Li Kenong
On February 9, 1962, founding general Li Kenong died in Beijing at the age of 63. On the day of Li Kenong's death, heavy snow fell in Beijing, and the heavens seemed to be sending off the founding general who had come out of the hidden front. Late the next night, the 76-year-old Dong Biwu looked out the window at the heavy snow, and he wrote a poem of deep mourning:
"Thirty years ago, the matter was credited, and Zhijun was good at China. Can plot quite like a house servant shooting, with a difference with Li Zuoche. Heaven does not give up the old, and if a man can redeem a thousand families. Ji Qiu Ke Shao Zhi Lan Xiu, holding high the red flag and falling into the sunset. ”
According to a long-standing theory, after the news of Li Kenong's death reached the United States, the CIA took a three-day holiday. This statement may be exaggerated, but it also shows the greatness of Li Kenong, whose death has left the CIA with one less strong opponent.
As the only founding general who did not bring troops to the battlefield, Li Kenong's life was full of legends. In April 1941, Chairman Mao said to Li Kenong's daughter, Li Bing, "Your father was a big secret agent, but he was a big agent of the Communist Party." ”
When New China was founded, Chairman Mao once again said: "Comrades Li Kenong, Qian Zhuangfei, and others have made great contributions, and if it were not for them, many of the central leading comrades at that time, including Comrades Zhou Enlai, would not have existed." Chairman Mao believes that it is Li Kenong who turned the tide at a crucial moment and saved the party in danger, and is a person who has made great contributions to the revolution.
When Zhou Enlai learned the news of Li Kenong's illness and death, he said with great sadness: "As a general, Comrade Kenong did not lead a soldier and a pawn to the front to charge the front, but his contribution to New China is definitely greater than the role of an army." ”
Longtan Sanjie
As one of the key figures of the "Three Masters of Longtan", Li Kenong has too many legends in his body. As Zhou Enlai later said with emotion: "The three of them went deep into the Dragon Pond Tiger Cave, which can be said to be the Three Masters of Longtan." Without The Three Masters of Longtan, the history of the Chinese Communist Party would have been rewritten. ”
This is an article about founding general Li Kenong. If you want to know the story of Li Kenong, you may wish to read this article with your heart, I believe it will be rewarded.
Li Kenong, whose ancestral home is Chao County, Anhui, was born in 1899 in Majia Lane, Jiwo Street, Wuhu, Anhui. Unlike other founding generals whose families were poor, Li Kenong was born in relatively good family conditions, and his father Li Zheqing served in the local government, making the family have a relatively stable income.
At the age of 12, Li Kenong came to Study at Anhui Public School in Wuhu. At that time, Anhui Public School was a base of activity for the revolutionaries, where all kinds of new ideas emerged in an endless stream, and the young Li Kenong was deeply influenced. During his studies in Wuhu, Li Kenong became acquainted with many early COMMUNIST Party members, and thus germinated the idea of participating in the CCP's revolution.
In 1917, Li Kenong came to Beiping. At that time, warlords all over China were fighting each other, and the people were not happy, so Li Kenong came to the "Popular Weekly" to do distribution work. Li Kenong has done a good job, and many people in the newspaper believe that his future is unlimited. At this time, Zhang Xun was restored, the newspaper was suspended, and Li Kenong could only return to Wuhu.
In September 1918, after being introduced by others, Li Kenong joined an anarchic group organized by the students of Wuhu Provincial No. 5 Middle School, Anshe. This group's propaganda against power and despotism is of great progressive significance. However, after Li Kenong joined the "Anshe", he found that this group was far from his own life pursuits.
Li Kenong young photo
In June 1919, with the "May Fourth Movement" sweeping the country, the provincial capital Anqing soon became the sports center of Anhui. After Li Kenong came to Anqing, he served as the editor of the supplement of the National Daily. Li Kenong, who has a righteous heart, was imprisoned for publishing articles in the press opposing the new tax law, and was rescued by the Provincial Federation of Students and some mass organizations 7 days later.
The experience of working in the newspaper twice made Li Kenong understand that only by participating in the revolution could he realize his ambitions and change the situation of the Warlord Chaos in China.
At the end of 1926, Li Kenong gloriously joined the Communist Party of China and accepted the leadership of the party from then on. After joining the party, Li Kenong's intelligence detection ability was quickly revealed. On April 18, 1927, the right wing of the Kuomintang in Wuhu prepared to plan a counter-revolutionary incident, and Li Kenong was a member of the propaganda committee of the Kuomintang Wuhu County Party Department.
When Li Kenong learned of this news in advance, he immediately reported to his superiors, so that the backbone forces of the cpc special branch in Wuhu and the Wuhu local executive committee of the Communist Youth League were spared. This was Li Kenong's first bright sword and a success, which laid the foundation for the later brilliance of intelligence work.
The place of Wuhu was too small, and Li Kenong's actions could easily attract the attention of the enemy. In January 1928, Li Kenong was forced to go to Shanghai. In the autumn of that year, Li Kenong accepted the party's instructions and founded a small newspaper with Pan Hannian, an official of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee. The newspaper was founded quite successfully, and Li Kenong became more and more aware that this path was the right one.
It was not until November 1929, under the introduction of his old friend Hu Di, Li Kenong and Qian Zhuangfei met for the first time in Shanghai. The three did not realize at that time that they would become famous in the world and be known as the "Three Masters of Longtan". The key to engaging in intelligence work is to penetrate into the enemy's interior, which means going deep into the Dragon Pond Tiger's Den and dying for a lifetime.
Li Kenong and his wife Zhao Ying
In December of that year, under the instructions of Zhou Enlai, Li Kenong was admitted to the Kuomintang Shanghai Radio Administration by means of an open examination, and the director of the bureau was Xu Enzeng. Xu En was suspicious and lustful, rarely trusted the people around him, and carried a top-secret codebook with him.
How can we get Xu Enzeng's trust? In addition to Li Kenong's hard work, Zhou Enlai also thought of many ways, such as often handing over some expired documents of our party to him and asking Li Kenong to give them to Xu Enzeng in the name of "seizing communist documents." At first, Xu En did not pay much attention, but as Li Kenong submitted more and more "documents", he gradually began to trust him.
With Xu Enzeng's promotion, Li Kenong soon became the head of the electricity unit of the Shanghai Radio Administration, in charge of the national team of radio operators. This position is remarkable, and it is the core position of the enemy intelligence department. However, Xu En had left a hand on Li Kenong, the codebook he carried with him.
The code was used by high-level Kuomintang officials in contact with each other and was Xu Enzeng's top secret. If you get this codebook, you can learn the secrets of the core of the Kuomintang through the detection radio.
Zhou Enlai and Li Kenong analyzed and decided to take advantage of Xu En's lustful shortcomings. Once, Xu En came to Shanghai for a meeting, during which Li Kenong publicized to him where there are beautiful girls in Shanghai. After the meeting, Xu En was ready to go to find a beautiful girl, and Li Kenong said, "How do you carry a codebook?" No way! No way! That place is so messy. ”
As soon as Xu En heard that it was very reasonable, he handed over the codebook to Li Kenong for a while, and then handed it to him when Xun Huan returned. After Xu Enzeng left, Li Kenong immediately copied the codebook, which played a crucial role in saving the party at a critical moment.
Xu Enzeng
On April 24, 1931, Gu Shunzhang was arrested in Wuhan. On the 25th, Gu Shunzhang defected without being subjected to any torture. Gu Shunzhang was in charge of the daily work of the Central Special Branch and the Transportation Bureau at that time, and he confessed a lot of information about the CPC Central Committee and the Central Special Branch. Years later, Cai Meng, the head of the Kuomintang's Wuhan secret service responsible for capturing and abducting Gu Shunzhang, said:
"This incident may rewrite China's modern history, and the fate of the CCP is very important, and if the non-communist spy Qian Zhuangfei intercepts the telegram, Zhou Enlai and the communist elements lurking in Shanghai will be caught in a net and deal a fatal blow to the CCP."
Qian Zhuangfei was the first to intercept gu shunzhang's telegram of rebellion, and he sent his son-in-law Liu Qifu to Shanghai overnight, asking him to pass on this top-secret information to Li Kenong to the central authorities. In the early morning of April 26, Liu Qifu found Li Kenong in Shanghai and reported in detail on Gu Shunzhang's defection in Wuhan.
This day was Sunday, not the day when Li Kenong and Chen Geng agreed to meet. However, this matter was not trivial, and Li Kenong finally found Chen Geng with great effort, and the latter immediately reported to Zhou Enlai. Li Kenong's son Li Li once said:
"My father was very anxious, looking for Chen Geng, but this day was not a joint day, looking for Chen Geng could not be found, not only to find Chen Geng could not be found, even the liaison officer could not be found, my father said this is not OK, and then fouled, looking for the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, because he used to work in the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee." Through the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, everyone looked for Chen Geng together, because the time was too urgent, Chen Geng could not see it and quickly looked for Zhou Enlai, and then quickly transferred and cut off Gu Shunzhang's relationship, my father secretly sent a secret signal to Hu Di, something happened, quickly transferred, this end, he evacuated the organs of the Party Central Committee, the organs of the Communist International and other departments in accordance with Zhou Enlai's arrangement. ”
Early in the morning of the 28th, Kuomintang agents made a large-scale search and arrest based on the information provided by Gu Shunzhang, and the result was a blank. Afterwards, Chen Lifu, the head of the secret service, sighed in the sky: "It is only 5 minutes to catch Zhou Enlai alive!" ”
Qian Zhuangfei
After Gu Shunzhang's rebellion, Li Kenong's identity was completely exposed, and Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly secretly ordered agents to assassinate him, all of which ended in failure. In August 1931, Li Kenong left Shanghai to serve as executive director of the Central Political Protection Bureau of the Central Committee of the People's Republic of China.
In December 1935, the Party Central Committee established the Liaison Bureau of the Cpc Central Committee, and the director of the bureau was Li Kenong. This organization, also known as the Northwest Liaison Bureau, was mainly responsible for the united front work of the Kuomintang, especially the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army. After Li Kenong took office, his work focused on the Northeast Army headed by Zhang Xueliang, and this time, Li Kenong once again showed superb wisdom.
On February 21, 1936, Li Kenong and his party went from Wayao Fort to Luochuan to negotiate with Zhang Xueliang. Before leaving, Zhou Enlai made a request to Li Kenong, "We must strive to negotiate, and even if we can't negotiate, we must also negotiate peace." Li Kenong nodded vigorously.
On February 25, Li Kenong and Zhang Xueliang had secret talks, and the two sides held detailed negotiations on the armistice between the Northeast Army and the Red Army and the joint anti-Japanese issue. During the negotiations, Zhang Xueliang was quite arrogant, and Li Kenong was not humble.
Zhang Xueliang asked, "You have to answer my three questions, are you Red Army really anti-Japanese?" Is it a cover, or is it really? Is there unity within the Red Army? You say that you are anti-Japanese, so why do you have to oppose Chiang Kai-shek? ”
Chang
Zhang Xueliang asked these three questions very sharply, and Li Kenong believed that the answers to the questions should also be targeted. Li Kenong replied: "Of course, the Red Army resisted Japan, not to resist Japan, so why did the twenty-five thousand-mile long march here?" As for the second question: the Red Army is united. There is some debate indeed. You know, Zhang Guotao and we have separated from each other. This is a struggle within our party, and you Mr. Zhang are not a member of the Communist Party and cannot understand it. ”
The two sides came and went until the early morning of March 5, when the negotiations ended. Finally, Zhang Xueliang put forward a request that it would be better for Mao Zedong or Zhou Enlai, as plenipotentiaries of the CPC, to come to Xi'an to further discuss with himself the great plan of resisting Japan and saving the country, and the time should be arranged by the CPC side. Everyone knows what happened later, and the Xi'an Incident broke out.
Li Kenong brilliantly accomplished his tasks and greatly contributed to the formation of the anti-Japanese national united front. After returning from Luochuan, Chairman Mao patted Li Kenong on the shoulder and said, "You have done a very good job alone this time!" Zhang Xueliang was still very impressed with Li Kenong in his later years, and said more than once, "This person is really powerful!" ”
The legend of Li Kenong continues. From 1941 onwards, Li Kenong served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Department and presided over daily work, directly supporting the decision-making of the Party Central Committee. Whether it was during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression or the War of Liberation, Li Kenong's intelligence work on the hidden front had outstanding performance.
As Chairman Mao said at the end of the War of Liberation, "Our intelligence work was the most successful during the War of Liberation!" Throughout Li Kenong's intelligence career, the peak duel with Mao Renfeng has become a classic in intelligence warfare.
After the defeat of the Kuomintang in Taiwan in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek was not willing to accept defeat and ordered Mao Renfeng to command agents lurking on the mainland to carry out various sabotage operations. In December of that year, chairman Mao was preparing to visit the Soviet Union, and Mao Renfeng thought that the opportunity had come and began to plan a second "Huanggutun" plan.
In order to carry out the assassination operation, Mao Renfeng prepared two sets of plans. First, intercept Chairman Mao's special train, destroy the Changchun No. 14 railway bridge, and at the same time secretly plant a time bomb at Harbin Station; second, use the "universal lurking platform" lurking near Tiananmen Square in Beijing to prepare for an opportunity.
The reason why it is called "omnipotent" is because the sender, translator, intelligence officer, and station director of this telegram are all held by Ji Zhaoxiang. Li Kenong ordered the "universal lurking platform" to be detected as quickly as possible, and after a period of detection, Ji Zhaoxiang was arrested.
After Ji Zhaoxiang was arrested, Taiwanese Mao Renfeng was still waiting for him to send a telegram. Mao Renfeng soon received Ji Zhaoxiang's last telegram, which read:
Mr. Mao Renfeng: The "Almighty Lurking Platform" that you boasted has been captured, and Major Station Commander Ji Zhaoxiang has been captured. In the future, we will take in all the agents sent by your bureau, but we will not thank them. Tell you, it was Li Kenong who spoke to you. Er waited for the "people to be sent under the fence" now, and the good times were not long. If you lead the troops to return, I Li Kenong can guarantee your safety. Tell you that the operator who sent the newspaper is Ji Zhaoxiang.
Mao Ren Feng
Mao Renfeng was extremely angry after receiving the telegram, but he still thought that he still had a trump card, the "Northeast Technical Column". Mao Renfeng was determined to be humiliated, and not long after, a plane without a fuselage and no markings secretly landed in a deep mountain not far from Harbin, and the two passengers on the plane were arrested by our personnel as soon as they got off the plane.
Li Kenong learned from the intercepted telegram that these two men were agents sent by Mao Renfeng to the northeast to lead the "Northeast Technical Column" and prepare to carry out assassination operations. Li Kenong decided to follow the vine and interrogate the two agents by surprise, and at once uprooted the "Northeast Technical Column" composed of 170 agents.
The two confrontations between Mao Renfeng and Li Kenong ended in Li Kenong's complete victory. On the evening of March 4, 1950, Chairman Mao returned to Beijing after his visit to the Soviet Union, and a series of assassinations by Mao Renfeng were completely unsuccessful.
On October 19, 1950, the Volunteer Army entered the Korean War. In June 1951, Li Kenong was instructed to come to Zhongnanhai Juxiang Bookstore. As soon as they met, Chairman Mao said: "Comrade Knong, I have ordered your generals to go to Kaesong, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has formed a team, Qiao Guanhua has also gone, and the army must also have people to participate." At that time, Li Kenong's physical condition was not good, but Chairman Mao thought about it again and again or ordered his general.
Li Kenong and Deng Yingchao
Lee Kenong resolutely accepted this extremely difficult task, and the Korean armistice negotiations were a long and complex negotiation that lasted for a long time. The United States wants to lead the negotiations, they are not willing to lose on the battlefield, often in the negotiations of unreasonable trouble, Li Kenong to develop a meticulous negotiation strategy.
In a negotiation in August 1951, the representatives of China and north Korea stated that they had finished speaking, but the representatives of the United States directly refused to speak. The negotiating venue was once again in the cold, and one of the US representatives looked at our representatives with defiant eyes. The two sides were tense, and our representative asked Li Kenong what to do.
Li Kenong ordered the people to send a note with three words written on it, "Sit down!" After reading the words on the note, the Representatives of China and the DPRK immediately sat firmly in the venue, until more than 130 minutes later, the US representatives could no longer stand the awkward atmosphere of the venue and were forced to announce the adjournment of the meeting.
Fast forward to 1953, and after lengthy negotiations, the two sides finally held a signing ceremony for the armistice agreement on July 27 of that year. For the safety of our personnel at the signing site, Li Kenong made many suggestions, and finally made the signing ceremony held in the safest way. Mr. Lee's series of work in the North Korean negotiations earned him the title of "Invisible Giant."
"Old Ji Futuo, determined to be in a thousand miles", this sentence is most appropriate for Li Kenong. Before going to North Korea, Li Kenong was already coughing, and the heavy negotiation work made him physically and mentally exhausted, and he has been persevering with great perseverance. On October 25, 1957, Li Kenong suddenly became dizzy, he wanted to go out for a walk, but he fell to the ground without thinking about walking out of the door, and passed out on the spot.
Li Kenong in North Korea
Li Kenong was immediately sent to the hospital, and Zhou Enlai instructed that he must make every effort to rescue him. After the doctor's examination, it was diagnosed that Li Kenong had cerebral hemorrhage, and finally he was in a coma for 8 days before he woke up. The life was rescued, but Li Kenong's brain was severely damaged and he almost lost his memory.
The children persuaded their parents to rest in peace, but Li Kenong was extremely distressed in his heart, and he said to his relatives at the bedside: "My pain now is that I don't have a job." "Yes, after years of fighting on the hidden front, too many people are in a state of concealment, and if they are not allowed to know their true identity organizationally, the consequences are unimaginable. After Li Kenong's physical condition improved slightly, he issued certificates for them one by one to gain the trust of the organization.
According to Li Lun, the son of Li Kenong, when he recalled: "After my father woke up, his brain was no longer able to speak, his memory mostly disappeared, and his speaking logic was no longer good... Relatives and comrades are very sad, and he is also very sad. It was after this that he began a few years of recuperation. ”
In 1960, Li Kenong's physical condition was still not optimistic, and the organization decided to let him leave his post. Li Kenong disagreed, and he said to the staff around him: "We are donkeys, we are used to driving things, it is uncomfortable not to drive, we can drive as much as we can." Li Kenong, who was physically ill, was still concerned about one thing, the return of Li Zongren, the acting president of the Kuomintang, to the country, and did a lot of work for this, although he did not wait for the moment when Li Zongren returned to China.
Li Kenong family portrait
On February 7, 1962, Li Kenong's condition deteriorated. At 9 p.m. on February 9, Li Kenong died at peking Union Medical College Hospital at the age of 63. On February 13, thousands of people from all walks of life in Beijing held a public memorial for Li Kenong. At the ceremony, Zhou Enlai served as the chief priest, and Luo Ruiqing delivered a eulogy.
Li Kenong's eulogy was personally revised by Zhou Enlai, and in addition to affirming the great contribution made to the founding of New China, there is also such a passage.
"Comrade Li Kenong is one of the organizers of the political defense work of our party and our army. After the defeat of the Great Revolution, under the severe white terror, he fought strongly and bravely against the enemy and, together with Comrades Qian Zhuangfei and Hu Di, who had sacrificed heroically for the revolution, made outstanding contributions to defending the leading organs of the Party Central Committee. ”
With this article, I would like to commemorate the founding general Li Kenong. There are no years at all, some are just others carrying the weight for you. Now that we live in times of peace, we should remember history and not forget the martyrs.