In 1946, at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, a funeral that brought together the top officials of the Kuomintang was being carried out here, and Chiang Kai-shek burst into tears at the funeral, and as the coffin was put into the earth, it also represented the end of the life of Dai Li, the head of the Kuomintang secret service.
Chiang Kai-shek recited with a crying voice the irretrievable condolence for the death of the king. Everyone watched him with tears in his eyes, bidding farewell to his most dependent subordinates.
But no one expected that just one day later, Chiang Kai-shek would issue an order in the presidential palace in Nanjing, asking his subordinates to check Dai Li's inheritance after his death and then confiscate it.
When Dai Li's estate was inventoried and the person in charge reported the relevant data to Chiang Kai-shek, Chairman Chiang, who had always been light in the face of things, was so angry that he directly cursed, and even his subordinates who reported the intelligence were affected by the pond fish.
How much legacy did Dai Li leave after his death that would make Chiang Kai-shek so angry? How did Dai Li grow step by step from a nobody, step by step, to a military commander that even Chiang Kai-shek feared?
Two opportunities made Dai Li a confidant of Chiang Kai-shek
Dai Li was born into a relatively wealthy family, his grandfather Dai Tinghua was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, and he also served as a governor of Taiwan, his father was a doctor, and his mother was a housewife. Dai Li was originally from Rugao, Jiangsu Province, and later moved to Shanghai with his family.
Although his family is wealthy, but in Shanghai, where there were many chaebols at that time, Dai Li's family background can only be said to be average, but Dai Li has strong communication skills, and has met many dignitaries in Shanghai over the years, and Du Yuesheng, the largest gang leader in Shanghai at that time, is his best friend, and there are many high-ranking military and political officials during the Republic of China, all of whom have a good relationship with Dai Li.
Later, Dai Li entered the Whampoa Military Academy through a friend's relationship, when Chiang Kai-shek was the principal of the Whampoa Military Academy, and Dai Li wanted to follow this big man but never answered. Later, with the help of his classmate Hu Zongnan, Dai Li became a guard in Chiang Kai-shek's bodyguard regiment.
Although he can watch Chiang Kai-shek in and out of the mansion every day, but these guards can talk to him is very rare, and Dai Li is a different way, every time when Chiang Kai-shek passes by, he will give his own inquiring information, at first Chiang Kai-shek was not impressed, but Dai Li did more and persevered, and slowly attracted the attention of the principal.
Later, Chiang Kai-shek discovered that this former disciple had an amazing talent in intelligence collection, and the intelligence he collected not only had a unique perspective, but also always had some information that others could not notice, and it also brought great help to Chiang Kai-shek.
Gradually, Chiang Kai-shek adapted to checking the information provided by Dai Li every day, and later directly gave him the right to form his own intelligence department. In 1932, under the order of Chiang Kai-shek, Dai Li entered the Kuomintang's right-wing intelligence organization Lixing Society.
At this time, the organization was full of old people from the first phase of Huangpu, such as He Zhihan and Deng Wenyi, who were far above Dai Li in terms of qualifications and connections, and did not put Dai Li, who was Chiang Kai-shek's bodyguard, in his eyes. Chiang Kai-shek also relied on these members who were born before the fourth period of Whampoa, but when this knowledge was reported to the old Chiang, there was a common problem, that is, the documents submitted to Chairman Chiang Kai-shek were smelly and long, and the length of praising merit or praising himself made Chiang Kai-shek annoyed.
Chiang Kai-shek asked them more than once to report their news concisely, but these cultural people were not at all moved, and even praised each other for the length of the report. However, Dai Li completely abandoned the shortcomings of these cultural people, and in his report to Chiang Kai-shek, he always only singled out the key points and said that those who could explain it in one sentence would never repeat it, that is, Dai Li's concise and efficient method once again won Chiang Kai-shek's appreciation, and his status also rose rapidly.
But at this time, Dai Li could only be said to be Chiang Kai-shek's favored subordinate, and he was far from the position of a confidant, until the Xi'an Incident in 1936. Dai Li knew that his opportunity had come, and when Chiang Kai-shek was detained in Xi'an by Zhang Xueliang and others, Dai Li went to Xi'an with Song Meiling and Song Ziwen.
On the plane, Dai Li said that he had brought two pistols, and that he was bound to die with Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, and his actions and remarks greatly moved Soong Meiling, and after seeing Chiang Kai-shek, Dai Li directly hugged Chiang Kai-shek's thigh and wept bitterly, saying that he had not protected Chairman Chiang's safety.
Although Dai Li's actions were too meaningful, at that moment when Chiang Kai-shek's safety was seriously threatened, it was Dai Li's actions that made Chiang Kai-shek trust. After the Xi'an Incident, Dai Li became Chiang Kai-shek's number one confidant in one fell swoop, and later directly appointed him as the number one person in the military commander.
The excessive power aroused Chiang Kai-shek's suspicion
Dai Li is indeed a good hand in intelligence, especially during the Anti-Japanese War Dai Li cracked the conspiracy and assassination of many Japanese spies, after Dai Li became the head of the military system, the military system ushered in a rapid expansion, at its peak military commander more than 45,000 personnel, and under the military command also commanded a strong loyal salvation army, Dai Li's direct control of the army alone has 150,000 people.
Dai Li's expanding power aroused Chiang Kai-shek's suspicion and jealousy. Therefore, he had to set up another special agency, the Central Unification, in order to achieve the purpose of containing the military unification.
But even so, the speed of Dai Li's development still made Chiang Kai-shek jealous, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, Dai Li incorporated a large number of traitors and spies of the Wang puppet government, plus the surrender of some puppet army generals, and before Dai Li's death, the army indirectly controlled by Dai Li even reached a million, and it is no wonder that Chiang Kai-shek became suspicious of him.
Before Dai Li died, he already had the idea of taking refuge abroad, and Dai Li seemed to know that Chiang Kai-shek already wanted to do something to him.
It is precisely because of the separation between Chiang Kai-shek and Dai Li that after Dai Li's death, everyone has a lot of doubts about his death, and some people think that Chiang Kai-shek sent people to move on the plane and quietly let the military commander die in an accident.
Some people also think that the death on the plane is not Dai Li at all, but the secret scheme of the military commander, and the real Dai Li may have fled abroad to get away with ease. Of course, all these claims are speculation, and there is no actual evidence to support them.
However, when Chiang Kai-shek sent people to check Dai Li's estate, they did find a lot of real money and silver, and it is said that thousands of gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars were found in Dai Li's mansion, and there were Dai Li's mansions all over the country.
In Shanghai, Dai Li even spent a lot of money to build a mansion for this star in order to support the star at that time, and the cost was even more astronomical in Shanghai, where such a large amount of land was expensive.
Just embezzling such a huge amount of money may not make Chiang Kai-shek scold, and what makes Chiang Kai-shek unacceptable is that Dai Li is usually dressed very plainly and even frugally in front of him, and even the military uniform is washed off. Then now it seems that Dai Li has been acting in front of Chiang Kai-shek, how can Chiang Kai-shek, who has been kept in the dark, not be angry?