Author: Mo Guyan
In early 1949, Wang Yaowu, Sun Liangcheng, and Mou Zhongzhen met in a prisoner-of-war camp of the East China Liberation Army. These three factions were different, but they were all once high-powered princes. Coincidentally, they had all served as the chairman of Shandong, and they were also organized into a group in the prisoner of war camp, and there was providence in the dark.
Among the three, Wang Yaowu has the highest position and the greatest influence, but he is the most active and frank in accepting the reform.
Wang Yaowu
On September 29, 1948, Wang Yaowu escaped from Jinan and was captured. He frankly admitted his identity and claimed that he and Chen Yi knew each other and asked to meet chen Yi. However, he did not know that since the Chengnanzhuang Conference a few months ago, Chen Yi had been transferred to the Central Plains Military Region and worked with Liu Deng, but he still retained the position of commander and political commissar of the East China Field Army. Jiang Jun knew nothing about this information, and it was still a military secret, so he could not tell Wang Yaowu yet.
After some research, the task of meeting Wang Yaowu was entrusted to Shu Tong, director of the Political Department of the East China Military Region. Shu Tong, known as "a pen and horseback calligrapher of the Red Army", was a famous military talent with a Confucian demeanor. He had a level of policy and was quite friendly, allowing Wang Yaowu, who was terrified, to temporarily settle down.
Shu Tong told Wang about our army's policy toward prisoners of war, and said that he would let the underground organization protect Wang's family, so that Wang would not have to worry and dispel his worries. Wang tried his best to confess that he did not want to fight with the People's Liberation Army, and it was the "old man" Enwei who had to come to Shandong. Even in the Battle of Jinan, he was not stubborn to the end, and in the end the city and warehouses were not destroyed, which is also a fact.
On the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Yaowu (first from the left) was with He Yingqin, Tang Enbo, Du Yuming and others
During the conversation, Wang Yaowu asked Shu Tong five questions that he had always been confused about: Why can you match your words with your deeds but we can't? Why do your leaders sit still in Yan'an, and one instruction can be carried out to the end? Why can your cadres accomplish anything, while we are all corrupt? Why are we unable to use your soldiers when we capture them, but you are able to turn the muzzle of the gun at once when you have captured our soldiers? If you are now victorious one after another, will you also give up halfway like the original Northern Expedition and fail?
Shu Tong, who was director of the Political Department of the Shandong Military Region during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
These problems, to be simple, can be explained in one sentence, and if they are complex, they cannot be explained in three days and three nights. Shu Tong gave Wang Yaowu an enlightenment lesson and answered these questions in a simple and in-depth manner. After Wang Yaowu listened, he had a great feeling of winning the ten years of reading the book, saying: "Listening to Director Shu's earnest enlightenment today made Wang Mou feel enlightened."
Wang Yaowu was sent to the Platon Army Officers' Training Regiment to study and reform, desperately hoping to be lenient, and said in an interview with reporters that Wu Huawen, who was in the Jinan uprising, was taking the bright road, and if Wu Huawen had given him a word at that time, he would have followed the uprising.
Oil painting showing the Battle of Jinan
After the Battle of Huaihai began, the East China Military Region organized 12 captured generals of the Chiang Kai-shek Army to write radio drafts and broadcast them to the vast number of officers and men of the Chiang Kai-shek Army, in which Wang Yaowu showed the most active performance. According to Jiang's close confidant Yu Jishi, who later told Qiu Weida, commander of the 74th Army, the "old man" smashed the radio after listening to the radio.
Just when Wang Yaowu was actively accepting reform and striving to restore his freedom as soon as possible, a letter of revelation made him panic for the rest of his life. Fan Hanjie, who was captured in the Liaoshen Campaign, reported that Wang Yaowu was Fang Zhimin's murderer and had committed the most heinous crime. Wang Yaowu was under great pressure and repeatedly reported to the organization, saying that he was indeed guilty of the most heinous crime, but Fang Zhimin was definitely not killed by him. When the Nanjing newspaper said that Wang Yaowu's troops had captured Fang Zhimin alive, they were actually mistaken, and he acquiesced in order to be greedy. He desperately hoped that the real culprit would be identified organizationally and that he would be innocent. It was not until the real murderer of Fang Zhimin was later arrested that Wang Yaowu was relieved.
Wang Yaowu spent more than seven years in the East China Military Region's People's Liberation Army Officer Training Corps, transferred to the Beijing Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center in 1956, and became one of the first war criminals to receive amnesty in 1959.
Wang Yaowu after the amnesty
Unlike Wang Yaowu, After Mu Zhongyan was captured, his confrontation was serious, and the process of accepting the transformation was more tortuous.
Mu Zhongyan graduated from the Baoding Military Academy, and was higher than Wang Yaowu, who was born in Huangpu, according to his ranks in the military circles. Mou succeeded Yu Xuezhong in charge of the 51st Army of the Northeast Army system in the middle of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and became the chairman of Shandong in 1942. At this time, Shandong was occupied by the Japanese puppet army and the eighth route army occupied the countryside, and Jiang Jun had no place to stay, and the chairman of Shandong who was Mu Zhongyan was just an empty name.
Mou made no military achievements, and his combat records were hardly seen in both the War of Resistance and the War of Liberation. During the Battle of Jinan, Mou Zhongzhen, who was the deputy commander of the Second Appeasement District, and Wang Yaowu, held Jinan together, and after the city was destroyed, he absconded in disguise and was arrested and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Jiang was captured in the Battle of Jinan
Entering the prisoner-of-war camp, Mu Zhongzhen was very emotional, claiming that he had made meritorious contributions to the country and the people during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and should not be locked up as a prisoner of war. Organizationally, he asked him to write a radio transcript of persuasion to the officers and men of The Chiang Kai-shek Army, but he scolded and categorically refused. As for letting him expose The Chiang Clan, it is even more impossible, he said many times: Mr. Jiang is like my father, and I will not do what my son scolds Lao Tzu.
Most of the prisoners of war were actively reformed, so Mu Zhongyan was soon isolated and became the object of criticism by everyone. For example, he called the prisoner-of-war camp a concentration camp, and he was criticized by Wang Yaowu for being completely decent. Wang Yaowu gave him one example after another: The name of the camp was called the "People's Liberation Army Officer Training Corps", and the prisoners of war were called classmates instead of prisoners, which reflected the respect for the personality of the prisoners of war. In learning, there is no forced acceptance of various views, but rather allowing students to discuss freely, allowing different views and voices. As for the living conditions, they are even better than those of ordinary cadres, chicken, duck, fish, meat, fruit and cigarettes have been continuous, how can this be called concentration camps?
In this regard, Mu Zhongzhen was speechless. He was later sent to Gongdelin, where he was pardoned along with 52 other war criminals during the fifth pardon in 1966, when he died in Jinan in 1983 at the age of 83.
Sun Liangcheng's fame was much greater than that of Wang and Mou, he was one of the "Thirteen Taibao" of the Northwest Army under Feng Yuxiang, who was famous for the defeat of Sun Chuanfang during the Northern Expedition, and was appointed chairman of Shandong after conquering Jinan in 1928, and a year later he supported the army against Chiang Kai-shek and went to Henan.
Sun is a typical representative of China's capricious warlords in modern times, who have been anti-water countless times in his life and are accustomed to treachery. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he sold himself to the enemy and became a famous puppet army leader. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he was absorbed by Chiang Kai-shek, and served as the deputy commander of the First Appeasement District and the commander of the 107th Army in the Battle of Huaihai, and was forced to lead his troops to surrender in desperation.
Xi Baipo instructed the East China Military Region to make good use of the relationship between Sun and the generals of the Northwest Army to strive to plot against Liu Ruming and others. Sun agreed to this and secretly entered Bengbu to meet Liu Ruming accompanied by Zhou Hao, the head of the East China Bureau's Working Committee, but was escorted to Nanjing by Liu. Zhou Hao was heroically righteous at Yuhuatai, and Sun Liangcheng was imprisoned, and soon released on bail, fleeing to Shanghai and hiding from his little wife. After the liberation of Shanghai, Sun was found and reported by Zhou Hao's widow, and was immediately arrested. He firmly refused to admit that he had betrayed Zhou Hao, but no matter how he defended himself, he could not say it clearly. In March 1952, Sun died of a stroke.
【Deeply cultivate the history of war, carry forward positive energy, welcome to submit, private messages will be restored】