On May 27, 1949, Shanghai had just been liberated, and everyone was immersed in the joy of Shanghai's liberation, but on the 7th day after the liberation of Shanghai, a bad news suddenly washed away the joy of the people.
Not to be outdone, the Kuomintang decided to bury alive all the patriots captured before liberation, including a man named Huang Jingwu. When Chairman Mao learned of Huang Jingwu's arrest, he immediately ordered that Huang Jingwu be rescued at all costs, but after some efforts, he was unable to rescue Huang Jingwu.
So, why was Huang Jingwu not successfully rescued? Why did he receive so much attention from Chairman Mao?
Huang Jingwu's father, Huang Yanpei, a famous Chinese educator, gradually became a young man with excellent character and learning under the careful guidance of his father. After graduating from Tsinghua University, he could have lived comfortably under his father's aura, but Huang Jingwu decided to go through some training on his own, so he went to Harvard University to study.
During his studies abroad, Huang Jingwu, as a Chinese was discriminated against by many foreign students, which made Huang Jingwu very dissatisfied, believing that although China is poor and weak today, it will one day make the people live in peace and contentment, and Huang Jingwu is willing to dedicate himself to the arrival of that day.
With the determination to build the motherland, Huang Jingwu returned to the motherland immediately after graduating from Harvard. He came to Yuanling, Hunan province as the director of the salt office, Yuanling is a remote small place, although the local people are poor, but salt is a necessity of life that every household needs, coupled with Yuanling's financial constraints, so salt affairs have become fragrant, as long as it is an official who wants to share a piece of the pie.
After layers of exploitation by officials, the people of Yuanling wanted to buy one or two salt at a sky-high price, and Huang Jingwu saw the plight of the local people and was determined to rectify the salt administration in Yuanling.
However, Huang Jingwu's mind as a newly graduated student was still too simple, he thought that he could only sweep away corrupt officials, but he did not expect that the salt merchants had already colluded with officials. Because Huang Jingwu was unwilling to accept the solicitation of salt merchants, the salt merchants and salt officials together reported Huang Jingwu to the Hunan Salt Affairs Bureau, slandering him for raising the price of salt and profiting from it.
Such false accusations made the General Bureau decide to suspend Huang Jingwu from his post and investigate, and Huang Jingwu's full service to the motherland was extinguished by such a punishment, and he returned to Shanghai sadly. At home, his father encouraged him not to give up after such a blow, and the future of the motherland depended on young people like him, so Huang Jingwu perked up and continued to devote himself to the revolutionary cause.
Huang Yanpei
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Huang Jingwu served as a member of the Organization of the Chinese Democratic League, and because of his experience in studying abroad, his English level was extremely high. Therefore, during the peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Republic of China, Huang Jingwu served as an interpreter for Premier Zhou's entourage, and he was quick to react and when he encountered malicious questions from foreign reporters, Huang Jingwu would make a bit of embellishment and then tell Premier Zhou. This experience not only made Huang Jingwu learn a lot, but also left a deep impression on Premier Zhou.
In November 1947, the Kuomintang wantonly arrested revolutionaries in Shanghai, and for a time people in Shanghai were panicked, and some comrades with weak revolutionary will fled abroad, but Huang Jingwu did not have the slightest fear. He assumed the role of an officer of the Democratic League under such a critical circumstance and presided over its work.
As the Kuomintang's manhunt became increasingly intense, Huang Jingwu decided to move his work to underground in order to ensure the safety of the League's personnel. Not only that, he also assisted the CCP underground staff in evacuating some important members of the party, protecting the safety of underground workers, and allowing many Communists to survive the White Terror.
With the deepening of the KUOMINTT's arrest operation, the democratic parties have also become a thorn in the kuomintang's eyes, and Huang Yanpei among the democratic parties has also appeared on the kuomintang's blacklist, but because Huang Yanpei is a prominent figure in China, the kuomintang does not dare to act without authorization, but only carries out surveillance activities.
In May 1948, the Chinese Communist Party invited Huang Yanpei to attend the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People, Huang Yanpei had a very high prestige in the democratic parties, if he was invited to go, then other people would follow him to support the Communist Party, Chiang Kai-shek could not tolerate such "communist" elements, he sent spies to monitor Huang Yanpei near his home day and night, as long as Huang Yanpei made signs of leaving Shanghai, he immediately arrested.
Huang Jingwu looked at his father worried day and night, wanting to go to the meeting but there was no way, so he came up with an idea, which could help his father escape Chiang Kai-shek's eyes and ears and smoothly attend the meeting.
On this day, Huang Jingwu used the name of Huang Yanpei to hold a big birthday to let his father go out shopping, at this time the agents must follow huang Yanpei's footsteps, after staying in the store for a while, Huang Jingwu, who was waiting in the store in advance, pretended to be his father and left, so that when the agents followed Huang Jingwu away, Huang Yanpei could smoothly leave the store to attend the meeting. A month later, when the news of Huang Yanpei's meeting came, the Kuomintang agents realized that they had been deceived.
On the eve of the liberation of Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek knew that he was about to lose, and decided to loot assets in Shanghai and then secretly transport them to Taiwan. When the CCP's underground party learned of this news, it tried to stop the Kuomintang's behavior, but it never found evidence. Therefore, Huang Jingwu took the initiative to propose to the organization that he worked at the central bank and could collect evidence of the Kuomintang's looting.
Soon, Huang Jingwu launched an investigation at major banks in Shanghai. At this time, in just two months, the Kuomintang had looted millions of taels of gold in Shanghai, and now all of them had been shipped to Taiwan, and Shanghai had been almost hollowed out, and now there were only more than 200,000 taels of gold left. Huang Jingwu was furious, but he could no longer recover the gold that had been transported, and the only thing he could do now was to protect the more than 200,000 taels of gold.
At that time, Huang Jingwu was working as a bank auditor at the central bank, and in his work, he came into contact with many people in the financial and business circles, some of whom were very dissatisfied with the rule of the Nationalist government, and Huang Jingwu united them to fight against the Nationalist government.
So he immediately contacted the financial, industrial and commercial people and asked the newspaper to publish the actions of the Kuomintang government in the newspaper, and all walks of life in Shanghai were in an uproar, and Chiang Kai-shek's plot was exposed to everyone. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek was still ordering people to take away the remaining 200,000 taels of gold, but Huang Jingwu organized a vigorous parade on the streets of Shanghai, and the people's protests rose one after another. Faced with tremendous pressure from public opinion, Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to order the termination of the transportation plan.
With the efforts of Huang Jingwu and people from all walks of life, the 200,000 gold successfully stayed in Shanghai, and this money also provided a basic guarantee for Shanghai's economic construction after that.
However, Chiang Kai-shek did not give up, and he ordered the Kuomintang Secrecy Bureau to thoroughly investigate the mastermind behind the scenes, and soon found that the failure of the gold transport was due to Huang Jingwu's obstruction.
On an ordinary weekday, Huang Jingwu went to work at the bank as usual, and as soon as he walked downstairs, he keenly found that there were a few strangers around his house. He realized he was being watched, so instead of going to the bank, he went upstairs and packed important documents into a briefcase.
After that, Huang Jingwu circled many streets, and finally threw off the secret agents behind him, he walked quickly to the secret contact station of the Shanghai League, and then hid the documents and left a secret letter, which said: "I have now been targeted by the secret agents, I may soon be arrested by the agents, and these documents must be properly kept, because this concerns the lives of all the members of the League." After giving everything properly, Huang Jingwu left.
At the beginning of 1949, the Yangtze River defense line of the Nationalist army was broken, the horn to liberate Shanghai had been sounded, the general trend of the Kuomintang had gone, and the Kuomintang officials in Shanghai abandoned the secret and threw themselves into the light, wanting to contact the Communist Party, even if the Communist Party liberated Shanghai, they could save their lives. So they all found Huang Jingwu, the middleman, and wanted him to convey his wishes to the Communist Party.
One of the Kuomintang troops stationed in Pudong also contacted Huang Jingwu, who reported the situation to the underground Communist Party of Shanghai, and with Huang Jingwu's efforts, the two sides discussed that weakening the defense of the Jiangwan area of Shanghai would allow the People's Liberation Army to enter Shanghai smoothly.
On May 12, the Third Field Army of the People's Liberation Army launched an attack on the outskirts of Shanghai, and the liberation of Shanghai was about to be realized, and the cause that Huang Jingwu had been fighting for was only one step away from success. He wanted to go to the bank to sort out some information when the war did not spread to the city, but Huang Jingwu did not expect that the Kuomintang agents had been ambushing the central bank, and when they saw Huang Jingwu coming alone, they arrested him and put him in prison.
In prison, Huang Jingwu was tied up by the agents, Huang Jingwu was already mentally prepared for what kind of treatment he would receive next, and what he was worried about at the moment was whether the People's Liberation Army could smoothly enter Shanghai and whether the Kuomintang officer he negotiated with could keep his promise. The agent in charge of interrogation beat Huang Jingwu to the skin with a whip, but Huang Jingwu never returned to the secret agent's question.
At this time, a secret service leader walked up to Huang Jingwu and used water to wake up Huang Jingwu, who had fainted. He took out a fiery red iron rod and asked Huang Jingwu, "I advise you not to be ignorant of good villains and to tell everything you know." Huang Jingwu was unmoved, and even looked directly at the fiery red iron rod and the white smoke rising from his body.
Huang Jingwu's painful teeth were about to be crushed, but there was no response, and the agent saw that it was not possible to use a fire stick, so he took out a series of torture devices such as pliers and knives, and almost tried it on Huang Jingwu. After all the torture equipment was used up, Huang Jingwu was already dying in a pool of blood.
At this time, Chairman Mao, who was far away in Beiping, heard the news of Huang Jingwu's arrest and immediately ordered: Rescue Huang Jingwu at all costs! He knew what Huang Jingwu was doing in Shanghai for the underground party and people of all parties, and he helped Shanghai keep 200,000 taels of gold, and Chairman Mao did not want to see such patriots die in vain.
The ccp's underground party immediately launched an operation in Shanghai, because there were no witnesses when Huang Jingwu was arrested, so they could only conduct investigations in various Kuomintang prisons in Shanghai.
After some investigation, the underground workers learned an important piece of information, and the person responsible for guarding Huang Jingwu was Mao Sen. This person has a fierce temperament, but he is very greedy for money, which makes the rescue personnel very happy, and it is still very promising to rescue Comrade Huang Jingwu. So, they contacted Mao Sen, and sure enough, this person saw the money and heard that there was money to take, and he immediately agreed to secretly release Huang Jingwu.
However, due to the relatively large amount of money demanded by Mao Sen, the underground party organization still had to make preparations, but when the money was already prepared and given to Mao Sen, he suddenly repented. Because Mao Sen's uncle was Mao Renfeng, the director of the Kuomintang Secrecy Bureau, Mao Sen was greedy for money, but he was more afraid of his uncle.
Shanghai was about to be liberated, Mao Renfeng still wanted to do a dying struggle, even if he was going to lose, he would have to execute all other revolutionaries, including Huang Jingwu, and Mao Sen did not dare to disobey Mao Renfeng's orders. As a result, rescuers in Shanghai could only report the failure of the operation to their superiors.
On the night of May 18, 1948, Huang Jingwu had been in prison for 6 days, but in just 6 days, he was completely unrecognizable, and it was completely impossible to see that he was a senior employee working at the central bank. There was no place on his body that was not painful, so he could not rest in the middle of the night, and suddenly, Huang Jingwu heard a rush of footsteps outside the cell.
The agents went to the cell and took Huang Jingwu and 13 other revolutionaries to a clearing outside, where there was a large pit dug, and the agents pushed Huang Jingwu and the others into the pit and buried them alive. Regrettably, Huang Jingwu died without seeing the liberation of Shanghai with his own eyes, at the age of 46.
After the liberation of Shanghai, the party organization began to search for Huang Jingwu's body, digging up Huang Jingwu's body in the backyard of the Secret Bureau. Through Huang Jingwu's remains, people identified him, and the vicious Kuomintang agents cut off all his hands and feet, and his mouth and eyes were also pierced, and this scene made everyone present cry.
Later, the Shanghai municipal government posthumously recognized Huang Jingwu as a revolutionary martyr and buried him in the Chuansha County Martyrs Cemetery in his hometown. Huang Yanpei's heart was in pain, and Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi called one after another to express their condolences.
After the founding of New China, at the behest of Chairman Mao, Zhou Enlai invited Huang Yanpei to serve as vice premier of the State Council, the Huang family was loyal to Liang, and Huang Jingwu's son was re-elected vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Although Huang Jingwu died, his contribution to the liberation of Shanghai will never be erased.