<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > preface:</h1>
"On April 8, 1946, Ye Ting, Wang Ruofei, and others returned to Yan'an from Chongqing by plane, and due to bad weather, the plane crashed into heicha mountain, and none of the people on board survived."
For decades, Ye Ting's death has been recorded in this way.
However, from the very beginning, Premier Zhou and others thought that the matter was full of doubts and that someone had moved their hands and feet.
Why? What is the truth?
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On April 8, 1946, Wang Ruofei and Bogu, who went to Chongqing to participate in the negotiations, and Deng Fa, who attended the trade union congress in Paris, flew to Yan'an via Xi'an.
Also on board were Ye Ting, the former commander of the New Fourth Army, who had just been released, and his family (wife Li Xiuwen, fifth daughter Ye Yangmei, youngest son Ah Jiu, and nanny).
In the afternoon of the same day, Chairman Mao, Commander-in-Chief Zhu, Ren Bishi, and others waited early at the Yan'an airport. The people of Yan'an went to the airport in droves, wanting to see General Ye Ting.S.
It was a rainy day, the clouds were thick, the planes had not arrived, and people were anxious to wait.
At more than 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the sound of the engine of the plane was finally heard in the sky, and the crowd was jubilant, but it was not long before the sound of the plane became farther and farther away and slowly disappeared.
Time passed by minute by minute, and people's mood became more and more nervous. Until 4 p.m., the plane still did not arrive at the airport, and everyone had to leave.
As soon as they returned to their garrison, Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu immediately sent an urgent telegram to Xi'an and Chongqing, inquiring about the whereabouts of the plane. However, the plane neither stopped in Xi'an nor returned to Chongqing.
After receiving the call back, the mood of the crowd became heavier.
In the next three days, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia and Jinsui Border Regions carried out a rigorous search of the mountainous forests, and the Kuomintang also sent planes to conduct reconnaissance in the air.
On the evening of 11 July, two urgent messages from the Jinsui Border Region were sent to Chairman Mao and Zhu Laozong: The plane on which Ye Ting and others were riding had been destroyed at Heicha Mountain in Xingxian County, and all 17 people on board were killed.
As soon as the news came out, the whole country was saddened.
On the morning of the 12th, a spirit delivery team composed of elite militia in Xingxian County carried the remains of the victims and moved towards Yan'an.
The mountain roads are rugged, and many times the militiamen have to crawl to get past them. From Black Tea Mountain to Lanxian Airport, everyone walked for a total of three days and nights.
Along the way, archways were erected in villages and villages, and the people knelt down and wept bitterly, and more than 1,000 young people rushed to carry the spirits of the martyrs.
At 1 p.m. on the 18th, two planes carrying the remains of the martyrs arrived in Yan'an from Lanxian Airport.
Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi and other central leaders were already waiting there, and more than 10,000 people in Yan'an also spontaneously went to pick up the spirits.
There was a lot of crying at the airport.
After that, Zhu De and others came forward to preside over the burial and personally carried out the funeral for the victims.
In addition to the grief, many people think that this flight accident is not just an accident.
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Just as Comrade Zhou Enlai said, at that time, it only rained lightly in Yan'an, and the plane had already flown over Yan'an, and everyone present heard the sound of the plane, so why did the plane fly to the Black Tea Mountain in the blink of an eye? Isn't this something done by Kuomintang agents?
It was not that Premier Zhou was suspicious, but that chiang kai-shek had not done it once or twice.
What's more, the passengers on that plane were almost all our people, including senior cadres such as Wang Ruofei and Bogu, and Comrade Ye Ting, who was regarded as a thorn in the eye by Chiang Kai-shek.
Ye Ting participated in the Northern Expedition and was praised by everyone, and in the War of Resistance Against Japan, he served as the commander of the New Fourth Army.
After the Anhui Incident, Ye Ting was detained by Chiang Kai-shek. No matter how much the other party threatened and seduced, he did not give in.
The Kuomintang imprisoned Ye Ting for five years, but the day after his release from prison, he wrote a report to the Central Committee to apply to join the Communist Party.
How could Chiang Kai-shek, such a person who was "partial" to the Communist Party, easily let him go?
From left to right: Xiang Ying, Premier Zhou, and Ye Ting
Moreover, it was precisely because the Kuomintang side suddenly tore up the negotiation agreement that Wang Ruofei and others had to brave the bad weather to rush back to Yan'an to report and ask for instructions.
By the way, on that plane, in addition to Wang Ruofei, Ye Ting and others, there was also a painting by Picasso.
Picasso sent an oil painting he had made by his own hand to Yan'an on behalf of Deng to Yan'an to express his admiration for Yan'an and Chairman Mao.
Unfortunately, Deng Fa suffered an air disaster, and the oil painting he carried with him and carefully wrapped was also destroyed.
All in all, Chiang Kai-shek had a full motive for committing the crime.
Not only that, but Premier Zhou's suspicions have other bases.
Gu Yizhi, a cadre of the Xingxian Public Security Bureau who was responsible for cleaning up the crashed plane scene and escorting the martyr's body to Yan'an, wrote an investigation report after investigating the scene, which mentioned the following points:
First, the plane was indeed burned after crashing into the boulders sealed on the side of the Black Tea Mountain, and the traces of the impact were very obvious, and it can be determined that the aircraft did not naturally explode in the air.
Second, there was a thick fog over the Black Tea Mountain that day, there was snow on the mountain, and there was rain under the mountain, and there was a possibility of hitting the mountain because the visibility was too low.
Third, no signs of man-made explosions were found at the scene.
From these points of view, this accident is likely to be an accident, but at the same time, Gu Yizhi also raised some questions in the report:
1, this plane stopped at Xi'an Airport in the middle, after refueling, it should have taken off to Yan'an in the north, why did it deviate from the course and fly all the way to the northeast of the Black Tea Mountain?
2. There is a "disoriented" telegram in the martyr's relics, and the weather on the route from Xi'an to Yan'an at that time was not bad, and the captain was a very experienced pilot, so it was impossible to make such a low-level mistake.
Everyone already suspected that Chiang Kai-shek had committed this incident, and these doubts raised by Gu Yizhi aggravated people's suspicions about the Kuomintang side.
However, doubt turned to doubt, but not enough evidence was always found.
At that time, we were in the period of peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and if we rushed to blame Chiang Kai-shek for this matter without real evidence, it would not only be detrimental to the continuation of peace talks, but would also leave the reactionaries with a handle.
In view of this, Xinhua News Agency can only release news that it is "suspected of hitting a mountain and crashing in the thick fog."
The "Black Tea Mountain Air Disaster" has caused our party a heavy loss, it is like a sharp knife, fiercely poking into everyone's heart, making it difficult for people to let go for a long time.
After this incident, in order to avoid the black hand of the secret agents again, the Party Central Committee and the Kuomintang side put forward a demand: "In the future, as long as the senior generals and members of the Central Committee of our Party take your plane, they must be accompanied by a Kuomintang general." ”
It is not too late to make up for the dead sheep, which is also the helpless move of the Party Central Committee.
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Long before Ye Ting was released, several of his other children had escaped Kuomintang surveillance and were quietly sent to Yan'an by Premier Zhou.
The children first lived in the Prime Minister's cave, and Commander-in-Chief Zhu De personally arranged three meals a day for them.
After the premier returned from Chongqing, he sent them to school.
Every time on the weekend, Mr. Zhu instructed the guards to lead the horses to bring the children back from school, make them some good food, and improve their lives.
At that time, life in Yan'an was very difficult, and later, Premier Zhou personally transferred them to Zhangjiakou, where the conditions were much better than in Yan'an. In Zhangjiakou, the lives of their brothers and sisters were taken care of by Marshal Nie Rongzhen.
In 1947, the Liberation War broke out, and in order to ensure the safety of the descendants of these martyrs, the Party Central Committee sent them to the Northeast Liberated Area.
In the northeast, the two brothers successively lived in the homes of Marshal He Long and Marshal Nie Rongzhen and were carefully cared for by them.
Although he grew up under the care of everyone, the fact that his father had a hard time flying inevitably had a huge impact on the children.
Ye Ting's family
Ye Ting's eldest son, Ye Zhengda, grew up to become an aircraft design expert, and the second son, Ye Huaming, originally planned to become a pilot, but Nie Shuai did not agree, the Ye family had already died 4 people due to air crashes, and he said that he did not want these children to have a little accident.
At Nie Shuai's suggestion, Ye Huaming first went to HIT to study aero engines, and was later selected to the Soviet Union.
After returning to China after completing his studies, Ye Huaming engaged in surface-to-air missile research under the leadership of Qian Xuesen and made great contributions to the cause of national defense.
In June 1951, Ye Zhengda returned from the Soviet Union, and the brothers specially went to Zhongnanhai to visit Premier Zhou.
At the dinner table, the prime minister talked to them about the air crash that year, and clearly denied the statement that "the plane crashed into the mountain in the thick fog", and the premier said:
"I can tell you that someone must have done something... I have been dealing with Chiang Kai-shek for a long time and know his personality very well... It's easy to use agents to do something on the aircraft's instruments..."
Obviously, no matter how many years have passed, Premier Zhou has always firmly believed that it was the Kuomintang agents who moved their hands and feet, which caused the plane to get lost halfway.
Of course, what Premier Zhou said at this time is still just a guess, or there is not enough evidence.
In 2003, Ye Zhengda made Premier Zhou's remarks about the Black Tea Mountain air disaster public, and at the same time, he also analyzed the plane trek from a professional point of view.
On the basis of agreeing with Premier Zhou's statement that "some people have done things", Ye Zhengda made the following inference:
First, the plane set off again after refueling in Xi'an, at first it was still in normal contact with the ground radio, and when it was about to land, the plane lost its course and did not fly to Yan'an, but flew to the Black Tea Mountain, indicating that there was a problem with the aircraft's disk table.
Second, the altitude of Black Tea Mountain is only more than 2,000 meters, the aircraft can fly more than 6,000 meters, and the reason why the aircraft flying at a high place crashed on the mountain of more than 2,000 meters is likely to be because the aircraft's altimeter is passive.
Ye Zhengda said that the C-47 aircraft that Ye Ting and others were riding was different from the modern passenger aircraft, which was a very primitive transport aircraft, and it could make its magnetic compass and altimeter fail with some simple methods.
Ye Zhengda further analyzed that when the plane stopped at Xi'an Airport for a while, some Kuomintang agents installed the timing sabotage device on the magnetic compass and the line of the pressure altimeter of the aircraft, and when the plane took off again, these devices began to play a role, and the magnetic compass and the altimeter failed at the same time, which eventually caused the plane to lose its course and altitude.
As an aviation expert, Ye Zhengda's professional level is beyond doubt, and his analysis also has a certain scientific basis, but it is still that sentence, in the absence of conclusive evidence, these can only be called his personal views.
What is even more surprising is that less than three years after Ye Zhengda published this analytical article, another article suddenly appeared, saying that there was a former Kuomintang military command agent named Du Jitang who took the initiative to expose the news before his death, admitting that he had been ordered to create the air disaster that shocked China and foreign countries!
When this article was published, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Heichashan air disaster and the 110th anniversary of Ye Ting's birth, major official media reprinted this article one after another, and public opinion boiled over for a while.
Could it be that the Black Tea Mountain air disaster was really a ghost of Chiang Kai-shek's trickery?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="219" >4</h1>
According to the description of this article, at that time, the Kuomintang military command installed a lot of eyeliner in the air force, and when it was learned that many important leaders of the CPC would return to Yan'an by plane, the eyeliner immediately reported to the superiors.
Immediately afterward, the head of the military command arranged for Du Jitang, who was the captain of the special agent, to carry out the assassination.
When discussing the specific plan of action, a secret agent who knew a little about the plane came up with the idea that as long as the plane's flight instrument was destroyed, the plane would be lost and fall.
Du Jitang felt that this method was feasible, so he arranged for a secret agent to mix into the aircraft maintenance team, and when the plane stopped at Xi'an Airport in the middle, he placed magnets on the back of the magnetic compass and altimeter of the aircraft.
Sure enough, on the way to Yan'an, the navigation system and the altimeter both failed under the interference of magnets, and the plane did not know the direction and altitude, flew to the rainy and snowy Black Tea Mountain area, and finally crashed into the mountain and died.
Du Jitang's revelation caused an uproar and seemed to prove that Premier Zhou and Ye Zhengda's analysis was correct.
After reading this article, Ye Zhengda and the descendants of Wang Ruofei, Bogu, and Deng Fa gathered together and made a discussion.
Ye Zhengda thought that since the former Kuomintang agents all admitted that they were his own hands, then the matter would be out of the water, but Bogu's son Qin Tie felt that it was not so simple.
Bogu with his wife and children
Qin Tie suggested that everyone should not blindly draw conclusions, and it is best to do some investigation first and make things clear before speaking.
To this end, Qin Tie and others specifically contacted the authoritative media that published Du Jitang's explosive information article to verify the source of the information, but they did not expect the other party to answer that this was just a forward.
Then, they searched separately for the original source of the message, but none of them found it.
Later, everyone searched for the key figure of "Dujitang" through various channels, but the result was that there was no such person.
At this point, Ye Zhengda and Qin Tie and others could only conclude that the so-called "Du Jitang revelation" was not credible at all, and there were some obvious loopholes in this article.
First of all, the itinerary of Ye Ting and others was open, and the so-called "Kuomintang agents spied on this important information" is simply nonsense.
Second, the pilot of the plane that was killed was a member of the US "Flying Tigers," and the Kuomintang side regarded the United States as a "gold lord" at that time, and I am afraid that it did not have the courage to kill them together.
To sum up, the so-called "Du Jitang breaking news" is likely a lie deliberately fabricated by someone after reading Ye Zhengda's analysis and deliberately pretending to be a Kuomintang agent.
On the other hand, unlike Ye Zhengda's view, Qin Tie believes that the Black Tea Mountain air disaster incident should be an accident.
Because long before the "Dujitang Revelation" appeared, Qin Tie had gone to the Black Tea Mountain many times to investigate the matter to the people who were at the scene and had participated in the search for the wreckage.
After many investigations and analyses, Qin Tie came to his own inference:
The Luliang Mountains, through which the plane passed, were in a foggy, windy and sandy climate in April, which was extremely unfavorable for flight. Unable to land smoothly, and there was no backup airport and alternate channel nearby, the pilot had to return to Xi'an.
However, due to the poor weather, low visibility, and poor navigation equipment at that time, the pilot lost his way, deviated from the course, and flew all the way to the Black Tea Mountain area. In order to find the ground target, the pilot had to reduce the flight altitude, which accidentally caused the plane to crash into the mountain in the thick fog.
Overall, Qin Tie's view is relatively pertinent, but even so, it cannot completely rule out the possibility that "someone has secretly moved his hands and feet".
I hope that one day, with the development of technology and the decryption of various archives, the mystery shrouded in the "Black Tea Mountain Air Disaster" can be cleared!
bibliography:
[1] "Ye Tingchuan: The Bumps of Xiao General"; authors: Duan Yusheng, Zhao Hui, and Li Qihua
Ni Liangduan. Bogu's son investigates the "April 8 Air Disaster" incident[J]. Sichuan United Front, 2013, 000(003):P.43-43.
WANG Peng. After the "April 8" air disaster[J]. Zongheng, 2004(04):30-32.
Ren Xuejun. Archival records of Wang Ruofei, Ye Ting and other martyrs of the "April 8th" air disaster[J]. Archives, 2012, 000(006):16-19.
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