As we all know, the first congress of the Communist Party of China was successfully held on a red boat on the south lake of Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, but in fact, before that, this groundbreaking meeting had been held in Shanghai for 9 days, but on the ninth day, a strange man suddenly broke into the assembly hall, causing the deputies to temporarily decide to change the venue of the meeting.
So who is this man? Why did a mistake make the delegates so nervous that they even had to move away immediately? This needs to be started from scratch.
July 30, 1921, was a sweltering day, and even sitting alone in the house, I would be sweating profusely for a while. However, the Restaurant of the Li Mansion on Baylor Road in shanghai's French Concession was full of people.
The CPC National Committee has been here for 9 days, except for the two days of adjournment and discussion on the 25th and 26th, since the opening ceremony on the 23rd, this small restaurant has been the venue of 15 major delegates, and this day is no exception.
Originally, according to the initial agreement of the deputies, in the severe social environment at that time, the venue needed to "shoot a shot to change a place", but apart from Li Hanjun's home, they could not find a safer place in Shanghai.
At eight o'clock in the evening, Marin, the representative of the Comintern, was preparing to speak when suddenly the hidden back door was pushed open, and a strange middle-aged man in a long shirt broke in, his eyes quickly looking around.
Li Hanjun, who was the owner of the house, immediately stood up and asked: What are you doing when you come in?
The man's eyes were still looking at the crowd, and he answered absently: Looking for someone, is President Wang of the Federation here?
Li Hanjun said unhappily: There are no people from the Social Federation here, where is Chairman Wang?
The middle-aged man sighed, withdrew his gaze, and said: I'm sorry, I found the wrong place. Then hurried away.
Marin, the representative of the Comintern, was very experienced in the struggle, and he immediately judged that there was something wrong with this man, and immediately demanded that the deputies evacuate immediately! Li Hanjun immediately led the crowd away from the front door of the Li Mansion. And he himself stayed with Chen Gongbo.
As Marin had predicted, it didn't take long for several French patrols and soldiers to enter the Chen Mansion. At that time, Chen Gongbo had already gone upstairs with Li Hanjun and smoked a cigarette in the study, and the French inspector who led the team walked directly in and asked: What meeting are you holding?
Chen Gongbo replied: Where is the meeting, a few of our friends chat together. Of course, the general inspector did not believe it, and ordered several of his subordinates to search around, while he continued to interrogate Li Hanjun and Chen Gongbo.
The detectives and soldiers rummaged around for four hours, but found nothing but a few of Marx's works, and the inspector had to smile and say: The house was supposed to be sealed, but both were intellectuals, so they were accommodating. Only then did he leave with his men.
The newborn Communist Party of China also escaped the disaster, and after consultation, they changed the venue to Jiaxing South Lake the next day, which gave rise to the "red boat spirit" of our party. This is an important part of the history of the Chinese Communist Party, so the secret agent who broke into the venue has also become the person that many experts want to look for.
It was not until 1990 that Professor Ye Yonglie of the Shanghai Museum of Culture and History learned the identity of that person from Mr. Xue Gengxin, who had served as a patrol in the French Concession in Shanghai, that person--Xue Gengxin's superior, Cheng Ziqing, the inspector of the French Concession Patrol House.
Cheng Ziqing was a native of Jiangsu Sultan (present-day Zhenjiang City), who in 1911 was selected to enter the French Concession Patrol House because of his excellent arm strength trained in carrying rice, and was valued by Jin Rong, the Chinese inspector of the world's patrol house, from patrol all the way to inspector general, and Xue Gengxin was officially his agent.
He personally told Xue Gengxin about "going to Li Mansion to investigate the convening of a meeting of foreign red elements", and Xue Gengxin also confessed to this matter in 1968 when he was renovating a farm in Inner Mongolia, but because it was in a turbulent era at that time, this clue was regrettably buried.
Cheng Ziqing himself, because he used his identity to protect the safety of Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling in the French Concession when he was working in the patrol house, and further provided help for Deng Yanda, Cai Yuanpei and others to move in Shanghai, maintaining a good relationship.
Deng Yanda's abduction by Kuomintang agents in the French Concession was resolved by the patrol house where he was located, and afterwards, he also relayed to Deng Yanda through Song Qingling: "People go out at will, and the house catcher sends people to protect him." Even after some CCP members were arrested, Soong Ching Ling would use him to "unblock" relations, thus releasing party members on bail.
For the benefit of the French Concession, he participated in many activities to suppress the workers' movement, but during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he also used his status to perfunctory Japanese troops and cover up the underground anti-Japanese work, which was considered to have done some useful things.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he took the initiative to write a letter to Chairman Mao asking for forgiveness, in which he said that he had also done some work for the Communist Party and asked for forgiveness. At the same time, Soong Ching-ling also told the chairman about some of the work he had done to rescue the revolutionaries.
It may also be for this reason that although he was the backbone of the French Concession patrol and was arrested twice as a counter-revolutionary in 1954 and 1955, he was not dealt with because of "no crime, no activity, and old age".
During this period, he once recovered from illness at home, living on the rent of the property he had saved, and died of illness at home in 1961. Cheng Ziqing was originally only a small person in the torrent of history, but it was precisely because of chance that he became a secret agent who investigated the first session of the COMMUNIST Party of China and was studied by scholars.
Fortunately, his conscience was not broken, and in the face of the great national righteousness, he did indeed do a Chinese work that should be done, so although he was arrested twice, he was able to die well, which may be the response of history to him.