Xinjiang has been the inherent territory of our country since ancient times and has unassailable sovereignty. Even today, a large part of Russia's territory next to Xinjiang was ceded to Tsarist Russia by the weak and incompetent Qing government at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
Since then, successive dynasties, tangs, song dynasties, yuan, ming, and qing dynasties, which we are familiar with, have all set up administrative bodies in today's Xinjiang region.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, especially at the time of the Xinhai Revolution, all the provinces of the country declared their independence from the uprising, the Qing government was completely overthrown, and Xinjiang, although located in the border corner of our country, was not backward. Although in the process of the uprising, it encountered a certain amount of resistance and resistance, but under the appointment of Yuan Shikai, who stole the fruits of the Xinhai Revolution, Yang Zengxin served as a general in Xinjiang, and Xinjiang began a new era.
Starting from Yang Zengxin after the reform, until the Sheng Shicai we want to say, there was a good drama in the middle, which made people breathtaking, and had to sigh, the wealth is moving, and the desire for power is charming!
And Sheng Shicai has grown from a small chief of the intelligence section to a dictator of the largest province on the map of the Republic of China, and his experience has allowed us to more or less understand that in that turbulent era, a scene of legend and conspiracy, wisdom and confrontation was staged on the land of China.
The organs are exhausted and eventually empty
The first ruler of Xinjiang after the Xinhai Revolution was Yang Zengxin, who was the largest governor of Xinjiang from accepting Yuan Shikai's appointment as a general in Xinjiang in 1914, to continuing to serve as the governor and supervisor of Xinjiang, and then to the appointment of the National Government in Nanjing as the chairman of Xinjiang Province and the commander-in-chief of security in 1928.
Yang Zengxin did not have much thought, and was a soldier with a strong sense of family and country. For more than a decade in Xinjiang, he has been living in a corner of China, never mixing with the chaos that has occurred in the Chinese mainland of the past few decades.
He was a general and a man of letters, and he was familiar with history, especially now that Xinjiang's geographical location was very important with the presence of foreign powers.
Some subordinates once advised him to raise an army and divide one side, but he sternly refused, and explicitly ordered his subordinates: "Xinjiang must not be chaotic, Xinjiang must not be lost, if Xinjiang is lost once the political program is out of control, there is a tiger view of a strong neighbor on the outside, and there is a wolf greed in the outside Mongolia, I am afraid that this great river and mountain will fall into the hands of foreign nationalities." ”
Although he was also anxious about the endless wars in the interior of his country, the restoration, the warlord melee, the Northern Expedition, the Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists... But in his simple thinking, no matter how chaotic it is, he still Chinese his own people, he must guard the door of the country, he adopted the attitude of "recognizing the temple and not recognizing the gods", which is Buddhism today, just sit and watch China's more than ten years of struggle.
But after he accepted the appointment of the Nationalist government in Nanjing as the chairman of Xinjiang Province, something changed.
At that time, the person who served as Dihua Daoyin and the head of the military affairs department was named Fan Yaonan, and he had long coveted Yang Zengxin's position. He was also the principal of the Russian Grammar and Politics College, so on July 7, 1928, the day of the inaugural graduation ceremony, he invited Yang Zengxin to attend and then sent assassins to kill him at the banquet.
With no intention to calculate and have a heart, Yang Zengxin did not escape the day of birth. When the ecstatic Fan Yaonan wanted to go to the governor's office to declare his rule, he was surrounded and captured alive by troops sent by Jin Shuren, the head of the Civil Affairs Department. Jin Shuren killed Fan Yaonan, then convened a meeting of military and political leaders at all levels and elected himself interim chairman and commander-in-chief of the Xinjiang provincial government.
It was not until three months later that the Nationalist government in Nanjing issued a document formally confirming Jin Shuren's appointment. It was precisely through Jin Shuren that our protagonist Sheng Shi appeared on the big stage of Xinjiang.
At that time, the situation was turbulent, after all, Xinjiang was too far away from the central plains and coastal big cities, and there was a shortage of talents and materials. So in 1930, Jin Shuren sent his secretary to Shanghai and Nanjing to recruit talents.
Sheng Shicai is a member of the active sign-up to go to Xinjiang. At that time, Sheng Shicai was only an unknown little person, serving as the colonel of the operations section in the General Staff Headquarters of the National Government.
Such a person transferred from the headquarters naturally aroused the vigilance of Jin Shuren, who did not dare to delegate power to Sheng Shicai, but only made him the chief of staff of the colonel of the Superintendent's Office--a casual post that did not care about anything.
Sheng Shicai's ambition was already revealed at this time, he was not discouraged or dissatisfied, he just accepted the position with a smile, and it seemed as if he really did not care about the future of wealth.
But Jin Shuren underestimated Sheng Shicai's heart and patience, Sheng Shicai has been patient, and the opportunity comes so quickly!
In 1931, there was the "Xiaobao Incident" in Hami Xiaobao, where Kaguan was killed for forcibly marrying a Uyghur woman, and the officers and chief stewards of the Hami Royal Palace, Yao Lebos, coerced the people and launched a riot. At this time, Ma Zhongyingbu of Gansu next door also took advantage of the fire and robbery, and entered Xinjiang with his cavalry, killing and robbing again.
The two forces joined forces and supported each other, causing great trouble to Kim Shu-jin's counterinsurgency work. Their rebellion in February was not until September, when Sheng Shicai led his soldiers in a pursuit and defeated the Hami royal army.
The following year, Ma Zhongying completely united with the Wangfu army and attacked Hami. Previously, Sheng Shicai was promoted to the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Road Bandits for his military merits, and then defeated this joint force.
In 1933, Ma Zhongying made a comeback, and Sheng Shicai and his troops once again repelled Ma Zhongying and won the reputation of "Changsheng General", for a time, his fame was very large, and even had the momentum of overshadowing Jin Shuren, the provincial chairman.
And that same year, a big thing happened.
On April 12, Chen Zhong, director of the provincial government's staff office, joined forces with Tao Mingju, the county magistrate of Dihua County, and Li Xiaotian, the principal of the aviation school, to stage a coup d'état in order to overthrow Jin Shuren's rule.
Prior to this, Xinjiang under Jin Shuren had always been in turmoil, ethnic conflicts were very acute, and the economy could not develop, and he was not as satisfied with pacification as Yang Xinxin, but constantly expanded his armaments, making the ordinary people in Xinjiang miserable.
After the coup d'état, the unpopular Kim Shu-jin fled with his family. However, unwillingly, he wanted Sheng Shicai to come back to "put down the rebellion", but Sheng Shicai knew that the opportunity had come. He in turn supported the coup and participated in the coup d'état that followed, and after some deliberation, Liu Wenlong, the former director of the Department of Education, was elected as the interim chairman of the Xinjiang provincial government, and Sheng Shicai served as the interim governor of Xinjiang.
Everyone hung a temporary sign, that is, they needed to wait for the National Government to issue the letter of appointment. The Nationalist government in Nanjing did send people to investigate the "April 12 coup", but the officials who came to the palace had too close contacts with Chen Zhong and others, and the sensitive Sheng Shicai was afraid that he would be pushed out as a scapegoat, so he decided to act first.
Under the pretext of holding an emergency meeting, he sent assassins to ambush the venue, arrested Chen Zhong, Tao Mingjue, and Li Xiaotian, and then hurriedly installed a "conspiracy to commit treason" and shot them.
Sheng Shicai, an official from Nanjing, did not move him, but sent the "Minister of Chincha" back to Nanjing. At that time, the Kuomintang was launching an encirclement and suppression campaign against the Communist base areas, and they could not reach what happened in Xinjiang, so they had to pinch their noses and admit the positions of Sheng Shicai, Liu Wenlong, and others.
And it didn't end there that way.
At the end of this year, Sheng Shicai used the charge of "conspiracy to commit treason" to put Liu Wenlong, the provincial chairman, under house arrest, and then let Zhu Ruiqi, who was already old and sick, replace him.
Sheng Shicai played a good hand, learning Cao Cao's "blackmail of the Son of Heaven to order the princes", and by March of the following year, Zhu Ruiqi fell ill and died, and Sheng Shicai had already firmly grasped Dihua's army in his hands, and the army and political power were all in his hands.
By this time, Sheng Shi had completed his rise, and as an ordinary chief of staff of the headquarters, he had become the king of Xinjiang with means and strength.
After he took control of Xinjiang, in the confrontation with the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, he was like a duckweed floating on a pond. He was very clear about the great righteousness of his homeland and was even more of a "Marxist", but in turn he was not at all soft on the massacre of communists in our country.
Such a contradictory shengcai, we must combine his growth experience to see.
Returning Marxists from Japan
Sheng Shi was born in 1894, a native of Liaoning, Northeast China. The most noteworthy aspect of his youth was his three-time study abroad in Japan. These three study abroad experiences are very important for his entire ability and quality training, and the decision to abandon Wen Congwu also occurred during this period.
His first study abroad was in 1917, when he went to Meiji University in Japan to study political economy at the age of 23, and returned to China two years later, in 1919.
In just two years, he came into contact with Japanese Marxist scholars and read related books. In fact, Japan is not as crazy militarists as most people think, they also have a spread of Marxism, some people believe in communism, they also have their own Communist Party, and even during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Japanese Communist Party also provided help to our Communist Party of China.
After being influenced by Marxism in Japan, the young shengcai was spiritually naturally inclined to Marxism, and actively practiced it in action, and in 1919 he was elected as a representative of returned young people by the Liaoning Provincial Association of Liaoning Province, who stayed in Japan and northeast China, and joined the National Federation of Students in Shanghai.
During this period, the classmates and friends who studied with him recalled Sheng Shicai many years later, and they all said that Sheng Shicai's study period was "open mouth Marx, shut up Engels".
In the summer of 1922, he received financial support from Guo Songling, a general of the Northeast Army, and once again went to Japan to study at the Japanese Army University, staying for three years until 1925.
At the end of that year, he entered the army at the invitation of Guo Songling, but at the end of that year, because he failed to participate in the Luanzhou Mutiny, he made the third trip to the Japanese Army University for further study, and returned to China in 1927.
Although it is not to go to Britain, France, Germany and other European powers, but after the Decades after the Meiji Restoration, Japan's strength has been developing rapidly. Sheng Shicai's resume also proves that he himself has been trained in rich political and military talents.
And the time is back to 1934, when the prosperous era began to control the military and political power in Xinjiang.
Although Sheng Shicai was a well-deserved family member in Xinjiang in terms of official nominal and actual control, there were still two forces in Xinjiang at that time, Ma Zhongying and Zhang Peiyuan.
Ma Zhongying was an old enemy of Sheng Shicai, and a few years ago he led the army to deal with Ma Zhongying, who took advantage of the Hami rebellion and entered Xinjiang from Gansu to take advantage of the fire and robbery. Zhang Peiyuan was a subordinate of Jin Shuren, after the "April 12 coup", Jin Shuren fled in a daze, and Zhang Peiyuan, who was leading his troops outside, did not choose to go back to protect his old boss, but led his troops to occupy one side, and formed a horn with Ma Zhongying, and confronted Sheng Shicai in this land of Xinjiang.
Sheng Shicai is a person who has studied at a systematic military university, and he is also engaged in intelligence and tactical work, so he has his own unique views on the handling of ma Zhongying and other people and xinjiang's civil issues.
With regard to the current situation of mixed ethnic minorities and Han ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, especially after the outbreak of peasant riots, in addition to the military attack, it is even more important to pay attention to tactics in politics.
He explicitly introduced policies, such as requiring all ethnic groups to be equal, allowing the people to believe in religion freely, and at the same time strengthening discipline in the army, not infringing on localities, respecting the customs and habits of various localities, and winning the trust of ordinary people in the army.
Moreover, Sheng Shicai also stressed a key point: that is, the officials and the army of the provincial government must start from the central point that Xinjiang is the Xinjiang of all ethnic groups and a province of China, and there is absolutely no localist color. We must put an end to and crack down on those who say anything about establishing a "Muslim state" and a "Uyghur state."
If you think about these ideas of Sheng Shicai, do you feel very familiar with them, and he did develop them in his later administration of Xinjiang, and these are derived from his communist ideas.
Sheng Shicai himself is not only very talented, he can also lead the soldiers to lead the soldiers, do not put up a shelf, do not greed for money and bad sex, and grasp the treatment of the soldiers of the army very well, so it is very popular with the army.
At that time, the two armies of Ma Zhongying and Zhang Peiyuan united and unanimously targeted Sheng Shicai. While actively resisting, Sheng Shicai also asked Stalin of the Soviet Union for help.
The Soviet side attached great importance to Xinjiang's geographical location and mineral resources, and in addition, Sheng Shicai himself had Marxist concepts and promised to promote and support the concept of communism in Xinjiang, so the Soviet side, at Stalin's insistence, promised to send troops and materials to support Sheng Shicai.
With the help of the Soviet Red Army, Sheng Shicai quickly defeated Ma Zhongying and Zhang Peiyuan, Zhang Peiyuan committed suicide, Ma Zhongying fled to the Turpan area, and some other small rebel and dissident forces were all cleared away by Sheng Shicai like autumn wind sweeping away leaves, and from then on he became the "King of Xinjiang" who said no difference on the land of Xinjiang.
Pro-Soviet, pro-Communist and anti-Defector To Chiang Kai-shek
Speaking of Sheng Shicai, there is one thing that has to be said, that is, the "six major policies" he finalized!
In the management of Xinjiang and the stability of society, many places can see the strong Marxist-Leninist views of Sheng Shicai, which may seem very incredible to us ordinary people. Such a powerful non-party figure and a powerful warlord has taken Marxism-Leninism as the policy of management and construction.
Sheng Shicai's "six major policies" were put forward in April 1936, and these so-called six major policies are actually modeled on the eight declarations put forward by the CPC, and the six major policies are mainly six major points:
Anti-imperialist! Pro-Su! Minping (ethnic equality)! incorruptness! peace! construction!
Sheng Shicai wrote the "Six Major Policy Tutorials" and personally sent them to Stalin for review. Banners made from these six major policies were pasted everywhere in Dihua City and other surrounding counties, red flags fluttered everywhere in Xinjiang, and huge portraits of Sheng Shicai and Stalin were hung, such a strange scene made Xinjiang an ideal place for domestic Communist Party members even for a time during that period.
He had very good relations with the Soviet side, and he also maintained close ties with the Ccp, and even directly proposed that the Soviet Union could directly support the CCP through Xinjiang, take Gansu, and then connect Xinjiang, Gansu, Shaanxi, Qinghai and Ningxia to create a big base area for the Chinese revolution.
At the end of our Party's twenty-five-thousand-mile long march, after several Red Army detachments had successfully met their divisions, he proposed to the Chinese Communists that they could send troops to the west, join forces to seize Gansu, consolidate the entire Great Northwest base area, and then send troops to Suiyuan to open up communication with the Soviet Union. In this way, the CCP and it can turn their backs on the Soviet Union at home, and the strategic hinterland will be stretched deep and wide.
At that time, Zhang Guotao, who was the main player in the party, very much agreed with this idea, and the Soviet side also promised to work together, so the strategic choice called the "Westward Expansion Plan" was finalized.
Chairman Mao once put forward his own view at that time: "Xinjiang is a place where the Red Army can rest and tidy up, but it is too far from the Chinese mainland." Chairman Mao's views were not unreasonable, but under the situation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and the anti-Japanese situation at that time, the "westward expansion plan" was still implemented.
On December 12, 1936, with the xi'an incident, the anti-Japanese situation in China changed, coupled with the temporary change of the policy of the Soviet authorities, the materials they promised were thus stuck on the border between the Soviet Union and Xinjiang, and they could not pass.
And what about the Western Route Army, which has already set out?
The material support in the front was not in place, the weather was harsh and cold, and the rear of the Chinese Communists did not have the energy and ability to send support troops for the time being, coupled with the mistakes of the Chinese communists, the Western Route Army was encircled and suppressed by Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui in the Hexi Corridor, and the Western Route Army was almost completely annihilated!
Holding on to qilian mountain, the remnants of the Western Route Army were almost only more than 1,000 people. At this critical moment, Sheng Shicai remotely supported in Xinjiang, ordering the aviation school to deliver arms and supplies to the Western Route Army still in the Hexi Corridor, as well as helping to transport the wounded and sick.
When all the remnants of the Western Route Army entered Xinjiang, there were only more than 400 people left in the Red Army that had walked through the snowy mountains and meadows. When they came to Xinjiang, Sheng Shicai gave them very good treatment, specially set up a "new barracks" to place them, conduct military training, and even later sent outstanding talents to Moscow for in-depth study.
After the "Qiqi Lugou Bridge Incident", Sheng Shicai quickly agreed to set up an office of the Eighth Route Army in Xinjiang in Dihua, which can be seen as a formal united front relationship with the Communist Party.
Sheng Shicai gave full play to the advantages of Xinjiang's large rear area, whether it was daily necessities such as warm clothing and food, or armaments such as shells and guns, all of which were vigorously supported and transported to Yan'an.
At the same time, a large number of Yan'an Communists also entered Xinjiang and held important positions in the government and the army, bringing more new atmosphere to Xinjiang, and even Dihua was called "Little Yan'an".
However, the good times did not last long, and sheng shicai's relationship with the CCP and the Soviet Union, which was so good, soon ushered in a turning point. And the time was also very fast, and in 1939, Sheng Shicai revealed his true face.
In April 1939, he openly published an article in the Xinjiang Daily reprimanding the CCP member Wang Weichun, and those who had a heart had already smelled the bad signs of this, after which he began to consciously transfer CCP members from Yan'an away from the power center of Xinjiang and send them to some poor, chaotic, and backward places in southern Xinjiang. Soon after, he forced Deng Fa, the CCP's representative in Xinjiang, to leave Xinjiang, and the wolf's ambitions no longer seemed to be hidden.
Sheng Shicai himself was a student of Marxism, and he was well aware of the influence of Communists and the people, and he was willing to use this means to stabilize his rule, but he was afraid that the CCP would transfer all this influence to the Communist Party.
In addition, another important reason is that Sheng Shicai felt that his wings were hardened, and he felt that he was already capable of breaking the wrist with the CCP and the Kuomintang.
And this point, from the fact that after 1938, he occasionally increased his influence, advocated his six major policies, and even compared communism and the Three People's Principles on the same stage, we can see that he was already dissatisfied with doing small thoughts at this time.
In 1939, when he was secretly constantly transferring and dividing CCP members, he officially declared that Xinjiang was a "third group" independent of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and Sheng Shicai was dreaming of dividing the world at this time.
At this time, the European battlefield has long been in turmoil, the German army in the Soviet Union is like a bamboo, the Soviet Union itself is on fire, and the control of Xinjiang has also been relaxed. On the other hand, the CCP was suppressed by the Kuomintang openly and covertly, and although it was still in the anti-Japanese battlefield, the momentum of the CCP was also greatly suppressed.
The bad situation in the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communists further ripened Sheng Shicai's ambitions, and he increased the surveillance and crackdown on the CCP and Soviet party members under his rule, and even single-handedly concocted a series of so-called "conspiracy and riot cases" with the Du Chongyuan case as the main case. I have to say that sheng shicai really used this crime of "conspiracy to commit rebellion" too skillfully.
In March 1941, Sheng Shicai's younger brother Sheng Shiqi was killed in his home, and Sheng Shicai believed that this was the dissatisfaction of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party with him and wanted to murder him further, so he completely fell to the Chiang Kai-shek government from then on.
In early 1943, Sheng Shicai threw Chen Tanqiu, Mao Zemin, and others under house arrest into prison, and finally brutally executed them for "endangering the people."
Sheng Shicai's "King of Xinjiang" soon came to an end, and in 1944 he was transferred back to Chongqing as minister of agriculture and forestry. Later, with the defeat of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, he died in a hospital bed in Taipei in 1970 due to cerebral hemorrhage.
From sheng shicai's life, we can't help but sigh very much, also using Marxism as a weapon, but why did Sheng Shicai embark on such a road?
In the final analysis, it is because of the warlord nature of Sheng Shicai, who only uses Marxism as a tool, not a belief. He befriended our Party and the Soviet Union only in order to expand his own strength and to fight for independence. From the beginning, he had ulterior motives, and it is not surprising that he later seemed to have a contradictory transformation.