In 2019, a TV series "Amnesty 1959" starring Dong Yachun as the chief director, Zhao Qi as the screenwriter, and Zhang Duo and Xi Wang starring was broadcast on CCTV prime time.
The play revolves around the theme of "amnesty", and reproduces the historical events of the party and state leaders who reformed and amnesty war criminals with great foresight after the founding of New China. As a relatively rare theme of reforming Kuomintang war criminals, the show won a bumper harvest of ratings and word-of-mouth as soon as it was broadcast, and it also aroused many viewers' deep interest in the history of decades ago.
After the founding of New China, our party's main tasks were to consolidate political power, maintain social stability, heal the wounds of war, and embark on economic recovery. How to deal with those Kuomintang war criminals who were captured during the War of Liberation has also become a difficult problem facing the party and the government.
After careful consideration, Mao Zedong proposed: "All counter-revolutionaries should be given a way out of life so that they can have a chance to reform themselves." Doing so will be beneficial to the people's cause and to the international influence......" With this instruction of the chairman, the work of reforming war criminals in New China has also begun.
Gongdelin Beijing Xicheng District Desheng Gate, was originally an old temple outside Beijing Desheng Gate, after being rebuilt into a prison in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, after expansion, has formed a scale covering an area of nearly 100 acres. The Ministry of Public Security selected this place to set up the "Beijing War Criminals Management Office", and then hundreds of Kuomintang war criminals were gathered here and began their tortuous and legendary road of reform.
The war criminals who were able to enter Gongdelin were all generals and colonel-level officers of the Kuomintang army who committed serious war crimes during the War of Liberation, provincial chairmen and department (bureau) director-level officials of the Kuomintang government, members of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang and the Three Youth Leagues, secretaries and members of provincial (municipal) party departments, and personnel at or above the level of department and station chief of the secret service system.
The total number of war criminals who met this criterion at that time was 926. In order to strengthen the unified management and reform of war criminals, the central authorities have decided to detain them in six war criminal management centers, including Beijing, Fushun, Jinan, Xi'an, Chongqing, and Inner Mongolia. Among them, more than 200 former high-ranking Kuomintang generals were concentrated in Gongdelin in Beijing for reform. It is gratifying that most of them have finally overcome their past selves and embarked on a bright and smooth road with the Communist Party of China.
But there are exceptions to everything. Although our party focused on reforming these war criminals and tried its best to "kill not one of them," there were still five war criminals who were stubborn and not only resisted reform, but even tried to riot and escape from prison, and were finally executed.
One
The first war criminal to be shot in Gongdelin was Deng Zichao, who graduated from the first phase of Whampoa.
Deng Zichao is a native of Shicheng, Jiangxi. In 1923, he was admitted to the Army Martial Arts School of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and in the autumn of 1924, after the school was merged into the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, he was assigned to the sixth team to study, participated in the Northern Expedition, and served as an infantry captain.
In 1934, Deng Zichao was promoted to the head of the Second Security Regiment of Jiangxi Province. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he successively served as the commander of the security of the Fifth District of Jiangxi Province, the commander of the Third Advance Column of the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi Border Guerrilla General Headquarters of the Ninth Theater, and the commander of the Poyang Lake garrison. During the War of Liberation, he served as a counselor of the Jiangxi Pacification Office.
Those who are familiar with Deng Zichao know that this person is loyal on the outside, but in fact his heart is like a snake and scorpion.
After the end of the Anti-Japanese War, Deng Zichao concurrently served as the administrative inspector of the fifth district of Jiangxi for a period of time through the relationship of Cao Haosen, chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Government.
The special office of the five districts is stationed in Jingdezhen, and several counties such as Fuliang under its jurisdiction are relatively wealthy, which makes Deng Zichao salivate and wants to make a fortune here. Unexpectedly, Wang Bogong, the magistrate of Fuliang County at that time, was overly straightforward and unwilling to join Deng Zichao, which made Deng Zichao depressed.
Wang Bogong has a straightforward temperament, is a rare clean official, and is unwilling to go along with Deng Zichao, who has a deep resentment towards Wang Qi. Soon after, Ding Guoping, the deputy county magistrate of Poyang, was stabbed to death, and Deng Zichao seized this opportunity to slander Wang Bogong for fornicating with the Communist Party, sent someone to assassinate Ding Guoping, who had the evidence, and sent a team of soldiers to arrest Wang Bogong from his home to the special office.
After Wang Bogong was arrested, Deng Zichao secretly killed Wang Bogong without any evidence, and publicly threatened: "The special office is to run Wang Bogong's Communist Party." It is rare for a commissioner to kill a county magistrate without following an order, and this has also aroused strong resentment from all sides. But under the protection of Cao Haosen, chairman of the Jiangxi provincial government, Deng Zichao was able to get away with it.
After Wang Bogong's death, Deng Zichao promoted his subordinate and special secretary He Fengchun to take over as the magistrate of Fuliang County. Because although Deng Zichao has the desire to make money, he has no actual ability to make money, and He Fengchun has the ability to make money, so the two began to "cooperate" in embarrassment, discussing the equal sharing of the money.
He Fengchun is a greedy person, and the county has to collect money no matter how big or small it is. Especially for non-governmental economic disputes, regardless of the reasons for right and wrong, it is all based on the number of points of victory or defeat in bribes. The people of Poyang are all complaining bitterly.
Deng Zichao also sold official titles in Poyang, and clearly marked the prices of the director of the Tianliang Office and the township head, and whoever bid the highest can get the appointment order. Relying on these means, Deng Zi feasted his own pocket and smiled from ear to ear.
There was a man named Li Zhonglian, who wanted to get the post of director of the Tianliang Office, and sent Deng Zichao forty gold bars, Deng Zichao was too little, and agreed with Li Zhonglian that in the future, he would ask for a three-fold rebate for all the money and grain handled by Li Zhonglian. Li Zhonglian felt that Deng Zichao was too insatiable, so he only agreed to give two folds. Deng Zichao thought about it, and asked Li Zhonglian to add eight gold bars, and then handed over the letter of appointment of the director of the Tianliang Office to Li Zhonglian.
In just one position as the director of the field grain office, Deng Zichao caught 48 gold bars. He also shamelessly said to people: "This is the real taste of being an official!"
In 1949, the People's Liberation Army marched south with the momentum of destroying the withering and decaying, and on August 8, Xingguo became the first county in southern Jiangxi to be liberated; On August 14, the city of Ganzhou was liberated...... Where the red flag was spreading, the remnants of the Kuomintang fled in the wilderness, and the PLA soldiers pursued the victory in three ways, and on September 30, the entire territory of Ganzhou was liberated!
In the campaign to liberate Ganzhou, the People's Liberation Army captured alive Deng Zichao, who had been transferred to the commander of the Ganzhou garrison. Considering that he had resisted the Japanese in the Anti-Japanese War, our army did not kill him, but sent him to Gongdelin for labor reform.
Unexpectedly, Deng Zichao was stubborn, not only did he not accept reform, but he also tried to kill the PLA soldiers guarding him one night and tried to escape from prison.
In 1950, the stubborn Deng Zichao was executed and got the end he deserved.
Two
In 1904, Japan and Tsarist Russia fought for the lease rights of Lushun and Dalian, and a war broke out in the northeast region, known as the "Russo-Japanese War".
After the defeat of Tsarist Russia, a group of deserters retreated into Inner Mongolia, looted the herdsmen's property, raped women, and killed innocent people, arousing the great indignation of the people of Inner Mongolia. Korqin's left-wing rear banner Guli Gutaitun young herdsmen Zhana and Balaji Nyima pulled a few young people and launched a stubborn resistance. Soon, the two's team grew to hundreds of guns.
At that time, the patrol commander of the Horqin Left Wing Rear Banner was named Bao Shanyi. This man is a Mongol, also known as Erdun Bilge, who rose to prominence by suppressing the Tauktau rebels. After learning that Zana and Balaji Nyima's troops were fighting bravely, in order to expand their power, they sent people to contact the two and ask them to join his patrol battalion.
Speaking of which, Zhana and Bao Shanyi are still a little distant, seeing that Bao Shanyi wants to recruit his own team, considering that his own strength alone is not enough to fight the Russians, he agreed to Bao Shanyi's invitation and joined Bao Shanyi's patrol battalion.
Soon, Zana and Balaji Nyima decided that Bao Shanyi was no different from the Tsarist Russians and treated the herdsmen with the same ferocity, so they broke away from Bao Shanyi with their team. Since then, Bao Shanyi has a grudge against Zhana and Balaji Nyima.
In 1912, as soon as Bao Shanyi learned that Zhana and Balaji Nyima had just fought a battle with the Russian soldiers and suffered great losses, he wanted to take advantage of the fire to rob and eliminate the two. He personally led his troops to surround the troops of Zhana and Balaji Nyima, and launched a sneak attack at night, and Zhana and Balaji Nyima fought desperately to break out of the encirclement.
In the face of Bao Shanyi's encirclement and pursuit, Zhana and Balaji Nyima took the remnants of the horses and defected to Yazhha who fought against Tsarist Russia. In the following years, the two fought against the Russian and Japanese soldiers many times, destroyed many enemies, and won the love of the poor herdsmen.
In 1918, after Bao Shanyi defected to the Japanese, in order to ask for credit in front of the Japanese, he wanted to seize Zana and Balaji Nyima and sacrifice them to the Japanese in order to curry favor with the new master.
In 1919, after learning of the deeds of Zhana and Balaji Nyima, the warlord Zhang Zuolin wanted to recruit the two brothers under his banner. Bao Shanyi was worried that Zhana and Balaji Nyima would be unfavorable to him after being absorbed by Zhang Zuolin, so he married his daughter to the nephew of Wu Junsheng, a general under Zhang Zuolin, and promised to give the pastures around Buhai in the left rear banner to Wu Junsheng as a horse farm.
Hearing that Bao Shanyi was going to give the pasture in the area of Kezuohou Banner to Wu Junsheng, the local people strongly resisted, and Zhana and Balaji Nyima also wrote to Bao Shanyi, asking him to stop this behavior. Bao Shanyi strengthened his determination to get rid of Zana and Balaji Nyima.
On the third day of the third lunar month in 1919, Bao Shanyi learned that Zana and Balaji Nyima were going to Arhun Di to hunt, so he personally led more than 200 cavalry to set up an ambush in Guli Gutaitun and ambushed Zana and Balaji Nyima and their party.
Although Zana and Balaji Nyima killed several of Bao Shanyi's men, they were outnumbered, and both of them and their guards were wiped out by Bao Shanyi. After learning of the death of the two, Bao Shanyi was finally relieved, because he knew that no one on the Horqin grassland would dare not compete with him from now on.
After the death of Zana and Balaji Nyima, Bao Shanyi openly defected to the Japanese and was appointed by the Japanese as the commander-in-chief of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The common people hated Bao Shan to the core, and they all scolded him as a "traitor lackey".
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army sent representatives to persuade Bao Shanyi to participate in the revolution, but Bao Shanyi ostensibly negotiated with the CCP, but secretly took the initiative to contact the Kuomintang and accepted the appointment of the major general and division commander of the 31st Division of the Kuomintang "Suppression of the Communist Party". Since then, Bao Shanyi has always been the enemy of our army, wantonly slaughtering revolutionary cadres, and causing great disasters to the common people.
After the Liaoshen Campaign, Bao Shanyi fled to Shenyang, and was arrested after being reported by the masses and imprisoned in Gongdelin. In 1950, at the strong request of the herdsmen in Inner Mongolia, 73-year-old Bao Shanyi was executed.
Three
In addition to the above two people, Zhang Zhuo, the former deputy commander of the 29th Group Army of the Kuomintang, Liu Jin, commander of the 27th Army, and Lu Yinji, the administrative inspector of Dushan, Guizhou, were executed in Gongdelin for resisting reform and stubbornly fighting to the end. All three of them were the ones who had massacred revolutionary fighters, had their hands stained with the blood of the Communists, and resisted reform after being captured and tried to start an insurrection, so they were executed and deserved.
In fact, if these five people really admit their guilt and obey the law and actively reform, they should be immortal. After all, they are only small fish and shrimp in Gongdelin, and there are more war criminals than their big crimes.
At the end of 1948, our party released a list of 43 first-class war criminals of the Kuomintang civil war, of which the 36th was Du Yuming, who had been imprisoned in Gongdelin.
After being captured, Du Yuming thought that the Communists would definitely kill him, so he secretly sewed more than 60 sleeping pills on the left leg of his cotton pants, hoping to find an opportunity to commit suicide. Because he felt that instead of being tied up and sent to the execution ground, it was better to kill himself.
As for the source of sleeping pills, when he was captured and imprisoned in Shandong, he repeatedly asked the PLA military doctor for sleeping pills on the grounds of insomnia.
After education, Du Yuming gave up the idea of suicide, but what really changed his heart was because of the illness that the Communist Party had cured him for many years.
Du Yuming had a severe stomach ulcer during the Liaoshen Campaign, but because of the tight war, Lao Jiang never let him seek medical treatment, so after entering the Gongdelin, his condition was already very serious. In addition, he had tuberculosis, kidney tuberculosis, and spondylitis, and if he was not treated in time, he would soon die.
The management of Gongdelin found that Du Yuming was ill during the physical examination and immediately sent Du Yuming for treatment. In order for him to sleep well at night, a plaster bed was specially tailored for him for bone tuberculosis and spondylitis. In addition, in order for Du Yuming to recover as soon as possible, he will also receive a special daily supply of milk, eggs and a nutritious diet. All this moved Du Yuming very much, and his thinking was gradually changing.
What really touched Du Yuming was that the volunteer army under the leadership of the party won the victory to resist US aggression and aid Korea. Du Yuming, who was well aware of the strength of the US military, was greatly shocked by this result and felt that "the Chinese people have indeed stood up under the leadership of the Communist Party." From then on, he became a reformer, and was finally released in 1959.
Four
Among the war criminals of Gongdelin, there are also some people who are unwilling to cooperate, and Huang Wei, the former commander of the 12th Corps of the Kuomintang Army, is a typical one.
Huang Wei was captured in the Huaihai Campaign, and after coming to Gongdelin, Huang Wei decided that no matter how nice the Communist Party was, it was false, and it was nothing more than trying to brainwash himself, so he was very resistant to reform.
In addition to their work, the war criminals of Gongdelin will also be organized to study together. Huang Wei's study group was headed by Dong Yisan, former major general of the Second Division of the 15th Kuomintang Pacification District Command.
Once, the group discussed some issues with the four major families of "Jiang, Song, Kong, and Chen". Dong Yisan said in his speech that during the Kuomintang period, China's big banks were controlled by the four major families of Jiang Song, Kong, and Chen, but Huang Wei defended: According to what you say, the current People's Bank of China is also Mao Zedong's!
Because of this sentence, Huang Wei was asked to write an inspection, but he wrote a sentence "The dragon was trapped in the shallows and was played by shrimp, and the tiger fell in Pingyang and was bullied by dogs" and handed it in. Dong Yisan saw that Huang Wei compared himself to a "dog", so he gave Huang Wei a slap in the face, and the two sides scuffled together.
Huang Wei originally thought that after this fight, he would definitely be severely punished, but he didn't expect Gong Delin to just criticize him seriously, and the main reason for this conflict was Dong Yisan's first action. This treatment surprised Huang Wei, and he felt from the bottom of his heart that "the Communist Party is fair."
When Huang Wei entered Gongdelin, he also suffered from a variety of diseases, as well as severe tuberculosis. Due to the blockade of the United States and other Western countries, there was no penicillin and streptomycin to treat this disease in China at that time, and the party and the government specially sent people to Hong Kong and Macao to buy them and use them on Huang Wei.
In order to let Huang Wei cure his illness, Gongdelin also prepared a special stove for him, with eggs, milk and meat every day, and he never stopped even three years of difficult times. Huang Wei himself admitted that "it was almost finished several times", and if it weren't for the Communist Party, he would have died a long time ago. "If in the past, even if I was a high-ranking Kuomintang general, I would have to return to the West with my life."
On March 19, 1975, Huang Wei became the last group of war criminals to be amnestied and regained his freedom. In his memoirs, he wrote: "In retrospect, it can be said that the Communist Party and the government have taken great pains to reform my education, and they have taken great pains to reform my education. I am relatively backward in my thinking, and I am slow to accept new things and change my thinking, but the Communist Party and the government have been very patient with me, educating me bit by bit, inspiring me, and finally transforming me into a Huang person! ”
In the end, these students who came out of Gongdelin once again "joined hands and moved forward" with the Communists on the broad road of seeking happiness for the people and rejuvenation for the nation.
After completing its historical mission, Gongdelin was handed over to Beijing Municipality, and the former site of the management office, except for a small part used by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, has become a residential area. Time flies, when the great Communist Party of China is 100 years old, Gongdelin Road has been changed to a more beautiful name "Xinkang Road".
Resources:
National Humanities and History Magazine: What are the stories of those war criminals in "Gongdelin"? 》
Hu Xiaoming: "Heroes of the Horqin Grassland, Zhana and Balaji Nyima"
Zhengrui: "Deng Zichao and He Fengchun's Hookup in Poyang"