The February 28 Incident, also known as the February 28 Uprising, was a just action of the Taiwan people to oppose autocracy, dictatorship, and basic rights, and was an integral part of the liberation struggle of the Chinese people.
Among the senior Kuomintang generals at that time, two generals directly participated in the handling of the February 28 incident, and although their identities and status were different, their views and methods of handling the incident were not consistent, but combing through the history of the 2.28 incident, their names became an unavoidable topic. The two high-ranking officials were Bai Chongxi, then defense minister of the Nationalist government, and Chen Yi, Taiwan's chief executive.
After the war, Chen Yi took over Taiwan
Chen Yi was a well-known Zhiri faction in the Kuomintang, who studied in Japan for nine years and graduated from the Japanese Non-Commissioned Officer School and the Army University, which was rare among the senior Kuomintang generals.
After returning to China, Chen Yi successively served in the Beiyang Government and the Nanjing National Government, and after the Fujian Incident in 1931, he was appointed chairman of the Fujian Provincial Government, and then concurrently served as the director of the Fujian Appeasement Office.
In 1935, when Japan held the "Taiwan Exposition to Commemorate the Fortieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China" in Taiwan, Chen Yi was ordered to visit Taiwan and was surprised by Taiwan's rapid development. Later, Chen sent people to Taiwan to investigate, and in 1937 published the "Report on the Investigation of Taiwan", proposing that Fujian should learn from Taiwan.
Chen Yi, a former chief executive of Taiwan
In April 1944, the Nationalist government, anticipating the imminent victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, specially set up the Taiwan Investigation Committee to prepare for the post-war takeover of Taiwan. The investigation committee, headed by Chen Yi, a "Taiwanist general," conducted a rather detailed investigation into Taiwan's economic, political, people's livelihood, and military aspects, and put forward the "Outline of the Plan for Taiwan's Takeover." After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Chen Yi as Taiwan's chief executive and concurrently served as commander-in-chief of the garrison. On October 24, 1945, Chen flew from Shanghai to Taipei; on October 25, on behalf of the Chinese government and allies, Chen Yi accepted a letter from The Governor of Taiwan, Riki Ando, at the Taipei Public Hall (now Zhongshan Hall), and Taiwan, which had been occupied by Japan for 50 years, returned to the embrace of the motherland.
Because Taiwan had long been under Japanese colonial rule and had just been restored, the Nanjing government implemented a political and economic system different from that of the mainland provinces.
Politically, Taiwan implements the chief executive's office system, which combines the administration, military, finance, legislation, and judiciary, and has far greater power than the provincial chairmen in the interior and even more than the governor of Taiwan during the Japanese occupation. After Taiwan's restoration, in accordance with the practice of China's officialdom, Chen Yi set up a team of the Chief's Office with his old team as the mainstay, and historian Yang Tianshi revealed in his book "Looking for the Real Chiang Kai-shek" that among the officials in the Chief's Office, there were too many people from other provinces and too few Taiwanese, and there were only 1 Taiwanese official at or above the deputy director level, 214 officials in the province, and only 12 people in this province.
Economically, Taiwan has exercised strict economic control; tobacco, alcohol, matches, and other daily necessities have been subjected to a monopoly system; the government-run monopoly bureau has monopolized almost every aspect of Taiwan's economy; large and small ethnic enterprises and small merchants and hawkers have all been hit hard, causing prices to soar and unemployment to be serious; and the Taiwan people even have the saying of "five days and five places": "Earth-shattering (allied bombardment), joyful heaven (Taiwan's restoration), spending days and drinking (receiving officials), black sky and dark (tyranny rule), and calling to heaven (soaring prices). ”
The corruption of the chief executive system and the rule of officials has disappointed the Taiwanese elite, and Chen Yi's strictly enforced monopoly system has endangered the daily lives of the people at the bottom, and almost at the same time, the economic collapse of the mainland's national unification areas has also affected Taiwan. In this context, the fierce emotions of the people of Taiwan are like magma running underground, which will erupt once it encounters a breakthrough.
Incredibly, Chen Yi, who was on the crater, was unaware of the danger he was about to face.
The spread of the incident and Chen Yi's countermeasures
The trigger for the February 28 incident was actually an accidental clash between the government and the people.
On the afternoon of February 27, 1947, Ye Degen, an anti-smuggling police officer of the Tobacco and Alcohol Monopoly Bureau, and others seized the widow Lin Jiangmai selling smuggled cigarettes on Nanjing West Road in Taipei City, Lin knelt down and begged for forgiveness, and the onlookers also helped to intercede, but the anti-smuggling officers ignored it and injured Lin's head with the barrel of a gun. The anti-smuggling police officer's move caused public anger and was chased and beaten by everyone, and one of the anti-smuggling officers, Fu Xuetong, opened fire and shot, hitting a passerby Chen Wenxi in a panic, Chen was ineffective in medical treatment, and died that night.
On the morning of February 28, the "China-Foreign Daily" reported on the incident, and the Taiwan Provincial Political Association also protested; in the afternoon, hundreds of ordinary people marched and demonstrated, surrounded the Taipei Branch of the Tobacco and Alcohol Monopoly Bureau, killing and injuring 4 members of the anti-smuggling team, and the procession also stormed the chief executive's office, snatched the guards' guns and shot at the guards, the guards returned fire, killing and wounding 6 people on the spot, and arresting 6 people; the demonstrators became more emotional, occupied the radio station and broadcast it to the whole province, criticizing the government's corruption and calling on the people to expel corrupt officials; on March 1 All parts of Taiwan responded one after another, laying siege to government offices and military and police stations, from demanding that the murderers be punished to political protests. Since then, the incident has intensified and developed in different directions, one is to demand political and economic reforms, and the other is to seize weapons and riot and overthrow the Kuomintang regime.
As the top administrative and military chief of Taiwan Province, how did Chen Yi respond to this change?
First, I contacted the people's representatives and made some concessions. On March 1, Huang Chaoqin, president of the provincial senate, and others met with Chen Yi and demanded that the martial law order be lifted and the detainees released. Chen Yi agreed to the request of Huang Chaoqin and others, and sent relevant officials to form a committee on behalf of the government and provincial and municipal senators, national suffragettes, and deputies to the National Congress to form a committee for handling the February 28 incident; on 6 July, the handling committee issued a letter to compatriots throughout the country, saying: "Our goal is to eliminate corrupt officials and corrupt officials and strive for political reform in our own province, not to squeeze out compatriots from other provinces." In the evening of the same day, Chen Yi responded to the proposal of the Handling Committee on political reform in the radio, saying that she planned to reorganize the Chief Executive's Office into a provincial government, and the members of the provincial government and the heads of various departments and divisions should appoint people from the province as much as possible, and hold a county mayoral election on July 1.
228 Incident
The second is to put forward a request to the Nanjing side for sending troops. On March 6, Chen Yi wrote to Chiang Kai-shek, saying that the incident was "not comparable to ordinary popular movements, and it is obvious that it is a planned and organized rebellion", and asked that two divisions of the army be sent to Taiwan and that Tang Enbo be sent to lead the troops to command. Later, Chiang Kai-shek discounted Chen Yi's request and only sent all 5 regiments of the 21st Division to Taiwan, plus 5 gendarmerie battalions, 1 special service battalion, and several warships.
Finally, Chen Yi issued martial law and began to hunt and clear the countryside throughout the island, and the uprising was brutally suppressed. On 9 March, Liu Yuqing, commander of the 21st Division, arrived in Taiwan with his troops; on the 10th, Chen Yi declared martial law; on the 11th, Chen Telegram told Chiang Kai-shek that "the work of suppressing traitors should be gradually advanced."; in the early morning of 13 March, when the crackdown began, Song Feiru, director of the People's Herald, Lin Maosheng, president of the Minbao newspaper, Wang Tiandeng, president of the "Freedom Daily," lawyer Lin Ruiduan, and Shi Jiangnan, med., were brutally hunted and killed. Travel between Taipei and Tamsui or Keelung. At the end of March, Keelung saw corpses floating ashore from the sea almost every day. Some of the corpses sat around and cried, while others were left uncrowned and allowed to rot. According to scholars, at least nearly a thousand Taiwan compatriots died or disappeared during the period, plus other victims of varying degrees, involving more than 2,000 Taiwan compatriots.
Chiang Kai-shek was deeply dissatisfied with Chen Yi's failure to govern Taiwan, and he wrote in his diary: "The Taiwan mob took advantage of the departure of the nationalist army from Taiwan and the government's empty use of force to launch a riot in the whole province. On March 16, Chiang Kai-shek decided to remove Chen Yi from his post; on April 22, Chiang Kai-shek presided over a meeting of the Executive Yuan, decided to abolish the Office of the Chief Executive of Taiwan, establish the Taiwan Provincial Government, and appoint Wei Daoming, who had a legal and diplomatic background, as the chairman of the province.
Bai Chongxi's trip to Taiwan
After the February 28 incident, in the face of the increasingly out-of-control situation in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek sent Bai Chongxi, known as "Little Zhuge Ge," within the Kuomintang, to fly to Taiwan to offer consolation. Unlike Chen Yi's claims of forced repression, Bai Chongxi basically had a soft policy on the handling of the incident.
On March 6, Huang Chaoqin, chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Senate, sent a secret telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, pointing out that "the people's revolt in Taipei was caused by the failure of the provincial administration and the resentment of the people," and pleaded with the central government to send a large number of officials to Taiwan as soon as possible to deal with it. On 7 July, Li Yizhong, chairman of the Kuomintang's Taiwan Provincial Party Department, flew to Nanjing to report that Chiang Kai-shek had summoned Li Yizhong twice to inquire about Taiwan affairs. Li Yizhong analyzed the ins and outs of the February 28 incident to Chiang Kai-shek in detail, and the system of the Office of the Chief Minister of Zhichen aroused the hatred of Taiwan compatriots and put forward a series of reform proposals. On the 9th, Chiang Kai-shek met with National Defense Minister Bai Chongxi and decided to send him to Taiwan to announce his condolences.
As the second-largest figure in the Gui clan, Bai Chongxi is not only not of Chiang Kai-shek's concubine lineage, but also has many grudges with Chiang Kai-shek in history.
During his visit to Taiwan to announce his consolation, Bai Chongxi (center) took a group photo with the indigenous people of Taiwan
According to Bai Xianyong, the son of Bai Chongxi, the reason why Chiang Kai-shek let Bai Chongxi out of the horse was first, because he was the minister of national defense and was binding on the army; second, Bai Chongxi's civilian credibility and credibility were very high, and he could hold the scene; third, the relationship between the two was very good at that time, and Chiang Kai-shek trusted him and believed in his ability to handle crises.
Bai Chongxi certainly did not live up to Chiang Kai-shek's great trust, and on the first day he went to Taiwan, he issued a circular in the name of the Ministry of National Defense, declaring that he would "adopt the spirit of leniency to deal with it." At 6:30 p.m. on the same day, Bai Chongxi again sent a radio message to Taiwan compatriots: "In terms of the political system, it is decided to reorganize the current Taiwan Chief Executive's Office into the Taiwan Provincial Government, the mayors of all counties can be elected on a regular basis, and government personnel at all levels will be treated equally in personnel regardless of the domain." We should vigorously reward private enterprises economically and develop the national economy. As for the people who are related to the incident this time, except for those who instigate riots and plot against the Communist Party, and decide to punish them, all the rest will be exempted from punishment. ”
Bai Chongxi came to Taiwan on March 17 and left on April 2. In this short period of 16 days, Bai's footprints have traveled almost all over the island of Taiwan, and have extensive contacts with people from all walks of life in Taiwan to convey the consolation of the central government.
Bai Chongxi after going to the stage
During Bai Chongxi's stay in Taiwan, the phenomenon of indiscriminate killing of innocents was curbed, but a few Taiwan compatriots were still killed. On 28 March, Bai Chongxi summoned Ke Yuanfen, chief of staff of the Taiwan Police Command, and Zhang Mutao, commander of the Gendarmerie Corps, to a meeting and specifically instructed: "First, those arrested and arrested in connection with the February 28 Incident must be tried promptly in accordance with the law; second, in the future, those arrested must be carried out in public in accordance with the prescribed procedures; third, except for the Taiwan Provincial Police Headquarters, no other organ shall issue orders to arrest criminals; fourth, all young students who have participated in the riots shall be allowed to resume their studies and be exempted from paying special letters of guarantee and photographs, and only their parents must guarantee repentance and rehabilitation, that is, they will be exempted from punishment." ”
After Bai Chongxi returned to Nanjing, he was still very concerned about the February 28 incident, and the Taiwan Police Command submitted to the Ministry of National Defense the last batch of cases concerning February 28, of which 18 people were sentenced to death. When Bai Chongxi saw it, he changed them all to fixed-term imprisonment and sent them to Chiang Kai-shek, who approved a "ke", and this "ke" word saved 18 living lives.
Chen Yi and Bai Chongxi later went to Taiwan, Chen Yi was shot and killed by Chiang Kai-shek for rebellion, and Bai Chongxi died in his apartment more than a decade later—of course, this is all an afterthought.