After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the Kuomintang held the famous Chongqing Negotiations, one of which was to urge the Kuomintang to release General Ye Ting.
Chiang Kai-shek had to agree in order to pretend peace, but he still dragged on until March 4, 1946, when General Ye Ting, who had been wronged for 5 years, finally gained his freedom.
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek still had some illusions, thinking that Ye Ting would continue to be a third-party democrat and would not come together with the Communist Party, who knew that the day after Ye Ting was released from prison, he could not wait to send a telegram to Yan'an and ask to rejoin the Chinese Communist Party.
At this point, it hurt Chiang Kai-shek's sensitive nerves and secretly killed the machine.
At this time, Zhou Enlai was also worried that Ye Ting would stay in Chongqing for a long night and dream, so he looked for an opportunity to send Ye Ting safely to Yan'an as soon as possible.
In the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the United States greatly appreciated the CPC's heroic resistance to the War of Resistance, and sent a military observation group to Visit Yan'an to discuss the possibility of the US Military, the Eighth Route Army, and the New Fourth Army jointly cooperating in fighting against Japan.
On April 8, 1946, Zhou Enlai personally sent General Ye Ting's family, as well as Wang Ruofei, Bogu, Deng Fa and a total of 13 other people, on a plane.
The crew of this plane are all veteran Flying Tigers pilots who have flown for more than 3,000 hours, and they are also very advanced us military aircraft, which is supposed to be very safe, but at the moment when the plane took off, Zhou Enlai felt a tremor in his heart and had an ominous feeling.
After Zhou Enlai returned to the station, he nervously waited for the information of Yan'an, and when it was time to arrive, Yan'an still did not send a telegram announcing peace, and Zhou Enlai suddenly felt bad!
On April 11, bad news finally came: near Heicha Mountain in Xingxian County, Shanxi, a crashed US military transport plane was found, and all the personnel on board were unfortunately killed!
Zhou Enlai suddenly cried bitterly and lost his voice, and said in a loud voice, "Blame me for not thinking it through!" Even if you fly two separate planes, you probably won't do that! ”
On April 19, 1946, Zhou Enlai published an article in Xinhua Daily entitled "The April 8 Martyrs Are Immortal", which wrote: "For more than twenty years, tens of thousands of comrades-in-arms and comrades have sacrificed in the common struggle, but not once have you died so suddenly and unexpectedly. The sudden attack, the unexpected sacrifice, makes us feel even more that this is really an irreparable loss! ”
The "April 8 Air Disaster" has always become an indelible scar on Zhou Enlai's heart, until after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Premier Zhou was still very concerned about Ye Ting's two sons, Ye Zhengda and Ye Zhengming, and repeatedly encouraged them to study hard and serve the country.
Once, Premier Zhou talked to Ye Zhengda about the "April 8 air disaster" and expressed the cloud of doubt that had been buried in his heart for a long time, and he had always been convinced that this was not a flight accident, but an assassination arranged by Chiang Kai-shek!
First of all, there were many important figures of our Party on this plane, but there was not a single Kuomintang escort, and Chiang Kai-shek had no scruples at all.
Secondly, the hardware and software of the US military aircraft were first-class at that time, and the pilots were also veteran pilots, very experienced, should not be lost, and suddenly deviated from the course when they could reach Yan'an immediately.
This kind of aircraft generally flies at an altitude of five kilometers, while the Black Tea Mountain is only two kilometers, and it must have been someone who has manipulated the aircraft's flight compass and altitude gauge to make such a low-level mistake for a skilled pilot.
However, this was only a unilateral question by Premier Zhou, and there was not enough technical evidence, and at that time, a full-scale civil war had not yet broken out, and our party did not pursue much responsibility for the sake of taking into account the overall situation.
In the blink of an eye, a nail has passed, and in 2006, Du Jitang, an old secret agent of the military command, is about to complete his life, and before he died, he told the truth of the "April 8 Air Disaster", and sure enough, as Premier Zhou predicted, this was a deliberate assassination incident by a Kuomintang agent!
It turned out that Chiang Kai-shek was not willing to let Ye Ting return to the camp of the Communist Party, so he instructed the military command to fake a flight accident, and the matter was handed over to Du Jitang, who was then the commander of the Sino-US Technical Cooperation Institute of the Military Command.
Du Jitang also found a special agent Yang Yaowu who is proficient in aircraft maintenance technology, because Yang Yaowu is often responsible for repairing THE US military aircraft, and the US military is very familiar with it, so the US military did not care, as a result, Yang Yaowu secretly installed a powerful magnet in the middle of the aircraft compass and altimeter, so that the pilots saw the instruments were wrong information, the flight altitude was too low, and finally deviated from the course, and in the rain and fog weather, crashed on the black tea mountain!
"Four-eight air disaster", finally the truth came out!
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Ye Ting's eldest son, Ye Zhengda, because of his father's air crash, later aspired to learn aviation science and technology, was sent to the Soviet Union for further study, became China's first generation of outstanding aircraft design experts, made important contributions to China's independent research and development of a variety of domestic military aircraft, and also comforted his father General Ye Ting's spirit in heaven.
(References: "General Ye Ting", "Party History Overview", "Literature and History Spring and Autumn", "Literature and History Expo")