During the Republic of China period, there were four major families in China that controlled the political and economic lifeline of China, and they controlled absolute political and military resources and transformed these resources into huge wealth, and the financial resources of the four major families were invincible to the country at their peak.
These four major families are the four families of "Jiang Chen Kong Song", and the Republic of China often circulates "The Chen Family Party of the Jiang Family, the Sisters of the Song Family Kong Family Cai", which shows the depth of the control of the four major families in all fields of China.
But with the development of the war, the four major families gradually disappeared from people's vision, after the liberation of the mainland in 1949, the four major families completely disappeared, they controlled China for more than ten years before this, after more than ten years, where did the four major families go? Why did they suddenly disappear?
The history of Chiang Kai-shek's fortune
The development and decline of the four major families have a great relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, it can be said that Chiang Kai-shek and the four major families achieved each other, and finally disappeared because of each other, and Chiang Kai-shek's ups and downs in life also affected the rise and fall of the Kuomintang.
Chiang Kai-shek was a descendant of salt merchants, his father died when he was a child, and his mother single-handedly raised him.
Chiang Kai-shek entered a private school when he was a teenager, went to many schools, and his knowledge was very rich, and Chiang Kai-shek received a new-style education, and he had a deep anti-Qing ideology in his heart, which also laid the groundwork for him to devote himself to the revolution in the future.
As an adult, Chiang Kai-shek traveled east to Japan to study, where he met several people who changed his life.
Chiang Kai-shek first got to know Chen Qimei, the two saw each other as they were, and righteously married Jinlan and became righteous brothers, and later, under chen Qimei's recommendation, Chiang Kai-shek joined Mr. Sun's alliance meeting, and his conversation left a deep impression in front of Mr. Sun.
After returning to China, Chiang Kai-shek entered the Baoding Army School to study, where he met some future Kuomintang generals and made very good friends with them.
Since then, Chiang Kai-shek has thrown himself into the revolutionary cause, and Mr. Sun has gradually begun to value this talent with extremely high military talent, and when the Xinhai Revolution broke out, Chiang Kai-shek was assigned by Chen Qimei to participate in many revolutionary activities and make great contributions to the revolutionary cause.
Just when the revolutionary cause was in full swing, Chen Jiongming's rebellion gave Mr. Sun a head-on blow and also provided a good opportunity for Chiang Kai-shek's career development.
In 1922, the commander-in-chief of the Cantonese army, Chen Jiongming, rebelled, Mr. Sun had to take refuge in the Yongfeng ship, and Chiang Kai-shek guarded Mr. Sun's safety day and night with his escort for more than 40 days, which enabled Chiang Kai-shek to completely gain Mr. Sun's trust and respect for him, and Chiang Kai-shek's official position also rose all the way.
After that, Chiang Kai-shek actively attacked Chen Jiongming and participated in many battles to suppress rebellions, which were all victories and losses, and Chiang Kai-shek's outstanding achievements completely established his position in the hearts of the Kuomintang and Mr. Sun.
After Mr. Sun's death, Chiang Kai-shek sorted out the Kuomintang, excluded dissidents from the party, installed cronies, and became the number one person in the party, and in the same year, he led his troops to annihilate Chen Jiongming, a battle that made Chiang Kai-shek sit more firmly on the throne of ruling the Kuomintang.
However, the Kuomintang was not united within itself, and there were still many warlords who divided each other and tried to compete with Chiang Kai-shek for power, and Chiang Kai-shek subsequently betrayed the revolution and actively opposed communism, further intensifying the antagonism between Chiang Kai-shek and some forces in the party.
After Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling married, the Kuomintang forces of the Soong family were firmly bound to the Chiang family.
Kong Xiangxi's depravity
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek established the Nanjing Nationalist Government in Nanjing, opposing Li Zongren, Wang Jingwei and others, and finally lost the battle in the political struggle and had to choose to go to the wilderness.
The ambitious Chiang Kai-shek felt that he was weak and decided to find a patron, so he did not hesitate to abandon his wife and instead pursued the third sister of the three sisters of the Song family, Song Meiling, and married him at the end of the year, Kong Xiangxi was also the husband of Song Xialing, Chiang Kai-shek has since married Song Ziwen and Kong Xiangxi, and the rule of the four major families of the Republic of China has gradually begun.
Kong Xiangxi was a good financial expert, and after he defected to Chiang Kai-shek, he held various positions in the Kuomintang, not only as the Kuomintang finance minister, but also as the president of the central bank and the Bank of China.
Kong Xiangxi was in charge of finance for 11 years, and during his reign he implemented a series of reforms that contributed greatly to the financial growth of the Republic of China.
However, since the Kuomintang was dominated by Chiang Kai-shek's family, Kong Xiangxi was even more financially protective, and in the face of the benefits brought by power, Kong Xiangxi took it all together, and he often used his power for personal gain and embezzled a large amount of money.
Kong Xiangxi's corruption gradually exceeded his political achievements, and he was also blamed by the people, and Chiang Kai-shek always sheltered him, so that he could continue to accumulate wealth, and his series of corrupt acts were not exposed and punished.
Until 1944, the Kuomintang army was too corrupt, in the Battle of Yuxianggui rout, a large area of land fell into the hands of the enemy, the lives and property of the people suffered serious losses, and finally, under the pressure of the domestic people and the United States, Kong Xiangxi had to resign as minister of finance, and has since retreated to work behind the scenes.
After Kong Xiangxi abdicated the throne, he has been seeking a comeback, but because his family's wealth collection is too serious, and the Kong family has been earning money from the country during the war, often making some daily necessities and strange goods to live, so as to raise the price and make a windfall, the people have long seen through the ugly face of the Kong family, and Kong Xiangxi has always been discouraged in the official field.
In the end, Kong Xiangxi had no choice but to flee to the United States, and with the Kuomintang losing and retreating in the Liberation War, Kong Xiangxi's history of sucking the marrow of the Chinese people finally came to an end.
The ups and downs of the Chen brothers
Because chen Qimei had a deep relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, his nephews Chen Lifu and Chen Guofu had always been deeply respected by Chiang Kai-shek, and they not only planned to launch counter-revolutionary events such as the "Zhongshan Ship" incident during Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary period, posing a serious threat to the Communist Party, and then also established a central club faction within the Kuomintang with the aim of supporting Chiang Kai-shek and opposing communism.
Chiang Kai-shek was the leader and direct beneficiary of this faction, Chen Lifu had been the head of the Kuomintang organization after embracing Chiang Kai-shek, and had become the oldest secretary-general, and the Chen brothers had taken advantage of their leadership position in this faction to monopolize China's finances with the other three major families and extract a large amount of wealth from it.
Until the end of the Kuomintang's rule on the mainland, the Chen brothers still followed Chiang Kai-shek and held important positions in the party; after the Kuomintang defeated Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to reform the Kuomintang, but was secretly blocked by the Chen brothers and others in the party, and Chiang Kai-shek's reform plan had to be declared bankrupt, but he also saw the face of the Chen brothers and gradually overshadowed the power of the two.
Chen Guofu died of illness two years later, chen Lifu fled to the United States due to exclusion, and in his predicament, he could only make a living running a Chinese restaurant, and it was not until his later years that he was allowed to return to Taiwan, and has been holding some idle positions ever since.
The rise and fall of the four major families is closely related to the rise and fall of Chiang Kai-shek, when Chiang Kai-shek was in power of the Kuomintang, the four major families in China wantonly expropriated and violently, resulting in the credibility of the Kuomintang being constantly damaged, but the American support and war funds given to Chiang Kai-shek by the four major families also enabled Chiang Kai-shek to maintain his power.
The complicated relationship between the two sides made Chiang Kai-shek both dislike them and could not do without them, and Chiang Kai-shek's final loss of power was precisely in such a vicious circle that he constantly fell to the altar, and after Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in Taiwan, the four major families could only disappear on the mainland and be gradually forgotten by the people of the mainland.