On January 20, 1951, a small vendor selling bean cakes in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, in his spare time, inadvertently flipped through the "Ta Kung Pao" in order to pass the time, after all, in the era when there was no TV or mobile phone, reading newspapers was the most popular entertainment activity for the people.
Soon, a front-page news in the newspaper caught his attention, a news about Wang Zimin, former head of the inspection department of the Kuomintang Yunnan Security Headquarters, who had been sentenced to death for plotting the murder of Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo.
At that time, anyone who saw this news may have focused on the "Ending of the Prince's People", but this small trader was not, and he had been staring at some of the confessions given by the prince's people in the news, because he felt that one of the suspects in the confession was somewhat familiar to him.
In the confession confessed by Wang Zimin, he said: "Cai Wenqi took out a gun and shot at Wen Yiduo. ”
Although the small trader did not know Cai Wenqi, he knew a man named Cai Yunqi in his hometown of Yancheng, whose names were somewhat similar in pronunciation, and some of the things that Cai Wenqi had done in the news could be fully associated with his hometown Cai Yunqi's "blown bull".
So he had a bold guess: this agent "Cai Wenqi" was the Cai Yunqi he knew. Thinking of this, he immediately returned to his hometown and reported the case to the Wuyou police station in Sheyang, Yancheng.
Subsequently, the public security organs in Yancheng immediately investigated it, and although there were some twists and turns in the middle process, they still confirmed Cai Yunqi's true identity. Faced with the impeccable chain of evidence in front of him, Cai Yunqi knew that sophistry was useless, so he honestly confessed all the crimes he had committed in 1946 when he participated in the murder of Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo.
Since then, as a Kuomintang agent, the ugly things he has done have also completely surfaced...
We will start this story after the victory of the War of Resistance.
At that time, although the Chinese people ushered in the final victory of the foreign war, the good days did not come, because at this time Chiang Kai-shek was completely disregarding the people's desire for peace and preparing to launch a civil war under the influence of the idea of "superiority over me".
For Chiang Kai-shek's determination to desperately want a civil war, the broad masses of the people rose up to resist, and Kunming, as the rear area of the War of Resistance, was naturally no exception. At that time, the people of Kunming had had enough of the war, and they were eager to achieve peace and democracy, so the mass movement in the Kunming area was in full swing.
In the face of such anti-war thinking, Huo Yunzhang, who was then the commander of the Kuomintang Garrison Headquarters in Yunnan, was very panicked, because he knew that civil war was inevitable now, and if he could not handle these anti-war public opinions, Chiang Kai-shek would certainly not spare him.
So in order to solve this problem once and for all, he intends to carry out some blows against democrats.
At that time, there were not many well-known democrats in Kunming, of which Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo were the main representative figures. It is not so easy to deal with their thin literati, after all, the pen in their hands is a weapon that can have more influence than guns and cannons.
Huo Yuzhang knew that he could not be careless, and he believed that it would be more prudent for the police, the army, and the secret service to work together to solve these problems, so since 1946, he has repeatedly summoned the secret agent Wang Zimin, as well as the leaders of the police system and the army, to discuss the suppression of anti-war democrats.
After the meeting and discussion, they all believed that they should use "force" against these people and use tough means to make them submit, as long as they were afraid, naturally they would not dare.
So they asked the spies to spread rumors everywhere in the place where Wen Yiduo and Li Gongpu were attending classes and giving speeches, and also put some "false accusations" on them and threatened and intimidated them. What is even more outrageous is that at some democratic anti-war meetings and speeches, the secret agents will still come out to make trouble, and the phenomenon of beating people and smashing things everywhere has always been endless.
But even though the spies have been using these despicable means, Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo have not flinched, but have resisted more and more strongly. Huo Yu saw that these two people were hard bones, and he also understood that if he did not deal with them now, things would get out of control in the future, so he had the idea of killing the two of them.
According to Huo Yuzhang's instructions, Wang Zimin, who was responsible for the assassination at that time, was the director of the Inspection Department of the Security Command.
In order to ensure that nothing was lost, the assassination plan of the prince was also very rigorous, and he arranged for the agents to step up their surveillance, and after fully understanding the rules of their daily routines, he immediately ordered the field team to prepare for action.
In addition, he also dispatched the fierce Cai Yunqi to lead the spy team agents to cooperate with the action, after all, Cai Yunqi's "business ability" in this area is considered to be the top in the Kunming area, and because of its vicious nature, it is called "Cai Tiger".
The assassination of Li Gongpu at the outset was as follows: an anesthetic potion was prepared, and after he was completely anesthetized, he was kidnapped and killed in a mountain outside Kunming. The reason for this is also to take into account the impact of the situation, so they must be unaware.
According to this step, on July 10, 1946, the assassination agents, including Cai Yunqi, were ambushed on Li Gongpu's daily road to prepare for an ambush, but on that day, for unknown reasons, Li Gongpu changed the trajectory of his actions, and the agents crouched and pounced.
The next day, the agents received another wind noise, determined that Li Gongpu and his wife were going to go out by car at 6 p.m. that day, so they immediately tracked the two and wanted to find a good time to start.
After tracking, it was learned that Li Gongpu and his wife had gone out this time to find someone to organize a concert. After they were finished, the two got on a bus, and when Li Gongpu got off the bus and walked to a place where there were no people, the agents gathered and shot Li Gongpu directly.
In fact, at the beginning, these spies only wanted to stun Li Gongpu as originally planned, but they found that there was no one around in the process of tracking, plus at that time, it was said that whoever completed the task first would be rewarded heavily.
Therefore, in order to compete for merit and to be able to complete the task more quickly, they chose to draw their guns and shoot at Li Gongpu randomly, and finally Li Gongpu, who fell in a pool of blood, died because of excessive blood loss.
Li Gongpu's death already made Wen Yiduo extremely sad and indignant, because being shot in this way, clear-eyed people could see that it was a secret agent, but the Kuomintang reactionaries not only did not recognize it, but also wantonly smeared Li Gongpu, saying that he died because of the "peach incident", which made Wen Yiduo even more angry.
On July 15, Wen Yiduo, despite everyone's persuasion, decided to risk his life to go to Yunnan University to attend Li Gongpu's memorial service, when the agents learned of the news and sent him a threatening letter, but Wen Yiduo was not afraid and resolutely went to the meeting.
At the memorial service, Mrs. Lee Gong-pu has been accusing kuomintang agents of their crimes on the podium, but the agents have been obstructing sabotage, making fun of ridicule, or making unreasonable trouble. At this time, Wen Yiduo could no longer suppress the anger in his heart, so he stepped onto the podium and delivered the "Last Lecture", which was widely praised by future generations.
Wen Yiduo's impassioned speech on the stage greatly encouraged the morale of the democrats and students attending the meeting, but it also made the saboteurs become panicked, and they were determined to assassinate Wen Yiduo immediately.
When Wang Shimin, the main person in charge of the assassination at that time, heard that Wen Yiduo would also attend the press conference in the afternoon, he thought that this was a perfect opportunity to kill Wen Yiduo, so he ordered his men to seize the time to act.
At that time, the agents who assassinated Wen Yiduo were divided into three groups.
The first group was led by Cai Yunqi, whose main task was to enter the venue to monitor; the second group and the third group were led by secret agents Qin Yonghe and Li Mingshan, respectively, and each carried out the task of wind control and ambush.
At that time, when Wen Yiduo's speech was almost over, Cai Yunqi immediately sneaked out of the venue, and then sent a message to the agents outside to prepare the person in charge of the assassination.
At about 5:30 p.m., Wen Yiduo, after everything was busy, walked home with his son Wen Lihe, who came to pick him up, and when they were about to arrive home, the agents who had already been ambushed at this time rushed out, plus the agents who were responsible for surveillance and wind release before arrived together, Wen Yiduo was attacked in the abdomen, and died on the spot after being shot several times, and his son was also seriously injured in order to protect his father.
Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo were assassinated one after another, and the time between their killings was only three days, and the atrocities committed by the Kuomintang reactionaries were simply heinous, so their deaths not only did not cause the peaceful democracy movement to die, but also aroused the people's indignation.
At that time, the climax of the protests against the atrocities of the secret agents had a great impact on the whole country, and even Chiang Kai-shek was very angry at the Kunming side for this inferior assassination method.
At this time, Huo Yuzhang saw that Chiang Kai-shek had the intention of blaming them, so he randomly arrested two agents and executed them, but this trick was not believed by anyone, and the people strongly demanded that the real murderer be publicly punished.
Huo Yuzhang was caught in a dilemma, because if he really executed the murderous agent, it would be equivalent to punching himself in the face, after all, this was his own order; but if he did not execute, it would be difficult to convince the public, and it would be even more difficult for him to do it.
Later, in order to solve this problem, he came up with a plan of "tanuki cat for prince", that is, to use a huge reward to encourage the agents who killed Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo to turn themselves in, and to ensure that at the time of execution, they would be exchanged for death row prisoners.
The spies who had participated in the assassination saw that there was no harm in this hundred benefits, so they all turned themselves in.
In short, there were many people who turned themselves in at that time, including cai yunqi, Qin Yonghe, Li Mingshan, and Tang Shiliang, who were the leaders of the secret service. In the end, after weighing, Li Mingshan and Tang Shiliang were "lucky" to be selected to be judged.
These two people had thought that as long as the matter passed, they would be waiting for countless glory and wealth, but what they did not expect was that they would not be able to survive at all.
It is also ridiculous to say that when the two were conducting a public trial, due to the large number of onlookers and the fact that most of them were familiar with the appearance of the two, the strategy of exchanging tanuki for a prince could not succeed, and the Kuomintang authorities had to fake the real drama and kill the two.
The matter has already been explained to the people, and naturally Cai Yunqi, a surviving assassination agent like Cai Yunqi, has saved a life. Later, in order to protect Cai Yunqi, the Kuomintang authorities sent him to a secret area for secret service training.
In 1947, he was escorted to the Nanjing Gendarmerie Command. He was released after the wind passed, and he also served as a major and lieutenant colonel staff officer in the 16th Appeasement District of the Kuomintang.
After liberation, Cai Yunqi knew the depth of his sins, so he chose to return to his old hometown in Yancheng and started an oil mill business and became a small businessman. At that time, in order not to let his evil deeds be made public, he also made some modifications and concealments of his historical situation before being repatriated to his hometown.
For example, he introduced himself in the history column of the "Registration Form for Attached Chiang Kai-shek": He joined the Nationalist Army in 1939, and was later assigned to the 36th Division of the Kuomintang 71st Army, starting from platoon commander to regimental deputy; in 1943, he was transferred by the Kuomintang to the major of the 11th Group Army of the Kuomintang Expeditionary Force, and then all the way to the staff officer; from 1945 to 1946, he was wounded in the war against Japan and was treated in Dali, Yunnan; after recovering from his wounds in 1947, he was transferred to the major and lieutenant colonel staff of the Kuomintang 16th Appeasement District. Until he was captured by the People's Liberation Army.
In order to highlight his contributions, he listed many of the large and small battles in which he participated in the war against Japan in the War of Resistance Against Japan, and then he wrote in the line "Facts That Endangered the People in the Past" in the form: I have not harmed the people at all, please check it carefully!
At that time, when it was difficult to confirm his resume, Cai Yunqi's half-truth and half-false situation was the most difficult to distinguish, so he was able to escape the disaster.
When he was in his hometown, he always kept a low profile in order to save his life. It was only now that he had learned to keep a low profile, and it was some of the things he had inadvertently bragged about that had led to his eventual exposure.
The person who found his problem was the small vendor who sold bean cakes that we mentioned at the beginning of this article. Then, when the small trader saw the deeds of "Cai Wenqi" in the newspaper, why did he associate him with his hometown Cai Yunqi?
It turned out that Cai Yunqi was not only his hometown, but also the brother-in-law of one of his nephews, so he still heard some of Cai Yunqi's past deeds.
Their first meeting was in the spring of 1946.
At that time, the small traders came to Shanghai to do business, and met Cai Yunqi at the family nephew's home, and Cai Yunqi at that time had been showing off his ability in front of everyone, and bragged: "There is chaos in Kunming, and the gendarmes can't figure it out. ”
In the spring of 1950, they met for a second time in their hometown.
At this time, Cai Yunqi has long lost the arrogance of four years ago, but is low-key and somewhat abnormal, and has been telling the small traders: "In the past, please don't say it again!" ”
This strong contrast has long made small traders a little suspicious. At this time, when the "Li and Wen Massacre" occurred, Cai Yunqi was doing business in Kunming, and the nephew also said that he was later dragged by Chiang Kai-shek to Nanjing and imprisoned.
The small trader wondered how he could be imprisoned after boasting that he was so powerful in Kunming. Will Cai Yunqi be the "Cai Wenqi" that Wang Zimin confessed to in the "Ta Kung Pao"?
Combining the above things, plus his own knowledge of Cai Yunqi, the intuition of the small trader told him that it must be. As for the only "name" that cannot be contacted by the two people, the small trader believes that it is not excluded that it may be caused by the wrong pronunciation of the dialect and then the wrong writing.
Now that all this has been reasonably speculated, the petty trader has called the police.
After receiving the report from the small trader, the police station also attached great importance to it, and immediately arrested Cai Yunqi from his hometown. Only at first, due to the lack of substantial evidence due to the lack of information, he was released.
But as time went on, the petty trader became more and more convinced that his instincts were correct, and during the purge campaign, he wrote to the police several times to express his views.
So in 1956, the Public Security Department of the Yancheng Commissioner's Office formally filed and reviewed the case.
Soon, investigators found some loopholes in the "Registration Form for Personnel Attached to Chiang Kai-shek" that he had filled out that year. For example, Cai Yunqi once bragged that he was very powerful in Kunming, so why did he not mention anything in the registration column, but only wrote about recuperation?
Adhering to the case-handling concept of "not wronging a good person, and not sparing a bad person", the Yancheng investigators overcame various difficulties and obstacles to understand the specific situation in Yunnan under the condition that the southwest region was still very closed at that time.
They took Cai Yunqi's photos and related materials and went around Kunming and Dali to investigate. Finally, after more than a month of field investigation, they finally confirmed that Cai Yunqi had done a "good job" in Yunnan this year, and this big case 10 years ago was finally solved.
It turned out that Cai Yunqi in 1946 was not a "anti-Japanese wounded" in Dali to recuperate, he was appointed by the Kuomintang as the captain of the spy team of the Second Reserve Division of the Kuomintang Second Army, and he had been stationed in Kunming.
According to the confessions of the relevant agents detained in Kunming Prison, Cai Yunqi was indeed involved in the "Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo" bloody case, and when the investigators took out photos for them to identify, they could also be recognized at once, and even the characteristics of age, place of origin, and accent could be corresponded to one by one.
Of course, in addition to direct witnesses, there is also very comprehensive physical evidence. At that time, from the old archives of the Kuomintang in Kunming, we can also find the "brilliant deeds" of how Cai Yunqi originally led people to be a blessing in Kunming and squeezed the common people.
After the evidence was fully collected, after 5 years, the public security organs once again boarded the door of Cai Yunqi's home, handcuffed him and sent him back to the public security bureau.
Only this time, Cai Yunqi still believes that the police should have no relevant evidence, they have no flaws, and it will not be long before they will let themselves go. So he flatly denied his crime, and he always answered the police's questions exactly as written in the "Registration Form for Personnel Attached to Chiang Kai-shek" in the past.
The Yancheng public security saw that he toasted and did not eat the penalty wine, so he no longer asked more questions, but directly stepped into the subject and told him the truth about everything he knew in Kunming, but despite the overwhelming evidence, he still insisted that he had been wronged.
Cai Yunqi's nonsense was wildly entangled, and the police did not pay attention to it, because the public security handling of the case paid attention to evidence, and there was no evidence to let you go at that time, but now that there is evidence, Cai Yunqi is useless no matter how cunning it is.
Therefore, under the psychological offensive of the interrogators, Cai Yunqi finally could not hold on and admitted that he was one of the culprits involved in the killing of Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo.
Since then, this great agent who was once extremely vicious and rampant in Kunming has finally been arrested. Perhaps he never imagined that he would be suspected of being a cow that he had blown once 10 years ago, and then he would find a breakthrough and eventually be exposed.
Cai Yunqi was later tried for his crimes, and in the second instance he was sentenced to death and executed on April 26, 1958. As the fifth murderer to participate in the assassination after liberation, his fufa also allowed the heroic souls of democrats such as Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo to be comforted.