In the 1950s and 1960s, shortly after the founding of New China, the country was in ruins and waiting to be revived, while Taiwan developed rapidly because of the large amount of gold brought by Chiang Kai-shek and the financial support of Western countries. So at that time, Taiwan's economic development far exceeded that of Chinese mainland. At that time, the Kuomintang took advantage of this advantage to attract mainland officers. Today we will talk about Zhang Qingrong, the first military officer to defect to Taiwan after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Zhang Chunsheng, whose original name was Zhang Qingrong, was a native of Baoding, Hebei Province, and joined the Eighth Route Army in Qingyuan, Hebei Province in 1938. He was an officer who led troops to charge into battle in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation; in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, he also led troops into the Korean War; after returning to China, he served as the deputy commander of a certain anti-aircraft artillery division of the Fuzhou Military Region, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Such a cadre who made a major contribution to the founding of New China had a bright future, but Zhang Qingrong repeatedly used his position to facilitate eavesdropping on the enemy's Taiwan, and coupled with the "beautiful scene" of Taiwan, he began to yearn for Taiwan. So Zhang Qingrong defected to Kinmen on December 17, 1957, driving a small fishing boat from Fujian.
Since Zhang Qingrong was the first military cadre to come to his aid after Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in Taiwan, the Taiwan authorities did not particularly trust the traitors on the mainland; after all, this was the first time this had happened. But Chiang Kai-shek personally received Zhang Qingrong, first awarded him the rank of colonel, and then introduced him to a female agent as his wife, monitoring his every move 24 hours a day. In order to avoid suspicion, Zhang Qingrong changed his name to "Zhang Chunsheng".
Zhang Qingrong's defection shocked Zhongnanhai, but at this point, he could only order rectification to prevent similar incidents from happening again. Zhang Qingrong, on the other hand, received the general treatment of a "hero" in Taiwan, becoming an interview figure in major media and a guest of honor from all over the world. They all wanted to know more about the mainland from him. In order to win the favor of the Taiwan authorities, Zhang Qingrong said a lot of things in the course of his interviews and speeches.
Although zhang Qingrong's defection made the mainland very angry, it was beyond the reach of the whip, until a year after the Zhang Qingrong incident, the mainland public security caught a Kuomintang spy who was engaged in intelligence gathering in the name of business on the mainland.
At that time, when the minister of public security Luo Ruiqing (senior general) learned of this, he used a counter-plot to send false information to Taiwan with the captured Taiwan Kuomintang spies, falsely claiming that "Zhang Qingrong was a spy and had come to surrender." When Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan learned of this, he ordered the arrest and shooting of Zhang Qingrong.