Wu Shiying once studied in the Guizhou School and served as the pipe band of the 74th Standard 2nd Battalion in Yunnan. After the Xinhai Revolution, the army was laid off, and he went to Shanghai. On March 20, 1913, he assassinated Soong Jiaoren, one of the founders of the Kuomintang, but was soon arrested, and the 22-year-old unemployed soldier hooligan ruffian admitted that the bullet had been fired from the chamber of his gun. On April 24 of the same year, he was poisoned and killed in prison.
Why did they point their guns at Song Jiaoren?
Summary: Why did Wu Shiying assassinate Song Jiaoren? Through Wu Shiying's confession, it can be seen that he is just a simple-minded killer who has been bought, and he does not know Song Jiaoren's true identity.
With the arrest of the culprit, the facts of the case have basically been clarified, and the work of the Shanghai District Procuratorate has been completed. So what exactly is the identity of the suspects, why did they assassinate Song Jiaoren, and how were they arrested? Unfortunately, there is no detailed record in this file in the Jiangsu Provincial Archives.
The staff of the archives explained that the original file was originally reported to the provincial procuratorate by the Shanghai District Procuratorate, and the case had not yet been tried at the time of the report. However, through the old newspapers of the time when the incident occurred and the research results of many experts and scholars, we can still see the process of solving the case.
Restore the historical scene, the assassin Wu Shiying shot Song Jiaoren
Samurai Ying
After the Song Jiaoren case, the process of apprehending the assassin went unusually well. The first to fall into sight was a down-and-out and suspicious former Qing Dian Army officer. From him, a series of upstream planners were brought out.
received two clues one after another, pointing directly to the murderer of Song Jiaoren
On March 21, 1913, the day after Song Jiaoren's assassination, the Kuomintang in Shanghai received a report from a tenant of the Liuye Hotel on Wuma Road, saying that a person named Wu Shiying in Room 14 was suspicious and suspected of committing a crime.
According to the tenant's confession, Wu Shiying was a native of Shanxi, short in stature, ugly in appearance, and claimed to have been an officer in Yunnan. After the Xinhai Revolution, he wandered to Shanghai, but his livelihood was very difficult. Before noon on March 20, several people came to Wu Shiying and talked to him secretly. After these people came, Wu Shiying was in a good mood and borrowed money from his neighbors, saying that he was going to take a car to Ximen. After the neighbor lent him triangular money, he left. At eight o'clock that night, Wu Shiying returned to the hotel and had already changed into a suit. He told his neighbor that he already had money and took out a dollar to give to his neighbor. Seeing that the neighbor pushed him, Wu Shiying boasted that he could get a thousand yuan after he did the thing. After saying that, he left. On the night of the 20th, Samurai Ying did not return. It wasn't until 7 o'clock in the morning of the 21st that he returned to the hotel to settle the bill, and then disappeared.
Is Wu Shiying the murderer, and where has he gone? However, on March 23, new clues appeared. The Kuomintang got a report from an antique dealer, Wang Afa. Wang said that a week ago, because he was selling calligraphy and paintings, he had gone to Ying Guixin's house outside Xiaoximen. Ying Guixin showed Wang a photo, saying that he would do the person in the photo, and give Dayang a thousand yuan after the deed was completed. After Wang Afa thought about it, he felt that this matter could not be done well, so he returned the photo to Ying Guixin. After Song Jiaoren was assassinated, various newspapers published photos of Song Jiaoren. Wang Afa found out that it was the same person who should have shown him, so he came to report.
Subsequently, the Kuomintang sent people to investigate many times, and finally arrested Ying Kuicheng with the French patrol. Subsequently, Ying Kuicheng's house was raided, and all visiting guests were arrested. As a result, among the visitors, the suspect Wu Shiying was caught. Another strong evidence is that in Ying Kuicheng's home, a pistol that shot Song Jiaoren was also found. The three bullets in the pistol were fired on the night of Wu Shiying's assassination of Song Jiaoren, and the remaining two bullets in the gun were consistent with the bullets taken out of Song Jiaoren's body.
The assassin Wu Shiying confessed: After killing Song, someone promised to give me 1,000 yuan
Why did Wu Shiying assassinate Song Jiaoren? Through Wu Shiying's confession, it can be seen that he was just a simple-minded killer who had been bought, and he did not know Song Jiaoren's true identity.
After the Xinhai Revolution, there was a large-scale disarmament in the south, and Wu Shiying, who was an officer in Yunnan, left Yunnan and came to Shanghai. In Shanghai, Wu Shiying's life was extremely difficult, and in order to survive, he was abducted and deceived and did everything. Born in the army, he had undergone rigorous military training, knew how to use firearms, and was agile. In despair, he was secretly taken care of.
Just a few days before Song Jiaoren was assassinated, in a tea shop, Wu Shiying met a person surnamed Chen. The other side said that they wanted to set up a person, and this person had a very important relationship with China's future. If you do this, you will be doing harm for 40,000,000 compatriots. The other party also promised that if he did this, he would get a thousand yuan from the ocean. Although Wu Shiying didn't know who he was going to assassinate, it sounded like a matter of "fame and fortune", and he agreed to it.
The day before the assassination of Song Jiaoren, the man surnamed Chen came to Wu Shiying again and asked him to join the Gongjin Association. The Gongjin Association is a gang organization in Shanghai, and joining the gang is equivalent to obtaining a protective umbrella for Wu Shiying to make a living in Shanghai, and he readily agrees.
On the day of the assassination of Song Jiaoren, the surnamed Chen came to find Wu Shiying again. The two had dinner together, and Chen gave full account of the assassination plan: the person to be assassinated was surnamed Song, and he was going to get on the train that night. Chen also handed the pistol to be used for the assassination. Subsequently, two other people accompanied Wu Shiying to the train station by car. After arriving at the train station, the three of them bought platform tickets and went in, and one of them watched the wind outside. As soon as he bought the ticket, Chen told Wu Shiying that the target had come and pointed him out. Wu Shiying and Song Jiaoren came out of the lounge, and on the way to the ticket gate, they opened fire. After firing the shot, Samurai Ying immediately fell to the ground, and on the way to escape, fired two more shots to protect himself.
After Wu Shiying assassinated Song Jiaoren, he took a rickshaw to Ying Kuicheng's house. Ying Kuicheng was extremely satisfied with Wu Shiying's performance.
The hired murderer Ying Kuicheng: At first, he just wanted to damage the reputation of Song Jiaoren and others
Song Jiaoren
Why did Ying Kuicheng kill Song Jiaoren? The French Concession patrol found a large number of letters at Ying Kuicheng's house, among which the secret telegram between him and Hong Shuzu, secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Beiyang Government, became important evidence. On April 25, 1913, Cheng Dequan, the governor of Jiangsu, published these telegrams.
It can be seen from the secret telegram between Ying Kuicheng and Hong Shuzu that Ying Kuicheng has always hoped to curry favor with Beijing and gain economic and political benefits by destroying the image of the Kuomintang. In the telegram, Ying Kuicheng told Hong Shuzu that he had bought 100,000 copies of police information from Japan, which recorded the bad deeds of Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren and others. Hong Shuzu was very interested in these materials, because if they were published, they would seriously damage the reputation of the Kuomintang and thus lose important political capital. Hong Shuzu urged Ying Kuicheng to hand over the information, and in the telegram sent to Ying Kuicheng on February 22, 1913, he even clearly marked the price and was willing to pay 300,000 yuan to buy it.
However, Ying Kuicheng was never able to produce information about the so-called "bad deeds of Sun (Zhongshan) Huang (Xing) and Song (Jiaoren)", and Hong Shuzu, who was far away in Beijing, also realized that Ying Kuicheng could not provide the information he needed. However, the joint action of the two did not stop, and the nature changed - escalated to the assassination of Song Jiaoren.
On March 13, Hong Shuzu sent a telegram to Ying Kuicheng with the words "destroy the Song Dynasty's honorable position," which seemed to imply that if Ying Kuicheng could kill Song Jiaoren, Beijing would reward him with an important official position. This temptation is really impossible to refuse for Ying Kuicheng, who was born in a gang and wants to soar. On March 14, Ying Kuicheng sent a telegram to Hong Shuzu, saying: "The bandits of Liangshan are disturbing everywhere and the danger is very serious, and an urgent order has been issued to try to arrest them." "Liangshan bandits, that is, Song Jiang. Song Jiang and Song Jiaoren have the same surname, and the reference is self-evident.
Apparently, on March 14, Ying Kuicheng had already begun to secretly arrange the assassination. And Wu Shiying had no idea that the assassination he was about to participate in had been so carefully premeditated.
At 2 a.m. on March 21, four hours after Song Jiaoren's assassination, Ying Kuicheng sent a telegram to Hong Shuzu, confirming that the assassins had acted. Later on the same day, he telegraphed Hong Shuzu again: "The bandit leader has been destroyed, and our army has no casualties, which is comforting." ”
The end of the murderer: neither the assassin nor the hired murderer ended well
After several twists and turns, under the pull and balance of various forces, the case finally fell into a dead end. However, the direct murderer Wu Shiying and the hired murderer Ying Kuicheng both ended up tragically dead.
Assassin Warrior Ying: Died violently in prison before the preliminary trial
After Wu Shiying was arrested, he was first detained in the French Concession. On April 17, 1913, Wu Shiying and Ying Kuicheng were extradited to the Chinese side and transferred to Shanghai Model Prison. Later, he was transferred to the 61st Regiment Battalion stationed at the Shanghai Naval Bureau. On April 23, Wu Shiying suddenly felt unwell. He told the guards that when he was held in the patrol room, he was infected with white lice and his whole body was itchy. Because he was handcuffed, he couldn't scratch it, so he could only twist his whole body to relieve the itch, which caused the quilt to fall off and suffer from the cold, but he felt that his body was good and there should be no problem.
Having said that, by around four o'clock in the morning on April 24, Samurai Young's coughing and wheezing worsened, and he had difficulty breathing. In the morning, the guards went to call a doctor for him. Before the doctor arrived, Wu Shiying was already dead.
The day before the trial and the prosecutor's office, the situation was very strange, and some people suspected that he was secretly poisoned. But the doctor's autopsy showed that there was a slight bruise on his lungs, liver, and throat, and there was no poison in his large intestine and stomach.
The hired murderer should be Kuicheng: successfully escaped from prison and was assassinated after five months at large
After Wu Shiying's death, Ying Kuicheng has been detained in custody. On July 25, 1913, after four months in captivity, he managed to escape from prison with the help of gang members, and then absconded to Qingdao.
After escaping from prison, Ying Kuicheng did not behave with his tail between his legs, but instead made a high-profile telegram, calling on the Beiyang government to rehabilitate Wu Shiying and himself. He believed that he and Wu Shiying had merit in assassinating Song Jiaoren and was for the sake of the country. However, in the tragic death of Wu Shiying, he also ended up "living on a poor island, separated from flesh and blood, and scattered in the old department", which is really wronged. Subsequently, Ying Kuicheng left Qingdao and moved to live in Beijing. On December 21, 1913, Ying Kuicheng moved to a hotel, and his father and wife also moved to Beijing.
Ying Kuicheng's approach was originally intended to ask the Beiyang government for merit and reward. He did meet Yuan Shikai. However, after Yuan Shikai saw Ying Kuicheng, he thought that "Ying is embarrassed and cannot be kept", and also believes that Ying Kuicheng assassinated Song Jiaoren and "must not be punished".
Yuan Shikai's subordinate Lei Zhenchun, after understanding Yuan Shikai's thoughts, proposed that Ying Kuicheng was here to surrender to Cheng, and killing him would be discredited to the world. If you want to kill him, assassination is appropriate. Yuan Shikai accepted Lei Zhenchun's suggestion. A few days later, Yuan Shikai received the news that Ying Kuicheng was swaggering through the market and making a big splash, and immediately ordered Lei Zhenchun to quickly end Ying Kuicheng.
Lei Zhenchun found Ying Kuicheng and pretended to convey Yuan Shikai's meaning - in order to avoid being eye-catching, he hoped that he would take refuge in Tianjin for the time being. Ying Kuicheng agreed, and rushed to Tianjin by train on January 9, 1914. Ying Kuicheng sat in a first-class carriage and brought two bodyguards with guns, so it stands to reason that it is difficult for ordinary people to approach him. However, when the train arrived near Yang Village, Ying Kuicheng was stabbed twice by a sudden assassin and died. The Assassins then managed to escape.