In October 1979, Marshal Ye Jianying received a very unusual letter from his old acquaintance, The Northeast Veteran Wang Yuzhen.
In the 6,000-word letter, Wang Yuzhan stated the fact that in the "Xi'an Incident" in 1936, the person who really led the team to capture Chiang Kai-shek alive was not Sun Mingjiu, but himself.
It is undeniable that who fired the first shot of "catching Chiang Kai-shek" during the Xi'an Incident was, and the truth about this period that affected the history of the Chinese nation has been falsely spread by the people of the world for many years.
As Wang Yuzhan said at the end of his letter, if he were distorting historical facts, there was really no need to risk such a dedication to reverse black and white when the public all recognized Sun Mingjiu as the "first person to catch Jiang".
Who is Wang Yuzhen? Who is Sun Mingjiu in his mouth? After 43 years, why does the elderly Wang Yuzhan have to be more truthful in the face of historical facts that have been settled, and how many hidden feelings are behind all this?
It seems that Marshal Ye Jianying has the same questions as us in the face of this letter, precisely because of his instructions and his strict attitude toward the authenticity of historical facts, and the truth of the issue of "catching Chiang Kai-shek" in the Xi'an Incident has been confirmed by the truth.
The Xi'an Incident, the most important part of China's struggle history that should not be erased and ignored, clarifies the whole process of "catching Jiang" in Lintong Huaqingchi, which is responsible to the people of the country and is also the most important last wish of the deceased Premier Zhou.
From the Xi'an Incident to 1979, people learned about the whole picture of the incident mainly through the American journalist Edgar Snow's recollection of Sun Mingjiu's memories of this incident in "Journey to the West", and Sun Mingjiu himself published numerous descriptions of the whole process of his capture of Chiang Kai-shek in "People's Daily", "Liberation Daily", and "Wen Wei Po".
Although historians have been convinced for a long time that Sun Mingjiu was the first person to "catch Jiang", in the eyes of some rigorous scholars, there are still many doubtful places in Sun Mingjiu's description, and even Marshal Ye Jianying has some small confusion about this historical fact in his heart.
First of all, in the information provided by Sun Mingjiu, Wang Yuzhuan was never mentioned, which clearly marked that Sun Mingjiu's account was unreasonable in reason.
From the perspective of rigorous record-keeping of historical truths, Sun Mingjiu did not mention Wang Yuzhen, who was the commander of the first battalion of the Guards at that time, in the materials, and blurred the identity of the commander of the second battalion of his guards into the commander of the guards.
Secondly, in the description of the scene of the most important live capture plan, Sun Mingjiu's many descriptions also appear inconsistent.
For example, in the description of the most important plot of the live capture, the statements such as "directly pounding the five halls" and "not knowing the specific location of the five halls where Jiang lived" are obviously inconsistent.
Such a contrast cannot help but make people wonder: At that time, the action group that did not know the specific location of the Five Rooms Hall came from Sun Mingjiu's "straight pounding" statement?
Although there are loopholes in the historical facts narrated by Sun Mingjiu, no one has raised a well-founded question for decades, and people naturally cannot be sure that his statements have a fictitious component, and at most they can only conclude that his description of historical facts is not rigorous enough.
It was not until October 1979, as mentioned in the opening paragraph, that Marshal Ye Jianying received this letter from a veteran of northeast China, which finally revealed the true face of the historical facts of the Xi'an Incident, and people finally knew Wang Yuzhen as an important figure.
The reason why Wang Yuzhan chose to expose this matter 43 years later, many of them had no choice, from hiding from Chiang Kai-shek's forced choice to live in a low-key manner in the military, to serving a sentence unjustly in peacetime, in his own difficult years, the truth was falsely rumored.
When Ye Jianying received this special letter, he immediately instructed the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee to conduct in-depth verification of the facts mentioned in the letter, and when the investigators verified 22 clues and visited the witnesses mentioned by Wang Yuzhan, they found that Wang Yuzhan not only participated in the Xi'an incident, he was also an important leader.
In Yunnan, investigators found a platoon leader of the former Zhang Xueliang Guard's first battalion, who testified: "On the orders of the battalion commander Wang Yuzhan, we participated in the whole process of 'catching Jiang' in Huaqingchi. ”
After piecing together and restoring the whole process of the Xi'an Incident described by several participants, the investigators almost completely grasped the whole thing, and there was a very pertinent investigation conclusion: "When Wang Yuzhan was in Xi'an in 1936 as the commander of the first battalion of the Guard Battalion of the Northeast Army Headquarters, based on the patriotic ideology of anti-Chiang Kai-shek, he participated in the 'Double Twelve' capture of Chiang Kai-shek. ”
Although Wang Yuzhan was very satisfied with such a finding, the matter was far from over here, because the truth of the Xi'an Incident was not about his own merits, but on the right and wrongs of all the people of the country to know.
On December 13, 1981, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the Xi'an Incident, the Editorial Group of the Xi'an Incident History Of the Cultural and Historical Materials Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held a verification meeting on the "Catching Chiang" debate in Huaqingchi in Beijing, and Wang Yuzhan, Sun Mingjiu, and other witnesses were also invited to the scene.
Now it seems that behind this debate must be the vigorous promotion of Marshal Ye Jianying, and the clarification of this historical fact is also one of the last wishes of Premier Zhou before his death.
At the verification meeting, Wang Yuzhen carefully described the whole process of "catching Jiang", only to see Sun Mingjiu, who was sitting opposite him, dumbfounded in the face of the questioning around him, and even at the moment of shame and embarrassment, he could only choose to bow his head and be silent.
After the analysis and restoration of literary and historical experts, everyone determined that the second battalion of the Guards led by Sun Mingjiu had been involved in the internal defense work of the party and government organs of the Northeast Army, while the "catch Jiang" operation for which Wang Yuzhuan was responsible took place on the periphery, and Sun Mingjiu could not have completed this task alone while bypassing Wang Yuzhuan.
So what is such a historical fact that has been falsely passed down by posterity for many years? In the materials left by Wang Yuzhen, the process of "catching Jiang" is described in great detail and rigor.
Born in 1896 in a village in Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, Wang Yuzhan joined the Northeast Army at the age of 18 and was transferred to work with Zhang Xueliang after graduating from the Northeast Wutang at the age of 33.
On November 12, 1930, Zhang Xueliang came to Nanjing to serve as the deputy commander of the army, sea and air force, and Wang Yuzhen was one of the entourage.
In 1935, he was appointed battalion commander of the Guard Battalion of the Pingjin Garrison Command, responsible for the security and protection of important figures at that time, which became the key to his future leadership of the "Capture of Chiang" operation.
On December 4, 1936, Chiang Kai-shek, who was then, came to Xi'an again to force Generals Zhang and Yang to participate in the "suppression of the Communists" and stayed in Huaqingchi, and the guard task that Wang Yuzhan received was precisely the peripheral guard of Huaqingchi, that is, in addition to Chiang Kai-shek's personal guard, Wang Yuzhan at that time was the person who had the opportunity to be closest to Chiang.
On December 10, Zhang Xueliang once again came to the Five Halls of Huaqingchi to give "strong advice", hoping that Chiang Kai-shek would devote himself to the anti-Japanese resistance, at this time, he would only become a national sinner, and this time he still left with the hatred of his family and the country.
On December 11, Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang once again had a long talk, and at 16:00, Zhang Xueliang, who was about to leave Huaqingchi, called Wang Yuzhen, who was on duty, to leave together.
Coming to No. 1 Jinjia Lane on the south side of Dongmenli East Avenue Road, in the solitude between Zhang Xueliang and Wang Yuzhan, Wang Yuzhen received a special order: "Order you to invite Chairman Jiang into the city!" ”
When Wang Yuzhan heard Zhang Xueliang's command again, "If you want to catch him alive, don't kill him," he realized that General Zhang, who had repeatedly failed to advise, was finally going to carry out "military advice."
For Wang Yuzhan, he had long been bitter about Chiang Kai-shek's proposed deployment of "outside the house must first be inside", and even several times wanted to take advantage of the guard position to directly result in Chiang Kai-shek, so he did not feel fear in his heart about the instructions issued by Zhang Xueliang, and even had indescribable excitement.
After some meticulous deployment, the two did not leave the mansion until 2 a.m. on the 12th, and then rode a motorcycle along the road for operational deployment.
He first came to Shilipu to convey the order to the commander of the cavalry company to capture Jiang, and then ordered the pistol platoon in Baqiao Town to participate in the operation, and then ordered a company to prepare for the operation such as the disarmament of the gendarmerie and the replacement of the guards at the southern gate.
The reason why the gathering of various parts of the forces was personally conveyed by Wang Yuzhan was precisely because the "capture of Chiang" operation was extremely secret, and for the sake of prudence, the various units were not communicating with each other in advance.
At 4:00 a.m., Wang Yuzhen, who had completed all the deployment, finally rushed back to Huaqingchi, and the Lintong wilderness of that day was cold and silent.
Wang Yuzhan crossed the courtyard, the Three Gardens Gate was in front of him, he first fired three consecutive shots at one of Chiang Kai-shek's guards, and then ordered the guards to attack a battalion of fighters, while Sun Mingjiu was still on the way to support.
In Wang Yuzhan's recollection, it is mentioned that when he killed the sentry inside the gate to the ground, the Xi'an Incident officially began, and he also instantly changed from a defender of Chiang Kai-shek to a pioneer of "catching Chiang Kai-shek".
At this time, Wang Yuzhen rushed into the Gate of the Three Gardens with his subordinates Wang Shimin, Ma Tiyu and others, and after killing many guards, the rest of Chiang Kai-shek's guards could only rely on the doors and windows to resist desperately.
Subsequently, the second battalion of the guards led by Sun Mingjiu merged with the pistol platoon led by Jin Wanpu, the first battalion of Wang Yuzhuan, and a large number of people rushed to participate in the battle by truck, and the Lishan Valley at this time was full of gunshots and grenades.
When Wang Yuzhan and Wang Shimin walked quickly to the third hall where Chiang Kai-shek lived, they saw that Chiang Kai-shek's bedroom was empty, but the remaining temperature of the nest was still warm, and Chiang Kai-shek's clothes were not taken away, and there were even his dentures in the cup on the table.
From this, Wang Yuzhan concluded that Chiang Kai-shek must have fled in a hurry, and at this moment, he received a call from Zhang Xueliang: "If you can't catch Chiang Kai-shek, you should be punished as a rebel!" ”
For Wang Yuzhen, he did not care about any crime of rebellion, and he did not even pay attention to the matter of life and death, at the moment he was concerned about capturing Chiang Kai-shek alive in order not to delay the grand plan of the two armies.
When Shi Zhizhong, a soldier of a battalion of pistol platoons, reported that a shoe had been found on the back wall, Wang Yuzhan judged that Chiang Kai-shek was most likely to have escaped over the wall to Lishan, and immediately ordered a battalion of soldiers to search the mountain on the left, and Sun Mingjiu ordered other battalion soldiers to search the mountain from the right.
When the group searched the mountain, the sky was already dark, and the northern slope of Lishan Mountain was full of soldiers searching for Chiang Kai-shek, and finally, they found Chiang Kai-shek hiding in the rocks and weeds halfway up the mountainside 500 meters away from the Five Halls.
In the process of carrying out the arrest, Wang Yuzhan was also the first to come to Chiang Kai-shek's side to capture him and hand him over to the fighters, at this time he successfully completed the task of "catching Chiang", the action team "invited" Chiang Kai-shek from the northern slope of Lishan Mountain to the bottom of the mountain, and then Tan Hai and others escorted him to the Xi'an New Town Building, which was the temporary joint headquarters of Generals Zhang and Yang.
At this point, the whole process of "catching Jiang" related to the Xi'an Incident has been clearly and clearly understood, and Wang Yuzhan is also the unquestionable "first person to catch Jiang.".
In fact, after the completion of the "catch of Chiang Kai-shek" operation, most of the officers of the Northeast Army did not approve of a peaceful settlement of the issue of how to deal with Chiang Kai-shek, which officially stemmed from the appearance of Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying at that time, and the whole thing was able to turn things around, and it was because of this meeting that Wang Yuzhen was deeply impressed by Ye Jianying, and only wrote to him many years later, and the reason was here.
Although Wang Yuzhan was commended by Zhang Xueliang for his success in "catching Chiang Kai-shek" in Huaqingchi, in the following years of war, in order to avoid Chiang Kai-shek's attention, he could only avoid the Yunnan army until the Yunnan uprising.
In 1956, at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Xi'an Incident, Wang Yuzhan failed to participate because he had been unjustly sentenced in Fushun Prison.
The world is uncertain, for Wang Yuzhan, he missed the opportunity to disclose the truth for various reasons, and only then did Sun Mingjiu impersonate for 43 years, fortunately, when all the dust settled, the hero was able to return to his place, and the truth was revealed to the world!