In December 1926, Chairman Mao listed some peasant anti-imperialist and anti-feudal "revolutionary groups" in various places in the Declaration of the First Peasant Congress of Hunan Province, such as the Lincheng carjacking case in Shandong. They are called revolutionary groups, but because they do not have a broad united front and do not understand political tactics, they must not be able to achieve great things.
This "revolutionary action" listed by Chairman Mao as anti-imperialist and anti-feudal occurred in Lincheng County, Shandong Province in May 1923, and was said to have caused a sensation in the world that year, and was called the most serious foreign-related incident in China after the Boxer Rebellion.
In the early morning of May 6, 1923, on the Jinpu Line Railway, which was the busiest in eastern China at the time, the second express train from Pukou to Tianjin was speeding at 32 miles per hour. The U.S.-made international intermodal blue-steel train, numbered 406, carried 40 blonde foreign passengers and some wealthy Chinese.
The foreign passengers on the bus were many prominent figures in the imperialist powers, such as US Army Major General Aaron and his wife and children, Powell, chief writer of the US "Miller's Review", Rebbers, a reporter of the US "Continental West", Mu Ansu, an Italian lawyer, Berubo, an official of the French Customs Service in China, Kim Shibai, a French doctor, and The British Tianjin Chunhe Foreign Firm. These pretentious foreigners are arrogant in their noble status.
When the train traveled to a section called Jizhuang about 607 kilometers from the Jinpu line between Lincheng and Shagou, it suddenly heard a "boom", the train shook violently, and some passengers were bruised and swollen by the violent bumps. The derailed locomotive overturned on the roadbed with the first three carriages, and the dizzy passengers pushed and shoved in the darkness, and the sound of impact and glass breaking was mixed with the terrified cries of women and children and the rude scolding of men.
At this time, a creepy voice came from outside the carriage:, don't bark! Tell you, Lao Tzu has more than 1,000 guns aimed at you here! Hurry out! Otherwise, as soon as Lao Tzu opened fire, he would give you a thorough chill, and did you hear it? Come out! Hearing this voice, everyone knew what was happening, but no one dared to move.
, don't come out yet, this train is about to explode!
At this point, the passengers on the train immediately rushed outside, and some even stepped on the shoulders of their companions and desperately climbed out. Soon, more than 200 Chinese and foreign passengers were all driven to the outside of the train to assemble, and the bandits saw those people wearing luxurious "foreign tickets" in tall horses and coats, knew that these guys must have a lot of money in their hands, and secretly rejoiced that they had encountered a golden opportunity to make a fortune.
While the bandits were concentrating on looting passengers, there was a sudden commotion in the ranks of the abducted foreigners. A tall, middle-aged Man of British nationality waved his hands and jumped on his feet in a loud rage, not knowing what to shout. In the dispute, a man with a gun quietly walked behind the thunderous British, "bang" a shot, the man suddenly burst his brain plasma, his body shook and fell to the ground. Seeing the blood and the corpse lying upright on the ground, no one dared to resist anymore.
Seeing that the sky was about to dawn, several bandit leaders gave an order, and the bandits escorted the robbed passengers and took advantage of the vast night to go to the unknown distant mountains. Since the bandits were not well trained, and there was no careful planning and preparation in advance, the whole team was very messy. Some courageous and careful Chinese tourists, watching the rugged mountain roads, undulating peaks, and boulders and ravines on the side of the road, slipped away unconsciously.
Foreigners were still ignorant of the whole incident and unfamiliar with the situation in rural China, except for an American named Lucy Aldridge who escaped by chance, and the rest were forced to follow the bandits. There were 110 "meat tickets" that were eventually robbed into the mountains, including 71 Chinese and 39 foreigners.
In modern China, in addition to being exploited by the feudal landlord class, the common people of modern China have an additional layer of imperialist plunder and warlords. Among them, Shandong was the region most badly plundered by imperialism and ravaged by warlords, and the oppressed poor people rose up to resist, and the Boxer Rebellion originated here. In 1920, during a rare drought in the five provinces of North China, the Lunan Baojiagushan area, which has always been known as a barren land, became the hardest hit area, with almost ten rooms and nine empty rooms, bankrupt farmers, and many "grass for the curse". According to some estimates at the time, the number of "grass fallen" was more than 200,000.
The Natural Danger Hugging Ridge is the natural base on which these green forest good men are based, and many armed teams of different natures have been active here. The "Shandong Jianguo Autonomous Army" led by Sun Meizhu, Sun Meiyao, sun Guizhi, and others is one of them with obvious peasant uprisings.
They gathered in Baoligu because of their opposition to the harassment of officers and soldiers and bandits, and had a mass self-defense armed force, and jointly promoted Sun Guizhi as an old creditor, Sun Meizhu as a big creditor, Zhou Tianlun as the owner of the second village, and Liu Shouting as the owner of the third village. Sun Guizhi and Sun Meizhu are uncles and nephews, and the Sun family is also a very prestigious rich family in this area. Sun Meizhu is a talented person, loyal, generous and righteous.
The gathering of uncles and nephews of the Sun family in the mountains and forests attracted many intellectuals to come to vote, including Wang Yimin, a famous writer in Lunan Province, and Beijing and Tianjin students who participated in the May Fourth Movement. Hungry people from dozens of counties in the four provinces of Sulu, Yuwan and Anhui also gathered in response, gathering more than 7,000 people. Some of them participated in the "February 7 Strike" of the Beijing-Hankou Railway, some were Chinese workers who returned from France, some were veterans from The Anwu Army or Henan, but more were peasants.
On the day of the Qingming Festival in 1920, they announced the establishment of the "Shandong Jianguo Autonomous Army", with Sun Meizhu as the commander-in-chief of the Five-Route Coalition Army, under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Route Army: Sun Meizhu, commander of the First Route Army, Guo Qicai, commander of the Second Route Army, Zhou Tiansong, commander of the Third Route Army, Wang Jixiang, commander of the Fourth Route Army, and Liu Qingyuan, commander of the Fifth Route Army. A left-behind office was set up on the Bao calf valley, with the old creditor Sun Guizhi as the chief manager. Together, they agreed on ten mountain rules:
1. Protect poor peasants in various localities; 2. Do not allow adultery, theft, and adultery; 3. Fair trade; 4. Do not kill one person in a vain manner, and those who commit suicide privately are not allowed to pay for their lives; 5. They are not allowed to pull other people's cattle and pick up ordinary peasants' grain; 6. They are not allowed to rob tourists and merchants; 7, they are not allowed to act without authorization; 8. They must wait for people equally, and they are not allowed to beat and curse poor brothers; 9. They are not allowed to bully the weak and bully the weak, and they must respect the old and love the young; 10. When the road is uneven, they must draw their swords to help each other.
Sun Meizhu, who was well versed in military affairs, led his men to build strong fortifications on the mountain and actively trained soldiers and horses, and then attacked everywhere. Several battles were won, and their power and reputation grew, attracting the attention of various political factions in the country. The Guangdong revolutionary government sent Xia Muyao, Zhu Tao, and other members of the Old League association to contact each other, and Xia Lai served as the chief of staff of the "Autonomous Army." Feng Zhanyuan, a brigade commander of Zhang Zuolin in the Northeast Feng Army, also wanted to formally reorganize this armed force. Even the Japanese wanted to woo and buy weapons. Although so many people came to intervene, the "Autonomous Army's" insistence on opposing the Beiyang warlords and corrupt officials and local tycoons and gentry has never wavered.
The "Autonomous Army" punished corrupt officials and local tycoons and gentry, which greatly angered the Beiyang government and constantly sent troops to encircle and suppress them. On July 15, 1922, in an encounter in Xiji, Teng County, Sun Meizhu was unfortunately captured and sacrificed due to being outnumbered, and the "Autonomous Army" suffered a serious setback. In order to get out of the predicament, the leaders of the autonomous armies also pushed Sun Meizhu's younger brother Sun Meiyao to succeed his brother.
Sun Meiyao was only 24 years old at the time, and after taking over the post of his brother, he was eager to take revenge and took the initiative to challenge the officers and soldiers many times, but the difference in strength was still huge, and the team was often beaten to pieces. The Beiyang government ordered The Governor of Shandong, Tanaka Yu, to be the commander-in-chief of the bandits and stepped up the encirclement and suppression of Sun Meiyao. By April 1923, Sun Meiyao's troops, surrounded by the exhaustive pursuit and encirclement of the regiments, could only hold on to the calves and face the crisis of running out of ammunition and food.
In order to alleviate the pressure of the siege of the officers and troops she was facing, Sun Meiyao made a desperate bet and planned to hijack the railway train and kidnap foreign passengers in order to bargain with the government and get the troops out of the siege. Therefore, Sun Meiyao asked people to tear down the section of railway track at Lincheng Station, and when the train numbered 406 passed Through Lincheng Station, it overturned without suspense.
After Sun Meiyao succeeded, he followed Sun Guizhi's idea and first released the four foreign female guests, and at the same time taught them to convey three conditions to the authorities: First, quickly withdraw the officers and men from the mountain for ten miles; second, to integrate the bandit army into a brigade with Sun Meiyao as the brigade commander; and third, to replenish the munitions. The purpose of the kidnappers was to relieve the siege of the calves and recruit them into the national army, not to ask for ransom. The first letter sent down from the mountain was written by Powell, a reporter for the Shanghai Miller's Review, advising the government army not to attack the mountain and to seek a peaceful solution. All the foreign prisoners signed the letter.
The letter said: "In addition to the Chinese, there are dozens of overseas Chinese belonging to Britain, the United States, France, Italy, and Mexico, and the officers and men are warned not to pursue them too quickly, which will not harm the lives of the captives." ”
In the 1920s, during the beiyang military administration, the central government was weak and incompetent, local warlords were rampant, bandits and kidnappers extorted ransom were often the case, and the abduction of foreigners was not the first time. In 1923 alone, 92 cases of kidnapping involving foreigners were registered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, the Lincheng carjacking occurred on the Jinpu Line, the busiest traffic artery in eastern China, where hundreds of Chinese and foreign passengers were taken hostage, and the number of hostages and nationalities (including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Mexican nationalities) was unprecedented. Therefore, it is also known as "the first major case of the Republic of China". After the news of the carjacking came out, it immediately caused a sensation in the world, and the countries concerned immediately reacted strongly.
U.S. Minister Shulman rushed to Jinan on May 6 to deal with the case. The sixteen ministers stationed in Beijing also held an emergency meeting, and they elected the Portuguese Fu Lide as the representative of the ministers of various countries, and went to submit a letter of protest to the Beiyang government, accusing the Beiyang government of being so weak in protecting foreign citizens that the bandits had taken so many foreigners at once. They demanded that the Government immediately send troops to rescue the abductees, while telegraphing governments requesting action as soon as possible.
On the evening of May 7, Fu Lide called Premier Zhang Shaozeng and asked to meet and discuss. After the meeting, the domineering "foreign lord" gave orders to Zhang Shaozeng with a straight face, and Zhang Shao, fearing that he would offend the foreign minister, only promised him the conditions he proposed, and agreed to it in its entirety. A few days later, the sixteen governments put pressure on the Chinese government in various ways, and the navies of many countries flaunted their might to sail the warships into the Chinese mainland and threatened to land at any time. Japan, which has long had ambitions for China, wants to co-manage China's railways with international coalition forces.
Li Yuanhong and Zhang Shaozeng had long been frightened by the foreigners' momentum, and they immediately discussed negotiations with the bandits. In the leadership of the "Autonomous Army", many of them were frustrated officers, and these people wanted to be recruited so that they could be promoted and rich, so they also vigorously advocated negotiations with the officers and soldiers.
On June 2, Sun Meiyao went down the mountain with Chen Tiaoyuan and signed a peace treaty with Zheng Shiqi, on the same day Chen Tiaoyuan accompanied Sun Back to the mountain to carry out a spot check, and the results of the inspection showed that the total number of bandits was only 3,000, and there were less than 1,200 people with guns.
From May 11 to June 12, the negotiations lasted more than a month and finally reached an agreement.
On June 12, the last batch of eight Western prisoners were all released, and on the 13th, all returned to Shanghai, a sensational carjacking case, from the beginning to the end, lasted 37 days.
On June 27, the "Autonomous Army" was officially reorganized into the newly organized 11th Brigade in Shandong, with Sun Meiyao as the brigade commander, Zhou Tiansong and Guo Tiancai as the regimental commanders, Guo Liji as the defense of this brigade, and Sun Guizhi as the quartermaster of the brigade headquarters.
Sun Meiyao did a sensational kidnapping, he only served as a brigade commander for six months, and on December 19 of this winter, Zhang Peirong, the new yanzhou town guard, set up a hongmen banquet at the Zhongxing Coal Mining Company, deceived Sun Meiyao and Sun Meisong, and with a secret signal, beat the Sun brothers to death on the spot, and the disbandment of his troops was disbanded and reorganized.
However, Sun Guizhi, the person behind the Lincheng bandits, still escaped, and he took a group of remnants and wandered around in the Lunan Mountains, and the officials never did anything about him.
As a newly established political party, the Communist Party of China has also paid great attention to the Lincheng carjacking case, and has published some comments in its organ publication "Guide", which can be said to have made extremely sharp comments on this "first major case of the Republic of China" that shocked China and foreign countries.
First of all, the great powers made a fuss when pursuing carjackings, with no other purpose. At that time, Ningbo nationality, Li Li Zhihua, was framed by the British employer for stealing money and goods, and was twisted to the patrol house, during which he was beaten by the patrol and left him with a permanent disability. After the Carjacking in Lincheng, the British paid all their attention to it and ignored the Le Zhihua case in Shanghai. No overseas Chinese were taken into captivity in Japan, but the Japanese also participated in the negotiations on the grounds of railway safety, and the Lushun and Dalian issues between China and Japan were temporarily shelved. The imperialist powers obviously want to take this opportunity to cover up their ugly behavior of insulting Chinese and to achieve the greed of condominium in China.
Second, the immediate cause of the Lincheng carjacking was the inability of the imperialist powers, not the corruption of the Chinese government as reported by foreign newspapers. Many of the "bandits" in Lincheng were former soldiers, but they were sacrificed by the great powers in order to ensure their concern for China's finances in order to ensure their claims in China. Chen Duxiu even pointed out that the first culprit in the Lincheng case was the imperialist powers, and the second was the Cao Wu warlord.
Finally, the Guide proposes to resolutely oppose foreign interference and establish an independent government to eliminate banditry.
Lu Xun also expressed his views on this case: When the Westerners first entered China, they were called barbarians, and they inevitably fell on their heads, but the time had come, and it was time for us to dedicate to them the feast that had been dedicated to the Northern Wei, to the Gold, to the Yuan, and to the Qing. When they leave, they are cared for, and their movements are protected: although they are cleared, the passage is free; although they are robbed, they will be compensated; Sun Meiyao abducts them to stand in front of the army, and the officers and soldiers dare not open fire. What about feasting in the Chinese House?