On April 5, 1975, Chiang Kai-shek died of illness at the Shilin Mansion in Taipei at the age of 88. According to common sense, this age is obviously considered a long life and a long life, but Chiang Kai-shek's death was once regarded as a mystery.
On the one hand, although Chiang Kai-shek was sick and weak in his later years, his condition was basically within the control of the medical team, so his death was a sudden death. On the other hand, Chiang Kai-shek's bodyguards and doctors had publicly accused Soong Meiling's "good intentions" as the main reason for the deterioration of Chiang Kai-shek's condition.
So, how did Chiang Kai-shek die, and what does his death have to do with his wife, Soong Meiling?
On 25 October 1971, at the 26th session of the United Nations General Assembly, resolution 2758 was successfully adopted by an overwhelming vote of 76 in favour, 35 against and 17 abstentions. With deafening applause and cheers from the audience, the People's Republic of China officially restored its lawful seat in the United Nations and all its legitimate rights.
At the same time, the Chiang Kai-shek clique and the Kuomintang regime were completely denied and expelled. Chiang Kai-shek's evil plan to split China was shattered.
Back in December 1949, with the liberation of Chongqing and Guiyang one after another, Marshal He Long led a large army from Shaanxi to Sichuan, frantically pursuing Hu Zongnan's group. Chiang Kai-shek, who knew that he had no power to return to heaven, finally gave up his dying struggle and fled to the island of Taiwan by plane in Chengdu. Before leaving, he looked at the continent with the five-star red flag flying everywhere, and made up his mind to make a comeback.
It can be said that as early as the beginning of 1949, the national army suffered heavy defeats in the three major battles of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin, with losses of more than 1.54 million soldiers. Chiang Kai-shek was already ready for defeat and began to prepare for the subsequent "counterattack on the mainland" plan.
He sent people to loot more than 4 million taels of gold from the state treasury, banks, and ordinary people, and at the same time sent troops to quietly occupy many islands along the southeast coast such as Kinmen Island and Mazu Island, in an attempt to form a naval blockade chain and fight a protracted war with the mainland.
For a long time, Chiang Kai-shek had strong confidence in a counteroffensive on the mainland. After all, in splitting China and suppressing the Communist Party, the Kuomintang has always stood firmly behind the United States, the spoiler. It has been learned that during the War of Liberation alone, the United States successively provided more than $35 trillion in funds and more than $2 billion in military supplies to the Kuomintang.
In the 20 years of the Kinmen artillery battle, the United States spent a lot of money on tanks, howitzers, F-100 Super Sabre fighters, F-104 star fighters, and other high-precision new weapons, and even the famous "Sidewinder" air-to-air missile.
It is precisely for this reason that Chiang Kai-shek always believed that with the help of US military strength, it was only a matter of time before he could attack the mainland and "change the dynasty." I never thought about it, waited and waited, and New China won the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea, developed the hydrogen bomb and atomic bomb, and its international status was unprecedentedly improved, and it directly returned to the position of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, shattering all the great rebellion and unrealistic illusions of the Kuomintang.
The 68 countries that had "established diplomatic relations" with Taiwan Province all chose to sever diplomatic relations and established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China instead. Even the big brother, the United States, has changed its face and tried to shake hands with China.
One can imagine how serious the impact this incident had on Chiang Kai-shek. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek, who was 84 years old, was already sick and his physical condition was not very optimistic.
However, what really made Chiang Kai-shek's physical condition light red was the serious car accident in 1969. The island of Taiwan has a tropical and subtropical monsoon climate, which is generally warm throughout the year. However, during the rainy summer months, the weather is often hot and humid, so stuffy that it can give people the illusion that they can't breathe. Therefore, every summer, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Meiling will move to the official residence in Yangmingshan to temporarily live in the summer.
On the afternoon of September 16, 1969, after holding routine military talks with senior generals of the Taiwan army, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly became interested and wanted to go for a ride in the suburbs of Taipei with Soong Meiling.
Chiang Kai-shek's travels were usually carried out with great fanfare and momentum, with a pilot car in front of him, followed by two security cars, and even a bunch of heavily loaded guards were arranged in advance on the route.
It's a pity that disasters fall from the sky, and they can't be stopped. When the convoy reached a turn, a jeep suddenly burst out of the blind spot and crashed into the convoy at high speed. At the critical moment, the driver of the pilot car stepped on the brakes and passed by the jeep in a thrilling way. However, the "presidential" car, which was one step later, did not have time to react and crashed straight into the pilot car.
With the violent impact, Chiang Kai-shek, who was sitting in the back seat and had not yet fastened his seat belt, slammed into the partition in front of him, and fainted in pain in an instant.
After the accident, Chiang Kai-shek and others were quickly sent to the Invalides General Hospital, the best in Taipei. After diagnosis, the doctor believed that Chiang Kai-shek only had a slight tear in his mouth and bruises and swelling of the scrotum, all of which were minor trauma. On the contrary, Song Meiling, who had a sprained neck and strained legs and knees, was slightly more seriously injured.
But the end result turned out that the doctor who came to the conclusion was a quack. Because after being discharged from the hospital in a car accident, Chiang Kai-shek often felt chest tightness and shortness of breath, and his mental and physical strength were much worse than before. It wasn't until a routine medical check-up a few weeks later that a cardiologist discovered that Chiang Kai-shek's aortic valve had suffered a severe injury in the car accident.
If the heart is like a water pump, the valves are the valves that open and close to prevent blood from flowing through the atria and ventricles. If the valve is broken, the heart will also fail due to the abnormal functioning of the blood.
In this way, because the heart valve was seriously injured and the treatment was not timely, Chiang Kai-shek's heart function became worse and worse, and even his body collapsed.
It is worth mentioning that after investigation, the car accident was not an assassination. The owner of the jeep was actually a division commander of the Taiwan army, and he had just finished attending a meeting personally held by Chiang Kai-shek in Yangmingshan that day. Later, he was sentenced to death for "hurting the supreme leader by failing to report his knowledge."
Let's go back to Chiang Kai-shek. After experiencing a double blow of physical and psychological blows, Chiang Kai-shek was distraught and anxious all day long. It's just that "stay in the green mountains, don't worry about no firewood", even if the mountains and rivers are exhausted, you can't give up on yourself. Therefore, after being re-elected as "president" again in February 1972, Chiang Kai-shek decided to officially start delegating power to his son Chiang Ching-kuo, paving the way for him to succeed as "president". never thought that before Chiang Kai-shek began to arrange his troops, he killed Song Meiling halfway.
During the Republic of China, China had the famous "Jiang, Song, Kong, and Chen" four families, who controlled China's political and economic lifeline, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as "power leaning towards the government and the opposition". Chiang Kai-shek was the head of the Chiang family, and Soong Meiling was the daughter of the Song family, and the two married in 1927.
Regarding the union of the two, the vast majority of people agree that it is a purely political marriage. Because before Soong Meiling, Chiang Kai-shek had three wives. Among them, the third wife, Chen Jieru, Chiang Kai-shek fell in love with her at first sight when she was 13 years old, and then pursued it for 2 years before she got a beauty. However, on the eve of marrying Song Meiling, Chiang Kai-shek cruelly abandoned Chen Jieru, who was only 21 years old, and his change of heart did not become so fast.
The most critical thing is that precisely in 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12 counter-revolutionary coup" and established the Nationalist Government in Nanjing. This is the case that while he is fighting against the Wuhan Nationalist Government, he also has to fight against the warlord forces such as Feng Yuxiang and Li Zongren, and he is in need of strength and support.
Therefore, compared to the statements such as having a secret love for many years and falling in love at first sight, a political marriage is obviously more reasonable.
In short, compared with the identity of "Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek", Soong Meiling is an independent and powerful politician and diplomat. At the beginning of the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Soong Meiling personally invited General Chennault to form the famous "Flying Tigers", and thus became the commander-in-chief of the Chinese Air Force, and is also known as the "mother of the Chinese Air Force" at home and abroad. In 1943, Soong Meiling also personally rushed to the United States to hold a press conference with President Roosevelt, and became the first Chinese to deliver a speech to the US Congress.
As a person of real power who is keen on politics and has outstanding achievements, Song Meiling is undoubtedly also a careerist. She clearly knew that if Chiang Ching-kuo was allowed to ascend to the throne, then after Chiang Kai-shek's death, she and the Song family would inevitably lose their power and even be suppressed.
Therefore, in the spring of 1972, Chiang Kai-shek had just been re-elected and nominated Chiang Ching-kuo for the post of "President of the Executive Yuan". On the back foot, Song Meiling called her nephew Kong Lingkan to Taiwan to fight for power. This Kong Lingkan is the eldest son of Song Meiling's eldest sister Song Ailing and Kong Xiangxi, and he really has half of the Song family's blood on his body. Coupled with the support of the Kong and Song families, and the support of Song Meiling, he is undoubtedly the best candidate to compete with Chiang Ching-kuo.
Subsequently, the famous "Song Meiling forced the palace drama" was staged lively. Originally, Soong Meiling wanted to make a move to "advance by retreating", she knew that Chiang Kai-shek would definitely hand over to Chiang Ching-kuo the post of premier who held administrative power and was qualified to form a cabinet, so she pretended to let Kong Lingkan compete for the position, and then took a step back to become Minister of Finance with a helpless attitude.
But Song Meiling never expected that she attached importance to blood, and Chiang Kai-shek was also important, but she was not as ruthless and had the means as Chiang Kai-shek. Out of wariness of the power of the Kong and Song families, Chiang Kai-shek was unwilling to leave a threat to Chiang Ching-kuo. In the face of Soong Meiling's forced palace and the Cold War, Chiang Kai-shek did not compromise, but deliberately said that he would take the initiative to abdicate and give way to Yan Jiagan, who was the vice president at the time.
Although Chiang Kai-shek finally lifted the threat of forcing the palace and successfully put Chiang Ching-kuo as his successor, Soong Meiling did not stop there. Seeing the failure of the plan to support Kong Lingkan and the increasing influence of Chiang Ching-kuo, the only thing Song Meiling could do was to stabilize her position.
In the following years, in order to emphasize her identity and ensure that her status and power were not overridden by Chiang Ching-kuo, Soong Meiling often forced Chiang Kai-shek to drag her sick body to participate in activities and meetings with her. A series of stresses and injuries left Chiang Kai-shek exhausted and his health deteriorated. And the intensive itinerary arranged by Song Meiling made it impossible for him to recuperate and recover at all, thus forming a vicious circle.
In March 1975, Chiang Kai-shek's physical condition deteriorated further. Top doctors and experts from all over Taiwan Province consulted together and agreed that conservative treatment should be adopted. After all, Chiang Kai-shek is 88 years old, and he still has countless problems such as heart disease.
But this plan was vetoed by Song Meiling, and in her opinion, the so-called conservative treatment is equivalent to waiting for death. But as soon as Chiang Kai-shek died, let alone his real power, he couldn't even keep the title of "first lady".
Stemming from her long-term background in the United States and her experience in Western diplomacy, Soong Meiling's words, deeds, and thoughts were completely Westernized early on. For the first time, in terms of medical technology, Song Meiling was almost in a state of blind belief in the West.
As early as 1962, when Chiang Kai-shek suffered from prostatitis, experts in Taiwan recommended conservative treatment and slow inflammation. But Song Meiling insisted on finding a black doctor and letting him use "violent means" to scrape the swollen part directly, resulting in Chiang Kai-shek's prostate condition repeatedly, frequent blood in urine, and his body deteriorated.
It is said that "eating a line will lead to wisdom", but Song Meiling was in a hurry to go to the doctor. In early 1975, Chiang Kai-shek's lungs were filled with fluid due to deteriorating heart function. The medical team believes that the accumulation of fluid in the lungs will not threaten Chiang Kai-shek's life in the short term, and it is better to use conservative treatment and rest and recuperate.
However, Song Meiling asked Kong Lingkan and Kong Lingwei, two siblings, to go to the United States to invite "Dr. Ha", the director of surgery of a well-known university, and asked him to perform back puncture surgery on Chiang Kai-shek to remove fluid from the lungs.
This operation caused Chiang Kai-shek to have serious complications. He developed a high fever and fell into a prolonged coma, his urinary system completely failed, and his heart became weaker and weaker. Finally, at 11:50 p.m. on April 5, 1975, he stopped breathing completely. And Song Meiling was also forced to leave the country in September of the same year and went to the United States to live in seclusion.
All political elements aside, Chiang Kai-shek's death did have a lot to do with Soong Meiling's erroneous "radical treatment plan of Western medicine". But in the final analysis, it is caused by accidents and diseases, and 88 years old is really a high life.