In 1962, nine years after the victory of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Admiral Li Kenong, who had been in charge of the armistice negotiations of the Korean War, passed away unexpectedly.
On that day, the city of Beijing was covered with snow, the north wind whistled, and countless Chinese people burst into tears.
Li Kenong, known as the "King of Agents" and "King of Intelligence," has been in every corner of the war since he joined the Communist Party of China in 1926, secretly responsible for the intelligence work of party organizations.
It is precisely because of the needs of intelligence work that Li Kenong's true identity is not known in most cases.
It is precisely because of the particularity of intelligence work and the secrecy of the identity of intelligence personnel that Li Kenong's life is wrapped in mysterious colors.
It is also this sense of impending mystery that makes rumors about the reason for The death of Admiral Li Kenong rampant.
Many people at home and abroad have their own suspicions, and the rumor that Li Kenong was poisoned by the Americans is even more widespread.
Many rumors are rootless and unfounded, but they are believed to be true.
Li Lun, the third son of the Li clan, who suffered the loss of his father, had to respond publicly and personally, refuting the rumors and correcting the situation.
What was the cause of General Li Kenong's death? What is the reason for the controversy over the cause of General Li Kenong's death?
(Li Kenong)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > First, lying ill in bed in the heart of the country, he was ordered to go to North Korea</h1>
General Li Kenong died of overwork and exhaustion.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, the "United Nations Army" led by the United States brazenly crossed the 38th Line.
At that time, Li Kenong was recuperating in the Soviet Union due to the cold wind and cold, and was also studying.
(Chinese Volunteer Army)
Less than a month later, the Chinese Volunteer Army went to the DPRK at the request of the DPRK to "resist the United States and aid Korea and defend the homeland."
Li Kenong, who had not yet recovered from the cold, startled from his bed and wanted to return to China and go to North Korea.
However, he was seriously ill, coupled with the bitter persuasion of the people around him, he stayed in the Soviet Union to recuperate.
Still, Mr. Lee asked his guards every day to send all the news about the Korean battlefield.
From the progress of the battle to the wind and snow, Li Kenong was quite concerned.
And such a meticulous style also laid the groundwork for Li Kenong to rush to The DPRK and preside over the negotiations.
In the spring of the following year, the Chinese Volunteer Army launched its fifth campaign, Chinese Civilian Volunteer Army suffered more than 75,000 casualties, while the "United Nations Army" also lost more than 80,000 people.
Since then, the two sides have shifted to a strategic confrontation.
After receiving this news, Li Kenong judged that negotiations would be imperative with his keen perception.
He could no longer hold back the idea of returning to China, and after the approval of the Party Central Committee, he returned to the motherland in the middle of the night.
After returning to Beijing, Li Kenong worked hard day and night.
One by one, the files were all looked at by him.
He began to analyze the weather changes in North Korea, judging the melting of ice and snow in North Korea to deploy march arrangements; reading the latest intelligence from the front line, nervously and orderly analyzing the enemy's next move.
(Li Kenong's work photo)
Li Kenong's heart is so close to the people's soldiers on the Korean battlefield that every night, his office is brightly lit.
Inside the house, Li Kenong was dressed in cotton clothes, pondering about the information pieces, and coughing from time to time.
Li Kenong's guards were worried about his body and advised him to go to bed early and rest more every day.
However, every time Li Kenong would say in a straight face: "As long as I can think of a little more, I can make our children and soldiers less dangerous", "Don't persuade me, I am sloppy."
(Before Li Kenong was appointed)
Two months later, after being secretly received by the leaders of the Party Central Committee, Li Kenong was ordered to go to North Korea to take charge of possible armistice negotiations.
Li Kenong was in danger and immediately said, "I want to leave immediately!" ”
In the face of the bone-chilling wind of North Korea, Li Kenong did not flinch, and began to work on the day he arrived in North Korea.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" > second, the negotiation table, the sick body does not pity</h1>
Li Kenong looked at the soldiers who came and went on the Korean battlefield, deeply sighed, and even blamed himself for not doing a good job in intelligence work, and was sad to let so many heroes bury their bones in a foreign country.
He secretly vowed to win at the negotiating table.
Less than a month after arriving in North Korea, as Li Kenong expected, the stalemate between China and the United States finally sat at the negotiating table.
Lee Kenong was appointed to chair the DPRK-China Negotiating Working Group, where he met with Turner, the chief negotiator of the "United Nations Army". Joey's direct conversation can be described as the tip of a needle to Mai Mang.
Li Kenong's prestige in the volunteer army negotiation delegation was extremely high.
With such a veteran who has been at the helm for a long time in the kuomintang area, everyone has a lot of confidence in their hearts.
In normal times, Li Kenong talked about the word "unity" the most.
On July 10 of the same year, the Korean armistice negotiations officially began in Kaesong, south of the 38th Parallel.
"War is bloody politics, and politics is a bloodless war", this sentence was vividly reflected in the protracted negotiations that followed.
In the middle of summer, the heat of Kaesong is unbearable and mosquito-infested.
Li Kenong, who was infected with wind and cold, was quite tired because he was overworked in Beijing after returning to China, and his body was greatly shocked when he came into contact with the heat of North Korea.
And because Li Kenong often thinks about problems and is motionless, the bites of mosquitoes are also invincible.
Even so, Li Kenong insisted on being on the front line, nervously planning the negotiations.
At the negotiating table, the test is not only the wisdom and skills of both sides, but also the physical strength and endurance of both sides Of the first negotiation, Li Kenong sat in front of the table for twelve hours, which is really from day to night. At the meeting, the two sides engaged in a series of verbal battles over the "38th Line."
However, this negotiation was fruitless.
(Group photo of Chinese representatives)
In one of the negotiations, the two sides sat quietly and remained silent, and the time was as long as one hundred and forty-five minutes, which showed the difficulty and hardship of the negotiations.
Shockingly, after the negotiations broke down, the US military brazenly bombed the residence of the DPRK-China delegation.
At that time, Li Kenong was sorting out the negotiation draft, and in the face of the sudden attack, he rushed to avoid danger, and for a time the dust inside and outside the residence was flying.
Thankfully, Li Kenong was not injured.
But inhaling too much dust made Li Kenong cough for the rest of the day.
On the battlefield, the US military took advantage of its air force superiority to take advantage of the extraordinary flood disaster in Korea that had not been seen in 40 years and launched a "strangulation war."
Countless shells poured from the air, and Li Kenong and other front-line negotiating commanders had to change places in less than three days.
And such frequent transfers made Li Kenong's already infected body more and more unbearable.
With the great sacrifice of the Chinese Volunteer Army, the DPRK and China resolutely smashed the US air offensive and forced the US military to return to the negotiating table.
At this time, Li Kenong moved from the front of the stage to the backstage, specifically responsible for intelligence aggregation work.
Li Kenong accurately judged that the "Kansas Defense Line" constructed by the US side is the bottom line that it is impossible to give up.
He therefore changed his original vision and used the actual military contact area between the two sides as the limit of the ceasefire.
The negotiating table is still splashed with Mars, maintaining more than ten hours of arduous negotiations every day.
(Lee Kenong in North Korea negotiations)
Under the negotiating table, Li Kenong slept at night and sorted out the manuscripts.
He worked tirelessly and personally supervised every detail; he often stressed that he must not be "extremely red-eyed when enemies meet", but with reason and calmness, learn to see tricks and tricks.
Every day, Li Kenong listens to the negotiation reports brought back from the negotiating table by the negotiators and approves them. Sometimes, because of the complexity of the meeting and the lot of discussion, Li Kenong often did not receive a briefing from the deputies until midnight. By the time his approval was over, it was early in the morning.
Waiting for Beijing's telegram, Li Kenong often took a short nap when it was dark.
The negotiations were inconclusive, and Li Kenong could not rest for a day.
At the height of the negotiations, Li Kenong and Qiao Guanhua lived together, and there was Pu Shan, the head of the secretariat who played the floor.
The three rarely had time to rest; even if they could sleep, they often woke up in their dreams because of the anxiety of negotiations.
The right to speak at the negotiating table also requires wrestling outside the negotiating table.
After the collapse of the second negotiation, the war between the two sides resumed.
At Sad Ridge in Yanggup County, Gangwon Province, South Korea, the Chinese Volunteer Army and the North Korean People's Army fought fiercely with the "United Nations Army" for two weeks.
During this period, the Heartlands changed hands repeatedly, with the U.S.-French coalition taking a total of 3,745 casualties, while the U.S.-China coalition casualties were estimated at nearly 25,000.
(Li Kenong looks at sad mountains from afar)
Shocked to hear of the fierce battle, Li Kenong burst into tears and coughed incessantly.
The casualties of the Battle of Heartbroken Ridge forced U.S. troops to return to the negotiating table here.
This battle became the last large-scale allied offensive in the Korean War.
However, the resumption of negotiations is very different from what the Chinese side expected.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > third, the enemy will have no way to change, and our side will win the negotiation</h1>
The biggest change in the resumption of negotiations is the change of generals on the "United Nations military" side - William Harrison as the negotiator, he is the representative of the "hawks" in the United States, tough personality, quite good at negotiation skills.
At this time, Li Kenong, who had been in Korea for a long time, was sick and insisted on working. Cold winter winds in North Korea are raging, and Li Kenong's asthma is even worse.
Every day, after taking his medicine, he still insisted on picking up the lamp until midnight. When Li Kenong, who has accumulated fatigue and illness, stays up late every night to sort out the data, his chest will be panicked and his chest will be tight.
Harrison looked at Li Kenong's ill health and deliberately delayed the negotiations.
Less than a decade into office, Harrison forced adjournments four times.
The shortest meeting, only fifteen seconds. As soon as the representatives of the two sides took their seats and announced the meeting, Harrison immediately adjourned the meeting.
Harrison's intentions were clear—to drag Down Lee's sick body.
Li Kenong was quite troubled by this, and the Chinese personnel were even more worried.
In the face of the vicissitudes at the negotiating table, Li Kenong tenaciously overcame difficulties and actively coped.
(Representative of the US side of the DPRK negotiations)
In the few successful negotiations, William Harrison repeatedly emphasized:
"The war will not cease until the armistice takes effect, and delaying the agreement will prolong the fighting and increase casualties."
This would have been a meaningless statement, but after William Harrison's deliberate emphasis, it had the flavor of a military threat.
The "hawks" are tough and he intends to overpower Li Kenong's side in momentum through an aggressive attitude.
In the face of the domineering representatives of the "United Nations Army", Li Kenong stressed to the Chinese negotiators:
Be sure not to be humble and argue on the basis of reason.
The two sides at the negotiating table continued to fight, and the negotiations once again reached an impasse.
(Negotiation site)
Whenever the negotiations entered a trough, William Harrison often deliberately interrupted the Chinese side's conversation by reading the speech, and sometimes even deliberately slowed down.
Gradually, William Harrison began to flee frequently, from the first three days, to seven days, and finally even ten days.
The last time, Harrison directly announced that "the negotiations will be suspended indefinitely" and turned his head and left without waiting for the Chinese representatives to protest.
According to the arrangement prepared by Li Kenong before the negotiations, the Chinese representatives all sat in their seats and laughed "Ha, Ha, Ha" to express contempt.
Since then, the negotiations have been shelved and war on the Korean Peninsula has resumed.
The Korean Peninsula gradually entered a harsh winter, Li Kenong was already seriously ill, and he was attacked by the cold winter, and his body became weaker and weaker.
Due to day and night work, Li Kenong's vision deteriorated, and he often needed to lie on the table and close to the file to see the handwriting on it.
After the Party Central Committee learned of Li Kenong's physical condition, it urgently hoped that Li Kenong would quickly return to China for treatment.
However, Li Kenong resolutely refused this request, looking in the direction of Beijing and saying to the people around him: "There will be no objection to the king's life when he is outside, not to mention that it is difficult to negotiate when changing generals." ”
Li Kenong bowed down and insisted on the Korean battlefield.
It was not until the end of the victorious negotiations and the description of the withering tree that Li Kenong returned to China with peace of mind.
The two-year-long Korean armistice negotiations were handled by Mr. Lee personally.
At nearly sixty meetings of delegations from both sides, Li Kenong did not shrink back half a step due to physical discomfort, which can be described as admired by the world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" >4. Lurking in Shanghai and going deep into the enemy's dens to turn the tide and save our party</h1>
In 1955, Li Kenong was awarded the founding general by the state.
Li Kenong is not a famous general who leads soldiers to fight, and it is not easy to win this honor.
Since then, Li Kenong has slowly come to the public from the mysterious identity of the "King of Intelligence".
Li Kenong's friends have gradually revealed his glorious past - the "king of intelligence" is by no means a waste.
Shortly after the end of the Sino-Japanese War, Li Kenong was born in a family in Wuhu, Anhui Province.
Li Kenong's father had a stable job, a well-off family, and attached great importance to the education of his children.
In this way, the young Li Kenong received education from a private school teacher from an early age.
At the age of fifteen, Li Kenong entered the St. James Church Secondary School founded by The British missionaries and accepted advanced ideas.
In 1919, the Paris Diplomatic Peace Conference failed, and the "May Fourth Movement" of "fighting for national rights abroad and punishing national thieves at home" aroused Li Kenong's ambition to save the country and survive, and he led the students in the petition team to strive for sovereignty.
Li Kenong was unjustly imprisoned for opposing the warlords, and after the active struggle of the Federation of Students and people from all walks of life, he was released.
This prison experience made Li Kenong deeply feel the power of the organization.
Six years later, Li Kenong resolutely joined the Communist Party of China.
After passing a rigorous test, Li Kenong's calmness and composure were deeply valued by the superiors of the party organization, and the party organization assigned Li Kenong the work of lurking behind enemy lines as a secret agent.
After careful consideration, Li Kenong took over the job — he decided to serve the party organization with practical actions.
And this lurking is nearly thirty years.
In 1929, Xu En, the "head of the secret service" of the Kuomintang, recruited in the name of the Shanghai Radio Administration in order to expand the secret service organization.
At that time, a candidate named Li Siyuan came out on top in the exam, and this "champion" was Li Kenong, who was ordered to take the exam and aimed to break into the enemy's rear.
In Xu Enzeng's intelligence organization network, Li Kenong successfully served as the director of the Shanghai Radio Administration.
With his identity, he was able to communicate with a large number of Kuomintang intelligence officers and intercept more and more intelligence.
Soon, Li Kenong sensed a different opportunity.
A year after entering the Kuomintang intelligence organization, Li Kenong learned that the Kuomintang had decided to co-opt Zhang Xueliang outside the Tunbing Pass and start a warlord war in the Central Plains.
Chiang Kai-shek ordered Xu En to plot the matter urgently—if he could gain the support of the Northeast Army, Chiang Kai-shek boasted that he would be "like a tiger adding wings."
(Zhang Xueliang)
Xu En had sent secret agents to the northeast many times as early as a few years ago, but all of them were fruitless, and some even had no return.
Faced with such a tricky task, the Kuomintang intelligence agents were scratching their ears and scratching their cheeks, and they pushed back one after another.
However, Li Kenong showed his own different acumen: Our party is not yet familiar with the situation in the northeast, and if it is feasible to go here, it will be of great benefit to our party's future establishment in the local base areas in the northeast and north China.
Therefore, Li Kenong took the initiative to ask for help and went to the northeast alone.
In the northeast, Li Kenong successfully found out the situation and geographical characteristics of the northeast, which can be described as a fruitful harvest.
But how to send a message to Xu Enzeng?
The bold and careful Li Kenong used local newspaper reports in the northeast and the stories of the northeast population to compile a report of tens of thousands of words that can be said to be fabricated out of thin air.
With this "fake" report without any intelligence, Li Kenong was appreciated and trusted by his superiors.
However, as Li Kenong became more adept at extracting intelligence from within the Kuomintang intelligence network, a long-planned crisis quietly descended on the Chinese Communist Party.
In the early hours of the morning, Li Kenong was awakened by a sharp knock at the door in his hidden residence.
When Li Kenong learned the news from the people who came, he was shocked - Gu Shunzhang was arrested and imprisoned and defected.
Gu Shunzhang, an important person in charge of the Central Special Branch, has a status second only to Zhou Enlai, and holds a large number of core secrets and the addresses of important leaders.
But he indulged in pleasure and had many vices. Chen Geng once said, "As long as we don't die, we will be able to wait until the day when Gu Shunzhang rebels." ”
Li Kenong and the organization are in a single line of contact, but that day is not the day of the joint, and he cannot contact his superiors. In a hurry, Li Kenong found the person in charge of the provincial party committee, and finally the news was released in time.
When Premier Zhou learned of this information, he immediately decided to arrange for the central authorities to begin the transfer.
In one night, the Party Central Committee was evacuated from the vast city of Shanghai.
Therefore, some scholars have commented that without Li Kenong, the history of the Chinese Communist Party may have been rewritten from the early 1930s.
After this incident, Li Kenong was commended by the central authorities, and the party organization also praised him as one of the "four masters of the party's secret work.".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="33" >5, encircle Zhang Guotao, co-opt Zhang Xueliang, and play Zhou Liwu</h1>
After Gu Shunzhang defected and leaked secrets, the Kuomintang became more and more arrogant, and vigorously purged the "suspected people" within the party, and for a time everyone in the Kuomintang intelligence agency was in danger.
Li Kenong judged the hour and sized up the situation, and in accordance with the dispatch arrangements of the party Central Committee, after making arrangements for shanghai's intelligence work, secretly entered the CPC Soviet area to carry out activities.
While being in charge of the intelligence work in the CPC Soviet region, Li Kenong also had an important and arduous task, that is, to contact Zhang Xueliang and strive to unite with the outside world and jointly resist Japan.
Li Kenong, who accepted the task, adopted a "roundabout" tactic, not directly contacting Zhang Xueliang, a northeastern young marshal who could hardly see outsiders, but looking for a breakthrough from the captured generals of the Northeast Army.
This time, Li Kenong set his sights on Gao Fuyuan, the captured general of the Northeast Army, a general of the Northeast Army who could fight against Japan and win the support of his subordinates and the love of the local people.
(Gao Fuyuan)
Li Kenong actively disseminated advanced ideology and culture to Gao Fuyuan, instilled the education of the Communist Party of China, and gradually inspired this former general of the Northeast Army who was bent on serving the country and determined to save the country and survive.
Under the careful teaching of Li Kenong, Gao Fuyuan was more supportive of the anti-Japanese resistance.
Soon after, Gao Fuyuan returned to the Northeast Army, actively publicized the Communist Party's anti-Japanese stand and the anti-Japanese national united front policy, successfully persuaded Zhang Xueliang to unite with the Communists to resist Japan, and persuaded two battalions of the Northeast Army to surrender.
This built a bridge between the Red Army and the Northeast Army of the Anti-Japanese National United Front, and contributed to the situation of the "Xi'an Incident" and the anti-Japanese resistance of Chiang Kai-shek.
(Peaceful Settlement of Xi'an Incident)
During this period, Li Kenong contributed a lot. At the recommendation of Li Kenong, Gao Fuyuan joined the Communist Party of China three years later and became a true communist.
After successfully winning Zhang Xueliang to resist Japan in unison, Li Kenong gradually faded out of the public eye and secretly became active in underground anti-Japanese activities.
It was not until after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War that Li Kenong was known to the public again.
One of the most famous things is that Li Kenong played Zhou Liwu and helped the senior party leaders smash the conspiracy and trickery hidden by Chiang Kai-shek's "Chongqing Peace Talks" in one fell swoop.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang decided to use the Chongqing negotiations to maliciously spread rumors that the Communist Party was "unwilling to hold peace talks."
In just nine days, Chiang Kai-shek sent three telegrams to our Party.
The contents of the telegram were nothing more than a warm invitation to our party to go to Chongqing for negotiations and to consult with each other on what kind of political system to implement in China in the future...
After analyzing various aspects of Chongqing's intelligence, Li Kenong directly concluded:
Chiang Kai-shek's appearance of insisting on asking senior leaders of our party to go to Chongqing for peace talks is bound to launch an offensive from public opinion in order to confirm the "cauldron" that our party is "unwilling to hold peace talks."
In addition, Li Kenong has just received information that Zhou Liwu has received a secret order from Chiang Kai-shek to search for the movements of senior leaders within our party.
Zhou Liwu was the contact person of the Kuomintang in Yan'an.
On the surface, he was responsible for reporting the war report of the Eighth Route Army's battle against the Japanese Kou, but in fact he was a spy placed under the eyes of our party.
After some careful consideration, Li Kenong proposed his plan to his superiors:
Zhou Liwu was used to determine Chiang Kai-shek's intentions and to transmit false information to the Kuomintang under the guise of Zhou Liwu's hand.
After the approval of his superiors, Li Kenong actively plotted, deliberately leaked false information and was intercepted by Zhou Liwu.
Zhou Liwu, who received the news, hurriedly passed on information to his immediate boss, Kang Ze, who was one of Chiang Kai-shek's most trusted "right and left arms."
In this way, Chiang Kai-shek believed it to be true.
When the senior leaders of our party flew from Yan'an to Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek, who was ideologically defenseless, was very surprised.
And this time the Chongqing talks have also greatly boosted the image and status of our party in the eyes of the people.
(Chongqing Negotiations)
After that, Li Kenong's prestige in the party grew, he was in charge of national intelligence, and made great contributions in the Liberation War, and until the victory of the Korean armistice negotiations mentioned above, he returned to China with honors.
And Li Kenong, who returned from the Korean battlefield, his long-infected body was the end of the crossbow.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="37" >6, bow down to death and then have it, loyal to the people of the country and the world</h1>
Two years after North Korea's victory in the negotiations, Lee Knong, who was busy with official duties, unfortunately fell, causing a cerebral hemorrhage and was hospitalized.
However, Li Kenong, who has long been sick with labor, has been ill for a long time and is difficult to cure, and the root of the disease is difficult to get rid of.
Three years later, Li Kenong suffered a heavy blow from the loss of his wife, which can be described as grief-stricken.
In the winter of the following year after the bereavement, Li Kenong died of cerebral softening at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
A generation of "king of agents" fell.
Everyone admired this founding general who gave everything for New China.
He walked in the most dangerous situations, helping the Chinese Communist Party to overcome dangers again and again.
A lifetime for the country, the mountains to the top.
Resources:
"Li Kenong" People's Daily - Chinese Communist Party News Network
"Li Kenong: Hidden Front, Legendary General", People's Daily
Li Kenong, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China
"CCP Agent Wang: Li Kenong" People's Daily News
EDIT: Clear source
Editor-in-Charge: Thalia