Since the 1960s, as cross-strait relations have entered a new situation of tense confrontation, the Kuomintang authorities that have been defeated and retreated to Taiwan have not been willing to lose, and Chiang Kai-shek and others have still dreamed of "counterattacking the mainland."
To this end, on the one hand, they secretly dispatch underground spies to the mainland to steal classified information and engage in various sabotage activities. On the other hand, the use of media channels such as radio has increased "anti-communist propaganda" and used money and beauty to seduce those who are not determined.
In the more than two decades since then, there have been several incidents of mainland pilots defecting to Taiwan, of which the most influential incident was the defection of Li Xianbin.
First of all, there is a question, through combing, it can be found that in this series of defections, the protagonists are all pilots without exception, why is this so?
There are two main reasons: First, because the air base where the pilots are located is generally at the forefront of the coastal sea, they have more opportunities to contact information from Taiwan and are extremely susceptible to the influence of anti-communist radio propaganda. Second, because pilot defection has a natural advantage, they can use the opportunity of training to directly fly the plane to escape to Taiwan.
So, who is Lee Hsien Bin? Why did his defection have such an impact? What was the end of his life?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">01</h1>
In 1937, the anti-Japanese flame was burning on the land of China. On this day, a loud baby cry came from a poor farmer in a certain place in Shandong.
He is Li Xianbin, although his family is poor, his parents still dote on this only son and never let him do farm work. There is a local custom of early marriage, and when he was 11 years old, his parents arranged the marriage for him.
Due to the poor economic conditions, the standard of finding a partner naturally cannot be high, the other party is 5 years older than him, and later the two have a daughter.
In 1955, the 18-year-old Li Xianbin had reached the age when he could join the army, just when the local conscription, unable to do farm work Li Xianbin was bent on leaving the countryside, and becoming a soldier was a good channel, so he signed up.
After Li Xianbin enlisted in the army, after a series of training, he successfully entered an aviation school of the Air Force to learn flying skills, which means that he is about to become a pilot.
As we all know, the selection of pilots is extremely strict, the requirements for comprehensive physical quality are very high, basically one of the thousands, and the training of a pilot requires a lot of time and financial support.
Li Xianbin became a pilot and was about to fly a fighter plane to defend the blue sky of the motherland. The news caused a stir in his hometown, and the villagers who came to Daoxi crowded the simple and cramped hall houses of Li Xianbin's house.
Lee Hsien Bin's parents happily closed their mouths, and there is no doubt that they are proud and honored for their son. At this time, they would never have imagined that their son would be recorded forever in another way...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">02</h1>
After entering service in a certain unit of the Air Force, Li Xianbin's performance was once very positive, and in his daily flight training, all indicators were among the best.
However, after a long time, the shortcomings and bad problems in his body began to appear. As a result of his pampering from an early age, he developed a selfish and willful personality and a fear of hardship, which made it impossible for him to integrate into the army collective that emphasized discipline and obedience. And the boring and tedious training life day after day made him even more unbearable.
Because the troops are stationed close to the Fujian coast, they will inevitably be invaded by the reactionary broadcasts of the Taiwan authorities. By chance, Lee Hsien Bin heard this kind of broadcast, and he was thrilled by the extravagant life of the paper drunk gold fans described on the radio.
Since then, he has been out of control, often taking advantage of the opportunity to secretly listen to reactionary broadcasts, under the long-term indoctrination of thoughts, his already very weak will defense line has finally been washed down, and a criminal plan has been formed in his mind...
One day in November 1965, Li Xianbin flew a fighter plane on a flight training mission as usual, accompanied by two of his comrades-in-arms, Li Caiwang, co-pilot, and Lian Baosheng, a communications officer in the back warehouse.
On the surface, Li Xianbin was silent, but secretly he had already made plans and was ready to take this opportunity to defect to Taiwan. The fighter's fuel was already full before takeoff, and after his prior calculations, it was enough to fly to Taiwan.
Lee Hsien Bin and Lee Cai Wang
But he did not intend to defect alone, but to pull two comrades in the same plane. First, he was afraid that he would not be able to grasp the course accurately and would not be able to fly to Taiwan. Second, he wanted to use this opportunity to ask the Taiwan authorities for credit in order to obtain greater preferential treatment.
After the fighter finished its mission, it did not return to the base, and Li Xianbin secretly changed the parameters in the pre-set voyage route. However, this move did not hide from the eyes of co-pilot Li Caiwang, after all, he is also an experienced pilot.
After feeling that the course of the fighter plane was not right, Li Caiwang turned his head and asked, "What's going on?" Yawn, right? ”
Li Xianbin was not in a hurry, and while controlling the joystick, he said calmly: "I will take you to Taiwan." ”
At that time, people were very politically sensitive, not to mention well-trained pilots. Li Caiwang understood at the first moment that Li Xianbin was going to defect.
For military personnel, the seriousness of the crime of defection goes without saying. Li Caiwang instinctively pounced on Li Xianbin, trying to grab the joystick in his hand.
Unexpectedly, Li Xianbin had already prepared, and he quickly took out a pistol from his arms and aimed it at Li Caiwang. Unflinching, Li Caiwang rushed forward to grab his gun.
"Bang!" After a gunshot, Li Caiwang was shot in the arm, and the blood immediately gushed out, and Li Xianbin took the opportunity to control him.
Lian Baosheng, a correspondent in the back warehouse, rushed over and already understood what had happened, but Li Xianbin had already kidnapped Li Caiwang, and he did not dare to act rashly for a while.
Li Xianbin's face was the same as that of the two people before, and he said to the two comrades with a cold look: "I am taking you to enjoy the glory and wealth, and if anyone does not follow, the bullets in the gun will be given to whom!" ”
Li Caiwang and Lian Baosheng knew that he had an iron heart to defect, and in order to avoid the fish from breaking the net, they had to choose to hide and endure.
With rich flying experience, Li Xianbin cleverly avoided the tracking of the radar system and flew across the Taiwan Strait with a fighter plane to the main island of Taiwan...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">03</h1>
The air traffic control department of the Taiwan authorities did not make any interceptions of the fighter plane flying from the mainland, because they had already learned from the intelligence department that Li Xianbin had defected.
In this way, Li Xianbin piloted a fighter plane to land at Taiwan's Taoyuan Airport. The airfield was heavily guarded, surrounded by Heavily Armed Nationalist soldiers.
Lian Baosheng saw this scene through the porthole and understood that everything was irretrievable, and he did not want to be captured, let alone become a shameful traitor. In the end, he decided to save his innocence by dying. He raised his pistol and pointed it at his temple...
Li Xianbin was shocked by Lian Baosheng's suicide move, and he did not expect that his comrades-in-arms would be so resolute. But in the blink of an eye, his heart was occupied by the ecstasy of the success of defection.
So he dragged Li Caiwang, who had lost the ability to resist, off the fighter plane, and the Kuomintang officials who came to meet them put them in a high-class car and sped away in the direction of Taipei...
This was the "Lee Hsien Bin defection incident" that shook the whole army at that time, and the leaders of the Air Force were very angry about this and seriously dealt with the relevant responsible persons.
On the other hand, the Taiwan authorities were ecstatic about Lee Hsien-bin's defection, which undoubtedly set an excellent "example" for their "anti-communist propaganda." In fact, there have been incidents of defections by mainland pilots before, but they are civilian aircraft, which is not the same as the impact of the defection of air force fighter pilots.
In order to establish Li Xianbin as an "anti-communist model," the Taiwan authorities arranged high-class housing for him and Li Caiwang and rewarded Li Xianbin with 2,500 taels of gold. Not only that, but they also married a beautiful woman separately.
In the face of huge financial and material temptations, Li Xianbin has long forgotten the revolutionary ideas, and has completely disregarded his parents, wives and children on the mainland, and enjoyed this kind of drunken and gold-obsessed life with peace of mind.
Although Li Caiwang was coerced by Li Xianbin, his revolutionary will was far less firm than that of Lian Baosheng, and he did not have the courage to commit suicide to mingzhi, and after he recovered from his gunshot wounds, he gradually sank in extravagant pleasures.
In order to cover up the truth that Lian Baosheng did not want to join the crowd and made heroic sacrifices, and to achieve greater propaganda effects, the Taiwan side falsely claimed that he and Li Xianbin voluntarily surrendered to Taiwan, but died in an accident when the plane landed. Therefore, they identified Lian Baosheng as an "anti-communist righteous soldier" and buried him in the Dayuan Cemetery in Taoyuan.
However, our army has long grasped the facts behind the scenes, and Lian Baosheng has been posthumously regarded as a "revolutionary martyr," which has effectively exposed the illusion carefully created by the Taiwan side.
Li Xianbin thought that he had escaped from the "sea of suffering", took advantage of the huge wealth given to him by the Taiwan side, and indulged in the pleasures of drunken dreams and deaths all day long, completely unaware that everything was just an elaborate trap...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">04</h1>
Li Xianbin would never have imagined that the beautiful young woman who married him was actually a specially trained agent.
Although the Taiwan authorities treated Lee Hsien-bin with great courtesy and promoted him as a "heroic figure," in the final analysis, it was for the political needs of "anti-communist propaganda."
For Li Xianbin, their hearts are very contemptuous, and traitors are the objects of everyone's scorn wherever they are, and it is only because Li Xianbin still has use value at present, so they will give him these superior treatment.
On the other hand, they also have doubts about whether Li Xianbin is sincerely surrendered, and they know that Li Xianbin is just a hedonistic, profit-seeking and unrighteous person, who has no loyalty or faith to speak of, and can turn to them today, and may betray them in the future. How can we control him mentally?
The Taiwanese side has adopted a consistent approach, that is, to introduce beautiful women to marry him. Through this person who spends time with him day and night, you can always monitor his every move and "brainwash" him twice in his daily life.
These beauties usually graduated from Taiwan's Political Warfare School, where they underwent long and rigorous training and were indoctrinated with "anti-communist ideas." After graduation, they were assigned to the Military Intelligence Service to work as intelligence and secret agents, some of whom were assigned to perform "special missions", one of which included serving as wives for mainland defectors and closely monitoring them.
Where would Li Xianbin, who only had money and beauty in his eyes, want to get this, and under the profligacy of extravagance, his huge wealth was quickly ruined by him and his wife. At this time, because his use value had disappeared, the Taiwan side also ignored him and left him hanging aside.
The leak in the house happened to rain overnight, the secret agent's wife took the opportunity to file for divorce, Li Xianbin took his wife to court in a rage, after a tangled lawsuit, the two broke up unhappily, and Li Xianbin also changed from a multi-millionaire to a poor egg. At this time, Taiwan had no place for him, and in desperation, he had to go to Canada.
In 1991, When Li Xianbin learned that his mother, who was far away from his hometown in Shandong, was seriously ill and had been wandering abroad for more than 20 years, he began to think about returning to China. Because people are old, they always want to fall leaves and return to their roots.
However, he knew in his heart that he had committed serious crimes, and if he returned, he would definitely be severely punished by the law. But after a fierce ideological struggle, the fluke mentality once again prevailed, and he thought that things had passed for so many years, maybe everyone had long forgotten, and if he went back unconsciously, he would certainly not be detected.
However, a just trial may be late, but it will never be absent. At the end of that year, when Li Xianbin was preparing to return to Canada after visiting his family, he was captured at the Qingdao airport.
He was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for "defecting to the enemy," and his mother, who had never known her son had defected, died soon after hearing the news.
Li Caiwang, another protagonist in the defection incident, was later regarded as a "righteous soldier" by the Taiwan authorities and served in the Taiwan military before moving to the United States after retiring from the army.
In his later years, like Li Xianbin, he was reluctant to drift abroad and longed to return to the mainland. To this end, he wrote a long letter to the relevant departments on the mainland, explaining in detail his experiences before and after the defection incident, hoping to strive for leniency. After an investigation by the organization, it was found that he was indeed coerced and had committed acts of resistance, and finally decided not to blame him for his past.
Under these circumstances, Li Caiwang was able to return to the motherland, at this time he had changed from a flesh-and-blood young man to a white-haired old man, as soon as he stepped on the land of his hometown, looking at the great changes in front of him, he was full of emotion in his heart, and he couldn't help but burst into tears...
According to his mother's last wishes, the United Front Work Department and the Taiwan side, after arduous negotiations, finally succeeded in moving the ashes of the martyrs back to the Tianjin Martyrs' Cemetery for burial.
The three people's completely different endings in life illustrate an eternal truth, the heroic soul of the martyr will be forever revealed, and the defector is like a clown jumping beam, destined to be forever nailed to the pillar of shame of history.
Lian Baosheng martyr
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
Traitors, the group image represented by this outright derogatory term, have never been welcomed by either the enemy or us in the history of ancient and modern China and abroad, and they often lose their original position because of temporary material temptations.
When their value is squeezed dry, they will be ruthlessly abandoned by the exploiters, which is doomed to a generally bad end. Losing great righteousness because of small profits and eventually being spurned by history is the law of the end of a traitor's life.
In the history of the party and the army, there have been traitors such as Zhang Guotao, Gong Chu, and Gu Shunzhang, although they once held high positions and made certain contributions to the revolution, but because of their lack of determination, they gave up the faith that should have been adhered to, and finally embarked on the road of no return of rebellion, and their bleak end also fully confirmed the above law.
The soul of the martyr Lian Baosheng returned to his hometown
As far as Li Xianbin is concerned, as a pilot of the People's Air Force, he should have had a great future. But he forgot his original intention of joining the army, forgot the ardent expectations of his parents, and made a defection that made him regret it for the rest of his life. History has also proved that the ideal life he aspired to was nothing more than a dream in the end.
Since the 1990s of the last century, there have been no similar incidents of pilot defections in our army, mainly due to the rapid economic and social development in China after the reform and opening up, the marked improvement of living standards, and the "ideal life" propagated by the Taiwan authorities has naturally lost its appeal, which has left them with no opportunity to take advantage of it.
Therefore, Li Xianbin's defection is only a special event that occurred in a special era.