Tan Furen, a founding lieutenant general who has gone through the baptism of war and made great achievements for the country.
He failed to fall under the enemy's bullets, but in the middle of the night in peacetime, he suffered misfortune within the walls of his own courtyard. This can't help but make people sigh, and thousands of doubts welled up in their hearts.
谭甫仁
What kind of accident brought the life of such a senior general to an abrupt end?
Behind this late-night tragedy, why did the behavior of the guards become the focus of public opinion, was it simply due to fear, or was it a lapse in the security system?
Revolutionary journey, military career
Tan Furen, born in 1919 in an ordinary peasant family in Leiyang, Hunan, has had the ambition to serve the country since he was a child.
In 1927, the young Tan Furen resolutely joined the Communist Party of China and threw himself into the magnificent revolutionary torrent.
From the Agrarian Revolutionary War to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and then to the War of Liberation, he gradually grew into an outstanding military commander with extraordinary courage and outstanding military talent.
谭甫仁
In major historical events such as the Red Army's Long March, the Great Victory at Pingxingguan, and the Liaoshen Campaign, Tan Furen made many meritorious contributions.
With the founding of the People's Republic of China, General Tan Furen did not stop, but shouldered a new mission.
He successively held a number of important posts, including deputy director of the Organization Department of the General Political Department and political commissar of the Kunming Military Region, and made indelible contributions to the national defense construction and border stability of New China.
However, it was such a founding lieutenant general who made great contributions to the birth of New China, but in peacetime, he was assassinated at home.
The night is frightened, and tragedy is sudden
On December 17, 1970, on a seemingly ordinary winter night, the compound of the Kunming Military Region was immersed in tranquility, but a sudden tragedy was quietly brewing.
General Tan Furen, a battle-hardened and decorated veteran, is about to encounter the darkest moment of his life.
In the early hours of the morning, several piercing gunshots pierced the silence of the night sky and shook every corner of the Kunming Military Region compound.
The gunfire was unusually clear, not from routine fire at a distant training ground, but from inside General Tan Furen's residence.
As soon as the gunshots rang out, Wang Kexue, director of the party office of the military region, and Ren Fuhan, deputy director of the military region, who lived next door, were awakened almost at the same time.
Years of military service have made them particularly sensitive to such voices, and they immediately realize the seriousness of the situation.
Without a moment's hesitation, he quickly turned over and got out of bed, not caring about getting dressed, relying on his instinctive reaction, and rushed quickly to the source of the sound, General Tan Furen's residence.
Outside the door, Wang Kexue and Ren Fuhan glanced at each other and entered the room lightly, for fear of disturbing the possible unknown threat.
With the instinct of professional training, the two cautiously searched every corner.
As the search deepened, a sense of foreboding gradually coalesced in his chest. It wasn't until the moment they stepped into the master bedroom that all the speculation and uneasiness were validated.
The scene in front of him made these two battle-hardened veterans gasp.
General Tan Furen and his wife were lying in a pool of blood, several bullet casings scattered around them, and the smell of gunpowder filled the air.
Mr. and Mrs. Tan Furen
Wang Kexue immediately ordered that the husband and wife should be sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. Mrs. Tan Furen was fatally killed on the spot because she was shot in the head;
Although Tan Furen was still breathing, due to his serious injuries and advanced age, he finally failed to rescue him at the age of 60.
Solve the case and track, the mystery of the guard's behavior
This incident is too bad, and this is not only the killing of a high-ranking general, but also a serious provocation to the stability of the country and the security of the army.
The central authorities attached great importance to this, and Premier Zhou Enlai personally inquired into the progress of the case and instructed that the truth must be quickly ascertained.
Premier Zhou
The task force was quickly set up and immediately conducted a carpet investigation of the compound of the Kunming Military Region.
Through the analysis of the bullet casings, the comparison of the footprints at the scene, and the visits and investigations of the surrounding residents, the clues before and after the crime were gradually pieced together.
During the investigation, it was discovered that General Tan Furen's guard behavior was very abnormal.
At the time of the incident, the two guards who were supposed to protect the safety of the generals were not on duty, which was obviously inconsistent with the high level of vigilance that guards should have and their job responsibilities.
The task force conducted in-depth questioning of the guards and found contradictions in their statements, which further deepened their suspicions.
However, after an in-depth investigation, it was found that although it was true that the two guards had failed to perform their duties at the time of the incident, they had avoided them for personal reasons.
One chose to hide in his room for fear of the roar of the shooting, while the other chose to avoid a private meeting with a lover who had a background as the widow of a Kuomintang official, for fear that the illicit relationship would be exposed.
Although the actions of the two undoubtedly constituted a serious dereliction of duty, it also ruled out the possibility that they were the direct perpetrators.
The legal net is magnificent, negligent but not leaky
As the investigation deepened, the task force noticed contradictions in the previous assumptions when carefully reviewing the scene.
The original reasoning was that the murderer had infiltrated from outside the compound, but in fact, there were obvious signs of climbing and invasion except near General Tan Furen's residence.
The perimeter wall of the entire military compound did not leave any obvious traces of foreign incursions, which obviously contradicted the initial assumption.
This discovery prompted the task force to adjust the direction of its investigation and concentrate its attention on the interior of the military compound.
They reorganized the movements of the people in the hospital. In this process, an originally inconspicuous figure, Wang Zizheng, deputy chief of the security section, attracted the attention of the task force.
Wang Zizheng's whereabouts were extremely vague during the time period of the crime, and there was no conclusive alibi, and no one could prove his location for sure.
This discovery made the task force keenly feel that Wang Zizheng might be a suspect.
During a surprise search of Wang Zizheng's residence, he even made a resistive move, took out two hidden guns from the bedding, and confronted the members of the task force.
Later, when he realized that there was nowhere to run, he chose to shoot himself.
This indirectly confirmed Wang Zizheng's judgment as the main suspect, and in addition, the subsequent comparison of physical evidence showed that the firearms and ammunition in Wang Zizheng's possession were completely consistent with the bullet casings left at the scene of the crime, which further confirmed his crime.
So why did Wang Zizheng choose to kill General Tan Furen?
This dates back to 1946, when Wang Zizheng, formerly known as Wang Zizheng, was born in a rich peasant family in Neihuang County, Henan Province, and fled his hometown on suspicion of killing the leader of the local armed forces committee.
After going into exile and changing his name, Wang Zizheng successfully infiltrated a border guard, and was later transferred to the security department of the Political Department of the Kunming Military Region as a confidential officer and secretary, until the "Cultural Revolution", when he was promoted to deputy chief of the security section.
However, the clean-up movement during the Cultural Revolution posed a serious challenge to him, and the people of his hometown called for him to be brought back to settle the blame for his past crimes, which made him feel that even if he fled again, he would not be able to find a place of peace.
Shrouded in hopelessness and panic, Wang Zizheng had the idea of revenge driven by class antagonism, and his private diary detailed the plan to assassinate the top brass of the military region.
Chen Kang, Lu Ruilin, Tian Weiyang, and other deputy commanders were all listed, and they also pointed out that Tan Furen, as the number one commander of the military region, had a greater impact on killing him, which was enough to vent his hatred.
Driven by this distorted revenge mentality, Wang Zizheng carried out the long-planned assassination of Tan Furen on a seemingly ordinary day.
This tragic incident not only shocked the entire military region and even the whole country, but also became a tragic epitome of the interweaving of individual extreme behaviors and social contradictions against the background of that turbulent era.
It is necessary to force the military to deeply reflect on safety management, personnel psychological counseling, and the proper handling of problems left over from the past, so as to avoid the recurrence of similar tragedies.
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