In late September 1949, on the eve of the founding of New China, Chiang Kai-shek flew from Taiwan to Guangzhou, and in order to ease the contradictions between the two men, Li Zongren invited Chiang Kai-shek to a banquet. Unexpectedly, when Chiang Kai-shek ate, he took out the knife and fork he brought with him to eat Western food to eat Chinese food, and Chiang Ching-kuo stared at it in the kitchen, and the recipe of each dish had to be looked at, and each dish was allowed to be served after tasting before serving.
Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren
Afterwards, Li Zongren felt greatly insulted and knew that the relationship between the two would be difficult to ease. Today, we recall the story of the last lunch of the Chiang family dynasty.
The Last Supper
On the eve of the founding of New China, Chiang Kai-shek had already flown to Taiwan, a retreat route created in advance, but he was still worried about the mainland in his heart and hoped that a miracle would appear to turn the tide of the war. After flying to Guangzhou, he lived in the Zhongzheng Park of the Whampoa Military Academy, where it was safer to live here, and second, the generals of the Nationalist Army were from Huangpu, and he hoped to arouse the memories of the generals' green years, work hard, and give it a go.
As soon as he arrived in Huangpu, he called out to Bai Chongxi, Yu Hanmou, Xue Yue, Li Hanling, and others, and scolded them. Because, his secret service system sent a message to him, saying that Zhang Fakui, Yu Hanmou, Xue Yue and others were dissatisfied with him and were trying to conspire with Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi against him. This made Chiang Kai-shek very angry, and after a scolding, Chiang Kai-shek threatened several people and said:
"Do you think you can oppose me now?" Who opposes me, isn't it posing? Hu Hanmin, Li Jishen, and Chen Jitang all opposed me, but what was the result? None of the people who opposed me had a good ending. Do you want to take advantage of the difficult times to me? I told you one by one that there were no good results! ”
Several people did not know what Chiang Kai-shek meant, just listened, no one squeaked, scolded, saw that everyone bowed their heads and did not speak, thinking that his rebuke had played a role, Chiang Kai-shek's anger gradually disappeared.
Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi
Subsequently, Chiang Kai-shek held an extraordinary meeting of the Central Committee in Guangzhou, at which Chiang Kai-shek saw Li Zongren, and the two did not even make a superficial greeting. Later, Zhu Jiahua felt that if he continued like this, he would become more and more unkind, and he found Li Zongren and suggested that he come forward to invite Jiang to dinner. Li Zongren said, "Brother Xiaoxian, please eat, I don't know if Mr. Jiang likes to come or not!" At Zhu Jiahua's instigation, Li Zongren hosted a dinner party at the Nationalist State Guest House where he was staying, and hosted a banquet for Chiang Kai-shek. For this dinner, Li Zongren made great efforts, invited the best chefs, selected the best materials, and even the menu was carefully designed, and specially made the famous Cantonese dish Dragon tiger bucket.
Chiang Kai-shek did indeed take Chiang Ching-kuo with him and went to the banquet surrounded by bodyguards. What puzzled Li Zongren was that Chiang Ching-kuo never came to the table, and he asked Chiang Kai-shek if he wanted to invite Chiang Ching-kuo to sit down as soon as possible, and Chiang Kai-shek said without looking up: "Don't worry about him, we can just eat!" Saying, Chiang Kai-shek took out the knife and fork he carried with him, Li Zongren was very surprised, obviously eating Chinese food, why did Mr. Jiang bring his own knives and forks? At that time, he did not think much about it, and frequently advised Chiang Kai-shek to drink and eat vegetables, and was attentive and prepared.
After the banquet, someone told him that Chiang Ching-kuo was in the kitchen, and each dish had a detailed understanding of the ingredient preparation method, and each dish had been personally tasted before being served. Thinking of Chiang Kai-shek's strange behavior of bringing his own knife and fork at the banquet, Li Zongren suddenly realized that it turned out that Chiang's father and son were wary of themselves to such a point! Scolding Chiang Kai-shek shamelessly.
In fact, what he did not know was that Chiang Kai-shek had drawn up a list of assassinations, and he was actually the first in line, and he had planned a detailed assassination plan, but he was reclusive and did not take a plane, so he did not succeed.
Number one on the assassination list
Toward the end of the War of Liberation, Chiang Kai-shek was forced by successive defeats on the battlefield and the situation of domestic public opinion being in an uproar, and he was electrified and dismissed, and Vice President Li Zongren took up the post of acting president in Nanjing. After that, Li Zongren's first order was to release the detained political prisoners in order to release goodwill to the CCP and promote peace talks. At the same time, he was ready to release Zhang Xueliang, but as a result, his order was given, and he sent someone to take a plane to pick up Zhang Xueliang, and he could not even see Zhang Xueliang, because the agents who imprisoned Zhang Xueliang did not listen to him at all.
Unexpectedly, this completely angered Chiang Kai-shek, so that Sun Ke of the Executive Yuan moved directly to Guangzhou. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek arranged for Tang Enbo to secretly transport all the mainland's gold and dollar reserves to Taiwan. Li Zongren found that his acting president was a bare-knuckle commander, the army did not listen to him, the Executive Yuan did not listen to him, and he had no power, no money, and no one in his hands.
What he didn't know was that Chiang Kai-shek had also orchestrated a list of assassinations, wherever
Dangerous elements with dissident intentions that endanger the party-state
He is ready to get rid of important political figures who may cooperate with the CCP in the future. When Mao Renfeng submitted the list of 84 assassinations he had drawn up for review, he added Song Qingling, Zhang Xueliang, and Yang Hucheng to become the list of 87 people. In this list, Li Zongren ranked first.
Mao Renfeng formulated three sets of assassination plans against Li Zongren, (1) set up an ambush assassination at the door of his home, which was carried out by three "sharpshooters" such as Shen Drunk, Qin Jingchuan, and Northeast Wang, and as a result, Li Zongren lived in a simple and simple place, and it was difficult to implement it; (2) When Li Zongren traveled by car, he forced the vehicle to stop and snipe at a distance. This Mao Renfeng personally squatted down and discovered that Li Zongren would occasionally go to Hangzhou to play, preparing to ambush and assassinate him on the way to Hangzhou, and the result was also unsuccessful; (3) Creating an air disaster was a plan that Chiang Kai-shek most recognized, because it was difficult to find out the reason, and it was almost dead. As a result, Li Zongren did not fly during that time. Later, the situation changed, coupled with the protection and transfer of the CCP, many people Chiang Kai-shek did not kill.
For example, Song Qingling, Zhang Xueliang, Li Zongren, etc., but Yang Hucheng was soon secretly killed.
Li Zongren returned
In 1949, the Kuomintang-Communist peace talks, Li Zongren and Chiang Kai-shek did not sign, the People's Liberation Army waved its division south across the Yangtze River, and soon liberated the mainland. Chiang Kai-shek was defeated in Taiwan, and Li Zongren went to the United States on the pretext of medical treatment. Between 1956 and 1965, Li Zongren sent his secretary Cheng Siyuan to contact, probe, and visit Zhou Enlai several times to see if it was convenient for him to return to China. Chairman Mao Zedong welcomed Mr. Li Zongren back to China.
On July 20, 1965, Li Zongren and his wife Guo Dejie returned to the embrace of the motherland, and Zhou Enlai took some of Li Zongren's old friends to the airport to greet him. Seeing that Zhou Enlai personally came to pick him up, as well as his old friends who had not been seen for many years, Li Zongren issued a written statement at the airport, sincerely expressing his willingness to contribute a little more to the country.
Chairman Mao, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, and other party and state leaders successively received Li Zongren. Chairman Mao Zedong said to him:
"Please take care of your body, the Communist Party will not forget you." The old people of the party-state abroad are willing to come back at any time to welcome. ”
It has been more than 70 years since the founding of New China, the smoke and clouds of history have dissipated ethereally, and compatriots on both sides of the strait are still looking forward to an early reunion, and I believe that this day should not be too far away!