In 1965, something happened that shocked Chiang Kai-shek, on July 20, Li Zongren returned to Beijing, along with his wife Guo Dejie, led by Zhou Enlai on the same day, and more than 100 people, including the boss, Chen Laozong, and Ye Shuai, were greeted at the airport.
It can be said that it is enough to give Li Zongren face, after all, Li Zongren was once the vice president and acting president of the Kuomintang, so the posture of welcoming is also reasonable, in the solemn ceremony, Li Zongren and his wife slowly stepped off the plane, do not know how difficult the arrival of this day is.
In order to win Li Zongren's return to China, he first won over Li Zongren's secretary Cheng Siyuan, who although not a general of the Gui clan, had an extremely close relationship with Li Zongren, who was Li Zongren's secretary and could also be said to be Li Zongren's adviser, and won Li Zongren's trust and respect.
Cheng Siyuan is a native of Binyang, Guangxi, born in a poor family, but he himself is very hardworking, although he did not go to school until the age of 13, he practiced two major skills by his own efforts, one is that the article is well written, the other is that the brush is well written, and in that era there was such a skill that he could go all over the world.
Cheng Siyuan first served as a clerk in the 7th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, participated in the Northern Expedition, and later became Li Zongren's secretary, working around Li Zongren for more than ten years, until 1949, Li Zongren went to the United States, and Cheng Siyuan stayed in Hong Kong, after all, he was a confidant for more than ten years, and there was still contact between the two.
In April 1956, Cheng Siyuan responded to the call of our party and returned to Beijing from Hong Kong, after which he personally visited all parts of the country, a thriving scene made Cheng Siyuan completely change his view of the Communist Party, and he firmly believed that New China would get better and better under the leadership of the Communist Party.
Under the arrangement of Premier Zhou, Cheng Siyuan went to work for Li Zongren, and although a close secretary came forward, it was still difficult to dispel the worries in Li Zongren's heart, so he decided to throw stones and ask for directions, saying that he had a batch of treasured cultural relics worth 110,000 US dollars and wanted to donate them back to China.
Later, li Zongren's batch of cultural relics arrived in Beijing, the premier arranged experts to conduct an appraisal, found that most of them were fakes, few digital paintings were authentic, worth at most three thousand US dollars, Premier Zhou planned to give thirty thousand US dollars, Chairman Mao smiled when he learned of it, and generously said to give him 120,000 US dollars.
The reason why Chairman Mao laughed was to understand that Li Zongren was asking for directions and testing the hearts of the Communists, knowing that China's foreign exchange was not sufficient in that era, and the significance of this 120,000 US dollars far exceeded its own value.
Then Li Zongren officially planned to return to China, Li Zongren wanted to return to China is not as simple as buying a ticket to take a plane, because Chiang Kai-shek did not want to see Li Zongren return to China, it was bound to arrange for secret agents to assassinate, so Li Zongren first went to Switzerland, and then returned to China through Pakistan.
Finally, through the ingenious arrangement of ding guoyu, the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, it was safe to appear at the airport in Beijing, when Cheng Siyuan accompanied him throughout the whole process, and after Premier Zhou and others greeted him, Chairman Mao also set up a banquet to entertain Li Zongren, and Li Zongren received unprecedented courtesy.
Later, Li Zongren proposed that he wanted to serve as vice chairman of the People's Congress of New China, but Chairman Mao did not agree to his request, so Li Zongren was distressed for a few days, suspecting that he had returned wrong, and a few days later Premier Zhou personally visited and explained the reason to Li Zongren.
It turned out that Chairman Mao's refusal was due to three intentions: First, Li Zongren's previous position was too high, he had served as vice president and acting president of the Kuomintang, and now he is demoted as vice chairman of the KUOMINTT.
The second intention is to let the rest of the Kuomintang people see that these people are free to return to the mainland, that they can be officials or not officials, that they can return to their roots and retire, and that the mainland is welcome, which is more conducive to the reunification of the motherland.
The third is that Li Zongren is better than an improper official; once Li Zongren takes up his post on the mainland, it will be difficult for him to do work for those old subordinates in his past capacity, but it will not be conducive to the great cause of reunification.
After listening to Premier Zhou's explanation, Li Zongren greatly admired Chairman Mao's foresight and foresight, and gladly accepted Chairman Mao's arrangement; since then, Li Zongren has been using his influence to make contributions to cross-strait reunification, and his secretary Cheng Siyuan has also actively contributed to cross-strait reunification.
It is worth saying that after Cheng Siyuan accompanied Li Zongren back to China, he successively served as president of the China Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification, the first honorary president of the China Overseas Friendship Association, and the president of the fourth council of the National Taiwan Studies Association, and has long been committed to cross-strait reunification.
In March 1993, Cheng Siyuan was elected vice chairman of the Eighth National People's Congress, when Li Zongren proposed but did not become an official, his secretary became a secretary, Cheng Siyuan has many titles, but in the final analysis, he contributed to the country, Cheng Siyuan died of illness in Beijing on July 28, 2005, at the age of 97.