest, and a month after Qu Qiubai's arrest, he received a secret telegram from Chiang Kai-shek: "According to reliable information, qu Qiubai, the leader of the communist bandits, must be strictly investigated among the captives of your department." Song Xilian did not dare to be sloppy, and sent the chief of staff to carefully examine all the Red Army prisoners, and no suspects were found.
He remembered that the Fourteenth Regiment of Security was also searching for Red Army guerrillas nearby, and called the Fourteenth Regiment of Security to inquire about the prisoners, and Zhong Shaokui, the leader of the Fourteenth Regiment, called back:
"In the Battle of Tingshuikou, the head of the investigation regiment, one male bandit was captured, and two female bandits, Zhou Lianyu and Chen Xiuying, were repeatedly examined, and Lin Qixiang seemed to be a pseudonym of Qu Qiubai, and on the order of the Commander of the Song Division, he was sent to Changting for interrogation, and Zhou Lianyu was identified by the captives as Xiang Ying's wife, and the bandit had also confessed, Chen Xiuying was cunning in speech, and according to the captive Bing yun, he seemed to be liang Baitai's wife, and hereby only sent the two names of the female bandits Zhou Lianyu and Chen Xiuying together with the confession to the Junbu Department."
From Zhong Shaokui's callback, it can be seen that Zhang Liang and Zhou Yuelin pseudonym Zhou Lianyu and Chen Xiuying, the enemy did not find their true identities, they were captured to identify their identities. After Zhang Liang was captured and identified, he "confessed", and Zhou Yuelin refused to admit his true identity. This is related to Zhang Liang's consistent "fast-talking" personality, which does not mean that she is a traitor.
The telegrams exchanged by the Kuomintang were not known to the people in the revolutionary ranks, they only knew that Zhang Liang, Zhou Yuelin, and Qu Qiubai were arrested together, Qu Qiubai was killed, and they came out alive, so they decided that they were traitors. Even on the Kuomintang side, Song Xilian and Zhong Shaokui did not know how Chiang Kai-shek had obtained "reliable intelligence."
Song Xilian was a close friend of Chen Geng and applied for the Whampoa Military Academy together, and was secretly introduced to the party by Chen Geng in his early years
Peng Shuzhi's wife, Chen Bilan, said of Zhang Liang:
"On May 7, 1935, she and Zhou Yuelin accompanied Qu Qiubai, Deng Zihui, and He Shuheng back to Shanghai through Fujian in disguise, and were arrested by the Kuomintang... Zhang Liang (Zhang Liang) confessed Qu Qiubai's real name, and as a result Qu was shot at Longyan on June 2 of that year, and Zhang Liang followed a Kuomintang soldier
Chen Fusheng, an old Red Army soldier, also said in his memoirs:
"When the Central Red Army left the Soviet zone in October 1934, it left her in the Soviet zone to continue the struggle, and then she was arrested and defected, and after defecting to the enemy, she married a Kuomintang agent."
It can be seen that after Zhang Liang was arrested, he defected to the enemy, which was a "consensus" in the revolutionary ranks.
Qu Qiubai was killed in Changting, Fujian Province, Zhang Liang and Zhou Yuelin were sentenced to ten years in prison, and Zhang Liang bore a son in prison.
In 1937, the War of Resistance broke out in an all-round way, and the two parties cooperated for the second time. In early 1938, Zhou Yuelin's husband's friends used the opportunity to release her and Zhang Liang from prison on bail.
Zhang Liang came out of prison and couldn't wait to reunite with her husband Xiang Ying. Because she did not know where Xiang Ying was, she took her child to the headquarters of the New Fourth Army in Nanchang. The military department immediately informed Xiang Ying of this news, and Xiang Ying rushed with several guards, who played outside with their children, and Xiang Ying and Zhang Liang talked secretly in a room for more than an hour. After Xiang Ying came out, he didn't say anything, sat down with Zeng Shan, the head of the organization, for a while, and left, never to see Zhang Liang again.
According to Li Yihao, the former secretary of the New Fourth Army, Xiang Ying knew that Zhang Liang had been arrested, but he could not determine whether Zhang Liang had defected, so he could not take Zhang Liang in, so he gave Zhang Liang some money and let Zhang Liang go.
The mystery of Zhang Liang's whereabouts
In the eyes of most people, Zhang Liang disappeared after leaving Xiang Ying.
In fact, not long after, Zhang Liang appeared in Yan'an and sent her son born in prison to the Central Nursery School, and Xu Mingqing, director of the Yan'an Women's Federation, met her. It's just that very few people have seen her, and people think she is missing.
After handing over her son to Yan'an, Zhang Liang disappeared completely, and no one ever saw her again.
How could a big living person disappear for no reason? In the era of peace, it will definitely be investigated, and in the war years, there are too many people who have sacrificed, and many people have defected from the party or defected, and people think that she may have run away with the Kuomintang agents.
Since she didn't have any friends, she had no contact with her family. Husband Xiang Ying died in 1941, and ex-boyfriend Wang Yifei died in 1928. The people she had a close relationship with were gone, so no one cared where she went.
Zhang Liang gave birth to three children, the whereabouts of the children who remained in the Soviet district are unknown, and the other two children grew up in Yan'an. When they left their mothers, the two children did not remember anything, and there was no impression of mothers in their minds, for them, mothers were just a symbol, and the uncles and aunts who often cared for and raised them were more like relatives.
Because people think that Zhang Liang is a traitor, they try not to mention her name in front of their children, and her children have never felt that there is a mother in the world.
Zhang Liang's son died of illness before he was forty years old, and only his daughter Xiang Suyun was still alive. As Xiang Suyun entered the old age of life, she wanted to figure out a question more and more: Where did her mother go? Was she actually shot and killed by her dad?
When Xiang Suyun was 82 years old, he finally heard the whereabouts of his mother from Chen Fusheng, a hundred-year-old Red Army soldier. According to his recollection, in March 1931, three different cadets came to Yan'an Public School, the male named Zhang Xing, a Trotskyist, two women, one about 30 years old, dignified and very mobile, was Mrs. Xiang Ying, and another beautiful woman of about 20 years old was the wife of a gendarmerie captain under Hu Zongnan. The three of them walked together for some reason and came to Yan'an Public School together.
The "Resurrection of the Nine Dead: An Oral History of a Hundred-Year-Old Red Army" published by the Central Literature Publishing House is Chen Fusheng's oral account. The book says: In March 1938, there were 3 quite different students from the Shaanxi North Public School in Yan'an, one man and two women, and the male Zhang Xing, who was already 38 years old, physically disabled, and missing an arm. A woman of about 30 years old, although not very beautiful, but also very dignified, from the speech and demeanor can be seen, she has a strong ability to move. The other woman was only 20 years old and looked very pretty. These 3 people have some identity. According to reliable intelligence from secret party organizations, Zhang Xing was a graduate of the sixth term of the Whampoa Military Academy, secretary of the Shanxi branch of the Trotskyist faction, and his public identity in Shanxi was a military commander under Yan Xishan; the elderly woman was originally Comrade Xiang Ying's lover, and when the Central Red Army left the Soviet zone in October 1934, she remained in the Soviet zone to persist in the struggle, and then was arrested and defected, and after defecting to the enemy, she married a Kuomintang agent. The young woman was the wife of a gendarmerie captain under Hu Zongnan. As for why these 3 people came to Yan'an together, the situation is unclear. On the basis of this information, the Reconnaissance Department of the Security Service (the minister at the time was Bulu, and Chen Fusheng had already worked in the Ministry of Enforcement) immediately arrested the three men. However, during the interrogation, there was trouble, Zhang Xing did not say a word, detained him for a month, and did not know anything. In this case, Zhang Xingxing was handed over to the Executive Department for interrogation. Chen Fusheng adopted a roundabout tactic against Zhang Xing, using a softening method to take a confession, and one of the confessions said that Kang Sheng had joined the Trotskyist organization. Chen Fusheng felt the seriousness of the matter, so he comprehensively reported the progress of the work and Zhang Xing's confession to his superiors, including the issue he talked about Kang Sheng. It's been June. However, Wanwan did not expect that Kang Sheng knew about this matter, and in order to prevent Zhang Xing and others from leaking his secret, Kang Sheng had Zhang Xing and Zhang Liang secretly executed
At this point, Zhang Liang's whereabouts were finally understood, she did not defect, nor did she elope with the Kuomintang agents, but after she was released from prison, she took the child to find her husband Xiang Ying, Xiang Ying did not take her in, she went to Yan'an, handed over her son to the party organization to raise, went to Yan'an Public School to study, was vaguely involved in the Kangsheng Tuopai case, and was secretly executed by Kangsheng.
From her release from prison to her execution, in less than half a year, few people have seen her, she was secretly executed, secretly buried, people do not know the news of her death, thinking that she is missing, and then derived from the rumor that she was shot and killed by her husband Xiang Ying.
Did Xiang Ying know that Zhang Liang had been secretly executed? Xiang Ying most likely knew.
According to their daughter Xiang Suyun, in the autumn of 1938, Xiang Ying went to Yan'an for a meeting, and when he saw a pair of children for the first time, he was very happy, and it was not enough to hold his children and kiss them, and his daughter asked him, where is his mother? He said his mother was gone.
Zhang Liang was executed in June 1938, only two or three months after Xiang Ying held a meeting, Xiang Ying went to Yan'an for a meeting and would definitely inquire about his wife's whereabouts, Kang Sheng of course could not say that he killed Zhang Liang, he was likely to tell people that Zhang Liang had betrayed the revolution and was executed by him. Xiang Ying would not doubt it, and he could not be sure in his heart whether Zhang Liang was a traitor or not.
It was not until a few decades later, when the departments concerned saw in an old newspaper that "the wife of the secretary of the ChiGong Fujian Province surrendered and confessed the identity of qu Qiubai," that they knew that after the arrest of Xu Shi, the wife of Wan Yongcheng, former secretary of the Fujian Provincial CPC Committee, the news of Qu Qiubai's arrest had nothing to do with Zhang Liang and Zhou Yuelin.
If this newspaper had not been discovered, Zhang Liang and Zhou Yuelin would have suffered injustice forever, and if the old Red Army who participated in the interrogation of Zhang Liang had not lived to be more than a hundred years old, Zhang Liang's whereabouts would have become a mystery forever.
Zhang Liang's ending is also related to her personal character. She had done underground work, but she did not have the caution that an underground worker should have, her mouth was unguarded, it was easy to offend people, people were afraid that she would leak secrets and deliberately alienate her, she had no friends to live and die, and no one really cared about her. Her breathless, impatient temper makes it easy to believe that she will "divulge secrets", and when people hear the news of her rebellion, people do not think it is incredible, but acquiesce to the possibility.
This ending is really emotional and helpless?