In the summer of 1931, Chen Yun, then head of the Special Branch of the Central Committee, handed Qin Bangli (bogu, formerly known as Qin Bangxian's brother) two gold bars in Shanghai, instructing him to use this as capital, using the opening of shops as a cover to raise and protect the party's funds for the establishment of secret transportation stations for the party, and secretly providing the CCP with radio, medicine, and other strategic materials that were strictly sealed by the Kuomintang at that time. No one ever thought that these two gold bars would become the starting capital of china resources group, a well-known central enterprise in the world today.
Qin Bangli
In this way, Qin Bangli pseudonym Yang Lian'an went to Shantou to open a shop in order to connect the traffic between Shanghai and the Central Soviet District. Yang Lian'an opened a "Sino-French pharmacy" in Shantou. This is the sixth store opened by Yang Lian'an. At that time, from Shanghai to Ruijin, the way had to pass through Hong Kong or Guangdong, and then take the Shantou - Sanheba - Tai Po - Yongding - Shanghang - Tingzhou route, for safety also had to walk on the mountain road. After the original traffic station was exposed, Yang Lian'an's Sino-French Pharmacy became an important place for the secret transfer of party members and the exchange of documents. These assets later became the prototype of China Resources Company (during which, in 1935, he settled the settlement and handed over the party property, assumed the pseudonym Fang Yishan, and went to the Soviet Union with Chen Yun, Zeng Shan and others to study). Yang Lian'an (Qin Bangli) became the founder of the China Resources Group, a new China aircraft carrier-level central enterprise.
At the turn of the spring and summer of 1937, Qin Bangli was sent by the Comintern to return to Shanghai from Moscow and continue to operate the shop, preparing to welcome the representatives of the Comintern. That summer, the Japanese-Kou all-out war of aggression against China escalated, and the "August 13 Incident" broke out in Shanghai, and the original plan could not be implemented, and the central government instructed Qin Bangli to sell his shop and return to Yan'an. Back in Yan'an, Qin Bangli was assigned to the Academic Affairs Office of the Central Party School, and because of his experience studying in the Soviet Union, Qin Bangli served as a teacher at the Academy of Horse Sciences, teaching the History of the United Communist Party (Brazzaville).
As an important aspect of the second Kuomintang-Communist cooperation, Chiang Kai-shek allowed the Party to establish the "Eighth Route Army Office" in the Kuomintang area. Zhou Enlai consulted with the British ambassador to China, Archibald Clark Carr, hoping to set up an "Eighth Route Army Office in Hong Kong" in Hong Kong, which was recognized by him.
In January 1938, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to send Liao Chengzhi and others to Hong Kong to prepare for the establishment of the "Hong Kong Office of the Eighth Route Army". Chen Yun, who was then the head of the Central Organization Department in Yan'an, talked to Qin Bangli and asked him to go to Hong Kong to set up a company to cover and assist the work of the Hong Kong Eighth Route Army Office. According to the organizational arrangement, Qin Bangli first went to the "Wuhan Eight Offices" to receive funds, and then went to Hong Kong. Therefore, he also became one of the earliest members of the "Hong Kong Office of the Eighth Route Army". The office of the Hong Kong Eighth Route Army office is located at No. 18 Queen's Road Central, and is listed as the "Guangdong Hua Company", which is mainly responsible for raising funds and materials among overseas Chinese and Hong Kong and Macao compatriots to support the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in resisting Japan.
Old queen's road photo
In the summer of 1938, after an inspection, Qin Bangli opened the "Lianhe Bank" in Hong Kong, the company's trading house (building name) in Hong Kong's Queen's Road Central and Des Voeux Road near Pedder Street. The Bank was located in a small office on the attic on the first floor of the trading house (which should be similar to the M floor in today's building, that is, the mezzanine), about seven or eight square meters.
In 1948, Lianhe Bank was reorganized and expanded, and its name was changed to China Resources Company. The name of China Resources is taken from Mao Zedong's character Runzhi", which means Zhonghua Runzhi. At the same time, there is also the meaning of the land of China, rain and dew moisturizing.
By the end of the War of Liberation, the revolutionary situation in China had shifted from survival and development to preparations for state administration in the Liberated Areas and for the conquest of the whole country. As an extremely important fulcrum in the CCP's intelligence protection, economic supply, and united front work, China Resources plays an incomparably important role. In order to ensure the connection between China Resources and the Central Committee, the Northeast Bureau and the Dalian Station, the CPC Central Committee decided to strengthen the radio work of China Resources Company, which became extremely important.
Guo Liyi, born in 1924, joined the revolution in a middle school in Sichuan in 1938, joined the CCP in 1939 at the age of 15, and engaged in hidden front work in the eastern Sichuan region. In 1945, he was transferred to the Eighth Office of Chongqing. In March 1947, she withdrew to Yan'an with the office on a plane sent by the United States, and was first incorporated into Qian Zhiguang's Hong Kong detachment, walked to Sanjiao Town in Shanxi, and exchanged with Wang Huasheng, who stayed in the Central Urban Work Department (hereinafter referred to as the Urban Work Department, the predecessor of the United Front Work Department). The minister of urban work is Zhou Enlai, the vice minister Luo Mai (that is, Li Weihan), and the director of the secretariat is Tong Xiaopeng. The main task of the Urban Works Department is to "study and manage all the work (including young workers) in the Chiang Kai-shek district under the guidance prescribed by the central authorities, and to train the cadres in this work."
Her days in Shanxi were not long, and soon after Guo Liyi was transferred to the Work Department of the Later Cpc Committee, the central authorities sent her to jiang prefecture again in order to strengthen the radio work in Jiang's district. She went from Shanxi to Xibaipo, and after a short rest, Liu Shaoqi personally talked with Guo Liyi, Tang Lin, Hua Gang, and Ye Meiwen, the four confidential officers who were about to leave.
Subsequently, the group of four people, two men and two women, dressed as two couples. Guo Liyi and Tang Lin are a pair, and the age difference between the two is very large. After arriving in Tianjin, the organization arranged for them to live in the home of Shen Erlin, an underground party member with old CCP qualifications.
In 1948, Guo Liyi was in Hong Kong
After the Spring Festival in Tianjin, the organization immediately arranged for four people to take a boat from the British Swire company to Hong Kong. After arriving in Hong Kong, the confidential officers broke up and followed the ushers away. Guo Liyi was followed by Liu Changsheng, the leader of the CCP's old hidden front in the south, especially in the Shanghai area.
Liu Changsheng
Guo Liyi did not work in Hong Kong, her work site was urgently transferred, and the central government sent her back to the familiar Chongqing, because at that time the underground platform in Chongqing was almost completely destroyed by Kuomintang agents, and only one radio station had not been exposed, but a password was needed. Liu Changsheng and Guo Liyi first returned to Shanghai and handed it over to Liu Shaowen, another legendary figure on the CCP's intelligence front. Then, Liu Shaowen sent his assistant Zhao Ping to send Guo Liyi to Chongqing. After arriving in Chongqing, they found the radio station, the radio had a call sign, Guo Liyi used the code sewn in the middle of his shoe sole, connected to the radio station of the City Works Department, and talked to Tong Xiaopeng, and Chongqing restored contact with the central government.
But the cruel hidden front working environment did not make Guo Liyi breathe, and as soon as the work in Chongqing began, he suddenly received a telegram from Tong Xiaopeng to the effect that Zhao Ping and his wife were arrested, left Chongqing immediately, did not take the password, and transferred to hong Kong "Liu Shutai" (Liu Shu, qian worked in the diplomatic system and customs after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and was the deputy director of the General Administration of Customs. Later, after Qian Zhiguang arrived at China Resources, he took over the radio station and changed it to "Zhiguang Station"). It turned out that after Zhao Ping sent her to Chongqing, he returned to Ningbo and was arrested, and his wife Sha Ping defected after his arrest (about the arrest of Zhao Ping and his wife, I have recorded in the previous article, if you are interested, you can see https://www.toutiao.com/i6688370493206037005/).
Guo Liyi returned to Shanghai from Chongqing and managed to get to Hong Kong. But she didn't have enough money, so she sold the Parker pens and jewelry that the organization had given her to dress up. In June 1948, Guo Liyi arrived in Hong Kong by plane, Liu Shu sent his wife Lu Ying to the airport to greet him, and Guo Liyi joined Lianhe Bank (the predecessor of China Resources Group).
27 Hee Yun Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Liu Shu's home also became Guo Liyi's first residence in Hong Kong.
Guo Liyi has a very good memory and can memorize international code. However, during the war years, clear codes were rarely used, and they used passwords more often. After Guo Liyi arrived in Hong Kong, she immediately began to make a new password.
She and Lu Ying went to the Hong Kong bookstore to buy more than a dozen sets of books, and each book bought two sets, one set to stay with, and one set to be sent back to the Urban Engineering Department in Shanxi. She used the method of "book-made secrets" to compile codes. This code is never repeated, and cannot be deciphered as long as the enemy does not understand the book they use.
Secret radio stations have a strict system. A relatively complete underground radio station must consist of three parts:
Confidential personnel, who have a "password", generally work at the chief's side, responsible for translating the "text" to be sent by the chief into a "password" telegram, or translating the received coded telegram into text. Guo Liyi is a confidential officer. At that time, I was most afraid of mistranslation, so all nouns, such as purchased materials and personal names, had to be written twice on the telegram to prevent mistakes.
The telegraph operator is responsible for sending the news, but he generally does not understand the meaning of the password, because the transmitter is dangerous, and the enemy can track the radio waves to find the location of the radio station, and it is easy to be arrested. The operator and the confidential do not know each other and do not work together. Therefore, China Resources's newspaper operator, Guo Liyi, had never seen them during his work in Hong Kong
The traffic officer, who is responsible for exchanging documents between the confidential officer and the operator, knows both sides but does not know the contents of the documents. Zhong Keyu, the wife of Yuan Chaojun, a veteran intelligence officer who also works in Hong Kong, and Lu Ying, the wife of Liu Shu, are responsible for the work of traffic officers. They often pretend to buy groceries and pass on information.
In the winter of 1948, Lu Ying (left) and Guo Liyi were in Hong Kong
After Guo Liyi came, the radio work of Lianhe Company became regular, and the utilization rate of radio stations was extremely high. In the early days, they mainly sent reports to the Central City Engineering Department, and then forwarded them to Dalian Qianzhiguang or the Northeast Bureau through the Urban Engineering Department.
The central government often telegraphed the list of materials purchased by China Resources. At that time, the Liberation War was in full swing, and there were often various needs in the battlefields everywhere, and Guo Liyi remembered that Zhu De, Chen Yun, and Zhou Enlai signed the most telegrams, and zeng shan of the East China Bureau also had many telegrams.
Happy Valley in 1946
The early operator of China Resources was Xiao Li (whose real name is still not disclosed today), he and his wife with a child, the radio station location is in the residence of Yuan Chaojun on Leighton Hill Road in Hong Kong, The newspaper is generally from 2 to 4 o'clock in the morning, whenever Xiao Li sends a report, Yuan Chaojun and his wife Zhong Keyu have to put up a sentry.
Xiao Li and his wife can't go out casually or see CR employees, and almost no one from CR knows them. At that time, China Resources's newspaper work was not yet formal, Yuan Chaojun used to be a confidential officer, and lived with Xiao Li, a newspaper operator.
Soon, Yuan Chaojun and his wife were no longer in charge of this work because of the needs of work. The operator was also replaced, and the new operator was li wenshan, a native of Shanxi, who joined the CCP in 1942. It was a militia during the Hundred Regiments War, and later officially joined the Eighth Route Army. In 1945, after the victory of the War of Resistance, he immediately went to the northeast and became a member of the Northeast Field Army. At the beginning of 1947, he was sent to Dalian Electric Engineering College to study, graduated a year later, and was assigned to work in the Intelligence Department of the Northeast Bureau as the director of the newspaper. In 1948, Wang Jiashan, commander of the 58th Division of the Kuomintang New Sixth Army, commander of the Yingkou Defense and mayor of Yingkou, led an uprising, and the entire process of the uprising was reported to the Party Central Committee by Li Wenshan, who at that time contacted three radio stations: Yan'an, Harbin, and North Korea. In June 1948, Xiao Li and Wu Cheng of the Northeast Intelligence Department and Qian Zhiguang of the Dalian Station of China Resources Company talked to him and sent him to work in Hong Kong. Equipped with an assistant, Guangdong woman Yang Ming, plus an old lady, secretly worked for three years under the cover of the family (playing a fake couple).
Li Wenshan's old predecessor
Xiao Li, the front operator, worked for a long time, coupled with the fact that his body itself was not well, and his condition deteriorated. The leader decided to send him back to Dalian for recuperation, and he returned to Dalian on a Soviet ship carrying goods from China Resources, but unfortunately, the "unsung hero" who did not leave a deed died not long after, leaving behind a young wife and young children...
Li Wenshan's great misfortune in entering Hong Kong was that the Soviet freighter he was riding on was hit by a British ship when it entered the port, but fortunately he and other passengers were rescued into an ambulance and entered Hong Kong in a chaotic manner (he did not have documents). Subsequently, arranged by Liu Shu, he stayed in the original radio secret point, that is, the residence of Yuan Chaojun and Xiao Li, and began a lonely secret newspaper work.
Soon, for safety, the "Light Terrace" moved to the densely populated Wan Chai of Hong Kong. People in this area are relatively rich, there are many radios, and the signals are mixed, which is not easy to detect. In the hidden front, only two traffic officers and senior leaders knew about this secret station location, and Guo Liyi, a confidential officer, did not know.
Li Wenshan, the operator and maintenance staff, was the only one, in Hong Kong for more than two years, he never went to China Resources Company, nor did he know any China Resources employees, and the contact with the organization was the traffic officer, until October 1950, when the radio station moved to Shenzhen.
Accompanied by the most secret sound of radio waves on Hong Kong Island, according to the orders of the central authorities, from September 1948 to the spring of 1949, China Resources safely sent more than 350 famous democrats and more than 700 cultural celebrities and patriotic overseas Chinese to the Liberated Areas in four batches, and then entered Peiping to participate in the first Political Consultative Conference of the People's Republic of China. These include: Guo Moruo, Zhai Bozan, Mao Dun, Huang Yanpei, Ma Yinchu, Zhang Bojun, Cai Tingkai, Li Jishen, Liu Yazi, Zheng Zhenduo... Later history also tells us that without the safe arrival of these democrats in Beiping, it is very likely that a new CPPCC meeting would not be convened, and without the new CPPCC, it would be impossible to formulate a common program of a constitutional nature, and the first Central People's Government would not be able to be produced on this basis.
China Resources also used trade as a cover to open up trade channels between Hong Kong and the Liberated Areas, cooperated with the three major campaigns to purchase military supplies, transport economic cadres to the Liberated Areas, restore production in the Liberated Cities and stabilize local prices.
A few comrades-in-arms who have never known each other have sounded the Hong Kong Island version of "eternal radio waves" on the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China.