Zhang Zhidong was a representative figure of the Western affairs school in the late Qing Dynasty, and together with Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang, he was called the "Four Famous Ministers of the Late Qing Dynasty".
Zhang Zhidong has a total of 13 sons, most of whom have done a career like him, but two sons are not doing the right thing and have become traitors, and today I will talk about one of them, who is also the youngest son of Zhang Zhidong.
When Zhang Zhidong was 63 years old, he had a son and gave birth to a young son, named Zhang Renli. Zhang Zhidong took great care of this son and attached great importance to his education, and it is said that Zhang Renli was able to write poetry at the age of 4 and was called a prodigy.
When Zhang Renli was 9 years old, Zhang Zhidong died, and the family road began to fall. However, Zhang Renli did not relax in his studies, and later was admitted to Peking University. After graduating from Peking University, Zhang Renli entered politics and began to work as an official.
However, his official path was far inferior to that of his father, who served as a county magistrate for 10 years. It may be that when the county has been long for a long time, it can not go up, Zhang Renli feels that there is no hope for promotion, and he begins to make money.
It is said that when Zhang Renli was the county magistrate, he actually targeted the cemeteries of several rich people and found someone to steal the tombs of people.
In 1935, Zhang Renli was finally promoted from county magistrate to director of the Department of Civil Affairs. However, this director is not honorable. At that time, with the help and instruction of the Japanese, the traitor Yin Rugeng divided 22 counties in eastern Hebei and became the "Autonomous Government of the Communist Party of Eastern Hebei", where Zhang Renli became the director of the Civil Affairs Department.
However, the position of civil affairs director was not attractive to him, so he approached Yin Rugeng, hoping to hand over the salt industry operation in 22 counties to him, but yin Rugeng was rejected on the spot.
Later, Zhang Renli proposed that the head of the Civil Affairs Department concurrently serve as the county magistrate of a county, but Yin Rugeng refused.
Soon after, the opportunity for promotion finally came. At that time, Japan occupied Wuhan and wanted to find someone to be the mayor of Wuhan, originally wanting Zhang Renli's brother Zhang Yanqing to be the mayor, but Zhang Yanqing felt that this position was too small, so he recommended Zhang Renli to go.
But it didn't take long for Zhang Renli's worries to come. Wang Jingwei formed a puppet national government in Nanjing, Zhang Renli was not Wang Jingwei's person, wang Jingwei wanted to change this mayor. Zhang Renli was anxious like an ant on a hot pot, not knowing who to find to say goodbye.
At this time, he did not know where to inquire about the news, saying that Wang Jingwei had been coveting the Wenting-style writings of the Wuchang bibliophile Xu Shu. In order to keep the position of mayor of Wuhan, Zhang Renli began to play the idea of a Wenting-style posthumous work.
At the beginning, Zhang Renli personally came to the door and said that Wang Jingwei wanted this thing and hoped that he could let it out, but he was scolded by Xu Shu.
Soft does not achieve hard, Zhang Renli specifically found a group of people, to Xu Shujiaming to rob. However, Xu Shu had already hidden his things, and Zhang Renli hadn't gotten anything.
At this time, Zhang Renli was afraid that this matter would cause a bad impact on society, and he was even more unworthy of being a pseudo-mayor, so he did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to buy it. After some painstaking efforts, I finally got the original manuscript of the book.
For this original manuscript, Zhang Renli put so many years of savings on it, but his efforts were not in vain, Wang Jingwei was very happy after getting the original manuscript, feeling that Zhang Renli was a trustworthy person, he promoted him to be the pseudo-Mayor of Tianjin and the political councilor of North China, which made Zhang Renli excited and did not sleep for several nights.
However, "the good times did not last long", and within a year and a half, the War of Resistance was victorious, and Zhang Renli was also arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1951, Zhang Renli was sentenced to be shot for "traitorous crimes", ending his disgraceful life at the age of 51.
History Inn Author: Desert Sand