This is an old photo that shocked and puzzled everyone.
Only to see in the photo, a man with messy hair and plain clothes, with a death card on his back and his hands tied behind his back, but he did not see the slightest panic, still standing there with a smile. The others were all dressed in suits and leather, with a serious look, but he was the only one who was calm and self-assured, and the two formed a sharp contrast.
Who is this man in the photo? Why was he tied to the execution ground? And why smile before execution? What kind of truth is hidden behind this strange scene? Next, I will lead you to explore the story behind this smile.
Zhu Datong was shot at the scene
The man in the photo, Zhu Datong, was shot and killed by the Kuomintang on May 11, 1949, in Shanghai's Zhabei Song Park for "traitorous crimes", and was taken by American journalist Harrison Foreman.
On May 27, 1949, 16 days after Zhu Datong was shot, the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded Shanghai, and the "Shanghai Campaign" won a comprehensive victory, and Shanghai was completely liberated. In the same year, on October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was officially established.
However, although New China has been founded, in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the situation was still turbulent, and the party and the government still faced many severe difficulties and tests.
There are many remnants of the Kuomintang that have not been purged, and there are still millions of troops who are stubbornly resisting. In the external world, there are still many countries that refuse to recognize the legitimate status of New China and vainly attempt to curb the growth and development of New China through economic and political means.
Although it is difficult to move forward, the party and the government have never forgotten those people who have thrown their heads and spilled their blood for the party, the country, and the people. Whether they are alive or not, they are all rewarded for their deeds.
In 1950, the Shanghai municipal government posthumously honored those who had merit in the war. However, in the list of martyrs who appeared, Zhu Datong's name was prominently listed. Suddenly, the onlookers were puzzled and insulted, after all, this person was a big traitor, and he was shot and executed in front of everyone, how could such a person be posthumously honored as a martyr?
In the face of the speculation and criticism of the masses, the party and the government have repeatedly stressed that Zhu Datong is not a traitor, but an excellent underground worker of our party. But since in that era most of the comrades' work was carried out in secret, it was still impossible to convince the masses without leaving enough explicit evidence.
So in 1981, the party and the government once again posthumously named Zhu Datong a martyr, but the people were even more confused.
It was not until 1999, after the release and promotion of a book, that the public had a deep understanding of Zhu Datong's life and deeds, and thus understood what kind of heavy blood and tears this man who still smiled before the execution and regarded death as a homecoming carried. And how he moved towards death step by step in the confusion and insults of the crowd. The book is "Deep Remembrance -- Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Zhu Datong".
"Deep Remembrance: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Zhu Datong"
In 1907, Zhu Datong was born in Xiao County, Anhui Province, in an ordinary small village. At that time, although his family was not very poor, he was only able to survive.
Fortunately, Zhu Datong had a pair of enlightened parents who insisted that he go to school and receive cultural education. Therefore, compared with other peers around him, Zhu Datong had more opportunities to read when he was a child, so that he learned a lot of cultural knowledge.
However, due to various reasons, when Zhu Datong went to middle school, he did not continue to study for further study, but was forced to drop out of school and go home to work before he finished middle school.
Because of the shortage of talents during the war years, although Zhu Datong did not finish middle school, he still received at least a few years of education, so after he returned home from his old age, he was hired to Xiao county Wangzhai Primary School as a teacher and concurrently as the director of education.
The profession of teacher allowed Zhu Datong to learn more knowledge better, which can also be regarded as an indirect compensation for his regret of dropping out of school. And because of this, he also came into contact with communist culture earlier than others, thus learning advanced cultural ideas, and in 1928, at the age of 21, he joined the Chinese Communist Party.
The Communist Manifesto
After joining the party, Zhu Datong took advantage of his special status as a teacher to pass on intelligence to our party on many occasions and deploy relevant work, thus making important contributions to the smooth development of our party's underground work. Due to his outstanding work ability, in 1931, Zhu Datong was officially promoted to inspector of the special committee of Xuzhou and concurrently served as the secretary of the county party committee of Xiao County.
In 1932, under the high pressure of the white terror of the Kuomintang's repeated "encirclement and suppression" of the Communist Party, Zhu Datong, in protest, planned and launched a riot in Zhangzhuang, Xiao County. However, due to lack of experience, the activity ended in failure.
Zhu Datong, as the initiator of the campaign, failed at the same time that he also exposed his communist identity. In order to avoid the pursuit and killing of the enemy, Zhu Datong had to choose to flee to other places and live in anonymity, and since then his name has disappeared from the public's vision.
As Zhu Datong disappeared, everyone thought he had died in the Pursuit and Round-up of the Kuomintang, and everyone sighed. Saddened by the loss of a fresh and enthusiastic life, we lament that our Party has since lost an excellent comrade.
Kuomintang Central Unification
In the blink of an eye, the time came to 1934, and I don't know what happened, and in everyone's impression, Zhu Datong, who had sacrificed two years, appeared in the sight of everyone again. Turns out he's still alive! Before everyone could rejoice, they did not expect zhu Datong to actually change into a traitor to become a secret agent of the Kuomintang Central Unification and openly began to participate in the arrest of our party's staff.
Because Zhu Datong himself was a defector within the Party, he was originally an outstanding underground worker of the Communist Party, so he was very familiar with the working methods and contact addresses of our Party. With his participation and leadership, the Kuomintang's encirclement and suppression campaign against our party became more and more fierce.
It is precisely because of this that the intelligence system that the Communist Party has so hard to establish has been discovered and destroyed by the enemy many times, and many outstanding party members and comrades have also been caught up in the action of being hunted down and rounded up by the Kuomintang.
Zhu Datong defected and joined the Kuomintang
For a time, the development of the relevant work of our party entered a bottleneck period, and the comrades in the party were even more endangered, afraid that if they were not careful, they would expose their identities. They hated Zhu Datong's treasonous behavior, and at the same time wondered why the good comrades who used to be praised by everyone suddenly turned into the arms of the enemy.
However, reality did not give them much time to think, and they did not have time to think about it, after all, Zhu Datong was now standing in the enemy camp and working hard for the Kuomintang. At present, their top priority is how to pass on information to our Party without exposing themselves and carry out the relevant work smoothly.
After Zhu Datong defected to the Kuomintang central unification, he relied on constantly betraying the party organization and party comrades, and all the way to become a knight, and soon won the praise of the Kuomintang top level, and quickly gained a firm foothold within it. In 1939, Zhu Datong had been promoted to the director of the Xuzhou Secret Service Office and the leader of the action team, and the scenery was unlimited for a time.
Zhu Datong, who had risen all the way, seemed to have tasted the sweetness, and in the face of the Kuomintang, he intensified his pursuit of our party comrades. During Zhu Datong's tenure as a Kuomintang central unification agent, there were countless Communists who died at his hands. Among Zhu Datong's bleak deeds, the worst was that Zhu Datong personally designed and successfully arrested Guo Zihua, the secretary of our party's provisional special committee for the Sulu Border Region.
Secretary of the Provisional Special Committee of the Sulu Border Region - Guo Zihua
Guo Zihua studied at the Provincial Xuzhou Seventh Normal School in his early years, and during his time when he joined the Party, he participated in and organized many patriotic movements of all sizes, was one of the earlier founders of our Party in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, and made outstanding contributions to the development and establishment of the Cpc Organization in Zaozhuang.
In August 1932, Guo Zihua was specially assigned by Xuzhou to engage in underground work in Zaozhuang Coal Mine in Shandong Province, then serving as the secretary of the Zaozhuang District Committee of the CPC, and presided over the establishment of the Provisional Special Working Committee of the Sulu Border Region of the CPC in February 1935.
As for how Guo Zihua was arrested by the Kuomintang, it was in 1936, when Guo Zihua received orders from his superiors to go to Zaozhuang to secretly carry out a series of underground work, and Guo Zihua gladly accepted the order. However, before he could reach the place of work, he was arrested by Zhu Datong.
After Guo Zihua was arrested, in the face of the kuomintang's severe torture, he not only did not give in, but survived even stronger. Finally, fortunately, through the unremitting efforts of the party organization, Guo Zihua was finally rescued from the Kuomintang prison.
After Guo Zihua escaped, he did not fear the enemy because of his arrest, but continued to devote himself to the revolutionary cause he loved with a higher enthusiasm. He continued to serve the party and the government until many years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and finally on December 23, 1975, Guo Zihua died of illness in Beijing at the age of 80.
Although Guo Zihua was eventually rescued by the party organization, Zhu Datong's arrest greatly won the trust of the Kuomintang top brass. He also benefited from this, and in 1940 he became the county magistrate of Xiao County of the Kuomintang and the acting secretary of the Xiao County Party Department of the Kuomintang.
In order to promote himself more quickly, Zhu Datong did everything in his power to the extreme, and did everything in his power to flatter the kuomintang high-level, such as when he was the kuomintang xiaoxian county magistrate, he took advantage of his position to issue a series of proclamations, such as:
"Letter from Zhu Datong, Acting Secretary of the Xiaoxian County Party Department of the Kuomintang of China to the Comrades of the Whole County for the Resumption of Party Affairs Activities", "Letter from Zhu Datong, Governor of Xiaoxian County to Compatriots in the Whole County", and "Letter from Zhu Datong, Governor of XiaoXian County to All Armed Comrades of xiaochang's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions and Special Agent Battalions", etc.,
Vigorously propagating anti-communist ideas, disseminating anti-communist remarks, often creating anti-communist friction, and eroding the anti-Japanese democratic base areas under the leadership of the Communist Party have had a serious impact on the smooth development of our party's relevant work.
At this time, both the masses and party members were scolding Zhu Datong, but he ignored it, still went his own way, and was fully committed to loyalty to the Kuomintang.
But as the saying goes, "if you ascend high, you will fall heavily", and as everyone knows, the danger is pressing towards this man, but he is not aware of it at all, and he is still indulging in his absurd dreams.
In the spring of the 30th year of the Republic of China, that is, in 1941, when the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army decided to withdraw to the east, Zhu Datong, in order to eat up the strength of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army in one fell swoop, he personally led two battalions of troops and launched an attack when Xiao Dong's office was unstable. As a result, Zhu Datong not only failed to win the Battle of the New Fourth Army, but in late June of the same year, he was arrested by the Japanese army and became a prisoner of the Japanese army.
Heaven seemed to have made a big joke to Zhu Datong, making him stand at the crossroads of fate again, he had already chosen the wrong time before, how should he choose this time?
Sure enough, in the face of the severe torture of the Japanese army, Zhu Datong failed to survive, and he once again made a wrong decision. He not only defected to the Japanese army, but also published a public statement expressing his willingness to work with the Japanese army to oppose communism. As soon as this remark came out, there was an uproar throughout the country. Although Zhu Datong was immediately released by the Japanese army, such a naked traitorous lackey deeply touched the heart of every Chinese at that time.
In the days that followed, Zhu Datong obeyed the command and orders of the Japanese army and began to brutally persecute communists, anti-Japanese cadres, fighters, and many other innocent masses. These people, without exception, all died at his hands.
For a time, Zhu Datong was like a rat crossing the street, and everyone shouted and beat him, and the society even scolded Zhu Datong, denouncing his traitorous behavior of killing his compatriots and betraying the country and seeking glory. In the face of the people's rebuke and scolding, Zhu Datong still did not have any justification, but silently allowed others to insult and scold, and then became more and more silent, and gradually faded out of people's sight.
When Zhu Datong appeared in people's field of vision again, there was also a big news that shocked everyone again.
In 1946, Zhu Datong, who held the title of traitor, actually incarnated as an emissary of justice, joined the "Sun Wen Socialist Revolutionary League" in February of the same year, was then a member of the Jiangsu Provincial Branch League, and prepared to instigate a local armed uprising of the Kuomintang, actively welcoming the People's Liberation Army to cross the river.
Stills from the TV series "Latent"
This move not only shocked the broad masses of the people in society, but also woke up the high-level officials within the Kuomintang.
The masses were shocked by the authenticity of the "traitor" Zhu Datong's move to abandon the dark and throw in the light, and wondered whether this was a conscience discovery in the end. Or is it a pretense trap? The kmt top brass was shocked by his re-defection, and the target of the defection was still the Communist Party, which the KMT had always regarded as a sworn enemy!
Previously, even if Zhu Datong publicly declared that he was doing things for the Japanese, there were not too many ripples within the Kuomintang, and he still retained his position within the Kuomintang, but this time, it undoubtedly violated the bottom line of some high-level Kuomintang officials.
I don't know why, since the war, Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang, has always believed in and promoted the policy of "foreign countries must first be at home." Compared with Japan, which wantonly invaded China, Chiang Kai-shek has always regarded the Communist Party as the number one public enemy, so the anti-communist sentiment within the Kuomintang as a whole is very strong.
Zhu Datong's act of openly betraying the Kuomintang and turning his back to the old owner, the Communist Party, was tantamount to playing them again. There was even a suspicion within the KmT that Zhu Datong had betrayed the Communist Party at that time and that coming to the KMT was a false surrender, but in fact it was an undercover act with ulterior motives.
As soon as this remark came out, the Kuomintang was even more angry and demoralized, and regardless of the situation in which the defeat was already decided, it hastily arrested Zhu Datong and decided to execute him immediately.
Zhu Datong was escorted to the execution ground
On April 5, 1949, Zhu Datong was arrested by the Kuomintang in Xiatang, Wuxi, and immediately taken to Shanghai. On May 11 of the same year, he was executed by the Kuomintang Shanghai Municipal Police at Zhabei Park.
On the day of Zhu Datong's execution, there were many onlookers at the scene, and all kinds of crowds, a piece of WuYangyang, surrounded the entire execution ground. They are all people from all over the world, men and women, old and young. Everyone gathered here in unison, not to send him off, these people had no other purpose, they all came to scold Zhu Datong.
As Zhu Datong was escorted and slowly walked through the execution ground, for a moment, all kinds of shouts and curses came to the face, everyone spoke different accents and different dialects, and whether anyone understood or not, they were all insulting the man in front of them wantonly. On the other hand, Zhu Datong never said a word, but silently bowed his head and listened to everyone's insults.
With the passage of time, all kinds of shouts and curses are still heard, hovering over this sky for a long time, as if accusing people of blood and tears. At this time, Zhu Datong slowly raised his head that had been hanging low, faced the crowd that had been cursing him, suddenly looked up at the sky and laughed, and then was executed on the spot.
Zhu Datong laughed before his execution
The crowd had not yet reacted to what was going on, only to see that Zhu Datong had slowly collapsed in a pool of blood.
Although Zhu Datong was dead, the strange laughter before his death was deeply engraved in the minds of all the people present. People don't understand, why would a dying person smile like that? This smile is not like dying, but more like going to a new life.
Unfortunately, Zhu Datong was dead, and no one had come to answer this question for them at this moment. This smile is like a huge mystery that has always haunted everyone's heart.
On May 27, 1949, 16 days after Zhu Datong was shot, the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded Shanghai, and Shanghai was completely liberated. With the liberation of Shanghai, some people could not let go of their curiosity and began to search for information about Zhu Datong, trying to uncover the earth-shattering secrets hidden behind that strange smile.
Sure enough, the Emperor Tian did not pay off, and through the unremitting efforts of those people and the testimony of other relevant personnel, they came to a shocking conclusion, that is, Zhu Datong had never betrayed the party and the people! He was actually a staff member who had been lurking inside the Kuomintang!
As soon as this remark came out, it immediately caused an uproar. Everyone wonders that Zhu Datong's traitorous party and traitorous behavior to the country has always been in the eyes of everyone, and now that he has not done these things, who will believe it? For a time, whether Zhu Datong was an unforgivable traitor or an underground party that was implicitly tolerant for the sake of national justice became a topic of controversy.
Zhu Da was before his execution
These controversies continued until 1950, when Zhu Datong was posthumously recognized as a martyr by the CCP and in 1981, when Zhu Datong was again posthumously recognized as a martyr. It was not until the book "Deep Remembrance - Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Zhu Datong" that the controversy gradually disappeared, and everyone understood how tragic but great the life of Zhu Datong martyr was!
Regarding the martyr Zhu Datong, the most controversial place for everyone is nothing more than those points:
First, why did Zhu Datong betray the party at that time? And switched to the Kuomintang government to do things for it?
Second, what is the explanation of Guo Zihua, the secretary of the special committee who Personally Participated in the Design and Arrest of Zhu Datong?
Third, what happened when Zhu Datong publicly declared his defection to Japan?
Don't worry, all your doubts will be answered in this book.
"Deep Remembrance : Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Zhu Datong"
First of all, the martyr Zhu Datong did not betray the party organization, because due to the many encirclement and suppression activities of the Kuomintang government at that time, which led to heavy losses to the Communist Party, and for the subsequent development and survival of the party, it was urgently necessary for comrades to penetrate into the enemy's interior and obtain intelligence. Although this job was extremely difficult, and it could even be said that he died nine times, Zhu Datong still resolutely accepted this task.
However, how easy is it to successfully complete this task? Moreover, Zhu Datong also understood that if he wanted to successfully break into the Kuomintang, he would first gain their trust, and he would have to pay a heavy price for this.
Therefore, Zhu Datong had to choose to stand on the opposite side of the party organization he once loved, and through constantly persecuting communists, he could comprehensively create his "anti-communist" image. Zhu Datong used this as a "letter of submission" and successfully won the trust of the Kuomintang and was left to be reused by them.
Zhu Datong is worthy of being an excellent worker of our party; he has not only deceived the enemy, but also confused his former comrades-in-arms and the broad masses of society, and everyone thinks that Zhu Datong has betrayed the organization! So he rebelled against his relatives and became a "traitor" that everyone shouted and beat.
In the face of the misunderstanding and insults of the crowd, Zhu Datong did not ignore it. Because he is well aware of the importance of his work, if he explains it, not only the comrades who have been there before will be sacrificed in vain, but the efforts of the Party organization and many comrades will also be burned. Therefore, he did not dare, let alone explain to everyone, and could only lurk more humiliated and burdened.
With the deepening of the lurking work, the Kuomintang trusted Zhu Datong more and more and used him more and more, but Zhu Datong never changed his loyalty to the party and continued to pass on important information to the enemy for the organization.
Secondly, Zhu Datong's plan to capture Guo Zihua was only a plan to penetrate deeper into the enemy's interior. According to later witnesses, after Guo Zihua's arrest, Zhu Datong did not torture him severely, but secretly protected him. The news of torture and coercion that came during this period only confused the enemy's sight. Later, under the secret permission of Zhu Datong, the party organization was able to successfully rescue Guo Zihua.
After Guo Zihua escaped, he continued to fight for the party's cause until many years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, on December 23, 1975, he died of illness in Beijing.
If Zhu Datong is really a "traitor", how can Guo Zihua, as one of the persecuted people, tolerate his posthumous title as a martyr, let alone a second posthumous title! Such a privilege is by no means what a "traitor" deserves. There were many other people who had been persecuted by Zhu Datong, and they did not have much objection. It can be seen from this that Zhu Datong is indeed a veritable hero and martyr.
Finally, the news that Zhu Datong defected to the Japanese army and handled affairs for him was even more a big misunderstanding.
In 1941, after Zhu Datong became the commander of the Seventh Column, he led thousands of troops, fought with the Japanese army more than forty times, killed and captured more than a thousand Japanese troops, and was a real anti-Japanese hero, and it was impossible to defect to the Japanese army. As for Zhu Datong's later act of defecting to the Japanese army, it was indeed a helpless move that he had to make when the situation was endangered.
According to the data, Zhu Datong led the troops to fight against the Japanese army at that time, but in an activity, due to being betrayed, Zhu Datong and some injured villagers, students and other people were trapped by the Japanese army in a sweet potato kiln. In order to protect these people, Zhu Datong once again stood up and confused the sight of the Japanese army by pretending to surrender.
Moreover, Hou Xingsheng, who was serving as Zhu Datong's guard at the time, also testified:
"It is true that Zhu Datong was arrested, but his surrender was forced to protect those students, and after Zhu Datong surrendered, I led people to secretly help him to rescue Zhu Datong from the Japanese prison."
Although these people were safe, they were also moved because of this, so that Zhu Datong, after bearing the name of "traitor," was even more labeled a "traitor" and a "traitor" by the people of the world, making him even more infamous, whose reputation was already ruined.
The mausoleum of the martyr Zhu Datong
After knowing Zhu Datong's true identity, his laughter before he was executed also had a final explanation.
I think that on May 11, 1949, on that execution ground at that time, on that sunny noon, Mr. Zhu Datong's heart must have been very happy, so he would laugh like that before he died. Seeing that the Japanese have long since surrendered, the defeat of the Kuomintang has been decided, and the victory will eventually belong to the people, I think Mr. Wang should not have too many regrets.
"I smiled at the sky with my horizontal knife and went to leave the liver and gallbladder for two kunluns."
In that era, it was precisely because there were too many outstanding comrades like Mr. Zhu Datong who selflessly dedicated themselves to the party's cause that they could have the victory of new China later. On behalf of myself, I would like to pay tribute to all the martyrs and heroes!