Li Shiyu
Break into the military system
In late August 1945, the Party Central Committee decided that the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army would concentrate their forces on liberating Northeast China first, so the Shanghai Uprising was abandoned, Shanghai was taken over by the Kuomintang, and our Party remained in an underground secret situation. While we were studying whether to continue lurking in Shanghai or participating in the battle to liberate the northeast, Yu Xiangqin, a lawyer I used to know, returned from Zhejiang to Shanghai and came to my home.
He advised me not to leave Shanghai, saying, "I used to be the head of the command station in the suburbs of Shanghai, which is led by the military command, and if you can bring some of the police personnel to work for me, I can help you blend in." "How do you blend in?" I asked. "There is a way. The Shanghai suburban command station has reported some fake names for empty pay, and you can give you a top, just say that it is your pseudonym. "It's too dangerous, and it's going to hurt you!"
Yu Xiangqin said calmly: "It doesn't matter, the use of personnel of the military unification puppet organization is called 'user personnel', it is not formally participating in the military unification organization, and it will not be seriously investigated." He also repeatedly said that he must keep this secret, and if there is a mistake, he himself will not be able to bear it. I told him to consider it.
I reported the content of Yu Xiangqin's conversation with me to Liu Renshou and Zhang Zhiyi. A few days later, they informed me that the party organization had studied and decided to let me put the plan into practice and enter the army to carry out the work. Later, Yu Xiangqin came to me again, and I told him that if he could guarantee that there would be no trouble, I could stay in Shanghai and work with him, hoping that he would be enough friends. He promised in every way that nothing would go wrong.
Yu returned to Shanghai on August 26. After that, military agents came to Shanghai one after another, and they became the advance force of the Kuomintang government to take over Shanghai. Before the Kuomintang government formally accepted it, these spies operated under the umbrella of the pseudo-organization military and police to maintain law and order. The military unification's office in Shanghai is located in Du Yuesheng's mansion at 70 Dumei Road. Gong Xianfang, Li Chongshi, Wang Xinheng, Shen Weihan, and Liao Huaping, the great special agents of the military unification headed by Dai Li, also came to Shanghai one after another. When Dai Li first arrived in Shanghai, he often stayed at Tang Shengming's house at No. 11 Jin Father Road, and later the Shanghai office of the military command provided Dai with four or five mansions.
In mid-September, the military commander held a commemorative week meeting of the Shanghai office in Dumei Road, and I also attended the meeting when I received a phone call from Yu Xiangqin. Dai Li presided over the meeting and made a speech. In addition to boasting about the military commander's achievements in the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he also warned the big and small spies to eliminate the "traitorous party," that is, to do their utmost to obstruct the acceptance of our party and our army, and let them rob the fruits of victory. I listened to his rhetoric to understand his movements; On the one hand, pay attention to his speech and behavior to find out his habits. The sinister cunning of Dai Li, the leader of the army, is indeed worthy of his name, he is sometimes fierce and vicious, sometimes sanctimonious, changeable, and capricious.
Yu Xiangqin said to me, "I have the opportunity to lead you to Mr. Dai to talk. "I was in the mood of wanting to see him and not wanting to see him. I want to think that I can further understand what skills and characteristics this big spy leader has; I don't want to see him, but I am worried that I will have direct contact with him, and if I am not careful, he will see my true face.
One day, Yu Xiangqin asked me to meet his teacher, Du Yuesheng, the leader of the youth gang and a financial tycoon. When we didn't talk much with Du, Dai Li came. Yu immediately introduced me to Dai. Dai Li said with a single sentence: "I know you. Listening to Comrade Yu Xiangqin say, you can do it, you organized the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army in Northeast China, and after breaking into the Nanjing pseudo-organization, you did a lot of work for the party-state. I said, "That's Mr. Dai's leadership." He continued: "You are working next to Chen Gongbo, you have not been discovered by Li Shiqun's No. 76, you can get mixed up, even if there is a way, it is not easy!" "That's good organizational leadership, Mr. Today's blessing!" I thought it would be inconvenient to continue talking more, and then said: "Mr. Dai, Mr. Du, you are busy with work, don't bother, I will ask Mr. Dai and Mr. Du for advice in the future, I take my leave." ”
After I entered the military command, I began to use Yu Xiangqin's "Shanghai suburban headquarters" as a cover, and participated in their work of arresting and interrogating traitors. Because I had frequent contact with the spies, I learned a lot about the personnel, organization, and secret service activities of the military unification, as well as the Kuomintang's takeover of Shanghai Municipality.
Later, the Shanghai District of the Military Command was reorganized, and Yu Xiangqin was appointed as the second station commander of the Shanghai District of the Military Unification. The station is divided into three groups: the first group is the political group, which specializes in our party's intelligence; The second group is the social group, which specializes in Shanghai's social dynamics, that is, the major events that happen every day; The third group is the economic group, which specializes in collecting information on Shanghai's economic circles. Yu Xiangqin recommended me as the leader of the second group.
I gradually went deep into the demon cave and took advantage of my authority to directly see important documents such as instructions, circulars, and notices from the military commander to the districts and stations to which he belonged. I selected valuable documents and showed them to the responsible comrades of our underground party, so that our party could understand how the military agents paid attention to our activities, and how they would monitor, detect, track someone or something, and so on. This has played a great role in safeguarding the safety of our Party, our army and the progressive masses, preventing the enemy from sabotage, and avoiding or reducing the losses of the revolutionary cause.
During this period, interrogating traitors was only a temporary task for the military commander. Their main task is to be busy re-establishing the military unified organizations of the Shanghai Special Economic Zone and the provinces and cities to deal with our party and our army, sabotage peace talks, and start a civil war; The second is to reorganize the puppet army organization and establish a traffic police force to control the main railways and highways. They also spared no effort to carry out large-scale robbery, that is, to take the opportunity of arresting and interrogating traitors to engage in "Wuzi Dengke".
For more than a month after Japan's surrender, the Kuomintang government relied entirely on the Wang puppet military and police to maintain law and order in Shanghai. It was not until early October that the receiving officers in Chongqing and the "national troops" who had been beaten far away by the Japanese army flew to Shanghai one after another by American planes. After pouring into the enemy-occupied areas, these people showed their own talents, robbing bungalows, cars, gold bars, US dollars, and the little wives of traitors.
They spent their days drinking, eating, drinking, gambling, and making an already corrupt Shanghai even worse, worse than when it fell! No wonder the common people said angrily: "What to receive, it is simply robbery!" "American soldiers are even more energetic, riding jeeps on the street, injuring and killing people from time to time. American soldiers not only chase "modern girls" on the street, but also molest women from good families on the road. No wonder the common people cried bitterly and said, "I want the central government and hope for the central government, and the central government will suffer even more when it comes," and "a wolf drives out the front door, and a tiger comes in the back door."
After I was recommended by Yu Xiangqin to be the leader of the second group of the second station of the Shanghai Military Command, Yu specially arranged a house for me to work. I don't go there very often, only every few days to look at the documents. I pulled more than 10 members of the judicial units of the former puppet police stations and asked them to report the major events that occur in society every day.
According to the original tasks of this group, I thought that this would be enough to cope with it, but where I knew it, it could not meet the requirements of the district. For example, if a crowd robs rice in a certain place on a certain day, it is not enough to report the situation of the incident, but also to find out the cause and background of the incident, that is, to point out who is behind it.
This is troublesome, and I feel that this errand is not easy to do. Although I have been infiltrating the enemy-occupied areas to engage in intelligence work for many years, my cover profession has always been a public position in the upper government, and it is easy to complete my own work, and I can use my authority and opportunity to collect the intelligence information needed by my party. This is not the case now, this post is to give intelligence information to the enemy, which is something I am reluctant to do, so the Shanghai District of the Military Command has repeatedly accused me of the lack of results in the work of this group.
In this case, the leadership of the underground party consulted with me whether to make up some false, or outdated, or specious information to deal with them. I said, you can't do that. My idea is that I'd rather let them think I'm ignorant and incompetent about the job than let them grab the handle.
At the same time, I told Yu Xianqin that I had no experience in this area, and that the former pseudo-police officer I brought over was engaged in criminal cases, and I was also a layman in this work. Although Yu Xiangqin said that the military command is using those who are drawn into the Wang pseudo-organization and will not seriously examine them, the military command cannot but be suspicious of people like me who do not work hard for them. Yu Xiangqin said that because we are old friends, after inviting guests and gifts, we can finally go around, and the Supervision Department and the Military Justice Department keep a close eye on me and conduct secret examination.
I sensed that the military commander was scouting me, but I didn't know how it aroused their suspicions. Afterwards, I learned that Shen Weihan and Yu Xiangqin of the Military Justice Department had a conflict between them during the interrogation of the traitors because of the struggle for power and profit, because I was the person Yu pulled over, and Shen naturally wanted to find ballast on me to deal with Yu. During their reconnaissance, they learned that my brother Li Chunfang and my wife Sun Jingyun had been arrested on suspicion of communist resistance against Japan. In addition, Yu Xiangqin usually suddenly called me "Li Yuan" and suddenly called me "Zhao Hefeng", which was also one of the reasons for their suspicion.
After Shen Weihan found some clues, he made an article about it. I sent a telegram to Dai Li, who had gone to Peiping to deploy work, and asked for permission to detain me. The content of Dai Li's reply message was to the effect of: The two brothers Xianfang and Weihan, the letter is informed. What is Li Shiyu's performance in participating in the work of this bureau? I hope to check and recheck, and it is not possible to arrest at this time. Why did Dai Li have such a return call? Later, I learned that after receiving the telegram in Peiping, he asked Li Guozhang, who was the chief inspector of the inspection department of the garrison headquarters, to inquire about what kind of person I was. Li is our man, of course, he said something kind for me, plus Dai Li saw me and had no bad impression of me, so he did not approve my immediate arrest. However, Shen Weihan and others still did not die, continued to reconnoiter, and I also increased my vigilance and continued to work.
In early March 1946, Dai Kasa fell to his death in a plane crash. After Dai Li's death, the mutual rivalry between the military commander's special agents intensified. Those spies began to make trouble for Yu Xiangqin, and repeatedly accused me of lack of results in their work, and continued to spy secretly. I had already noticed that Zhang Zhiyi had also received intelligence from the other hand, and learned that the military commander's special agents were secretly reconnoitering and ready to arrest me at any time. So, when I proposed to evacuate Shanghai, Zhang Zhiyi immediately agreed. In addition to arranging a traffic officer to be in charge of sending my family members to northern Jiangsu at any time, he also instructed me to go to the northeast to find Tao Zhu to connect with him, and he would assign work.
But how can I leave Shanghai safely? With Yu Xiangqin explained, public evacuation? If he didn't agree, he would have been shocked, and only secretly withdrew. But what cover is used to evacuate more safely? I am reminded of my teacher, Wang Fuzhou, who was the director of the General Administration of Direct Taxation in Nanjing. As a last resort, I didn't want to find a way with him, because I heard that he was very close to Dai Li and was a member of the Youth Party, and I still couldn't jump out of the circle of secret agents even if I got closer to him.
At this time, in order to evacuate safely, I had to take advantage of this relationship. After arriving in Nanjing, I found Wang Fuzhou, I haven't seen each other for many years, and we are very close to each other. After eight years of parting from the war, I begged him to find a job and a passport. Wang Fuzhou said enthusiastically: "If you are still working in the military system, I can ask Tang Zheng to take care of you, Tang is one of the main responsible persons of the military system, Dai Li is dead, he speaks as forcefully, if you are willing to work in the northeast, I can arrange for you to be the head of the direct tax bureau." ”
I said, "I'm anxious to go back to my hometown of Tohoku to work." "I proposed that it would be best to appoint me as the head of the Yingkou Branch Bureau, because my fellow villager and classmate Wang Jiashan was stationed in that place, and he would take care of him. Wang Fuzhou agreed to my request and said that Zhang Wei, director of the Northeast Bureau of Direct Taxation, was here. He immediately found Zhang Wei to meet me. Zhang Wei said that Yingkou was preparing to set up a sub-bureau, and he told me to go to Shenyang to wait and appoint me as the director of the Yingkou sub-bureau. Wang Fuzhou immediately ordered the office of the State Administration of Direct Taxation to issue me a passport and hand it over to me to take back to Shanghai.