标题: [原创] Two Republics in China [打印本页] 作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-7 07:22 标题: [原创] Two Republics in China
Part One: The First Republic—The Republic of China
Chapter 1. 1911: How the Last Dynasty Crumbled and Warlords Took Over
Rebellion in Wuchang City
A long line of imperial dynasties had held sway over all (or parts) of China from 2100 BCE to 1911. China was a world unto itself for much of these 4,000 years, but history went off its tracks when the British came in. Smoking opium had been a serious crime in China, but for the British opium was big business. And they made it far bigger by slaughtering and pillaging, overwhelming the Chinese by 1842 and forcing them to open up their nation to foreign trade. Soon, British merchants flooded the market with opium grown in India, and millions, perhaps more than 10 million, Chinese were hopelessly addicted. China was reeling and the Qing Dynasty was on the ropes.
The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) had been established by the Manchus, people that had originated in northeastern China (Manchuria). Although some of their ancestors had periodically been in power in ancient times, it was the Han people that were (and are now) the largest ethnic group in China. The Han could not bear the oppression of these Manchus, whose officials, the Mandarins, were increasingly corrupt. As the Qing Dynasty sank into misery, the Han rose up in a series of rebellions hoping to overthrow the rulers and regain the imperial throne. In an era when some of the ambitious young elite were already studying abroad and learning modern ways, the imperial leaders still maintained a traditional army using ancient weaponry including lances and spears. So the overthrow was easy enough—but what next? Read on, and we’ll see.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-9 07:26 Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) was a revolutionary vanguard and he organized the National Party for the purpose of revitalizing the nation. After a few uprisings were brutally put down, the last successful rebellion broke out in Wuchang City of Sichuan Province, westward along the Yangtze River, upstream from Shanghai. In May of 1911, the Qing government had nationalized or appropriated two railways that were private Chinese companies, without giving the owners any compensation, and then sold them to foreigners. Needless to say, the local people wanted to defend their rights. The most violent reactions took place in Sichuan Province. The Qing government did have a New Army too (trained in the use of guns and cannons), and they sent them in. But in this division, many soldiers and even officers were actually members of the revolutionaries. So some leaders of the National Party planned a rebellion in the army.
A regiment was camped at the north gate of Wuchang City. Around 6 o’clock, on the 10th of October, many rebellious soldiers marched toward the armory in the city with the intention of seizing it. At that time, in the camp a platoon leader was making his rounds to check on the soldiers and he found that many were absent. He also saw the squad leader was lying on his bed, so he yelled at him, “What are you doing? You want to rebel?” (That’s a Chinese way of putting down one’s subordinates.) The squad leader never had thought much of his platoon leader, so he replied insolently, “You said I’d rebel. Now I’m rebelling.” A soldier standing nearby simply shot the platoon leader dead.
Now the battalion leader came in and he was shot dead, too. Seizing this opportunity, the National Party’s point man in the new army, who was the leader of another squad, declared a rebellion and called for his men to take up their arms right then and there.
Soldiers from many different camps came to their aid, the number reaching more than 3,000. They controlled a cannon field and attacked the governor’s residence under the command of Wu Zhaoling, an officer in the eighth battalion. They called themselves the Revolutionary Army. The governor escaped to a warship on the river. The Revolutionary Army occupied the city.
Revolutionaries in Hanyang and Hankou cities also raised the banner of rebellion. On the 11th of October, the Revolutionary Army took over Hanyang City and on the 12th day, they occupied Hankou City. Three cities in a row.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-11 07:56 The Establishment of the Republic of China.
Then the Revolutionary Army founded the military government and asked Li Yuanhong (1864–1928) to be the governor, and they declared the new state to be the Republic of China. At the beginning of November, at the proposal of Song Jiaoren (1882–1913) and some others, a constitution was drafted and called “The Temporary Constitution of Republic of China.” It had seven chapters and sixty articles. The government consisted of the governor, the congress and the court. People were granted democratic rights, the right to own private property, and the right to do business. The government decided that the 10th of October should be the national day for the Republic of China.
From the 18th of October to the 27th of November, the Revolutionary Army put up strong resistance against the army of the Qing government, which was massive. During those 41 days, most of the provinces declared their independence; only four provinces close to Peking, the capital (now called Beijing), still supported the Qing Dynasty. The governors of the independent provinces controlled the local army and became warlords.
All the independent provinces formed their own military governments. On the 1st of November, the Qing government appointed Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) premier. On the 1st of December, the Revolutionary Army and Yuan signed a truce. On the 2nd of December, the united army of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces occupied Nanking. On the 12th of December, representatives from all 14 independent provinces gathered in Nanking for a meeting. On the 17th of December, the representatives elected Li Yuanhong as the General Marshal and Huang Xing (1874–1916) as the Vice General Marshal.
On the 1st of January, 1912, the temporary government of the Republic of China established Nanking as its capital, breaking away from the Qing power base in Peking, and elected Sun Yat-sen as the temporary president.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-12 08:00 On the 12th of February, 1912, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, Fu Yi (1906–1967, his English name: Henry) abdicated and the last dynasty ended, and with it ended the entire imperial system which had begun long ago and had lasted in much the same form for 2,000 years. But the imperial family still lived in the Forbidden City inside Peking.
The new republic had its national flag with five colors signifying the unity of five major tribes in China. They were the Han tribe, the Mandarin tribe, the Mongolian tribe, the Muslin tribe, and the Tibetan tribe, represented by horizontal bars of red, yellow, blue, white and black.
But the designs of the national flag for the Republic of China changed a few times, until the design was chosen which eventually became the national flag, now still used in Taiwan: red background with a blue rectangle in the upper left corner, inside of which there is a 12-cornered white star.
With the establishment of the Republic of China, men cut off their queues, or braided pigtails, and wore short hair, more Western style. This style of shaving the front of the head and wearing the hair in a braid was originally imposed as a sign of submission demanded by the first Manchu Emperor. When they invaded the southern territories and occupied the lands of the Han tribe, they forced them to comply, too. If anyone refused to shave his front hair, he would be beheaded. The famous slogan was “Your hair or your head.” For that reason, there had been a slaughter in Yangzhou city at that time, lasting for 10 days. Since the Revolution was victorious, now the pigtail had to go.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-14 07:38 At the same time, women were freed of the custom of binding their feet; in fact, a major campaign was waged to discourage it. That custom had originated more than 1,000 years ago and affected all but the lowest workers, who could hardly afford to cripple themselves. (The Manchu Emperor had tried to ban it in 1664 but few paid any heed, as beauty, after all, comes at a price.) Now the revolution redefined some of the ideals of femininity and definitively freed women from the agony of crushing their feet.
The Qing Dynasty had persisted for almost 300 years. Why didn’t it last longer? It was certainly not the fault of the last emperor, who was only three years old when he was put on the throne. The Qing Dynasty had degenerated over time, as most of them do, and corruption had grown worse and worse in the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908), his flamboyant grandmother, the subject of my earlier book Empress Dowager Cixi (Algora, 2002).
In the long history of China, two different women had managed to rule the country for tens of years. The first one was Empress Wu the Great, during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907). She read a great deal and trained herself as a politician and ruler. She ruled the country well (Empress Wu the Great, Algora, 2008). But Empress Dowager Cixi was no diplomat, no politician, and no wise ruler. She adopted wrong-headed policies. She came into power because of her status as the empress dowager. In her hands, the mansion of the great empire crumbled just like a house whose wooden beams and pillars are eaten through by white ants. The last emperor would not have been able to support it any more, no matter what.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-16 07:15 The Ambition of Yuan Shikai
How Yuan became president of the Republic of China
When the Republic of China set its capital in Nanking on the 1st of January, 1912, Sun Yat-sen was elected temporary president and Li Yuanhong was elected vice president. At that time, the Emperor had not abdicated yet. The battle between the Revolutionary Army and the Qing army was still going on. The new army of the Qing government was organized and trained by Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), its commander. Yuan had a scheme of his own and began seeking a truce with the Revolutionary Army. Then he set his sights on the position of the President of the republic and forced the Emperor to abdicate.
Sun Yat-sen had no army that he himself had organized to support him. He had been elected temporary president owing to his reputation as a firm revolutionary against the Qing Dynasty. The Revolutionary Army was controlled by the governors (warlords) of the separate provinces; they signed an agreement with Yuan and refused to fight Yuan for Sun Yat-sen. Therefore, Sun Yat-sen had to give in. He resigned, and he nominated Yuan for president on the 15th of February. Accordingly, Yuan was named temporary president of the republic. As a rule, the president ought to live in the capital, which was Nanking, not Peking where Yuan lived. Yuan refused to come south because he could not bring his army south and would instead be controlled by the Revolutionary Army. After negotiations, the Revolutionary Army had to give in and let Yuan take office in Peking. But the congress was still in Nanking, controlled by the national Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-18 06:36 In February 1913, the congress elected Song Jiaoren to be the Premier of the cabinet. At that time, Yuan had Zhao Binjun as his premier. However, on the 20th of March, Song was assassinated at the railway station in Shanghai. When the assassin was caught, evidence on his person linked him to Zhao—actual letters between Zhao and the assassin, no less. So the national Party drew the conclusion that Yuan was behind it. Zhao resigned under pressure from the press. Duan Qirui (1865–1936) was appointed to take over the office of the premier.
After the assassination, Sun Yat-sen, who was at the time on a visit in Japan, came back to Shanghai and summoned a meeting of the national Party. He suggested avenging Yuan with armed force, though some other leaders like Huang Xing tended to appeal to less violent conduct.
On the 26th of April, Yuan asked for a syndicate loan of 25 million British pounds from the lending consortium in China consisting of England, France, Germany, Russia and Japan. The national Party thought that the loan request was illegal, as it would require approval by the congress first. In May, Li Liejun, the governor of Jiangxi province, Hu Hanming, the governor of Guangdong province, and Bo Wenwei, the governor of Anhui province, declared their opposition to the loan. The three governors were all members of the national Party. In June, Yuan gave orders to remove the three from their positions as governors. On the 3rd of July, Yuan sent the sixth division of his new army to Jiangxi province.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-19 07:40 Under instructions from Sun Yat-sen, Li Liejun declared the independence of Jiangxi province on the 12th of the same month, and formed a separate headquarters from which to oppose Yuan. On the 15th, Huang Xing reached Nanking and declared the independence of Jiangsu province. Quite a few provinces followed suit.
On the 22nd of July, the national Army from Jiangsu province fought a battle with Yuan’s army at Xuzhou of Shandong province and was defeated. The national Army was conquered in some other places, too. Then all the independent provinces had to rescind their declarations of independence. Yuan issued orders to arrest Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing, who had already escaped to Japan. This event was called the Second Revolution, but it ended in failure.
On the 6th of October, the congress held a session in Peking and the congressmen were forced to elect Yuan Shikai as president and Li Yuanhong as vice president of the republic. Yuan took the official oath on the 10th of October.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-21 07:48 Yuan wanted to be the new emperor
On the 4th of November, Yuan gave an order to disband the national Party, using their rebellion as a pretext. Simultaneously, he drove all the members of the national Party out of the congress. On the 10th of January, 1914, Yuan dismissed the congress entirely and formed his own council of state, which meant that all the members were his men. He was still dissatisfied with being president. He wanted to be emperor.
To attain his goal, he first had to get international support. In January of 1915, Japan secretly gave Yuan a document containing 21 articles in 5 chapters, through which China should cede to Japan a variety of economic and commercial rights and benefits, such as options on railroads and other profitable fields in Manchuria, and in Shandong province, and also the extension of Japan’s occupation of Luushun and Dalian (two harbor cities) to 99 years, etc. But two articles in particular were unacceptable. One was to employ Japanese advisors in the Chinese central government, in the financial and military fields. The other was to employ Japanese advisors in local police departments. The negotiations ran from the 2nd of February to the 7th of May.
Yuan accepted most of the articles in order to secure Japan’s support for his ambition to be emperor. But such a big secret could not be kept for long and soon the public heard that he was selling them out. Yuan was severely criticized, but to no avail.
Then Yuan’s supporters began to circulate their theory that the republican form of government was not suitable to China. They formed a committee on the political future of China and sent out their men to all the provinces to persuade officials and officers and businessmen to support Yuan as emperor, promising all of them personal benefits. Then such supporters were summoned to the capital as “people’s representatives.” Those representatives formed groups and on the 1st of September handed a petition to the Council of State organized by Yuan) to ask Yuan to be the emperor.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-23 07:25 In a traditional show of modesty, Yuan initially refused their petition. On the 19th, they organized the “National Petition Committee” to turn in a second petition, this time requesting that the 1993 people’s representatives should hold a conference to decide the future of the nation. Accordingly, the conference was in session at 9 o’clock in the morning on December 11. The representatives were to cast votes. All the representatives voted for imperial system. Yuan graciously accepted the result as the supposed will of the people, and decided that the next year (1916) would be the first year of his Empire of China.
In December, just after Yuan accepted the petition, Cai E, the governor of YunNan province, was the first to object. He announced the independence of YunNan, followed by many provinces. Even Yuan’s former subordinates, Feng Guozhang (1859–1916), governor of Jiangsu province, Li Chun, governor of Jiangxi province, Zhu Rui, governor of Zhejiang province, Jin Yunpeng, governor of Shandong province, and Tang Xiangming, governor of Hunan province, all sent telegrams asking Yuan to rescind the empire.作者: fanghuzhai 时间: 2019-8-23 17:16 如此大的题目， 写十几卷都不为过。这里区区几段，看不出端倪。你应该重点介绍你的构思，你关于这个题目的独创之处，而不是仅仅把写出来的东西放出来。作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-25 06:59 sorry, no time to write what you want. anyway the editor of the American publisher didn't have that request before he published it. So contented with what i have.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-25 07:03 Seeing that even his former subordinates had betrayed him, Yuan had to declare openly that he was rescinding the empire and restoring the presidency on the 22nd of March, 1916. He had been Emperor only for 83 days. Once a high military official of the Qing Dynasty, he had turned against the empire, and then he was subverted in turn. He contracted a fatal disease and died on the 6th of June.
If he had not been so ambitious and had contented himself with the presidency, Yuan would have been spared the hatred of almost all the people in China. He would not have been betrayed by his closest generals, who commanded part of his new army. But he went against the historical tide, against the will of people. He wanted to turn back time to the imperial age. As a president, his subordinates only had to stand up before him and salute him, whereas during his heady days as emperor, his subordinates had to kneel before him and kowtow to him. Any man who has had a chance to stand up never wants to bend his knees again. Sense of dignity.
There would have to be a public funeral for Yuan. According to the law, when the president died, the vice president would succeed him. So Li Yuanhong became the president. Also, as a rule, the public funeral for a deceased president should be led by the succeeding president. But Li had a little problem with Yuan, for Yuan had imprisoned Li. That made it rather hard for Li to feign any esteem of Yuan. So on the day of the funeral, he just went there to bow once and left, back to his office. As etiquette required, he should have bowed at least three times. Then the Premier Duan Qirui took over the role.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-26 07:16 Restoration of the abdicated emperor
Li and Duan had also clashed. Their opinions and political attitudes were different. As Li had no supporters in the government, Duan had no respect for him. Duan also had command of part of the new army. So Li sought support outside the capital.
In May of 1917, during the First World War, there was a dispute about whether China would join in the war or not. Duan, supported by Japan, was in favor of joining the war, while Li and most of the congressmen thought it better not to join the war. On the 23rd of May, Li issued an order to remove Duan from the office of premier. Duan went to Tianjin City and instigated all the governors to declare independence. So Li summoned General Zhang Xun (1854–1923) to the capital to mediate.
Zhang Xun was still loyal to the Qing Dynasty and the soldiers in his army still maintained their queues. So his army was called the pigtail army. He thought that this was a great opportunity and took five thousand soldiers with him. On the 14th of June, he entered Peking. On the night of the 30th of June, he sent his soldiers to occupy strategic points like the railway station and telegraph office. He went to see Li and tried to persuade him to return the political power to the abdicated emperor Fu Yi, by now using the Western name of Henry, but got a flat refusal.
On the 1st of July, 1917, Zhang Xun let the abdicated emperor sit on the throne again and issue a few orders, such as to change the national flag from the five-colored flag (the symbol of Republic of China) to dragon flag (the symbol of the Qing Dynasty).作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-28 07:15 On the 2nd of July, Li went to the Japanese embassy for protection while issuing two orders: appointing Feng Guozhang as the deputy president and restored Duan to the office of the premier. So on the 3rd of July, Duan gathered his army, and on the 14th day, he defeated Zhang Xun’s pigtail army. Zhang Xun escaped to the Dutch embassy, then went to live in Tianjin City. The Emperor abdicated once more. And Duan went to the Japanese embassy to welcome Li back to his presidency. On the 28th of August, Li went to Tianjin City after resigning.
Thus, in the early history of the Republic of China, there were two restorations. One was under Yuan Shikai, who wanted to be emperor himself and founded the Empire of China. The other was Zhang Xun, who put the abdicated emperor on the throne again. But both quickly ended in failure. The chariot of history always runs forward and no one can pull it back. People won’t go back to the old life style once they start to enjoy a new one, especially one that offers more freedom and dignity.
As Li Yuanhong resigned from the presidency, the deputy president Feng Guozhang became the president. Feng was the governor of Jiangsu province and lived in Nanking. Now he was the president and had to take up office in Peking. That left the position of governor of Jiangsu province vacant. Duan wanted to appoint Duan Zhigui as the governor there, but Feng wanted to appoint Li Chun, the present governor of Jiangxi province as the governor of Jiangsu province. He promoted Chen Guangyuan, who was the commander of the twelfth division, to be the governor of Jiangxi province. Both were supporters of Feng. Before he left for Peking, he divided his army into two divisions. The sixteenth division would stay in Jiangsu province. He brought his fifteenth division to Peking as his bodyguard so that he wouldn’t be controlled by Duan.
Duan dismissed the old congress because most of the congressmen had opposed him on the question of joining in the First World War. Since there was no more congress, the Duan government declared war against Germany and Austria.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-8-31 07:24 May 4 student movement
On the 23rd of August, 1914, Japan declared war against Germany and took over Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong province, formerly occupied by Germany. They fought for 70 days. Then in January 1915, Japan had put the 21 articles to Yuan, who accepted most of them. These were considered a national insult, which caused great dissatisfaction with the government among Chinese intellectuals, including university students.
China declared war against Germany on the 14th of August, 1917, actually at the end of the First World War, so that China was one of the victorious countries. But at the Paris Peace Conference, which produced the Versailles Treaty, Japan was allowed to continue its occupation of Jiaozhou Bay, which should have been returned to China since it was in the territory of China and formerly was occupied by Germany.
The public called upon the Chinese representative at the conference to refuse to sign on the treaty, but the government secretly instructed the representative to go ahead and sign it. When the news became openly known, the students at Peking University held an emergency meeting on the 1st of May. On the night of the 3rd day, students from other universities joined in the action. They decided to hold a demonstration on TianAnMen Square on the 4th of May, which was Sunday. Thus began the May 4 movement.
At one o’clock in the afternoon, the students marched towards the neighborhood where all the embassies were and distributed copies of a memorandum, which was refused by all the embassies except the American one. Then they went to the residence of Cao Rulin, minister of transportation (to complain about the railway problem with Japan), where they saw Zhang Zongxiang, the Chinese ambassador to Japan. The students gave both a good beating and set fire to the residence. For that, 32 students were arrested.
To rescue the students, the professors called on the public to declare a strike of all students, teachers, workers, and shop-owners. The government forbade it and arrested more people. The chaos lasted into June; people answered the call of the professors and the movement spread to many cities. Even railway workers started to strike. On the 11th of June, Professor Chen Duxiu (1879–1942) and others distributed pamphlets in public, and Chen was arrested. The chaos worsened. Under such pressure, the government had to give in. It dismissed Cao and Zhang from office and released those in jail. On the 28th of June, the representative attending the Paris Peace Conference did not sign the treaty.
This movement was influential not only in politics, but also in culture. Many changes were introduced. Professor Hu Shih proposed that language as spoken should be used in writing instead of the classical language. Hence, the language style in use was changed, even in newspapers. So the May 4 movement is also called the new cultural movement.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-1 08:01 Battles in the southwestern provinces
Chinese historians define the men who command independent armies as warlords. In many periods this included the governors of provinces, and even premiers like Duan, who had his own army. The local warlords often disobeyed the central government. If the central government wanted any governor to obey its orders, it had to send an army to defeat him. And the provincial governors often fought one another to increase their power base. As a result, many periods of history were fraught with turmoil.
Although Yuan Shikai died, his former supporters controlled most provinces. Only five provinces in southwestern China were under the influence of the national Party. They were Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces.
In Sichuan province there were three armies. One came from Yunnan province. One came from Guizhou province. And the third one was formed of local soldiers. Each of them wanted to take control of Sichuan province and they fought one another from time to time. Premier Duan of the central government wanted to control this province, too. So he sent a detachment of his army to Sichuan province. Then, the three local armies united to fight against Duan’s army, which had to retreat.
After the failure of the second revolution, Sun Yat-sen endeavored to make another attempt. He gained the support of the Navy’s First Fleet. In 1917, the governor of Guangdong province proposed to Sun that he could use this province as his headquarters against the warlord government in Peking. On the 10th of July, Sun took two warships to Shantou Town and sent Zhang Binglin to Guangdong province as his representative. The situation in that province was complicated, though. On the 17th, when Sun arrived in Canton on board a warship, he was welcomed. On the 22nd day, the commander of the First Fleet brought his fleet to Guangdong province, too. They announced that since the dismissal of the Congress, any orders from the Peking government were unlawful.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-2 08:38 When Duan learned the news, he promoted the commander of the Second Fleet to be the commander of the navy and appointed another admiral as commander of the First Fleet, which was not under his control any more. On the 25th day Duan ordered to remove the governor of Guangdong province from office, but the governor refused to recognize the order.
Sun Yat-sen invited the congressmen to come south. In mid-August, more than 130 congressmen arrived in Canton. On the 18th, at a welcome party, all the attendees agreed to organize a new military government, which was founded on the 10th of September. When Duan heard of this, he issued a “wanted” bulletin for Sun Yat-sen, and the military government also issued a “wanted” bulletin for Duan. The five provinces in the southeastern China supported the military government against Duan, who sent his army into Hunan province in hopes of defeating the army of the military government.
On the 6th of October, two armies engaged in battle near Xiangtan Town. Contrary to Duan’s hopes, his army was forced to withdraw. It looked bad for him, and many provinces announced their support for the military government. Duan had to resign as premier.
President Feng called upon both sides to stop fighting. Duan had always been a threat to the independent governors in the southeastern region, and now they felt that the sword of Damocles had been removed, so they agreed to the truce. But on the 2nd of December, 1917, Duan instigated ten northern governors to take action against the southeastern provinces. On the 6th, they pressed President Feng to issue orders to continue the war. Meanwhile, Zhang Zuolin, the warlord in the northeastern China, led his army into Peking. Under such pressure, Feng had to ask Duan to resume the office of premier.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-4 07:23 Duan re-organized his army to attack the army of the military government, which now lost the support of the other governors and had to fight alone. It was soon defeated. But Wu Peifu (1874–1939), the commander of Duan’s army, ceased his assault and made a truce with the military government, ignoring Duan’s command. As Feng and Duan always had conflicts of opinion, or in reality, of personal interests, both agreed to resign at the same time. That was on the 4th of September, 1918.
Sun Yat-sen’s goal was to let his National Party unite the whole of China under the rule of his party. But this ran counter to the interests of the warlords. So he lost most of his supporters and only a few were left. On the 21st of May, 1918, he left Canton for Shanghai, where he met Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). The military government was controlled by the armies of Yunnan and Guangxi provinces.
As Sun resigned and left Canton, his army (under the command of Chen Jiongming) went to Fujian province, and together with the army under the command of Chiang Kai-shek they defeated Duan’s army there. That happened in June of 1918.
Although Duan was not in the cabinet, he still had his army. So Zhang Zuoling (1875–1928) and Wu Peifu allied to fight him. On the 14th of July, 1920, Duan’s army was overcome. Then Xu Shichang, who had nothing under his control, was selected (not elected, as there was no more congress) by the warlords to be a puppet president.
In August 1920, the army stationed in Fujian province marched back to Guangdong province to assail the Guangxi province army there. On the 28th of October, the military government was back under the control of Sun’s army. So on the 28th of November, Sun returned to Canton.
On the 12th of January, 1921, a special congress was organized and on the 2nd of April, the congress held a session to annul the military government and resume the name of the Republic of China. On the 7th day, Sun was elected President and took an oath at a ceremony on the 5th of May.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-6 07:28 Sun Yat-sen went north, looking to overthrow the Peking government
Sun Yat-sen still persisted in marching north to overthrow the Peking government. He thought of it as a warlord government, not a revolutionary government. He wanted to found a revolutionary government for the people. Anyway, the governors of all the provinces and even Chen Jiongming (1878–1933), the commander of his army (actually another warlord), did not see things that way. Those men only wanted to have a federal government of warlords.
On the 26th of March, 1922, Sun Yat-sen held a meeting and decided to go north to take down the Peking government. On the 9th of April, when the Revolutionary Army reached the Meng River, it was blockaded by Chen Jiongming’s army which was encamped there. Sun gave orders that if Chen’s army did not make way for him, he would launch an attack. When Sun reached Wuzhou Town, he summoned Chen to meet him, but Chen refused to go there. Sun removed him from the position of commander. Chen wanted his army to prepare for a war against Sun, but the army in Canton refused to carry out his order. There was nothing he could do but go back to his old home in Huizhou Town. However, part of his army was still loyal to him.
In early April 1922, Wu Peifu sent an emissary to contact Chen and asked him to prevent Sun Yat-sen by force from going north. Meantime, Duan and Zhang Zuolin wanted to ally with Sun to vanquish Wu. The situation got complicated. Everyone was putting his own interests first and relationships between friends and enemies often changed.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-8 07:16 On the 23rd of April, Sun Yat-sen gathered his generals for a meeting in his presidential residence to decide what to do next. There were two options. One was to first annihilate Chen’s army so that he could not give the Revolutionary Army a stab from behind. Chiang Kai-shek held this opinion. The other was to immediately march north, while doing their best to avoid any conflict with Chen’s army. Sun tended toward the second opinion, as he thought that Chen had not really betrayed him, at least not yet. He had no reason to attack Chen. Chiang Kai-shek thought that Chen would at long last betray Sun. Since Sun did not believe him, he left Guangdong province, while writing a letter to Chen advising him not to betray Sun.
When Sun Yat-sen came back to Canton, he still allowed Chen to be the commander of the first army. But Chen refused to take the appointment. On the 28th of April, Zhang Zuolin, Duan Qirui and Sun Yat-sen formed an alliance to fight Wu Peifu. Sun thought that this created an opportunity for him to go north.
On the 4th of May, Zhang’s army was beaten by Wu’s, and Zhang had to retreat back to where he had come from, northeastern China. Wu took control in Peking. Wu had a secret agreement with Chen Jiongming that he would drive away the current president, Xu Shichang, and Chen would drive away Sun Yat-sen. Then the first step was to let Li Yuanhong back into the presidency and get him to wipe out all the warlords everywhere, except of course the two of them. If Li failed to do so, he would be the scapegoat. If he succeeded, Wu and Chen would use the congress to have themselves elected as the president and the vice president.
So they announced that the current president Xu was illegal. Xu resigned on the 2nd of June. Once back in the presidency, Li denounced that warrant that was out for Sun Yat-sen and invited him to Peking to discuss national affairs. He also appointed many warlords in the south, but none of them accepted his appointments. Afterwards, as Wu and Chen saw that Li could do nothing for them, they forced Li to quit the presidency again. Li went back to Tianjin City.
On the 9th of May, Sun issued an order for a general attack, and on the 13th of June, the Revolutionary Army put Wu’s army to rout in Jiangxi province. Wu sent his man to Chen and asked him to take action as soon as possible.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-9 08:26 Chen Jiongming Turns Traitor in Canton
When Chen went back to his hometown, he took with him a lot of guns and ammunition, enough to arm 40 battalions. On the 20th of May, Chen’s subordinate, Ye Ju, led his troops into Canton and started a treasonous action. By the 1st of June, the situation had become acute. Liao Zhongkai, a faithful follower of Sun, sent a telegram to Sun Yat-sen asking him to come back to Canton. When Sun was back in Canton, he summoned Chen, but Chen refused to come.
On the 12th of June, Sun Yat-sen ordered Ye Ju out of Canton. Next day, Chen and Ye secretly met at Shilong. They knew that, to prevent Sun from going north to fight Wu, they would have to cut off his access to financing. Liao was the person who provided Sun with everything. So they decided to kidnap Liao. On the 14th day, Chen sent a telegram to Liao to invite him to his hometown for some important business. On the fifth day, Liao went there and was detained. Then Ye Ju maneuvered his troops and planned to attack Sun’s residence with cannons. On the 16th day, Sun was informed of this and took refuge on a warship.
On the 19th, Sun Yat-sen sent a telegram to the Revolutionary Army at the frontier to come back to Guangdong province. On the 2nd of July, the Revolutionary Army started to assail Chen’s army in Guangdong province, and beat the betraying army. Chen sent a telegram to Wu seeking assistance. Wu sent some troops to Guangdong province. On the 26th of July, the Revolutionary Army was chasing after Chen’s retreating army but met with the reinforcements sent by Wu. Therefore, the Revolutionary Army had to withdraw. When Sun Yat-sen learned this, he had to leave Guangdong province and go to Shanghai. Liao was released and left Canton. When Chen attempted to assassinate him afterwards, he was already gone.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-11 07:08 On the 16th of August, 1922, Sun Yat-sen made a statement accusing Chen of betrayal. To annihilate the treacherous army, Sun determined to ally with Duan. In October, he appointed Xu Chongzhi as the commander-in-chief and Chiang Kai-shek as the chief of staff. On one side, the Revolutionary Army together with Duan’s army vanquished Wu’s army. On the other, the armies of Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, who supported Sun, defeated Chen’s army. On the 14th of January, 1923, troops in Guangdong province turned over to Sun and attacked Chen, who escaped to his hometown, Huizhou.
On the 15th of February, Sun Yat-sen returned to Canton. In April, Chen Hongying, a warlord in Guangxi province, accepted the appointment of the Peking government to be the governor of Guangdong province, and came to attack Canton, but was soon subdued. He escaped to Hong Kong.
At the end of 1924, Sun went to Peking to discuss national affairs, but he was fatally ill. In February the Revolutionary Army, now under the full command of Chiang Kai-shek, marched east to wipe out the warlords there. Sun died on the 12th of March, 1925. He famously wrote, in his will, “The revolution is not successful yet; comrades must still make efforts.” That June, Chen Jiongming betrayed the cause again, but he was soon wiped out by Chiang Kai-shek.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-13 07:55 Early History of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
The organization of the Communist Party of China
In April 1920, the Communist International sent Grigori Voitinsky to China. In May, he found Chen Duxiu, 42 at the time, and sought to contact some revolutionary young men in other cities to establish the Communist Party of China, the CPC. Chen was the professor who had been arrested in the May 4 student movement in 1919. In August 1920, under instructions of the Soviet Communist Party, the Communist Party of China was established in Shanghai. At that time, it was called Communist Group with Chen Duxiu as the general secretary.
But after the Communisst Party took over the reign of the mainland, public data they issued state that the first meeting of the Communist Party was held about a year later, in Shanghai, on the 1st of July, 1921. Why was the earlier date concealed from the public? There might be two reasons. One was that they wanted to cover up the fact that the Communist International had had a hand in it. The other is that Mao attended the meeting in Shanghai, so by emphasizing that meeting they could say that Mao was one of the founders, enhancing his image. But the meeting was in 1920, not in 1921 in Shanghai.
Fifteen people attended the meeting on the 23rd of July, 1921, at 106 Wangzhi Road (presently 76 Xingye Road) in Shanghai. These included Mao Zedong (1893–1976); Dong Biwu (1886–1975, later the vice chairman of the People’s Republic of China); Zhang Guotao (1897–1979, later commander of the Red 4th Army in the Long March); Chen Gongbo (1890–1946); and Zhou Fohai (1897–1948). The last two later defected to Japanese invaders in Sino–Japanese War (1937—1945). Also present were Malin and Nico Chhabra (representatives from the Communist International).作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-15 07:33 Soon some suspicious men were found lurking outside the house. The meeting broke up and everyone discretely slipped away. And the next day, they met on a boat on the South Lake in Jiaxing Town, casually playing mahjong while in fact continuing their meeting. Thus the Communist Party of China was established. At that time it had only 50 members.
On the 23rd of December, 1921, accompanied by an interpreter, Malin went to see Sun Yat-sen in Guilin City of Guangxi province. He stayed there for nine days and concluded that Communist Party members could join the National Party while still maintaining their status in the Communist Party. This would help the Communist Party to develop. But his idea was strongly opposed by some party members, especially Chen Duxiu who was then the leader of the party. So on the 23rd of April, 1922, Malin left Shanghai for Holland, by sea, and then, through Berlin, made it to Moscow. He reported his work in China to the Soviet Communist Party, which consented to his idea. On the 27th of July, the Soviet Union sent a representative to China, together with Malin, with instructions. Malin typed the instructions on the shirt he wore. In Shanghai, Malin met Chen Duxiu and gave him his shirt.
Chen Duxiu had to obey the decision of the Communist International because at the second meeting of the Communist Party, held from July 16–23, 1922, at 625 South Chengdu Road in Shanghai, they had decided to join the Communist International. Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao attended the meeting with ten other representatives. Then the Communist Party of China got financial aid from the Communist International.
On the 29th and 30th of August, 1922, the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a central meeting on the West Lake in Hangzhou City and decided to found the First United Front, an alliance between the National Party and the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-16 06:50 In June 1923, the Communist Party had its third meeting in Canton, and 40 representatives, representing 420 party members, discussed the issue of the First United Front. They elected Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao (1889–1927), Mao Zedong, and Xiang Ying (1898–1941, who later became commander of the New 4th Army in the Sino–Japanese War), and five others, as members of the Central Committee.
It was said that after the meeting, at the urging of the Communist Party, Sun Yat-sen proposed his three great policies: Alliance with Russia, Co-operation with the Communist Party, and Assistance to Peasants and Workers. But as a matter of fact, Sun never identified with such policies. This was just invented by Mikhail Markovich Borodin, a Russian counselor to the Communist Party of China, to make them look good. Then the Communist Party used this invention as a fact for its own purposes.
Why did Sun agree to the United Front notion? It was because Sun always held to his ideal of Three Principles for the People: the Principle of Nationalism, the Principle of Democracy, and the Principle of People’s Livelihood. Ironically, this party, which was also called Kuomintang by the pronunciations of the Chinese characters “National Party,” evolved into a highly centralized, hierarchical, and authoritarian party. Sun thought that the ideal of communism was closest to his three principles and so he wanted to unite with the Communist Party against their common enemies—warlords who were still taking advantage of the power void left when the imperial order crumbled.
From the 20th to the 30th of January, 1924, the 196 representatives of the National Party held their first conference in Canton (now Guangzhou). Sun was the chairman and the Russian counselor Borodin was in attendance. Some Communist Party members were elected into the executive committee of the National Party. Li Dazhao and a few others were members and Mao Zedong, Zhang Guotao were alternate members.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-18 07:38 In the autumn of 1924, General Feng Yuxiang (1882–1948) launched a coup d’état and took control of the Peking government. He invited Sun Yat-sen to Peking to discuss national affairs. In the morning of November 5, Feng sent his troops to surround the Forbidden City and ordered the abdicated emperor to move out. So Henry gathered his precious belongings and moved to Tianjin City with his family. A few faithful old courtiers followed him there.
On November 13, 1924, Sun Yat-sen started from Canton and arrived in Peking on the 31st of December. It was soon found that he was suffering from liver cancer and he died on March 12, 1925. Sun had been in Peking three times. First, in 1894, he went to Peking with the intention of advising the Qing officials on how it might reform the government. But when he saw how serious the corruption was, he realized that no reform could be enough to save China. So he decided to make a revolution. His second visit was in 1912 when the Republic of China was founded. He went to Peking to advise Yuan Shikai that if Yuan could carry on the revolution, he would resign from the temporary presidency. This was his third time.
On the 15th of September, Zhang Zuolin came with his forces from the northeastern provinces towards Peking and allied with Feng Yuxiang. Then a battle broke out between Zhang, Feng and Wu Peifu. Wu’s army was put to rout and Wu escaped south to Hunan and Hubei provinces. Thereafter, Peking fell under the control of Zhang Zuolin, who was always backed by Japan.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-20 07:51 Whampoa military academy
The Whampoa Military Academy was founded on the 16th of June, 1924, on the instruction of Sun Yat-sen, to train officers for the Revolutionary Army. It was situated on Changzhou Island in the Whampoa District of Canton. Afterwards, branches were founded in Wuhan, Changsha, Chaoshan, and Nanning cities. In preparation for the establishment of this academy, Sun had sent Chiang Kai-shek to the Soviet Union in September of 1923 to learn from their experience. So the academy was modeled after those in the Soviet Union. And Chiang Kai-shek was appointed President of the academy. Quite a few Communist Party (CPC) members were appointed leaders of departments, such as Ye Jianying (1897–1986), deputy director of the training department, and Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), deputy director of the political department.
In May of 1924, the academy began to take in students. Out of 1200 applicants, 350 students were enrolled and 120 were accepted as alternate students for the first term. In 1927, the academy was relocated in Nanking and renamed the Central Army Officer Academy. Later, in 1949, it moved to Taiwan, for reasons that will become apparent later. From 1924 to 1949, there were 23 terms, and including the terms held in Taiwan, the academy was functioning for 78 terms. The academy graduated 41,386 students, including many famous generals.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-22 07:52 The Break-Up of the National Party and the Communist Party
After the death of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek took the full command of the Revolutionary Army. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek had no confidence in the CPC, especially after their fourth conference.
That fourth conference of the Communist Party was held from the 11th to the 22nd of January, 1925, with 20 representatives gathered in Shanghai. Chen Duxiu, Zhang Guotao, Zhou Enlai, and Xiang Ying, and many others attended. Chen was the chairman. During the conference, Chen was elected the general secretary of the central bureau, consisting of five persons. They decided that the Communist Party had to take charge of the revolution, and that laid the ground for major disruptions.
On the 20th of March, 1926, the warship Yat-sen planned an artillery attack on the Whanpoa Military Academy to drive away Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang gave orders to arrest the captain, Li Zhilong, a member of the Communist Party. Then Chiang ordered Zhou Enlai and all their party members to get out of the academy. The students now faced a problem as to which party they would follow. One student quit the National Party and 39 students quit the Communist Party. The others remained in the academy.
Meanwhile within the National Party, Wang Jingwei (1883–1944, who later treacherously went over to the Japanese during the Sino–Japanese War) wanted to take over the leadership of the National Party. He organized another government in Wuhan City, close to Wuchang City, the cradle of the 1911 revolution, and held the third conference of the National Party without the attendance of Chiang. This was called Wuhan government.
At that time Chiang only had command of the Revolution Army and held no position in the government. The Wuhan government wanted Chiang to continue to the north to wipe out the warlords there. But Chiang planned to go east to occupy the eastern provinces first, including Shanghai, because those eastern provinces were also under the control of warlords.
During those years, the land problem was serious. Peasants wanted to have their own land so that they would not be exploited by landowners. When peasants worked land owned by those in the ownership class, they had to give part of the harvest to the landowners, as in any feudal system. As the imperial system had been demolished, they wanted land reforms too. Under instigation by the Communist Party, they began to demand this more and more aggressively.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-23 07:55 Stalin, head of the Soviet Union, asked the Communist Party of China in October of 1926 to curb the action of peasants, to reduce the violence. In March of 1927, the Communist Party established legal penalties for landowners. Any landowners who resisted the revolution would be put to death.
On the 2nd of April, 1927, the Central Committee of the National Party held a meeting in Wuhan, inviting two members of the Communist Party, one of whom was Mao Zedong. They were considering a bill about the land problem. The government would confiscate the land of “reactionaries” (those who preferred the old ways as opposed to the revolution) such as property owners, officials who had a stake in the old system, and warlords. The definition of reactionary landowners was to be based on the amount of land they owned, measured by the mu (about 0.165 acres). Anyone who had more than 30 mus, about 5 acres, was dubbed a reactionary. All landowners would be classified into rich peasants, small and middle landowners, and large landowners, according to the amount of terrain they possessed. This standard was still used in the land reform when the Communist Party later established their republic.
On the 22nd of April, when this bill was under discussion, the National Party and the CPC had different opinions. That was one of the reasons for their falling out, because many members of the National Party came from families who owned land. Then on the 26th of April, Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao were invited to attend the meeting, and also Borodin, the Russian counselor. On the 6th of May, the bill was at last passed. Only the large landowners would see their land confiscated. The land belonging to small landowners and families of revolutionary officials would remain the same. However, once the peasants had been instigated, it was hard to check their zeal to take possession of the land.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-25 08:14 Victory of the Revolutionary Army and the final break between the two parties
In July of 1926, the National Party decided that the Revolutionary Army should head north to annihilate the warlords there. As Chiang was the commander-in-chief, he led the army north, fighting all the way along the route. The plan was for the Revolutionary Army to attack Wu Peifu first, and then Sun Chuanfang, occupying Jiangxi, Fujian, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, five provinces. Finally the Revolutionary Army would attack Zhang Zuolin in Peking.
In August of 1926, the Revolutionary Army assaulted the main force of Wu Peifu and wiped it out; they took over Wuchang city on the 10th of September. In November, the Revolutionary Army annihilated the main force of Sun Chuanfang, another warlord, and occupied Jiujiang and Nanchang cities. At the same time, Feng Yuxiang gained control of the northwestern region of China. A warlord, Yan Xishan (1883–1960), ruled Shanxi province. Observing the rapid advance of the Revolutionary Army, both Feng and Yan joined it. Now only the warlord Zhang from the northeastern provinces remained in Peking.
In October, the Communist Party organized workers in Shanghai to rise to arms against the warlord government 675 miles north in Peking, but they failed. In November, the Revolutionary Army took control of the area of the Yangtze River. So the national Government decided to establish its capital in Wuhan City, but Chiang wanted the capital in Nanchang, which was then under his control. Anyway, on the 9th of December, the national Government moved to Wuhan City.
On the 21st of February, 1927, the Central Committee of the National Party held a meeting of the 80 members, one third belonged to the Communist Party and one third were communist-leaning. Among the leaders of all the departments of the National Party, half of them were members of the Communist Party. This meant that the CPC controlled the national Party. And the Communist Party was organizing its own army.
Chiang Kai-shek decided he had to found another government. He had many supporters, like the brothers Chen Guofu (1892–1951) and Chen Lifu (1900–2001) and others in his army. All were young men.
On the 19th of February, General Bai Chongxi (1893–1966) took over Hangzhou city as he marched east with his detachment of the Revolutionary Army. On the 22nd, the Communist Party fomented a second riot in Shanghai but failed once more. On the 10th of March, the Central Committee of the National Party had another meeting to openly declare their break with Chiang, and he cut off all relations with the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-27 07:49 Then Wang Jingwei came back from France, where he attended classes in the University of Lyon and reorganized the National Party by expelling the Russian counselor and members of the Communist Party. He also suggested that the national government and the headquarters of the National Party be moved to Nanking.
On the 22nd of March, the east detachment of the Revolutionary Army under Bai Chongxi entered Shanghai. On the 24th, the middle detachment occupied Nanking. A few members of the Communist Party instigated the soldiers of the Revolutionary Army to rob and kill foreigners in order to incite foreign governments to take action against the national government. But the consuls of England, the United States and Japan had evidence that the Communist Party was responsible for the trouble.
On the fifth of April, the Central Committee of the National Party divided the Revolutionary Army into two military blocs. Chiang was re-appointed the commander-in-chief of the first military bloc and Feng Yuxiang was the commander-in-chief of the second. On the same day, Chiang contacted the heads of certain mafias in Shanghai and asked them to organize a Shanghai business guild to oppose the Shanghai workers’ general union, an armed group which was controlled by the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-29 07:48 Meantime, Borodin secretly urged General Guo Songling under the warlord government to fight Zhang Zuolin, who had secret contacts with Chiang. On the 6th of April, Zhang suddenly attacked the embassy of the Soviet Union in Peking to arrest 58 members of the Communist Party hiding there, including Li Dazhao, one of the main founders of the Communist Party. They found secret documents which proved that the Soviet Union instructed the Communist Party to overthrow the Chinese government. On the 12th of April, Chiang sent the national 26th army to the Shanghai workers’ general union to order them to surrender their weapons. But they refused, and many people were killed in the conflict, which became known as the 4/12 event. Then Chiang ordered all the organizations controlled by the Communist Party to disband.
On the 17th of April, Chiang and other members of the Central Committee of the National Party met in Nanking to issue warrant for the arrest of 197 leading members of the Communist Party, including Borodin, Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969), Zhang Guotao, Deng Yingchao (1904–1992, wife of Zhou Enlai), and others. On the 28th, Li Dazhao and others were hanged in Peking, accused of plotting to overthrow the government.
On the 20th of April, the Communist Party issued a statement saying that Chiang was the open foe of the revolutionary people and called upon the people to overthrow him. On the 22nd day, Wang Jingwei and other members of the National Party who supported the Communist Party, together with Mao Zedong and some Communist Party members, openly blamed Chiang for the disruption. Chiang founded the national government in Nanking in opposition to the government in Wuhan City.
On the fifth of June when Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy, a representative of the Communist International, asked Wang Jingwei to allow the Communist Party to control the Wuhan government, Wang began to disband the Communist Party. Therefore, on the 1st of August, the Communist Party called for riots in Nanchang. That marked the final rupture between the National Party and the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-9-30 08:16 Chapter 2. The First Civil War Between The National Party and the Communist Party
Communist Party Riots
The Riot in Nanchang City
Wang Jingwei learned that the Soviet Union was planning to help the Communist Party of China to take over power from Wuhan government in July 1927. He expelled all the members of the Communist Party that were in the National Party and the Wuhan government. This led the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Jiujiang City (Jiangxi province) to forment a riot in Nanchang City, where they controlled some of the army. On the 26th of July, Zhou Enlai was sent to organize the riot. Several hours after Zhou left, they got a telegram from the Communist International, instructing them not to start it if there was no chance of winning. So Zhang Guotao was sent after Zhou. When Zhang reached Nanchang, all the preparations were already in place, and besides, most of the representatives refused to take these orders. The 11th army and the 20th army under the command of He Long (1896–1969) had already come to Nanchang from Jiujiang City, and were welcomed by Zhu De (1886–1976), commander of the 9th army and head of the city police.
At two o’clock in the morning of August 1, 1927, the rebels began to attack the National Revolutionary Army guarding the city. After fighting for four hours, they occupied the city. But the national government gathered more troops to surround Nanchang. The rebellious army had to beat a retreat from the city and went south. On the way, Zhou Enlai, He Long and other leaders deserted their troops and escaped to Hong Kong and Shanghai. Only Zhu De led the rest of the army to Guangdong province. They had to adopt the stratagems of guerrilla warfare. In January of 1928, Zhu De started another riot and led his army to Mt. JingGang in Jiangxi province, where he met Mao Zedong. Their troops formed the Red 4th Army.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-2 08:01 Mao Zedong resorts to rebellion
As Wang Jingwei expelled the members of the Communist Party from the National Party and the Wuhan government, Mao Zedong went to Changsha City on the 12th of August to arm peasants and mine workers in that area in preparation for a riot. He had an army of 8,000 soldiers. On the 9th of September, they started their rebellion and set out to attack Changsha City. There were many Communist Party members in the city, scheming to let the attackers in by making a sudden assault on the national government army guarding the city. But their plan was leaked by insiders and became known to the national government. The traitors had to escape or they would be arrested and killed. Mao had to change his plan of attack and marched towards Mt JingGang, where his forces united with Zhu De’s army.
On the 4th of June in 1928, Zhang was forced to withdraw from Peking to go back to his original location. As he could not always accomplish what Japan demanded, Japan was not satisfied with him. On the fifth day, when Zhang was on board a train and passed through the railway station at Huanggutun, his train was exploded with gunpowder set there by the Japanese. He was severely injured and died when he reached Shenyang City. His son Zhang Xueliang (1901–2001) succeeded him in his position.
He declared he was joining the Revolutionary Army on the 29th of December, 1928. There were no more warlords, and China was thus united.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-4 07:47 Chiang Kai-Shek Besieges The Red Army Five Times
The first siege
Since Chiang Kai-shek had cleared all the warlords from China, he began to deal with the Communist Party and the Red Army in October of 1930. Chiang sent his army, 300,000 strong, against the Red Army (the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army), 40,000 soldiers. If Chiang could surround the Red Army, he could easily wipe it out. But Mao’s strategy was wiser than Chiang’s. On November 1, Mao faked some maneuvers so that the Chinese Red Army seemed to be advancing in different directions, leading Chiang’s commander-in-chief to think that the Red Army would escape. Therefore, the National Army split up in order to chase down the enemies in different directions. Then the Red Army gathered together again and annihilated a small national division of 9,000 soldiers that had been cut off from the main force on December 30, 1930. And the other divisions had to fall back. Thus ended the first siege.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-6 07:44 The second siege
On the 1st of April, 1931, the second siege began. Considering the failure of the first siege due to the failed tactic of attempting to surround the Red Army, Chiang Kai-shek decided instead to move slowly with all the troops keeping close. On the 13th of May, the 28th division of the fifth army of the national forces left Futian and marched eastward. On the fifth day, Zhu De and Mao directed their 3rd military bloc and the 35th Red Army to form a left wing, and the 3rd Red Army to head up the middle, while the 4th Red Army and 12th Red Army made up the right wing, to surround the fifth national army. The commander of this army committed the same mistake. He should not have marched separately from others. Zhu De and Mao ordered their 7th Red division and 35th Red division to block the advance of the reinforcements from the 19th national army. As a result, on the 16th day, the 28th division of the national army was annihilated by the overwhelming number of enemy forces. On the 19th day, the 12th Red army attacked the 54th national division, which escaped. The 19th national army had no information about what was happening to the other armies and had to retreat. Thus ended the second siege.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-7 07:41 The third siege
On the 21st of June, 1931, after the two failed sieges, Chiang Kai-shek formed two military blocs 300,000 strong for the third siege. On the July 10, the Communist Party also made all possible preparations for battle. The National Army had started to march on July 1, but could not ascertain the location of the Red Army. Towards the end of the month, the main forces of the Red Army were found taking a back route to a place called XingGuo. From the enemy’s location, Chiang Kai-shek judged that the Red Army planned to go west to cross the Gan River. He wanted to wipe it out on the east bank of the river. Mao and Zhu’s original plan was to ignore the main forces of the National Army, and use the Red Army to break through the encirclement at Futian to assail the detachment remaining in the rear; but this plan was detected. The 11th and the 14th divisions of the National Army marched faster to occupy Futian to block the Red Army’s escape route. This time, it looked good for Chiang. But Mao changed to a bold plan. He ordered the 35th Red Army to disguise itself as the main force, and to cross the Gan River to distract the National Army. On the 4th of August, his main forces stole through the gap between the two military blocs of the National Army before they closed like a vise. (That gap is said to have been 40 li wide. The li, or “Chinese mile,” creates some difficulties as this traditional unit of distance was only recently standardized. It now means half a kilometer or about a third of a mile.) This strategy was successful and the Red Army arrived at a safe place and annihilated a brigade of the National Army there on August 7. Then the Red Army moved to Huangpo and wiped out four national regiments on the 11th.
Then Chiang Kai-shek found out that what he was pursuing was not the main force of the Red Army. When the national troops turned back to march north, the fatigued army was like an arrow at the end of its flight. On the 18th of September, the 9/18 event happened, so Chiang had to go back to Nanking to take charge of the situation. Thus ended the third siege.
The strategies Mao used in the previous three battles would be seen repeated and repeated. Chiang was defeated three times by the same stratagem. Chiang Kai-shek never learned from his failures and made little improvement. It could be said that he deserved to be driven away from the mainland to Taiwan, after all.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-9 08:05 The establishment of the red government in Ruijin
After a few victories, the Communist Party founded their Red government in Ruijin City of Jiangxi province. It was located in a basin with mountains on three sides. Nanchang City, the capital of the province, under the national government, was 300 li (just over 90 miles) away.
On the 7th of November, 1931, they celebrated the founding of the Red government. Mao was the Chairman of the government and Zhu De was the Commander of the army. In the area of the Red government, almost everyone was in an organization of some sort. The organization for six-year-olds and up was called the “children’s league.” That of the youngsters of fifteen-year-old and up was called young pioneers. Young adults joined the “Red Guard Army.” They printed their own paper money and used terrorist methods to control people. Even their own comrades were killed. Li Wenlin, also a leader in the party, was murdered. Peasants in that area did not have to give part of their harvest to any landowners, but they did have to support the Red government in order to support the Red Army.
No one could leave the area without a pass. There were sentinels everywhere, 24 hours a day. Whoever was caught leaving secretly would be executed. War time or not, under such drastic terrorism even the intimate subordinate Yang Yuebin deserted Mao and went to the national government to give away Mao’s location. Airplanes were sent to bombard the place and Mao had to move.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-11 07:44 The fourth siege
After the 9/18 and 12/8 events (detailed in Chapter 3) were over, with the signing of the Songhu armistice agreement in May of 1932, Chiang Kai-shek planned for the fourth siege. This time he attacked the district of Hubei, Hunan and Anhui provinces where the Red Army was weak and was soon vanquished. Then in February of 1933, Chiang concentrated his forces to push forwards to where the main forces of the Red Army camped. The leadership of the Red Army had been changed at the meeting in Ningdu Town in October of 1932. Mao Zedong was dismissed from the commanding position. The leader was Bogu, who came from Shanghai on the 7th of January, 1933, but the actual commanders of the Red Army were Zhu De, Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai (1898–1974).
They used the same ruse Mao had used. They ordered the 11th Red army to disguise themselves as the main forces to attract and lead off the middle, second and third columns of the National Army to Lichuan area, while their actual main forces rested at Guangchang. Then they laid ambushes by the 1st Red military bloc and 3rd Red military bloc and 21st Red army to attack the 52nd national army, while the 5th Red military bloc and 22nd Red army would attack the 59th national army. On March 1, both national armies were annihilated and the commanders were captured. So the National Army was forced to withdraw. Thus ended the fourth siege.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-13 07:47 The fifth siege
In May of 1933, Chiang Kai-shek set up his headquarters in Nanchang City and assumed the responsibility of commander-in-chief himself for the fifth siege of the Red Army. Since the last siege, the Red Army had grown considerably. Chiang Kai-shek therefore gathered an army a million strong, including the 300,000 soldiers of Chen Jitang in Guangdong province. Chen had been a warlord there, and then had subordinated himself to the national government when he saw all the other warlords had been wiped out.
The siege began on September 25, 1933, and ended on October 14, 1934, lasting for 385 days. Chiang Kai-shek used artillery and airplanes. On the 25th day, the National Army attacked Lichuan Town. After three days, they took the town. On the 9th of October, the 24th Red division went to attack Xiaoshi, but the National Army had a strong defense there with fortresses and trenches. For several days, the Red Army could not take the town, and suffered heavy casualties. That was the first stage.
In November, there was a coup d’état in Fujian province against Chiang Kai-shek. The leaders of this coup founded another government, but they had little support. Even the Communist Party declared this new government unlawful. So the coup ended in failure.
On the 11th of December, the National Army in town changed from defense to counterattack. The Red Army fought back under the command of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, regardless of the fact that the National Army was far better equipped. The Red Army was conquered and retreated. That was the second stage.
On April 10, 1934, Chiang Kai-shek sent 11 divisions divided into two columns marching towards Guangchang. The Communist Party used 9 divisions to prevent the National Army from attacking the town. Battles broke out in many other places, too. The Red Army lost in those places and had to withdraw to Guangchang. On the 27th of April, the National Army attacked the town and occupied it in the evening. The Red Army had to escape, leaving 5,500 casualties. That was the third stage.
In June of 1934, the Communist Party made up its mind to resist the National Army assault to the last man. Even so, on August 5, nine divisions of the National Army, with air support, defeated the Red Army. The remnants of the Red Army had to escape and began the famous Long March. That was the final stage of the fifth siege.
The Red Army failed because the commanders changed from the right strategy to a wrong one. During this period Mao Zedong was not in the Red Army. He had been sent somewhere else. The failure drove home the obvious point that strategy is more important than many other factors; strategy can be decisive; and especially in politics and war, strategy is everything.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-14 07:10 The Famous Long March
The central Red Army, 86,000 in all, began marching on the 21st of October, 1934. This wound up being a 2,500-li march, that is, some 775 miles. They were headed to the western Hunan province where the 2nd and 6th Red military blocs encamped. Chiang Kai-shek deduced what route they were likely to take and laid four blockade lines to stop them. Zhou Enlai and Zhu De went to have a talk with Chen Jitang, a former warlord, and bribed him to let them go through his blockade line. So there was no fighting at the first three lines, as the Red Army never went there. However, they had to fight the National Army when they attempted to break through the fourth line. They made a heavy sacrifice after the rest of the Red Army fought through the fourth lines. Only 30,000 were left out of the 86,000.
The Long March could be divided in four stages. Firstly, the escaped Red Army wanted to go to a place at the border of Sichuan, Hunan and Guizhou provinces, where the geographic features were easy to defend and hard to attack. In these areas there were still some local small warlords that they could mingle amongst them for safety and the central national government would not easily reach them. In early December, they climbed over some mountains and occupied Liping town in Guizhou province on the 14th of December, 1934.
Secondly, at a meeting in Liping on the 28th of December, Mao Zedong strongly opposed the plan to unite with the 2nd and 6th Red military blocs, and proposed to go to the border of Sichuan and Guizhou provinces to occupy the area round Zunyi town as a new military base. His proposition was accepted by the Central Committee, because from their present location, it was difficult to communicate with the two Red blocs. On the 7th of January, 1935, they took Zunyi town.
Here they held the famous Zunyi meeting, in which Mao was appointed to the command of the Red Army again.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-16 07:48 Thirdly, though they wanted to establish a new military base in the vicinity of Zunyi town, the National Army continued to harass them. They had to escape to the northern Sichuan province, where Zhang Guotao, in command of the 4th Red military bloc, already set up a base. But that was far away, and they would have to cross various streams. From January to May of 1935, they ran here and there to avoid being destroyed by the National Army. They failed three times in crossing the Chishui Stream. Once they were forced to go back to Zunyi town. On the fourth try, they stole across the stream, then crossed Jinsha Stream and Dadu Stream. They met Zhang Guotao on the 16th of June. Then Mao suggested that they should march towards the northern Gansu province so that they might escape into the Soviet Union when necessary. But Zhang Guotao had three plans. The first plan was that they should go to create a base in northern Sichuan province, southern Gansu province and Xikang province. The second plan was that they should go to the northern Shaanxi province. The third plan was to go west into Xinjiang province.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-18 08:03 Fourthly, the two blocs (the central Red Army, renamed as the 1st red military bloc) went together north from the 12th of June to the 7th of July. Then as both Mao and Zhang were in disagreement as to the future plan, each went his own way. Zhang, after marching through the grasslands, refused to keep going north but went back through the grasslands again to Xikang province and wanted to establish his base there. And Mao Zedong, together with Peng Dehuai, Lin Biao (1907–1971), and Ye Jianying (1897–1986), went to southwestern Gansu province. In October 1935, Mao and his men, only about 3,000 left, surmounted the Liupan Mountain and reached the northern part of Shaanxi province. To their surprise, Liu Zhidan was there with his 7,000 men. So they settled there.
As for Zhang Guotao, who had started with 80,000 men, he wanted to found a new Central Committee of the Communist Party and to be the chairman himself. But most of his men had died through the Long March. He had no hope for his personal ambitions. So he turned himself in to the National Party. The Communist Party called him a traitor.
It happened like this: on April 4, 1938, leaders of both the National Party and the Communist Party were to go to worship at the mausoleum of Emperor Huang, a legendary hero recorded in Chinese history books, supposed to have lived five thousand years ago. Zhang went there as the chairman of the Communist Party and met Jiang Dingwen, a leader of the National Party. After the rites were concluded, Zhang told his attendants to go back first as he had something else to deal with. But he jumped into a car the National Party provided for him. And he was gone. He was no longer a member of the Communist Party. At the end of 1948, he arrived in Taiwan in poverty. He seemed to be a forgotten man. In the winter of 1949, he went to Hong Kong with his wife and three sons. In 1958, he went to Canada where his eldest son lived. In 1976 he had a stroke and was paralyzed on the right side. He died on December 2, 1979, at the age of 82.
An interesting note from recent times: People doubted the actual distance the Red Army covered. Therefore, on November 3, 2003, two young Englishmen started on their way to retrace the route the Red Army had covered. They spent 384 days and covered 13,000 li, not 25,000 li.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-20 07:54 The military coup d’état in XiAn City
As Japan invaded northeastern China (details in Chapter 3), the Communist Party seized this opportunity to demand that the Communist Party and the National Party unify against Japan in January, 1936. And as Japan occupied the northeastern China, Zhang Xueliang was driven out. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Zhang to besiege the Communist Party in northern Shaanxi province on the 20th of September, 1935. But on the 1st of October, in the battle at Mt. Lao, the Red Army annihilated two regiments of Zhang’s army. On the 29th, in another battle, the 107th division and the 619th regiment of Zhang’s army were wiped out, too. On the 22nd of November, his 109th division went alone towards Wuqi Town and camped on the way at Zhilu Town for the night. The division commander thought that the Red Army was far away and could not attack him, and so he let down his vigilance. However, the Red Army took a quick march all night long and surrounded the division. In the morning, the Red Army put the division to rout.
After these defeats, Zhang Xueliang made secret contact with the Communist Party seeking a truce. On the 9th of April, 1936, Zhang went to YanAn city to talk with Zhou Enlai, the representative of the Communist Party. Zhang Xueliang accepted the Communist Party’s demand to unite against Japan. Zhang Xueliang even put in a request to join the Communist Party. Nevertheless, his request was not granted because his father, Zhang Zuolin, a warlord in the northeastern China, had killed some Communist Party members. Anyway, when Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), an important leader of the Communist Party, was dangerously ill, Zhang procured medication for him and saved his life.
Chiang Kai-shek heard about the situation and was upset with Zhang Xueliang. But at the time, an event happened in Canton, on the 1st of June, 1936, called the 6/1 event. Chen Jitang in Guangdong province and Li Zongren (1891–1969) in Guangxi province wanted to be independent from the central national government, and on that day they sent a telegram from Canton to the central government asking permission to go north to fight Japan. But their real aim was to overthrow the central government.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-21 07:50 Chiang Kai-shek sent his army to conquer Chen in Guangdong province and simultaneously brought over Chen’s subordinates. In July, the commander of Chen’s air force betrayed him and turned over to Chiang Kai-shek by flying 70 airplanes under his command to Nanking. Then the commander of his 1st army declared his loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek. So on the 18th of July, Chen Jitang escaped to Hong Kong. Then Li Zongren in Guangxi province had to announce his obedience to the central government.
On the 22nd of October, Chiang Kai-shek flew from Nanking to XiAn city to urge Zhang to continue the attack of the Red Army, but Zhang raised objections. They had a quarrel and Chiang went to Luoyang City. On the 29th day, Zhang went to Luoyang for the celebration of Chiang Kai-shek’s birthday. He wanted to persuade Chiang to unite with the Communist Party against Japan, but Chiang refused. On the 27th of November, Zhang asked to go and fight Japan, but was rejected by Chiang. On the 2nd of December, Zhang flew to Luoyang to inform Chiang that his army might riot and asked Chiang to go to XiAn to talk to his soldiers. This was really a trick to lure Chiang there for a certain purpose. Chiang Kai-shek, unwise as ever, agreed and flew to XiAn with Zhang on the 4th of December. He lodged at Huaqing Pool on Lishan Mountain. Huaqing Pool was a resort built around a bathing pool with hot spring water. Actually the bathing pool was also inside a room. It was built in Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907) for the famous Yang, imperial concubine of Emperor Xuanzong (AD 685–762).
On December 9, the Communist Party organized a demonstration with crowds. A boy was said to be injured by the police, which incited the wrath of the mob. Zhang went to see Chiang Kai-shek, who wanted Zhang to stop the demonstration, but Zhang did not follow Chiang’s instruction. On December 11, at night, Zhang summoned his generals and asked them to make preparations for a military coup the next day. Accordingly, in the morning of December 12, Zhang went to see Chiang Kai-shek with soldiers and took him into custody.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-23 08:02 That evening, Mailing Soong, Chiang Kai-shek’s wife, was told of the event and immediately thought of Donald William Henry (1875–1946, died in Shanghai), an Australian reporter, who was a friend of both Chiang and Zhang. Soong and Henry immediately took the train to Nanking. At 8 o’clock in the morning on December 13, Soong sent Zhang a telegram and Henry did, too, saying that they would be flying to XiAn City. On December 16, the national government ordered Zhang to release Chiang at once, but Zhang declined. So the government gathered, intending to attack XiAn, and prepared to send bombers. The Communist Party suggested killing Chiang. But on the 17th, Stalin wrote to the Communist Party saying that he was opposed to killing Chiang, who, in his opinion, would be a qualified leader in resisting Japan. He demanded that Chiang Kai-shek be released. So the Communist Party agreed.
When Soong and Henry arrived in XiAn, they went to see Chiang Kai-shek at once. Soong persuaded Chiang to go along with the plan, saying that it would be better to act against Japan than to be killed by the Communist Party. As a player in the anti-Japan resistance, he would be a hero. Killed by the Communist Party, he would be nothing. So Chiang Kai-shek accepted the agreement on the 24th day about the unity with the Communist Party to fight Japan, etc. But he did not sign on the agreement. Some of Zhang’s subordinates were not satisfied. Zhang said that if Chiang wanted to go back from the agreement once he was released, he would do that even if he signed the agreement. If Chiang kept his promise, what did it matter that he signed it or not.
Chiang Kai-shek was let go in the afternoon of December 25, and Zhang accompanied him back to Nanking. He was kept in secret confinement till Chiang Kai-shek died on April 5, 1975. Then he was restored to freedom and died on October 15, 2001, in Hawaii. This event ended the war between the Communist Party and the National Party and began the Sino–Japanese war all over China.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-25 07:53 Chapter 3. The Japanese Invasion of China
Events Leading Up to the Sino–Japanese War in 1937
The 9/18 event
The Japanese army had begun entering China even during the latter stages of the Qing Dynasty. Around the beginning of the 20th century. Russia had built a railroad in northeastern China. In 1905, Russia and Japan had had a war there, on the territory of China, and Japan took control of the part of the railroad from Changchun City south, called the South Manchuria Railway.
A legend about the origin of the Japanese says that 2,000 years ago, when the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty was on the throne, his next ambition was to live eternally. He sent a man by name of Xu Fu to go east in ships together with 100 boys and 100 girls. It was said that there were islands in the eastern seas on which dwelt immortals. The errand of Xu Fu was to find these immortals and ask for an elixir. Once he got it, he was to bring it back to the emperor. Xu Fu reached the Japanese islands and lived there with boys and girls, never returning to China. Those were said to be the earliest inhabitants and the earliest ancestors of the Japanese.
About 10:22PM on September 18, 1931, some Japanese soldiers laid gunpowder under the rails of the South Manchuria railway for blew it up. This part of the line went by the Liutiao Lake, a bit north of Shenyang City. Then they left three Chinese corpses in the uniform of Chinese soldiers as evidence that it was Chinese soldiers who had blown up the rails. On this excuse, the Japanese army attacked the Chinese army in Shenyang City. The Chinese army was ordered not to cause trouble with the Japanese army; so two of the three Chinese regiments guarding the city withdrew. But the third 620th regiment did not receive the order, and of course, resisted the attack. The next afternoon, Japanese reinforcements came and the Japanese army entered the city. They encountered resistance and fought street by street till all the regiment fled the city. This was called the Liutiao Lake Incident (or Mukden Incident, by foreigners), and was the beginning of the whole 9/18 event. But this was not really counted as the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War as the Chinese central government did not declare war against Japan yet.
On September 19, Japanese army attacked and conquered 18 towns along the South Manchuria Railway. The defensive Chinese army in Changchun City also counterattacked the Japanese army, but on the next day, the city fell into Japanese hands. On September 21, Xie, chief-of-staff of the headquarters of the Chinese army in Jilin province, changed sides and went over to Japan. So the Japanese army took Jilin. On October 1, Zhang Haipeng, guarding Tiaoliao Town, changed sides, and under instruction from the Japanese sent three regiments of his army to assault Qiqihar City, but on October 16, they were defeated by the Chinese defenders. By the 26th of October, the Japanese army had occupied the chief towns along the Sitiao Railroad. From November 4 to 18, the Chinese army in Heilongjiang province fought the Japanese army. Then they had to retreat from Qiqihar after leaving heavy casualties, and the next day, the Japanese army entered it.
At the start of the 9/18 event, Zhang Xueliang, who was responsible for all the northeastern provinces, left Shenyang for Jinzhou. On the 8th of October, the Japanese army sent 12 bombers to raid Jinzhou. On the 15th of December, after occupying the important towns of Heilongjiang province, the Japanese army began to attack Jinzhou. On the 17th, reinforcement came directly from Japan. On December 28, the 2nd division of the Japanese army crossed Liao River to attack Jinzhou. On January 3, 1932, the Japanese army took Jinzhou. On February 5, the Japanese army occupied Harbin City. These battles were still not written in Chinese history as the outbreak of Sino-Japanese War.
The army in the northeastern provinces under the command of Zhang Xueliang had 18 brigades of foot soldiers, five independent brigades of cavalry, and four regiments and a battalion of artillery, plus 262 airplanes and fleets. They could have fought off the Japanese invaders, but they simply abandoned the northeastern provinces. A shameful strategy.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-27 08:06 The 1/28 event
After Japan occupied northeastern China, it took aim at southeastern China.
Shanghai was an ideal place for Japan. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon on January 18, 1932, five Japanese monks were instructed by the traitor Kawashima Yoshiko, formerly the Last Princess of Manchuria and now a Japanese spy using a Japanese name, to throw stones at workers at a Chinese factory. This caused a fight to break out. But some thugs were sent by the Japanese, and they beat one of the five monks to death and severely injured another. Then 50 Japanese young men went to the factory at midnight on January 19 and burned the factory down and murdered three policemen.
On January 20, around a thousand overseas Japanese in Shanghai held a demonstration to demand the Japanese consulate and the Japanese Mariner headquarters take revenge on the Chinese. But on the way there, they began to riot and smashed Chinese shops.
On January 21, the Japanese general consul demanded the Mayor of Shanghai to apologize, punish the murderers, make compensation for the losses, and disband all the anti-Japanese organizations. Although the mayor accepted all of these demands, the consul further ordered that the Chinese army back away from Zhabei district on the pretext that they posed a threat to the overseas Japanese. He added that if Chinese army did not leave before 6:00PM on January 28, they would attack. On January 24, more Japanese mariners came to Shanghai. At 11:30 at night on January 28, Japanese mariners attacked the Zhabei district in Shanghai, which was in the control of the 19th army of the national government. The 19th army fearlessly resisted the Japanese attack with the support of the people of Shanghai, which forced the Japanese to accept the mediation of England and America for a truce. But on February 3, the fight started anew. On the 23rd, a fierce battle took place and 3,000 Japanese mariners and 2,000 Chinese soldiers were killed. On February 24, two more divisions from Japan arrived in Shanghai as reinforcements. Only the 5th army of the national government came to the aid. On March 3, with the mediation of England and America, the Songhu armistice was signed. The Chinese army were to be stationed in the region from Shanghai to Suzhou City. But Japan could still have their army in Shanghai.
One episode during all this took place on April 29 when Japan held a military parade in Hongkou Park to celebrate the birthday of the Japanese emperor, or “Sumera mikoto,” and their victory. A Korean hero, disguised as a Japanese man, entered the park with a grenade in the shape of a water flask. When the Japanese were singing their anthem, he flung the grenade onto the platform, where it exploded. The chairman of the committee for the Japanese in Shanghai died on the spot. The commander of the Japanese army in Shanghai for the event was severely injured and died in the hospital. A regiment commander and the Japanese envoy for China each broke a leg. And one eye of the commander of the 3rd fleet was blinded. The Korean hero was caught and sentenced to death; he was sent to Japan and executed at a Japanese army base. After World War II, his remains were taken back to Korea and a monument was erected in his honor in Hongkou Park in Shanghai.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-28 07:55 The establishment of Manchukuo
Afraid of international interference, Japan desired to establish a puppet government in northeastern China, and they thought of the abdicated emperor Henry. He was 18 years old when he was driven out of the Forbidden City on November 5, 1924; he escaped to the Japanese embassy and traveled to Tianjin City, and lived under the protection of Japan ever since. So he was their first choice for the puppet government.
Therefore, Henry was escorted from Tianjin City on the 10th of November, 1931, to Changchun City, where Manchukuo (meaning the state of Manchuria) was established on March 1, 1932, with Changchun as its capital and Henry as the head of Manchukuo.
On the 15th of September, 1932, the Japan–Manchukuo Protocol was signed, in which Manchukuo asked that Japan station its army on its territory. On September 23, 1932, the Soviet Union consented to allow Manchukuo to set up consulates in Moscow and New Siberia. But the League of Nations reproved Japan for this and disavowed Manchukuo as an illegal entity. On February 24, 1933, the League of Nations declared that Manchuria belonged to the Republic of China, as the establishment of Manchukuo had not been decided by popular vote but by the government of Japan. The League of Nations adopted the “Stimson Doctrine” specifying that new states created by force of arms would not gain international recognition. Japan protested and withdrew from the League. Of course, the national government in Nanking also refused to recognize it.
On March 1, 1934, the designation Manchukuo was changed to Manchu Empire, and Henry got to be Emperor once again. On May 24, 1934, El Salvador recognized the Manchu Empire. On April 6, 1935, Emperor Henry visited Tokyo, Japan, for the first time and the Sumera mikoto came to welcome him at the railway station. On November 28, 1936, Italy signed a protocol with Japan recognizing the Manchu Empire. On February 20, 1937, Germany recognized it and signed a treaty in Berlin on the 12th of May. In August of 1940, Denmark recognized the Manchu Empire. A handful of other nations also recognized it.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-10-30 07:43 Changchun City, as the capital of this empire, had expanded to cover an area of 30 square miles by 1944 and its population reached 1,217,000, larger than the population of Tokyo at the time. The population was composed of Manchus, Han, Mongolians, Koreans, Russians, and of course, two million Japanese (as Japanese citizens, not subjects of the Manchu Empire). The total population was divided into different classes according to their different tribes. Among the regulations that reflected this stratification was one prohibiting non-Japanese residents from eating rice and white flour. Any non-Japanese resident, if found to have rice or white flour, was taken in as an “economical criminal.” Three languages were used officially: Chinese (Han), Mandarin (the language of Manchu officials) and Japanese. As the population was mostly of the Han tribe, Chinese was the chief official language.
However, on February 24, 1942, Poland abolished its recognition of the so-called empire and in August, 1945, the empire came to an end when Japan surrendered and the Soviet Army occupied its territory. Henry abdicated once again on August 17 and was captured by the Soviet army as a prisoner of war.
He was handed over to the Communist Party of China. He was released on December 4, 1959, and died of uremia on October 17, 1967.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-1 07:26 The 12/9 event
After Japan seized the northeastern provinces, they wanted to encroach more provinces further south such as Chahar and Hebei. They intended to establish another puppet government in these provinces. But the Chinese people had had enough. The students rose up in protest. At 10:00AM on December 9, 1935, three thousand students from universities and high schools in Peking demonstrated in opposition to such Japanese aggression. They fought with the police. Many students were injured and at least ten students were arrested. On December 10, all the students in Peking went on strike.
Students in Hangzhou followed suit. On December 11, the Peking government (still controlled by the Republic of China) sent policemen to the universities and schools to forbid the students going out to demonstrate. On December 12, students in Shanghai, Nanking, Wuhan, Canton, and many other big cities gave their support. The next day, the principals of six universities in Peking told the students that they must go back to classes since those who had been in custody were all released. On the 15th, the mayor of Peking invited student representatives to have a talk. On the 16th, the Peking government and the university authorities announced that any students who refused to attend class would be punished. But on the same day, 10,000 students went out to demonstrate again, and around 30 students were arrested and about 400 injured. Then 20,000 Peking residents joined in. Workers and shop owners all went on strike. On December 17, the mayor asserted that the students were being instigated by the Communist Party.
In January, 1936, students in Peking and Tianjin organized propaganda groups to go south among the workers and peasants to let them know about the invasion by Japan and calling on them to rise up against the Japanese. On March 31, Guo Qing, a student at the 17th high school in Peking, died in prison. Students indignantly crowded into the streets, carrying his coffin. On May 28, all Peking was protesting, with the slogans “Down with Japan” and “The 29th army must fight Japan.” On May 30, the commander of the 29th army announced that if the Japanese army moved any further, it would face resistance. On June 13, students in Peking demonstrated again, and this time the police did not interfere; on the contrary, they showed their sympathy. On December 12, students held the fifth demonstration. These student protests, though not enough to prevent the Japanese from trespassing further into China, roused the Chinese people at large to resist the invaders.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-3 07:59 The Outbreak of the Sino–Japanese War, Or the Anti-Japanese War
The double 7s event—Lugou Bridge event
At 7:30PM on the 7th of July (07/07), 1937, the Japanese army, stationed at the other side of Lugou Bridge over the Yongding River (with the Chinese army on this side of the bridge), 15 km from Peking, began to exercise, conducting a sham battle in the deserted fields under their control close to Wanping Town. (Wanping had been founded in 1540 in the Ming Dynasty as a satellite town for the defense of Peking.) At about 12:40 that night, reports of gun shots were heard by the Chinese soldiers across the river. Japanese officers said that a soldier in their army had gone missing in the exercise and they heard reports of guns, so the soldier must have been killed by Chinese soldiers. On this pretext they tried to come into Wanping town to search for him. The Chinese army guarding the town, of course, refused their request, answering that everyone in the town was asleep and must not be disturbed, and besides, no Chinese soldier had fired a shot. Therefore, at 5 o’clock in the morning on July 8, they opened fire on the defensive Chinese army at this side of the bridge and also blasted the town with artillery. The Chinese army had to fight back. Historians consider this is the event that lit the fuse of the Sino–Japanese War.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-4 08:25 Next day, the Communist Party sent out a public telegram to call on people to resist the Japanese invaders. And Chiang Kai-shek made a speech, saying, “No matter where you are, in the south or in the north, no matter who you are, old or young, everyone has the responsibility to resist, everyone must be determined to make a sacrifice.” in the previous six years Chiang Kai-shek had stuck to a policy of not fighting the Japanese because he was not confident they could achieve the final victory, and he needed time to prepare. He had hired German advisors to train his officers and soldiers up to German standards. He stored ammunition and expanded his air force. He communicated with England, the US and Russia seeking diplomatic support. Though he lacked the self-confidence to win the war, he foresaw that the final victory belonged to China. As a small country, however strong militarily, Japan could never occupy such a big country like China.
In the first two days of fighting, Japan could see that they were not going to take the bridge easily. So they proposed peace talks to make time to gather more troops. Japan maneuvered its army from Korea and northeastern China to where the battles were, amassing 400,000 troops. On July 9, 11 and 19, peace agreements were signed three times, but they were useless, only serving to numb the Chinese army with a false outlook of peace.
On July 25, the Japanese army suddenly attacked the Chinese army stationed at Langfang, and 14 Japanese airplanes raided the barracks of the Chinese army. At noon on July 26, the Japanese army occupied Langfang. Then Japan demanded the Chinese army to withdraw from the region of Peking and Tianjin City, a demand that was of course rejected. At 1:00AM on July 26, a Japanese regiment started from Tianjin City and arrived at Fengtai, close to Peking, at 2:00PM. They asked to enter Peking to protect their citizens in the city. They were permitted in. When just half of the regiment was inside the city gates, the Chinese army fired at them. The regiment was cut in two, half inside and half outside the city. The inside half escaped to the embassy area, into the Japanese barracks in the Japanese embassy. The other half returned to Fengtai. On July 28, the Japanese army started to assault Peking. Chinese army resisted and suffered huge sacrifices. In the night of July 28, the Chinese army had to retreat from Peking. The next day, Japan took Peking, and the day after, Tianjin City fell into their hands as well.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-6 09:03 The 8/13 event—battle in Shanghai
In southern China, Japan wanted to occupy Shanghai. On August 9, two Japanese mariners in Shanghai drove a car and trespassed into the Hongqiao airport area to fire guns, but they were shot dead by the Chinese guards. On August 13, Japanese mariners following their tanks attacked the Chinese army stationed along the Songhu railway, but they were beaten. On August 14, the national government made a statement calling for self-defense in resistance of Japan. The statement was really a general mobilization order to all Chinese people. The central national government organized several military blocs to defend Shanghai. On August 15, the Japanese government issued a statement, too, saying that in order to punish the Chinese army for its rash action and to urge the Nanking government not to take severe steps, the Japanese government had to resort to war. They sent more troops by sea to the Shanghai area. In joint action with the mariners, the Japanese army planned to occupy the strategically important zone in the north of Shanghai.
Chiang Kai-shek divided the warring area into five zones. Shanghai was in the third zone. On August 17, the Chinese army counterattacked and the 87th division took the Japanese sailors’ club. The 88th division fought Japanese troops in Hongkou park. The two divisions jointly broke through the Japanese defensive line to Huishan wharf. At the same time, the Chinese air force attacked that of Japan and also their warships. They downed 47 Japanese airplanes and sank one Japanese cruiser. Two divisions sailed from Japan to the eastern region of Shanghai, arriving on the 22nd. And on the 23rd, they landed at Wusong district. On August 24, the Chinese 15th military bloc entered Shanghai and assailed the two Japanese divisions just as they were setting foot on land. On September 1, a thousand Japanese soldiers attacked the Chinese cannon site and both had heavy casualties. Japan gathered 30 warships to support their army in an attack at Baoshan.
After September 11, Chiang Kai-shek himself took the command of the third zone. From then till the beginning of October, the Japanese army increased to 200,000 strong. But they did not have a decisive advantage over the Chinese army till early November. At dawn on November 5, under the cover of heavy fog and lifted by the rising tide, Japanese army landed at Hangzhou Bay. On November 6, they took Jinshan and used a vise strategy to attack the Chinese army from two sides. On November 8, under such unfavorable conditions, Chiang had to give order to retreat. On November 9, the Japanese army occupied Songjiang Town and on November 12 they took Shanghai. During the battles, the people of Shanghai had contributed 3.3 million yuan to support the Chinese army.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-8 08:45 The battles in Shanxi province
The Japanese army from north marched toward Pingxing Pass in Shanxi province on the 24th of September, 1937, but the Chinese army was lying in wait for them. A Japanese regiment entered the ambush zone and was annihilated. On September 29, the Japanese army broke through the Chinese army’s defensive line at Ruyuekou and attacked the rear of Chinese army at Pingxing Pass. The Chinese army had to beat a retreat to Taiyuan City, capital of Shanxi province. Qikou was an important strategic place, the gate to Taiyuan. On October 14, the Japanese army used a vise ruse to attack Qikou from two wings, but met with strong resistance. There were heavy casualties on both sides. On October 21, the Japanese army sent a division to attack Niangzi Pass with the intention of going in as an indirect route to take Taiyuan from the north side. On October 26, a Japanese division sent a detachment to go round to the back of the Chinese army defending Niangzi Pass. The Chinese army in the Pass had to withdraw. The Japanese army took Niangzi Pass and chased the retreating Chinese to Yangquan. Then the Japanese army occupied Yangquan and marched toward Shouyang, closer to Taiyuan, on the 2nd of November.
Another Japanese military bloc took a different route and took Xiyang on its way to Taiyuan on November 2. The two Japanese blocs converged on Taiyuan. On November 3, the Japanese 5th bloc reached the northern edges of Taiyuan. On November 5, the Japanese broke through the Chinese defensive line and approached the city wall on November 6. In the meantime, the Japanese 20th military bloc penetrated the Chinese defensive line in the southern perimeter. On November 7, the Japanese army surrounded Taiyuan and on the 8th they began an onslaught on the city; at night they entered the city from the northern side. The Chinese army had to escape and then the Japanese army took the whole city.
In February of 1938, the Japanese 108th military bloc took Dongyang Pass and then another two towns. In early March, more towns were taken. By then all the important cities and towns in Shanxi province had fallen into the hands of Japan. Out of 105 cities and towns in Shanxi province, 102 of them were occupied by Japanese army.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-10 08:23 The slaughter in Nanking
By October 1937, Nanking, the capital of the national government, was exposed to the attack of Japanese army. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek decided to set up a temporary capital in Chongqing City in Sichuan province in southwestern China, at a safe distance from the Japanese army.
At first some generals persisted in defending Nanking at any cost. So the national government gathered 100,000 soldiers for that purpose. No matter, as Japanese army approached Nanking, the government at last had to declare that the government was moving to Chongqing City on the 20th of November. Government offices, universities and schools moved inland, one after another. Even residents of the city escaped from Nanking. In June, there were 1,015,000 residents in the city, but in December, only 468,000 or 568,000 remained. On the 20th of December, for humanitarian reasons, over 20 Westerners were still there organizing the international committee of the Nanjing safety zone to take in and protect refugees.
The Chinese national government recognized their efforts and supplied them with cash, food and police protection. Japan was far from pleased, but declared that if there were no Chinese soldiers hiding there, they would not attack it. But after they took the city, their soldiers forced entry into the zone, stealing private belongings, raping women and arresting and killing young men. Several times the international committee made protests to the Japanese embassy and Japanese army authorities, but in vain. During this slaughter, the committee protected 250,000 refugees. On the 18th of February, 1938, the organization was renamed the Nanking international rescue committee, acting only in a rescue role. By June, it was closed entirely.
On the 7th of November, Tokyo gave orders to limit the action of the Japanese army to the east of Suzhou and Jiaxing region. But the army ignored the order and pursued the retreating Chinese army, intending to occupy Nanking. They advanced quickly as no Chinese army fought them on the way. Seeing this, Tokyo issued orders to take Nanking on December 1.
The Japanese army marched so fast that their supply units were left far behind. When they were approaching Nanking, food was scarce. The soldiers pillaged the Chinese villages for anything edible and wantonly violated women. To cover their crimes, they even slew all the people in the village and burned everything. As they came to Nanking, at least 30,000 Chinese people were killed along the way. It was a rehearsal for the slaughter in Nanking.
On December 8, the Japanese army took all the defensive sites outside Nanking. The worst battle took place at Yuhua Terrace outside the city. Two Chinese brigades were guarding the place. From December 9–11, the Japanese army kept on sending reinforcements for the attack, aided by their artillery and air raids, until every Chinese soldier was killed. When the Japanese troops reached the terrace, no one was alive. Then the Japanese army cleared all the defensive lines outside the city, and the Chinese army in the city had to retreat. On December 13, the Japanese army entered the city. Some Chinese soldiers who did not have time to escape stripped off their uniforms and disguised themselves as civilians. Some ten thousand Chinese were taken captive. They were all killed on instructions from the Japanese army authorities. They also searched for other Chinese soldiers in disguise. Anyone they suspected was killed. Many of them were really unarmed civilians. They even murdered old people and children. They killed all the women they had raped.
On December 13, 1937, a Japanese newspaper, Tokyo nichi nichi (mainichi shimbun), reported that two Japanese officers, Mukai Ming and Noda Takeshi, had a competition to see who could kill more Chinese people. Encouraged by their superiors, they declared that whoever was first to kill 100 Chinese people was a hero. They practiced this slaying from Gourong to Tangshan, and Mukai Ming killed 89 while Noda Takeshi killed 78. Certainly, we can all agree they were not heroes. However, the competition continued. When they met at Mt. Zinjin, both had dented the blades of their swords. Noda Takeshi said that he had killed 105 and Mukai Ming said that he had killed 106. However, there was no witness. So they started the competition anew, aiming at 150. The newspaper ran pictures with captions. Both these brave men were executed in Nanking for their crimes after the surrender of Japan.
Statistics show that during the two months the Japanese occupied Nanking, about 80,000 women were raped, some of them pregnant, from girls as young as 12 to women as old as 65. Many died after the violence. They raped women right in front of their families. Many people were buried alive. The victims were forced by the Japanese soldiers to dig their own pits. During the six weeks of the occupation, 23.8% of structures inside and outside the city were destroyed by fire, 63% had been plundered and 88.5% were structurally damaged. They used military trucks to carry away their loot. By some estimates, 26,584 antique curios or artifacts were missing, such as bronze wares from the Shang Dynasty (1765–1122 BC), along with 7,720 paintings and 45,979 valuable books. Some 109,000 casualties were found and buried. The Nanking branch of the World Red Swastika Society gave out statistics in 1945 claiming that from December 22, 1937 to October 30, 1938, they found and buried 43,123 bodies—1,793 inside the city and 41,330 outside the city, including 75 women and 20 children. Those statistics were from just one organization. The victims totaled 300,000 in all.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-11 08:19 The battles in Shandong province
Now the Japanese army occupied the north of China and also Shanghai and the Nanking area. What more could they want? Well, the Shandong province, which is between the northern provinces and the southern area. Shandong province was then still under the control of the Chinese army. Xuzhou City was a place of strategic importance. So battles were waged in its vicinity and expanding into adjoining provinces. If the Japanese army occupied Xuzhou, they could go west along the Longhai railway to attack Zhengzhou in Henan province and then go south along the Pinghan railway to attack Wuhan in Hubei province. So the Japanese army came down from the north and came up from the south.
At the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, Han Fuju, the chairman of the government of Shandong province, was ordered to take charge of the defensive line along the Yellow River and prevent the Japanese army from crossing the river. But when the Japanese army rushed down upon him from the north, he fled as if to open the gate and invite the enemy in. The Japanese army easily crossed the river. In early March 1938, they occupied JiNan, the capital of Shandong province.
On the 26th of January, 1938, the 13th division of the Japanese army marched from the south towards Fengyang and Bangbu in Anhui province. The Chinese army stationed there, after efforts at resistance, fell back towards the west. On the 3rd of February, the Japanese division took Linhuai Pass and Bangbu. On February 9–10, the 13th division crossed the Huai River to the north. The 51st Chinese army stationed itself on the north bank and fought the Japanese army.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-13 13:11 Between March 1–17, the Japanese army attacked Teng Town in the southern Shandong province. On March 14, the battle reached its climax. The Japanese army used 30 cannons. On March 17, Teng Town was lost.
Meanwhile in late February, the Japanese 5th military bloc came down to the south, after taking over a few towns, and approached Linqi Town where the 40th army of the national government held the defense. Then the 59th Chinese army came for reinforcement. From February 14 to 18, the 59th Chinese army attacked the Japanese bloc from the rear and one wing. The Japanese had to retreat this time, leaving behind heavy casualties.
On March 20 a Japanese brigade, after taking a few towns, approached TaiEr village area, which was the front defensive line to Xuzhou. The brigade attacked alone without waiting for the 5th division and another brigade of their army; they were supposed to break through the defensive lines on the left wing and on the right wing. From March 24, the Japanese army assailed fiercely. The 2nd Chinese military bloc held the line. Then the 20th Chinese bloc attacked the Japanese army from behind. The 59th Chinese army arrived in time to contribute their endeavors. They surrounded the Japanese army. The 10th Japanese corps was wiped out and the 5th Japanese corps was put to rout. It was the first and only time that the Chinese army defeated the Japanese army in the early period of Anti-Japanese War.
Anyway, Japan aimed at taking Xuzhou. On the 18th of April, two Japanese divisions attacked the 20th, the 3rd and the 59th Chinese armies. On the 5th of May, the main forces of the Japanese army divided into two detachments and went from west side of Xuzhou to the north and south sides of the city, intending to surround it. On May 14, the 14th Japanese division came from Puyang in Henan province, and crossing the Yellow River, occupied Heze. On May 15, the Japanese army surrounded Xuzhou. So under the command of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese army in Xuzhou broke through the circle and escaped to the mountainous area in Henan and Anhui provinces. Xuzhou was at length taken by the Japanese army on May 19.
Now the Japanese army marched west along the Longhai railway and on the 6th of June occupied Kaifeng City in Henan province. To prevent the Japanese army from any further advance, Chiang ordered his men to blow up the south dike of the Yellow River at Huayuankou on May 9, on the northeastern side of Zhengzhou in Henan province. The water from the river flooded south and the Japanese army had to flee eastward. Thus ended the battles in Shandong province. Han Fuju was executed for running away from the battlefield and allowing the Japanese to cross the Yellow River unopposed.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-15 08:28 The battles at Wuhan City area
After taking Nanking, the Japanese army wanted to conquer China in three months with blitzkrieg attacks like Hitler did in Europe. They marched along the Yangtze River towards Wuhan, gathering large numbers of troops, amounting to 300,000 strong. If they took Wuhan, half of China would be in their possession. But they neglected to consider that even so, they only occupied the cities and towns in this half of China, not the whole area. They had no manpower to control the countryside. As they pushed forward, they had to leave some of their troops to guard the cities and towns they had captured. And so they could use less and less troops, and then there were those lost in battle. Poor strategy.
The Chinese army totaled 1,100,000 in defense. The whole defensive line extended for 250 miles. The fighting went on for four and a half months, the longest in terms of time and the largest in scale of all the battles between Japan and China. The Japanese casualties were 35,500 while those of the Chinese army were 256,000. After that, the Japanese did not have enough forces in China to make the lightning attacks they preferred; now they had to change their strategy and concentrate on keeping a hold on what they had secured so far.
On the night of the 11th of June, 1938, a Japanese brigade, under the cover of a rainy night, gave a surprise attack and took Anqin the following day. Anqin was the first defensive spot en route to Wuhan. Then they went west by water, riding their warships. In late June, they arrived at Madang, where the Chinese army had built a strong defensive line. Chiang Kai-shek hoped that this line could block their advance for at least one month.
At first, the Japanese army wanted to get through the line by water. On June 22, they approached Madang and found that the water was full up mines, sunken ships, and artificial reefs so that their warships could not go through. They had to advance by land and break through the line through the mountainous areas.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-17 08:31 Li Yunheng, the Chinese commander in charge of the defense in Madang, wished to show that he was a clever general—without realizing how serious the situation was. He organized a training class for officers in charge of regiments, battalions, companies and platoons in his army for two weeks starting on June 10. And at 8 o’clock in the morning June 24, he thought he would hold a ceremony marking the completion of the class. So on the 23rd, all the officers went to the headquarters and stayed there for the ceremony next morning. Someone in the training class was spying for the Japanese and gave this information to the Japanese army. So they sent surprise squads to attack some of the fortresses along the front. As there were no officers to direct the action of the soldiers, there was chaos and the squads took the fortresses easily. But when the squads went on to attack Changshan, they encountered strong resistance, because the officers there had refused to attend the ceremony. The fight lasted for two days and the Chinese troops were short of ammunition and telegrammed headquarters. The 167th division was sent as reinforcement. But Xue Weiying, the commander of this division, was a coward and approached slowly to avoid being killed in the battle. At dawn on the 26th, the Japanese squads stole through a thick patch of reeds to attack another frontier post. They used poisonous gas and killed all the defensive soldiers there. Then the Japanese army cleared all mines in the water by firing at them and got rid of other barriers. They shipped mariners to attack Changshan and broke through the defensive line there. The Chinese defense had to withdraw out of Madang and the Japanese army occupied it. Madang was the ‘gate’ in the middle of the Yangtze River to Wuhan. Commander Li Yunheng was severely punished and the division leader Xue Weiying was executed for neglect of his duties.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-18 08:36 After taking Madang, the Japanese army continued west. On the 29th of June, they took Pengze. Under orders from Wuhan headquarters, the 64th Chinese army came in hopes of taking back the town, but it was defeated and chased to Hukou, which was soon taken by the Japanese army on the 4th of July. The 64th Chinese army then went to Jiujiang, which was situated by the Poyang Lake. On July 22, the Japanese army attacked the city. At dawn on July 23, the Japanese army stole into the lake in the rain and set foot on the shore at noon. The Chinese defensive army did not see them coming. They spotted the enemy and reported to headquarters only at 4 o’clock. By then, the Japanese army had surrounded the city. The Chinese army inside had to fight through the circle and escape. The city fell into the hands of the Japanese army on July 24.
The next goal of the Japanese army was Tianjia Town. The hilly ground was easy to defend and hard to attack. The river was only 500 meters wide. The Chinese army set up a strong defense here with artillery. On the 21st of August, the Japanese army attacked Matou Town, about 10 miles downstream from Tianjia Town, and took it after more than 20 days of struggle. On the 26th, the Japanese army sailed in warships upstream towards the town. There were more barriers in the water, so the Japanese army advanced very slowly. On August 29, another Japanese detachment went to attack Guangji. If they could take this town, they could go on to attack Tainjia from behind. Tianjia Town was about 25 miles northeast of Guangji Town. The attack began on August 30 and lasted until September 6. Between Guangji Town and Tianjia Town there was only a narrow road between two small lakes. The Japanese army followed that road on September 15. There were some defensive outposts set along this road. Coming to a roadblock, they used poisonous gas again. Some Chinese soldiers were injured and the Chinese army had to retreat.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-20 08:30 The Japanese mariners went to Wuxue, some distance from Tianjia. Wuxue was defended only by a company of Chinese soldiers. In the evening of September 15, the mariners began the offensive. The defensive soldiers fought the invaders alley by alley till only a few soldiers left, and they slipped away. But before they left, they destroyed the dike at the river bank and the water flooded Wuxue area, which hindered the advance of the mariners.
A Japanese brigade that was surrounded by the Chinese army was running short of rations and ammunition. A Japanese commander learned about this and called for an air lift to re-supply them. So Japanese airplanes dropped the necessities and ammunition to the brigade. But as the fighting continued, their ammunition was soon used up. The Japanese soldiers were reduced to throwing stones at the Chinese attackers and sometimes threw back the grenades the Chinese soldiers cast at them. The Chinese army figured out that the enemy was in a tight spot and marched forth in a downpour of rain to wipe them out. However, more Japanese troops came to the rescue and assailed the Chinese army from behind, so they had to withdraw. Few men in the Japanese brigade were left alive.
On September 23, some of the wounded Japanese soldiers were shipped away, but the first field hospital was still full. Because of the lack of helping hands, those who were lightly wounded and who could still walk, went to the field hospital by themselves. Sometimes they had to crawl in the rain and in the mud. By the time they reached the hospital, they were almost dying. Some died on the way owing to the loss of blood. The hospital had little food to spare and could only give them what they had. War is cruel to all participants.
After the sunset on the 26th, the 4th Japanese battalion attacked Xinwo. Their soldiers all put on gas masks and cleared out the Chinese company there, except about ten of them who had already escaped. The Japanese soldiers then went in and used bayonets to kill any Chinese soldiers that had not died yet.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-22 08:58 The 4th battalion went towards Lujia Mountain without leaving any soldiers to guard Xinwo. It was dark and the mountain contours were complicated. The 4th battalion lost its way in the mountains. The 339th Chinese regiment was taking shelter on this mountain. But after a few battles, only one battalion was left. As Xinwo was lost, the regiment commander chose some hundred soldiers to form an expendable squad to make one last try at Xinwo. When they reached there, they found no Japanese soldiers guarding the place. But by coincidence the 2nd Japanese battalion came into their firing zone. The Japanese troops thought that their 4th battalion had already wiped out by the Chinese soldiers defending the city, but now they encountered the Chinese squad by surprise. So 61 soldiers of the 2nd Japanese battalion were killed and 17 escaped. At daybreak, the 4th battalion found that they were at the foot of Lujia Mountain and they climbed up to attack the Chinese soldiers on the top, who were just ready for breakfast. When they detected Japanese soldiers creeping up the mountainside, they disappeared.
In the early morning of September 28, the cannons from the warships on the river and from land poured heavy fire upon Tianjia and all the defensive structures and weaponry were destroyed. It looked like a sea of flames. At the same time, all the outer defensive spots were lost. The Chinese army in Tianjia was ordered to withdraw. At 10 o’clock on September 29, when the Japanese army entered the town, the Chinese defenders were nowhere to be seen.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-24 08:02 At the same time, the 106th Japanese military bloc had been marching south along Nanxun railroad to Nanchang. On the August 20, this bloc, aided by the 101th Japanese bloc, broke through the Chinese defensive line at Xingzi. But the Chinese army had a second defensive line. The two Japanese blocs could not go further this time. In September 1938, a Japanese reconnaissance airplane found that there was a gap in the defensive line after the fight had been going on for a month. So the 106th Japanese bloc was sent to go stealthily through that gap and come upon the Chinese defensive army to attack them from behind. On September 25, the 106th bloc began to steal through the gap, but lost their way in the mountains. They were soon discovered and surrounded by Chinese soldiers. On October 7, the Chinese army attacked and the fight went on for three days. The bloc had no reinforcements and ran out of ammunition. On September 10, 3,000 Japanese soldiers died. The rest escaped.
On the August 27, the 2nd Japanese army attacked Dabie Mountain area and took LiuAn and Huoshan. They split into two detachments. The first went through the Dabie Mountain area to approach Wuhan directly. The second detachment went to Lushan through a circuitous route to Wuhan. But Mt. Fujin was right on their way to Wuhan. They had to occupy Mt. Fujin first. A severe battle commenced. They failed to take the mountain by September 6. On September 11, the 16th Japanese bloc came for reinforcement. The Chinese defensive army in the mountains had to withdraw. As the Japanese army approached Wuhan, there was no more Chinese army seen. The Chinese army already retreated from Wuhan, leaving the city to the Japanese army.
Although the Japanese army took control of many cities and towns, they really did not annihilate the Chinese army, which still had enough strength to fight back when needed. On the contrary, the Japanese army suffered great losses and had no more strength to wage battles on a large scale. As China is such a huge country, even with all the Japanese armies thrown into the territory of China, they could not cover the whole area of the nation. Besides, when they took a city, they took on an additional burden. As they acquired more and more burdens, they had less and less strength to fight. That has to be factored into any military strategy.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-25 08:31 The Japanese army takes Canton in the south
The top brass of the Japanese army had a meeting on September 7 and decided to overrun southern China as they had already occupied the northern and middle China. Their final goal was to occupy the whole of China and then occupy all the countries in East Asia to establish what they called Great East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
However, historians question why they attacked Pearl Harbor, since Hawaii was not in East Asia. This ill-advised action, or ill-advised stratagem, made them pay heavily when America declared war against them. of course, even if they hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States would finally have joined the war in East Asia after Germany was conquered, because Japan was one of the axis countries, just as the Soviet Union entered northeastern China to fight the Japanese army.
Anyway, Chiang Kai-shek misjudged the situation, thinking that since Japan was still fighting in the Yangtze River area, they could not go south to Canton. So he maneuvered four divisions from the Canton area to support those battling in Wuhan. In other words, he weakened the defensive forces in Canton. But Canton was a harbor city, an outlet to the sea, a place of strategic importance.
On October 12, 1938, the Japanese 18th and 104th blocs set out for Canton by sea and air from the Pescadores Islands (located between the mainland and Taiwan, which was known at the time by the name Formosa, given by the Portuguese) with the aid of four aircraft carriers. They entered Daya Bay in the Guangdong province. The next day, they dropped bombs on Huiyang Town and after three days, they took it. On October 19, they suddenly attacked Zengcheng and put the Chinese defenders to rout. On October 21, the Chinese army withdrew from Canton and the Japanese army took it. Another burden. On October 22, 110 Japanese airplanes and the 5th fleet pounced upon Humen, a very important strategic spot. Within ten days, they occupied Canton and Human.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-27 09:06 The Japanese army attacks Changsha City three times
Although the Japanese army occupied Nanking and Wuhan, two big, important cities, there were other important cities in between that had not taken yet. Changsha was one of them. On the 14th of September, 1939, they gathered 100,000 soldiers and marched towards Changsha. But they had to fight through one Chinese defensive line after another.
The 101th Japanese bloc attacked GaoAn on September 18. On the 19th, the Chinese gave up the town after a severe fight and receded to Shiguling. Then, the Chinese 32nd army counterattacked in GaoAn on September 21. On September 22, the Chinese army took back GaoAn. The Japanese 106th bloc took Ganfang on September 24. The next day, the Chinese counterattacked in Ganfang. On the 6th of October, two Chinese blocs surrounded the Japanese army, who fled back to where they had come from. The Chinese army chased them and took back a few towns that had been captured by the Japanese army. On October 13, Chinese army stopped its pursuit. Thus ended the Changhsha battle for the first time, and the people there had a moment to recover.
In early September of 1941, Japan gathered 120,000 men, with artillery and air support, and marched on Changhai once more. On September 7, the Japanese 6th bloc attacked Dayun Mountain as a decoy to screen the gathering of their 3rd, 4th, and 40th blocs on the right bank of the Xinqiang River. The 4th Chinese army gave up the front line on the mountain. On September 10, the Chinese 58th army came as reinforcements and took back the mountain position. At the daybreak on September 18, the Japanese 3rd, 6th, and 40th blocs crossed the Xinqiang River and the next day they reached the north bank of the Miluo River. The Chinese 37th and 99th armies were stationed on the south bank of the river and they prevented the Japanese army from crossing. Meantime, the Chinese 20th, 58th , and 4th armies went to attack the wing side of the Japanese army. But a telegram from headquarters to the armies at the front was intercepted and deciphered by the Japanese, who changed their original plan and went to assail the Chinese army coming from their wing side. On September 24, the Japanese army crossed the Miluo River. On the 26th, the Japanese 4th bloc crossed Laodao river and the next day crossed Liuyang River and approached Changsha. On the afternoon of September 27, they entered the city from the southeast side and shortly occupied the whole city.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-11-29 09:13 But Chinese armies came from all sides and surrounded the city. The Japanese supply lines were cut and provisions inside the city ran short. On October 1, they had to escape north. So the Chinese army pursued them. On October 5, they caught up with the runaways on the south side of the Miluo River and fought there. The Japanese army had to cross the river to the north side. On October 6, the Chinese army crossed the river, too, keeping up the chase, and they crossed the Xinqiang River on October 8. On October 11, the Chinese army restored all the positions taken by the foe. The second battle for Changsha was over.
After the 7th of December, 1941, when Japan made their semi-secret bombardment of Pearl Harbor, Japan was scheming to attack the Chinese army in Changsha area again lest they should go south to assist the Britain in the defense of Hong Kong.
On December 23, the Japanese army crossed the Xinqiang River once again to pounce upon the Chinese army in Changsha, who put up a firm resistance. Other Chinese armies around the area came to surround the Japanese army, who gradually ran low on ammunition and their supply line was cut off. On January 15, 1942, the Japanese army had to break through the encirclement and escape. They lost 50,000 soldiers.
The victory in these battles made a deep international impression just when the situation appeared unfavorable to the Allies in East Asia. On January 1, 1942, twenty-six nations held an assembly in Washington D.C., and made a joint declaration. The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, the four greatest powers in the world, signed the declaration. And Xue Yue, the commander of the Chinese army in the Changsha defensive war, was conferred a Medal of Honor by American government.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-1 08:37 The battles in Nanning City
On the 1st of September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II broke out in Europe. Japan thought that it would be best to speed up the process of conquering China. Considering that China got all its supplies from international support through its southwestern border, Japan understood it had to cut off this supply line and China would soon surrender. Japan sent army and navy forces to occupy Nanning City in Guangxi province and took control of the railroads there. And the Chinese defensive forces were not so strong there as around Changsha.
On the 9th of November, 1939, the Japanese attackers gathered at Shanya Bay, ready for action. On the 13th, a Japanese fleet started out from Shanya Bay and arrived at Beihai on the 14th. As the Chinese army there was not ready to fight, Beihai soon fell to Japan. On November 17, the Japanese army took Qinzhou and continued north. Guided by bandits through the mountains in that area, the Japanese army accelerated its advance. On November 22, they reached the south bank of the Yong River in the vicinity of Nanning City. But at the time, Chinese armies had already arrived in the city and its outskirts.
On November 23, the Japanese army crossed the Yong River with air cover. At dawn on November 24, the attack on the city began. The Japanese army saw strong resistance, but took the city at last in the afternoon. The Chinese army retreated to Gaofeng Pass. On November 26, the Japanese army attacked the pass, and they captured it by December 1. Three days later they had Kunlun Pass as well. Then, both sides held their respective positions for a while. No fighting went on.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-2 08:59 On December 7, the Chinese army began to attack the invaders. On December 16, the Chinese army surrounded Kunlun Pass. The newly organized Chinese 22nd division went round the pass from its right side to block Japanese reinforcements from Nanning. Two regiments went round from its left side to block the Japanese army’s escape route. At daybreak on December 18, the Chinese army commenced the assault and took Kunlun Pass. At the noon the next day, the Japanese army came back and took the Pass again. It changed hands several times. On December 18th, the Chinese 170th division attacked the Gaofeng Pass defended by the Japanese army and took a hilltop nearby, but that same night, the Japanese army gave a surprise attack and occupied the hilltop again. On December 20, the Japanese army at Kunlun Pass could not hold out anymore. And the reinforcements were blocked. In the afternoon of December 26, both Japanese forces escaped and safely arrived in Nanning.
At night on December 28, the Chinese army attacked Jieshou Highland, the gate to the Kunlun Pass. The following morning, the Chinese army took the highlands, and on the 30th of December, the Chinese army took Kunlun Pass. On December 31, they wiped out all enemies in the area of Kunlun Pass. If the Chinese army could have advanced in the pursuit of their enemies at the time, the situation might have been different.
On January 1, 1940, Japan sent reinforcements, and the warfare continued. On the 7th, Chiang Kai-shek flew to Huilin City and on January 10, went to the headquarters at Qian River to hold a meeting with all the frontier commanders. At that time, Japan had not gathered all the forces it needed. So at the request of some of the commanders, Chiang decided to launch an attack, but next day, when he returned to Liuzhou, he changed his mind and missed the chance to annihilate the remaining foe in that area, which proved that Chiang was not a good military leader.
On January 14, 3,000 Japanese soldiers landed in Qinzhou, and two days later, they began to assail the Chinese army. On the 27th, the Japanese army resumed their assault. The Chinese commanders did not have enough information about the maneuvers of the Japanese army and made a terrible mistake. They did not have enough time to make proper arrangements.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-4 08:55 On February 1, the Japanese army made their all-out attack. But Chiang changed the commander-in-chief at the front, which really runs counter to the fundamental rules of the art of war. In the afternoon on February 2, the Japanese army entered Binyang Town. On February 3, they took Kunlun Pass and other spots. The Battles for Nanning City ended in failure for the Chinese.
It was actually Chiang Kai-shek’s fault, as he often changed orders, confusing his subordinates. Chiang Kai-shek was not really a good commander himself, though he had graduated from a famous military academy in Japan. He should have been able to beat Mao, who had no such advantage but only learned his tactics from Chinese history books. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that Mao was more intelligent than Chiang Kai-shek. Every Chinese person knows that Chiang Kai-shek’s rulership was bad, but many found that the rule of the Communist Party under Mao was worse. Part of this is due to personal characteristics of the leaders, part of it is due to the fact that under Mao China remained on a more-or-less war footing under constant menace from the West, and some of it depends on the position of the people talking. Obviously, when the Communists started expropriating private property, those who had something to lose were never going to forgive them. Some historians said that if Chiang could have beaten Mao, the Chinese people wouldn’t have suffered so much during all the cruel political movements under Mao, some of which were quite poorly thought-out and highly destructive. Even so, no one can claim that the regime in Taiwan, after Chiang Kai-shek’s eventual defeat, was either democratic or open.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-6 08:43 The battles of 100 regiments of the Communist Party
In the Anti-Japanese War, most battles were waged between the Japanese army and the army of the national government. The Communist Party, though having their own army, did their best to shun any major fights with Japan so that they would still have enough forces to fight Chiang Kai-shek after the Anti-Japanese War; this way, they could seize power and rule China.
That was why Mao Zedong thanked the first Japanese delegation when they came to China for saving the Communist Party, and himself too, from the destruction Chiang might have inflicted on them, if Japan hadn’t invaded China. Mao graciously gave up the right to war indemnities from Japan, regardless of the demands of the Chinese people for some compensation for their extraordinary losses.
Anyway, at that time, Japan also wanted to occupy the territory the Communist Party possessed. So warfare did break out at last between the Japanese army and the army of the Communist Party, from the 20th of August to the 10th of September, 1940, in the first stage. The Japanese army was 300,000 strong, while the Communist Party had gathered 105 regiments. They called this the “100 regiments battles.” Their commander-in-chief was Peng Dehuai. At that time, the Red Army changed their name to the 8th Route army, included in the military system of the national government. Their aim was to damage the railroads so that the Japanese army could not get supplies by train. They attacked Zhengtai railway, Tongpu railway, Pinghan railway, and Jinpu railway, especially Zhengtai railway, the main route for the traffic of the Japanese army. Japan in the northern China didn’t have so many soldiers to guard every inch of the rails and as a result, all the four railways did not function any more after the attacks.
From the 22nd of September to the 10th of October, for the second stage, the 8th Route Army attacked some important strategic spots controlled by Japan. At 8:00PM that day, the 8th Route Army began to attack the Lailing area and took some Japanese front fortresses round Laiyuan Town, but they could not break through the defense of the town itself because they did not have effective weapons for that kind of attack. On September 23, they stopped besieging the town and changed their stratagem to first seize the defensive spots outside the town.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-8 08:25 On September 25, they turned to attack the stronghold at Dongyuan. The Japanese army inside gave a robust resistance, even using poison gas. However, they were forced to withdraw to the central redout, which the 8th Route Army then surrounded. As the Japanese soldiers knew that they could never escape, they committed suicide by self immolating.
On September 28, 3,000 Japanese soldiers came as reinforcements. That changed the situation and it was no longer possible to attack the town and so the Chinese forces withdrew. On October 1, the Japanese army took back most of the places that the 8th Route Army had occupied. On October 7, the Japanese army at Lingqiu got some intelligence indicating that the 8th Route Army was planning to attack their position, and so the Japanese just headed out to meet the right wing detachment of the 8th Route Army and give them a trouncing. From the night of October 8 to dawn, the left wing detachment of the 8th Route Army took their chances now that the Japanese army had left their position; they took it over as well as other positions in the vicinity. But on October 10, the 8th Route Army learned that the Japanese army had gathered together and would clean out the area where the 8th Route Army was in place, so they withdrew from the combat. Thus ended another 18 days of warfare.
In this period, the 8th Route Army had suffered heavy casualties, more than the Japanese army had lost. After the combat, Mao Zedong criticized Peng Dehuai for losing so many soldiers. Mao’s intention was to keep his losses as low as possible so that he could fight Chiang Kai-shek after the Anti-Japanese War.
But during the Japanese army’s clean-up operation, the 8th Route Army always retreated to elude any fight with the Japanese army. They called this the mobile warfare strategy. So the Japanese army just vented their disappointment and wrath on the common Chinese people who had supported the 8th Route Army. Records show that on the 25th of January, 1941, when the Japanese army ran a clean-up operation without finding any 8th Route Army soldiers in the northern Hebei province, they just encircled a village called Panjiayu in the area of Fengrun Town and slaughtered 1,237 villagers and burned 1,000 houses there. The 8th Route Army had already escaped, deserting the villagers.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-9 09:06 The campaigns in northern Burma and western Yunnan province
In 1942, a detachment of the Chinese national government army went to Burma through Yunnan province to help fight the Japanese army, who had entered Burma through Thailand on the 4th of January, 1942, and occupied Rangoon (Yongon) on the 8th of March. Japan’s goal was first to cut off the supply line to China from western countries, and second to enter India in the future. The British army was in Burma at that time and fought the Japanese army. The Chinese detachment went to Burma to assist the British army and secure the supply lines.
The Chinese detachment went into Burma in 1942, but at first was defeated by the Japanese army. A section of it escaped to India and was trained there by US advisors, and the other section returned to the western Yunnan province. Both sections would attack the Japanese army in Burma when they were ready.
On October 24, 1943, the 112th regiment of the new 38th division began to attack the Japanese army and on October 29, took Shinbwinyang and entered Hukawng Valley. When the Japanese army there found the regiment, they surrounded it. In resistance, the regiment lived on Japanese bananas and on food delivered by air drops. The Japanese army could not break through their defense. On November 24, the new 38th division came to assist and on November 29, they took the position of the Japanese army, who lost round 1,000 soldiers.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-11 08:22 The campaign continued in January 1944, when the Japanese army receded into the valley and made their defensive line at Dalou and Tabajia. The Chinese new 38th division came to attack Tabajia, and the new 22nd division came to attack Dalou. At dawn on January 28, the American air force came to bombard the Japanese position at Dalou and the tanks of the new 22nd division ran through the Japanese defensive line. The new 22nd division took all the fortresses outside Dalou. On January 31,, Chinese tanks entered Dalou and crushed the Japanese headquarters. On that day, the new 38th division attacked Tabajia. The American air force raided the Japanese army there, who had to retreat. On the 1st of February, the new 38th division occupied Tabajia.
The Japanese army retreated to Mengguan and Walupan, 8 miles apart. They wanted to induce the Chinese army to attack Walupan so that another section of their army could attack from the back. The new 22nd division assaulted Mengguan with artillery and tanks. The new 38th division stationed at the left rear to protect its back. The Japanese section came to attack the new 22th division from behind, but was blocked by the new 38th division. As the new 22nd division attacked for a week and could not secure the place, the new 38th division sent its 113th regiment to attack Walupan to distract the attention of the Japanese army. On March 1, the American 5307 corps reached them and launched their onslaught. So the 22nd division broke through the Japanese defensive line. On the 4th of March, the new 22nd division took Mengguan. Now the Japanese army was surrounded in the narrow strip of Walupan. At noon of the 8th of March, the Chinese army and the American corps jointly attacked Walupan and took it on the 9th of March. Thus ended the campaign in this area.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-13 08:47 The campaigns in the western Hunan province
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the US air force helped China to fight Japan. Towards the termination of the Sino–Japanese War, the Americans got the upper hand over the Japanese air force. American bombers raided important Japanese military bases, including airports. More than once, the American fighter planes engaged Japanese fighter planes in the air and gained victory. There was an airport for US airplanes at the Zhijiang in the western Hunan province. The goal of Japan at the start of this campaign in 1945 was to capture the airport. It was the last major battle in the Sino–Japanese War.
On April 9, 1945, the Japanese 47th military bloc and the 116th bloc started their onslaught at Lantian. The commander of the Chinese defensive 73rd army in that area estimated that the Japanese army had not finished pulling together its forces. And so he gave orders to launch a surprise attack. The Japanese 47th bloc suffered the blow, and later when it was ready, the 47th bloc began to cross the Zi River on April 14. The Chinese commander let the Japanese cross the river, but as most of the Japanese army was reaching the bank of this side of the river, the Chinese army struck them with artillery while American airplanes attacked those Japanese soldiers still on the boat. Many boats were sunken. The Japanese army had a heavy loss.
On April 28, the Japanese 116th bloc was surrounded by the Chinese army and signaled to the 47th bloc for rescue. When the 47th bloc arrived, they could not break the Chinese 73th army’s defense. On the 30th day, the Chinese army fought back and defeated the enemy, aided by air raids. The Japanese army had to retreat back to where they had come from. The battle ended in this district, but the warfare still continued in other districts.
On the 12th of April, the Japanese 34th bloc had attacked Xinning. A Chinese battalion under the 58th division of the 74th Army fought them for three days. Then as the Japanese reinforcements came, the battalion had to withdraw from Xinning, which was taken by the Japanese army. On April 21, 4,000 Japanese soldiers marched towards Meikou. On April 23, they began to cross the Wushui River. The Chinese 44th division waited there patiently till the first 200 Japanese soldiers set foot on the bank. Then they fell on them fiercely and slew them all. The Japanese kept on crossing, but had to stop under heavy cannon fire. On April 27, they turned to attack Wuyang, and after two days’ fighting, they took half of Wuyang. On April 29, the Chinese 44th division came and the Japanese army had to give up the attack and turn back to fight the 44th division, who soon put the Japanese army to rout.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-15 09:01 On April 27, another Japanese detachment attacked Wugan, which was an old town. The walls were very strong, because the bricks were stuck together using sticky rice cooked in water, which became glue. Many ancient tombs were also built this way to prevent them from being dug through. So when the Japanese cannon balls exploded and hit the walls, the shards did little damage to the walls. On May 1, the Japanese formed suicide squads, but the soldiers, who had not reached the wall yet, were killed by gunfire from the battlements. At last, some soldiers got to the wall and blew a hole in it with dynamite. However, the Chinese people, who helped their soldiers in the defense of the town, heaved bags filled with sand down on the spot and the hole was blocked by the sand bags. Then the Japanese army used long wooden siege ladders. But the Chinese army used flame throwers, provided to them by the United States, to burn the ladders. For seven days the Chinese soldiers, aided by civilians, kept the small ancient town safe and sound. The Japanese army was defeated by the Chinese reinforcements.
Other battles also took place in other districts in the western Hunan province. The whole campaign ended on June 2 with the failure of the Japanese army.
Failure or victory in war mostly depends on two factors: how strong are the forces and how wise are the strategies used. But oftentimes, using a very wise ruse, the weaker side can defeat the stronger and the few fighters can defeat greater forces.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-16 09:12 Building the Communist Ranks in YanAn
Gathering students
After the XiAn event at the end of 1936, the Central Committee of the Communist Party moved in January of 1937 to YanAn, a small backward town in the north of Shaanxi province. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek would not come to fight them anymore as they had an agreement. Therefore, the Communist Party was ready to gather lots of people with intelligence and talent, no matter young or middle aged. Their party members in big cities, where the most intelligent and talented people generally lived, adopted every possible means to allure such people, especially young students, to YanAn to serve the Communist Party. Young people were easier to entice than middle-aged ones. So many young people went to YanAn, thinking that they could be trained to fight the Japanese invaders. Most young people went there in 1937, 1938, and 1939. Later many of those who became communist cadres were those who had gone there in 1938. So ’38 cadres became a special name for those.
The Communist Party founded a so-called Anti-Japanese military and political university and some schools to mentally train the students to become communist cadres. Yue Shan, a student in Duize high school in Changsha city, recalled that one day in 1938, Xu Deli, a Communist Party member and a representative of Changsha bureau of the 8th Route Army, came to give a speech about the Japanese invasion and called on young people to go to YanAn. His speech was so touching that Yue Shan and some other students enrolled on the spot.
Duan Xuesheng, a Communist Party member and a writer, worked in Shandong province as a teacher, and propagandized to students about communism and instigated them to go to YanAn to take part in the revolution. In Suiyang province and inner Mongolian district, more than 100 young people were attracted to YanAn. In Peking, from May to August in 1938, 107 young people decided to go.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-18 09:09 The Central Committee of the Communist Party set up 8th Route Army bureaus in many towns and cities to enroll young people, especially students, to go to YanAn. Statistics showed that the bureau in Lanzhou of Gansu province sent 3,000 in the autumn of 1937. The bureau in Wuhan sent 880 from March to May in 1938. Chongqing sent 2,000. However, those who were permitted to go to YanAn had to have three interviews. Everyone had to produce a letter of recommendation from an organization established by the Communist Party in the place he or she lived. The last interview was held by the organization department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
The tide of young people flowing to YanAn caused concern in the National Party. Chiang Kai-shek ordered these young people to be detained. In Yanyang, 103 students were detained by the military police of the national government. After more than ten days, 40 students were carried away in a truck and others were still in custody. In November 1939, labor camps were set up to confine all the students on the way to YanAn. They were assailed with counter-propaganda and “mentally trained” until they expressed their loyalty to the national government, and then they were freed. By the end of 1940, 1,167 students had been detained in the labor camps. From 1939 to 1943, 2,100 students were taken into custody on their way to YanAn.
By the end of 1943, there were 40,000 young newcomers in YanAn, and half of them were female. Many of the females married high-ranking cadres of the Communist Party. Those of the cadres who had already married village girls deserted their wives when they entered big cities like Beijing after 1949, and simply married young city girls.
A special case must be mentioned. Wen Lianchen, alias Xia Sha, a girl of 14 at the time, was the daughter of a town mayor. When the family was in Wuhan, she stole out of the house and wanted to go to YanAn, but was stopped in a train and taken home by a friend of her father’s at Zhengzhou. When the family moved to Chongqing, she insisted on going to YanAn. Her father could do nothing but let her go. He bought a plane ticket for her to XiAn. She found the 8th Route Army bureau there and was safely sent to YanAn. This was the only case when someone went to YanAn by plane.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-20 08:40 Jiang Qing—Mao Zedong’s 4th wife —in YanAn
Jiang Qing (1914–1991) was born in Zhu Town of Shandong province. Her original name was Li Yunhe. Her father Li Dewen ran a carpentry shop. Her mother was his concubine, who had been a maidservant. In the summer of 1921, Li Yunhe was in primary school, but in 1926, she was expelled. Her father died of some disease in the same year and her mother took her to live with her brother-in-law in Tianjin City; he was an officer in the army of the warlord Zhang Zuolin. Li Yunhe had worked for three months as a child laborer in the factory of the British–American Tobacco Co., Ltd. In 1928, the brother-in-law moved his troops somewhere else, and her mother took her to live with her cousin in JiNan. In spring of 1929, when she was 15 years old, she learned to be an actress in a theater in the city. In May of 1931, she married a man from a wealthy family, but got divorced in July. Then she went to Qingdao, and from July of 1931 to April of 1933, she worked in a library there. But in February of 1932, at the age 18, she was living with (not married to) Yu Qiwei, three years older than she, a university student majoring in biography, who was also the leader of the propaganda department of the Communist Party there. He had contact with those in the circles of so-called communist culture.
Li Yunhe had acted in a one-scene play named Put Down Your Whip, which could be performed in the street as a protest against the Japanese aggression. In February of 1933, she took an oath and joined the Communist Party through Yu Qiwei in a warehouse in Qingdao. In April, Yu was arrested and she ran away to Shanghai. In May, she attended “The Great China University” by auditing classes. In July she worked as a music teacher in a primary school in the western suburb of Shanghai and acted in some amateur plays after work. In September of 1934, she was arrested, but in February 1935, she was released and went to Peking to live with Yu Qiwei again, who had been released, too.
But in March, she returned to Shanghai to join the Diantong Film Company, using her stage name Lanping. She acted the heroine in the play Nara, and got good reviews. Afterwards, she played roles in two movies. In September, she was living with Tanner, a movie reviewer. In April of 1936, she was married to him. The ceremony was held together with two other couples, before Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou, in the moonlight. A romantic ritual.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-22 08:46 However, she still kept in touch with Yu Qiwei and by July Tanner could not bear it; he failed in an attempted suicide. She went back to Shanghai and joined the Lianhua Film Company. She had a role in the film Blood on Wolf Mountain. In February of 1937, she acted in the drama Thunderstorm. On the 30th of May, Tanner attempted suicide again, but still to no avail. Afterwards he went to France and lived there forever.
In September of 1937, as the Anti-Japanese War broke out, Li Yunhe left Shanghai and in August, she arrived in YanAn and changed her name to Jiang Qing. In November, she was enrolled in the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. On the 10th of April, 1938, the Lu Xun Arts College was founded and she was appointed instructor of the drama department. She acted in two dramas, and in August acted in a Peking opera. Her efforts were appreciated and soon afterwards, she was promoted to secretary in the office of the military committee, close to Mao. It was said that she often went to see Mao and asked for instructions from him. The intimacy changed their relationship and soon she was living with Mao in place of his current wife He Zizhen, who was studying in Moscow at the time. In 1939, Mao married her. But at the time, she had not been divorced from Tanner yet and Mao had not been divorced from He Zizhen. Both committed bigamy.
Quite a few Communist Party leaders opposed the marriage, Zhang Wentian first and foremost. He maintained that He Zizhen was a good comrade and must be respected as a legal wife. Besides, she had been wounded in the Long March and could not be ignored like this. Wang Shiying had been in Shanghai and knew all about Jiang Qing’s love affairs, which were really scandals. And as the leader of the Communist Party, Mao should not marry a woman with such a background. So he wrote a letter outlining these scandals. He asked Nan Hanchen to sign the letter, too, who also worked in Shanghai and knew about it all. (Both were later persecuted to death by Jiang Qing in the Cultural Revolution.) Only Kang Sheng (1898–1975) supported their marriage.
Then the Communist Party had a meeting and put up three conditions: 1) Jiang Qing should not interfere in political affairs; 2) Jiang Qing could not take up any office, inside or outside the Communist Party; 3) Jiang Qing’s main task was to look after Mao in his health and personal life.
Jiang Qing had a daughter with Mao, born in 1940 and called Li Na, who is still alive now, in retirement.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-23 09:54 Mao’s marriage history and his other women
Mao had four formal marriages. His first wife was Ms. Luo (no given name known), whom Mao married in accordance with arrangements made by his parents. She was then 20 years old while Mao was only 16. The Mao family and Luo family were relatives. Though she was a pleasant woman, Mao did not like her. They married in 1907. But in February of 1910, she died of some disease. Using this as a pretext, Mao left his family and went to Peking.
His second wife was Yang Kaihui (1901–1930), whose father, Yang Changji, was a graduate returned from England who became a professor of ethics at Peking University. At that time Mao worked in the library and studied as a guest student. He and Yang Kaihui were classmates. In 1919, Mao began to court Yang Kaihui, and in 1920, they lived together without legally marrying. At that time Mao was 26 years old and Yang was only 18. She bore three sons for Mao. In 1921, Yang joined the Communist Party, but afterwards she was arrested by the national government and was executed on the 14th of November, 1930. Her first son, Mao Anying (1922–1950), died in the Korean War. Her second son, Mao Anqing (1923–2007), was escorted by Kang Sheng to Moscow. He joined the Communist Party in 1947. In July of 1949, he was given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, but he was engaged in research work in the Academy of Military Sciences, not combat. He died of heart disease. Yang’s third son, Mao Anlong, was a riddle. It was said that he went missing as a child and no one knew what became of him even now. And no one ever appeared claiming that he was Mao’s third son.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-25 08:51 Mao’s third wife was He Zizhen (1910–1984), sister of marshal He Long. In 1927 when Mao went to Jinggang Mountain after the riot, he met He Zizhen there. That year, Mao was 35 years old while she was only 17. In June of 1928, they got married while his second wife Yang Kaihui was in prison. It has never been said that Mao had endeavored to rescue her from the prison. When He Zizhen grew up, she became the secretary of the frontier committee of the Red Army and director of the women’s league in the southwestern Jiangxi province. In the Long March, while protecting the wounded soldiers from air raids, she was wounded herself. In January of 1938, she went to study in Moscow and returned to China in the summer of 1947. Then she took up offices like director of the women’s league in Hangzhou City. He Zizhen had her first child with Mao in 1929, and when they had to escape, He Zizhen left her daughter with a local family. The child was called Mao Jinhua. In April, 1932, when He Zizhen wanted to find the child, she was told that the child had died. In fact, the child did not die. At that time some agents of the National Party had come to inquire about the child and so the adoptive family lied, saying the child had died, lest they kill it. The child grew up and was named Yang Yuehua. In 1973, an old Red Army man came to the place and learned something about Yang Yuehua and he notified He Zizhen’s brother, who informed his sister of the truth. However, it was during the Cultural Revolution when Jiang Qing was in power, so the mother and the daughter could not see each other. The daughter is alive now in retirement. He Zizhen had another daughter called Mao Jiaojiao. But afterwards when Mao Zedong changed his name to Li Desheng to avoid being arrested by the national government, this daughter changed her name to Li Min, which is used now. He Zizhen died in Shanghai at the age 75.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-27 09:03 His fourth wife was Jiang Qing (see above). But he had many other women outside of marriage. The first one we know about was Tao Siyong, from a rich family. She was known as a woman of talent and a beauty, too. From 1919 to 1920, she and Mao opened a bookstore in Changsha. Mao wrote many love letters to her. Five of them were found later. In 1921, she went to study in Jinling College in Nanking. As her father did not like Mao, she did not marry him. She died in 1931 at the age of 36 without marrying anyone. The next one was Ding Ling, a so-called red writer. She was born on the 12th of October, 1904. She was a classmate of Yang Kaihui in high school. She joined the Communist Party in 1932 and was arrested too, but in September of 1936, with the assistance of the Communist Party, escaped from prison in Nanking and went to YanAn. Mao loved her at first sight. She was the chief editor of Journal of Literature and Arts, and then the party secretary of the Chinese Writers Association, and the chief editor of People’s Literature, etc. But in the anti-rightist movement in 1957, she was declared a rightist and was exiled to a cold region in northeastern China. She died on March 4, 1986.
Another was Wu Lili, born in 1912. She went to America for further studies after graduation from the Normal University in Peking. When she learned of the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, she came back to China, to YanAn, to fight Japan. She became Mao’s interpreter and they fell in love. But when He Zizhen heard about this, she went there and caught them together. She wanted to kill them both. This became such a big scandal that the Central Committee of the Communist Party had to intervene. Wu Lili was sent away. Afterwards, she married an officer of the National Party and went to live in Taiwan.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-29 09:14 Sun Weishi was also one, whose father was a fellow fighter of Premier Zhou. When he died in 1927, Sun Weishi was only 5. So Premier Zhou took care of her and looked upon her as his adopted daughter, but openly known as his niece. Then she went with Zhou Enlai to YanAn. She was called the red princess. In 1939, she went with Zhou Enlai to Moscow to study drama. In December 1949, Mao went to the Soviet Union with Zhou; Sun Weishi was their interpreter and also taught Mao some Russian. Mao had a carriage of his own in the train. One night Mao raped her in his carriage. Sun told Zhou about it, but Zhou did not dare to say anything. In the Cultural Revolution, her brother was tragically beaten to death and Sun wrote to Jiang Qing to ask for an investigation. She also wrote to Zhou. Both without result. In December 1967, her husband was put in prison on spying charges. Her home was searched and some letters to Mao were found. Jiang Qing took these letters to see Zhou Enlai and blamed him for it. Jiang even slapped Zhou’s face in wrath. Zhou could not do anything to her. Before long Sun Weishi was put in a secret prison on the orders of Jiang Qing and was tortured to death. A long nail was driven into her head. Jiang Qing wanted Zhou Enlai to sign an order to execute Sun Weishi; Zhou did not dare to refuse and signed it. No comment needed here. Everyone can see what a man Zhou was.
Feng Fengming was a returned overseas Chinese and was talented in drama. When she arrived in YanAn, she was enrolled in the Lu Xun Arts College and then became an actress. One day after a performance, Mao invited her to his place to discuss acting. Then and there, he violated her. She was so infuriated that she left YanAn. No one knew where she went.
In 1962, Mao went to Shanghai. The mayor Ke Qingshi at the time made arrangements for Mao to meet the famous movie star Shangguan Yunzhu. A friend of hers had witnessed a note Mao had written to Shangguan. Mao wrote that “A hero loved a beauty since the olden days. I am the hero. You are the beauty.” The next year, Mao came to Shanghai again and met her again. Every time, they would stay together for several days. In 1965, she was brought to Zhongnanhai (literally, central south sea) in Beijing, where Mao lived. They openly lived together. Not long later, Mao took her back to Shanghai and she never saw him again. In 1966, she was arrested under orders of Jiang Qing and she died in jail.
In Mao’s late years, Zhang Yufeng worked as Mao’s secretary and looked after him day and night. Zhang was born in 1944 to a poor family in northeastern China. In 1958, Zhang worked as a train attendant. Then she was transferred to the special train for Mao in 1962. In 1967, she was married to a man working in the railway department. But in July 1970, Mao took a liking to her and she was sent to work in Zhongnanhai. She looked after Mao’s health and daily life. She lived with Mao till his death. Then she moved out of Zhongnanhai. Now she’s enjoying a quiet retired life.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2019-12-30 09:05 The Puppet Governments in China Under Japan
The assassination of Wang Jingwei
Japan knew that for such a big country as China, they would need to set up some puppet governments as they could not rule all China by themselves. Manchukuo in the northeastern China was the first puppet government Japan established. As Japan expanded into other provinces, they founded other local puppet governments. From December 1937 to March 1938, puppet governments were set up in Peking and in Nanking.
Japan always wanted to induce Chiang Kai-shek and the national government to surrender to Japan and became the central puppet government, but never succeeded. In November, 1938, Japan sent someone to talk to Wang Jingwei (1883—1944) and his clique. His two important followers were Chen Gongbo (1892—1946) and Zhou Fohai (1897—1948). Both were originally members of the Communist Party. It was said that most of the members of any party were mainly opportunists. They would go where personal benefits beckoned to them.
Wang always wanted to be the head of a government, but he was no rival to Chiang Kai-shek who controlled the army. Now Japan offered him a chance to be one, though only the head of a puppet government. Better than nothing. So the representatives of both sides had a secret talk in Shanghai and signed an agreement stating that the new government recognized Manchukuo, and that Japan had priority over any natural resources in China, etc. On the 18th of December, 1938, Wang Jingwei, Chen Gongbo and Zhou Fohai stealthily left Chongqing, the temporary war-time capital, and went to Kunming, where they took a plane to Hanoi in Vietnam.
On December 29, 1938, Wang sent out a public telegram stating three points as his principles for negotiating with Japan: firstly, be friendly to the adjacent countries; secondly, to cooperate with Japan against the Communist Party; thirdly, to get financial assistance from Japan. The national government and the Communist Party both saw Wang’s statement as a betrayal of China and a capitulation to Japan. So Wang and his followers were defined as traitors.
Therefore, on New Year’s Day of 1939, Chiang Kai-shek had a meeting to announce that Wang was expelled from the National Party and dismiss from all his offices. Next he planned to get rid of Wang physically. Some special agents were sent to assassinate him in Hanoi.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-1 08:54 Wang and his wife, Chen Bijun, and another follower, hid in a house and seldom went out. The special agents were composed of 18 experienced assassins, called “18 Arhans,” which came from the Buddhist culture, but meant “strong men” in Chinese culture. They arrived in Hanoi and got all the information they needed about Wang, and where he lived. They were waiting for the final order from Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang still harbored a hope that Wang would turn back to the national government. He sent an emissary to Hanoi to have a talk with Wang, but Wang refused the request to go back. Wang and his wife knew that they were now in danger of being killed.
On the 19th of March, Chiang Kai-shek gave the final order to rid of Wang. So the 18 Arhans got ready for action. At 9 o’clock on the 20th day, when the agents had a meeting to arrange for the action, they heard that Wang and his men were getting ready to leave the house. So the agents came to chase them, riding in two cars. When Wang and his men found that they were being followed, they succeeded in shaking the agents off in the heavy traffic at an intersection.
At 4 o’clock the next day, Wang’s new location was disclosed. So six agents went there. They had to act fast because they were in a foreign country. Vietnam at that time was under French rule. Wang’s guards could not carry guns. But the agents secretly had guns carried in. So when the agents attacked, the guards were defenseless. One agent went to the room where Want was supposed to be. The agent used an ax to make a hole in the door and saw a man and a woman inside. He shot at the man three times. He witnessed the bullets hit home and left as fast as he could. Three of the agents escaped and three of them were arrested by the police in Hanoi. Afterwards, while they were happy thinking that they had finished off Wang, information arrived that Wang was still alive. Only one of his followers was killed. Some of the agents left and some remained behind for further action. But they never killed Wang.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-3 09:04 The establishment of the puppet government in Nanking
On March 27, Wang published an article revealing the minutes of a national government meeting where the conditions of peace proposed by Japan were discussed. And Chiang Kai-shek basically agreed to the conditions. Wang wanted to show to Chinese people and the world that Chiang Kai-shek was the first to negotiate with Japan, not he. But he did not know the difference there. Chiang Kai-shek only wanted to negotiate with Japan for a truce while Wang himself was ready to surrender to Japan.
On March 22, the Japanese general consulate reported to the Japanese government about the assassination attempt on Wang. On March 25, Wang and his men went on board a French ship under the protection of Japan and then were transferred to a Japanese ship. He arrived in Shanghai on the 6th of May. Then Wang went to Tokyo to have a talk with the prime minister about the establishment of a central puppet government in China. On the 30th of March, 1940, the puppet government was founded in Nanking, with Wang at its head.
Japan called it the Nanking national government, but Chiang Kai-shek refused to recognize it. But Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria recognized it. The puppet government imitated the national government in organization and had its own puppet army, which was thus called by people. But the puppet army took orders from the Japanese army, not directly from the Wang and his men. The puppet government did everything under the supervision and command of Japan, just like the Manchurian puppet emperor in northeastern China.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-5 09:02 In March of 1944, Wang was very ill and went to Japan for treatment. On the 10th of November, he died in the hospital there. Then Chen Gongbo, one of the founders of the CPC, became the head of the puppet government. When Japan surrendered in 1945, Chen Gongbo and his wife flew to Japan but were extradited to China on October 3. He and Chen Bijun, the wife of Wang, were put in prison in February of 1946 in Suzhou. On the 4th of June, Chen Gongbo was executed. Chen Bijun was sentenced to life and died in prison on the 17th of June, 1959. She pleaded for herself, saying that she had wanted to save the nation in an indirect way. “Trying to save the nation in an indirect way” was a common term of ridicule thereafter.
As for Zhou Fohai, another founding member of the CPC, when he sensed that Japan would soon perish, he secretly made contact with Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists. After the victory, Chiang Kai-shek appointed him as commander-in-chief to maintain law and order in Nanking and Shanghai till the national government army came. But on the September 30, 1945, he was apprehended and sent to Chongqing, then brought back to Nanking. On October 21, his case was tried in court, and on November 7, he was sentenced to death. But in March of 1947, Chiang Kai-shek issued an order of amnesty for him, and the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He died of heart disease in the jail on February 28, 1948.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-6 08:39 The rectification campaign of the Communist Party in YanAn
Besides the 8th Route Army, the new 4th army was also under the control of the Communist Party. The new 4th army had their position in the southern Anhui province. So the Communist Party had two armies of their own, one in the northwest and the other in the southeast. Mao always hated Chiang Kai-shek and had once planned to attack Chiang Kai-shek from behind with 150,000 men. But the plan was aborted when the Communist International objected to it. In 1941, an incident flared up between the new 4th army and the 32nd military bloc of the national government.
On the night January 4, 1941, 9,000 of the new 4th army under the command of Xiang Yin maneuvered from the southern Anhui province to the north side of the Yangtze River through the southern Jiangsu province, without notifying the national government. The National 32nd bloc thought that the new 4th army was trying to attack their 40th division, and on January 6, they surrounded it and assailed it. Several times, Xiang Yin telegrammed YanAn, but Mao never answered or gave any instruction what to do. On January 10, the new 4th army telegrammed Mao again. On January 12, Mao asked Zhou Enlai to protest to the national government and request the withdrawal of their army. So the next day, Zhou protested to the national government. The fight had already been going on for seven days. Of the 9,000 soldiers in the new 4th army, only 2,000 escaped.
After the incident, Mao decided that the Communist Party of China should not follow the guidance of the Communist International any more. They should make decisions on their own. Therefore, the Communist Party launched a rectification campaign, which is considered to have begun in May 1941 when Mao made a speech, “Reform Our Studies.” In June, the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a document, “Instruction concerning how to wage the campaign of studies and rectification within the whole party.” But the campaign actually started in February, 1942, when Mao made another speech, “Rectify Our Style of Work,” and it ended when a bill was passed in a session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, “The resolution of some historical problems,” in April 1945.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-8 08:44 However, what really happened in the rectification campaign was that everyone had to make some kind of confession about their inner thoughts to show loyalty to the party. Many people who had come to YanAn from the regions under the national government were suspected of being spies of the National Party. Many of those were forced to confess that they were indeed spies sent by the National Party. If they wanted to be punished less severely, they had to expose others who were also spies. Mao hinted that to achieve this purpose, some harsh measures would be necessary. The most common method was not to let the one being cross-examined get any sleep. It was called fatigue-torture. In American it’s called sleep deprivation. Another method was to let those suspects watch someone being shot; just a little psychological pressure.
In April 1943 alone, several thousand people were put under custody. Some were locked up in caves. Some were just confined to their work places—“equivalent prisons,” they called them. There were not enough jailers to watch over the prisoners, so their colleagues assumed the task. This was a clever invention of Mao. To show their loyalty to the party, the colleagues had to do their duties faithfully and keep watch over the prisoners. No one could escape their vigilance. About a thousand people died. Some committed suicide. To them this was not a political movement, but terrorism. Many people who had come to YanAn in hopes of fighting Japan died at the hands of their own comrades.
On August 15, 1943, Mao said that in such campaigns, some errors were unavoidable (like a bit of torture). The errors should not be corrected too early, or there would be no targets and that would hinder the development of the campaign. If the errors were corrected too late, people would be very upset and it would cause too much loss. So the principle was to watch the campaign closely, calculating accurately, and stop it at the right time.
As it became more apparent that Japan was likely to lose the war, Mao liberated those prisoners who luckily had survived and who, in Mao’s calculation, could be sent to fight Chiang Kai-shek after the victory. To assuage their enmity, Mao apologized several times, saying that the aim of the rectification campaign was to let them have a political bath to wash off the dust they carried from the regions under Chiang’s government, but too much potassium permanganate (which can cause caustic burns) was used, which had hurt the tender skin of the new comers. He added that if a son was beaten by the father, he should not hate his father.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-10 08:49 Chapter 4. The Second Civil War Between The National Party and the Communist Party
Conflicts Between The Two Parties to Take Over Areas Occupied By Japan
After Japan surrendered, there arose a problem as to who would take over the areas that had been occupied by the Japanese army. The National Party thought that they were the legal government and had the right to these areas. Afraid that the Communist Party would take those areas when the Japanese army withdrew, the national government ordered the Japanese army to remain in the areas they occupied till the army of the national government came to take them. However, the Communist Party declared that they had the right to these areas. So regardless of any orders from the national government, they marched to some of the areas controlled by Japan and took over by force.
Now, most of the national government army was in the southwestern provinces and part of it was stationed to south of the Yangtze River. Almost no national Army forces were in the areas north of the Yangtze river. And the army of the Communist Party spread widely in the countryside north of the River and in the northeastern provinces. But when the Communist Army commanded the Japanese army to surrender to them, the Japanese army refused as they had received orders not to surrender to the Communist Army. Therefore, the Communist Army had to fight the Japanese army and the puppet army to occupy towns possessed by the Japanese army.
Even before Japan surrendered, the national government and the Soviet Union signed a treaty stipulating that the national government recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia (as the Chinese called it), and the special rights of the Soviet Union in northeastern China, in exchange for the Soviet Union’s promise not to support the Communist Army in occupying the northeastern provinces. From then on, Outer Mongolia became the Mongolian Republic and Inner Mongolia still belonged to China.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-12 09:13 From August 14–23, Chiang Kai-shek telegrammed Mao three times to invite him to Chongqing to talk about the future of China. On August 25, the Communist Party issued a declaration that the national government must recognize the government in YanAn (denoting the local red government of the Communist Party) and its army in the so-called liberated areas as lawful, and that all the parties were legal and would have to organize a joint government. On August 26, the Communist Party decided that Mao should go to Chongqing to negotiate. But the talks did not produce an agreement, especially about who would take over all the areas occupied by the Japanese army. So while the talks were going on, the fighting was going at the same time. For the Communist Party, when they attacked the Japanese army and the puppet army to take over towns in their possession, they had to fight the National Army as well, as both wanted to take the same town.
By August 26, the Communist Army took 59 towns from the hands of the Japanese. Then under orders from the national government, the Japanese army and the puppet army attacked the Communist Army and restored more than 20 towns by the end of September. The Communist Army changed their original plan; they gave up the eastern part of the Ping-Han railway line and concentrated on the northern provinces. So many of the Communist Army set out for the north and by the end of November, more than 100,000 communist soldiers reached northeastern China, the farthest place, where the National Army could not arrive ahead of them.
On the 10th of September, the Communist Army attacked several towns under control of the national government in Shanxi province and took most of them within ten days. Then they surrounded Tunliu. The national defensive army in Changzhi sent 6,000 soldiers to Tunliu, but they were blocked on the way by a communist detachment. This strategy was often used by the Communist Army to surround some place and lay an ambush along the likely approach route by which reinforcements would come. So the National Army from Changzhi could not go to Tunliu and had to return to Changzhi. On September 12, the Communist Army took Tunliu and came to surround Changzhi. On the 2nd of October, a national reinforcements went to Chingzhi, and as usual, encountered a communist detachment who came out of ambush and surrounded them. As the communist detachment met with strong resistance, they adopted another stratagem. They surrounded the national reinforcements from three sides, leaving one side open for them to escape, and laid another ambush down that way. The reinforcements did escape, only to fall into the second ambush, and was wiped out on the 5th of October. This ruse was often used in Chinese war history. It was not invented by the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-13 08:55 On the 10th of October, after lengthy peace talks, the National Party and the Communist Party at last signed an agreement, called the 10/10 agreement, which contained the articles to form a joint government, to nationalize the armies of both sides, and to implement democracy and constitutionalism.
Although the peace agreement was signed, the Communist Party still planned to stop the National Army from going to the northern areas to accept the surrender of the Japanese army there. They looked upon the northern areas as belonging to them, and considered the National Army to be trespassing if they went there.
On the 20th of October, when the National Army arrived at Zhuang River, on the way to Handan, and on October 22 crossed the river, the Communist Army was waiting for them. On October 24, the National Army broke through the blockade and reached Matou Town in a narrow valley where they were encircled by the Communist Army. On October 28, more Communist Army troops came and they began the attack. At the same time the Communist Party sent an envoy to see the commander of the new 8th army of the national government and persuaded him to betray the national government. On October 30, the new 8th army declared their insurrection. On October 31, the main national forces broke the encirclement of the Communist Army and escaped south. From October of 1945 to January of 1946, the Communist Army occupied Jinpu railway line, Longhai railway line, Jiaoji railway line, and all the towns along the three lines. These areas had strategic importance and were threats to the safety of Nanking and Shanghai.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-15 08:57 America’s mediation between the National Party and the Communist Party
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, beginning with the Japanese raid of the Pearl Harbor, America aided China a lot, in both military action and supplies of goods. Joseph Stilwell, chief of staff of the Allies, came to China. His main job was to guarantee that the supplies needed in the Anti-Japanese War reached the hands of the National Army through the highway from Burma to Yunnan province.
At the request of the Allies, in early 1942, the national government sent its army into Burma, where it would be under the command of Joseph Stilwell to aid the English army. But when the Chinese army reached Burma, the English army there was already defeated by Japan. Then the Japanese army surrounded the Chinese army, which, nevertheless, succeeded afterwards in breaking through the encirclement, and separated into two parts. The first part, under orders from Joseph Stilwell, went to India, and the second part returned to Yunnan province through the virgin forest. The international supplies were mostly used in the Burmese battlefields and only a few reached the national government. Chiang Kai-shek was dissatisfied with this and also with the failure of the Chinese army under the command of Joseph Stilwell in the Burmese war. Therefore, in 1943, Chiang asked twice for Stilwell to be replaced. But Chiang did not succeed because of the opposition of Alfred Marshall in the United States.
After the spring of 1944, the withdrawal of the National Army after the Japanese army attack made President Roosevelt send his vice president Wallace to China to see what was the real situation. Wallace was not impressed with the national government of China. In August, three times, President Roosevelt asked Chiang Kai-shek to give the command of the Chinese army to Stilwell, but Chiang replied that if he had to give up his command of the army to Stilwell, he would rather break off relations with the Allies and fight Japan with Chinese forces alone. At length, after consideration, President Roosevelt gave order to replace Stilwell and appointed Wedemeyer for the task, on the 18th of October, 1944.
Meantime, with the quick development of the communist forces, an American delegation headed by Colonel Barrett went to YanAn, in July of 1944, followed on the 7th of November, 1944, by Patrick Jay Hurley, American ambassador in China, who went to YanAn to talk about the legal status of the Communist Party. They reached an agreement to end the dictatorship and one-party rule, to include all the parties in the Anti-Japanese War in the joint national government, to recognize the legal status of all the parties, and to distribute all the supplies among them.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-17 09:19 Patrick Jay Hurley came back to Chongqing and had a conversation with Chiang Kai-shek, who had three conditions: 1) the national government recognized the lawful status of the Communist Party and would reorganize its army; 2) the Communist Party must give the command of its army to the military committee of the national government and the national government would appoint some generals of the Communist Party as members of the military committee; 3) the aim of the national government was to realize Three Principles of the People. Of course, two conditions were denied by the Communist Party. They could never yield the command of their army to anyone else, and their aim was to install communism. But in face, no one in the Communist Party knew what communism really was. They mainly used it as a slogan to mislead people.
After Japan’s surrender, the Communist Party and the National Party fought each other over the areas occupied by Japan. To appease both sides, Hurley suggested Chiang Kai-shek invite Mao to Chongqing for a talk. Though Mao came, the fight continued. The Communist Party, supported by the Soviet Union, took the initiative to attack the National Army. On November 26th, 1945, Hurley handed in his resignation to President Truman. Fearful of a civil war in China, President Truman sent Alfred Marshall there, who arrived in Shanghai on the 20th of December, 1945.
Alfred Marshall talked to both sides and then formed a trio group. Besides Alfred Marshall, Zhang Jun represented the National Party and Zhou Enlai the Communist Party. On the 10th of January, 1946, they reached an agreement for truce, effective at zero hour on the 13th of January. Both sides issued orders for a ceasefire.
On the 5th of January, Chiang Kai-shek made a suggestion to Alfred Marshall about how to reorganize the army of both sides. On January 23, a trio group discussed it. Alfred Marshall suggested that after the reorganization, there would be only 60 divisions, 20 of them under the communist command. As to the navy and air forces, the Communist Party would have 30% of each. Chiang did not consent to that, but made some concessions. However, on 25th, the trio signed an agreement. Then they flew to Peking and YanAn to oversee the preparations.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-19 08:44 On the 11th of March, Marshall went back to the States. The two parties went back to war. When Marshall came to China again on April 18, the situation was serious. Chiang Kai-shek told Marshall that the Communist Party would not abide by the agreement and was continuing its attack on Changchun City. Chiang added that the National Army might withdraw from the northeastern provinces and leave the problem up to the international parties to decide. Marshall promised to transport the 60th national army and the 93rd national army to those provinces, but he refused to have two more armies transported there. (If two more armies had been transported there, China might have had a different future. Was this a typical case of a gentleman fighting a rogue?)
In late May of 1946, the National Army counterattacked the Communist Army and took Changchun and pursued the Communist Army to the Songhua River, approaching Harbin. Then, under pressure from Marshall, on June 6 Chiang Kai-shek had to give order to the National Army to stop further attacks for 15 days. (Another wrong decision.) During the truce, the military trio had talks concerning the restoration of traffic and a truce throughout the northeastern areas. In July, Marshall found that the military conflicts had become worse. In mid-July, seven American mariners were kidnapped by the Communist Army in the eastern Hebei province and at the end of July, some American transport trucks were ambushed by the Communist Army on the way from Tianjin to Peking. Three mariners were killed and 12 wounded.
At Marshall’s suggestion, on the 11th of July, John Leighton Stuart was appointed ambassador in China to help Marshall with the mediations. As Chiang Kai-shek said that the final goal of the Communist Party was to attain power over all the country, not just a truce with the national government, all these negotiations ended in nothing. On the 15th of November, 1946, the People’s Conference for drawing up the constitution opened and the Communist Party refused to attend. On the contrary, they declared on November 16 that they considered the conference unlawful. On January 8, 1947, Marshall went back to America. The national government was about to send a delegation to YanAn for peace talks, but the Communist Party said that there was no need unless the People’s Conference and the Constitution were declared unlawful.
So the door to peace talks was closed.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-20 08:49 The national Government Was Expelled to Taiwan
The second civil war actually began
On the 26th of June, 1946, the day when the effective truce period was over, the National Army started their onslaught to the Communist Army, but they had already escaped. This date is considered by historians as the actual outbreak of the second civil war between the Communist Party and the National Party.
To protect the Nanking wing, from July to December, the National Army attacked the Communist Army in the northern Jiangsu province seven times. The result was that the National Army occupied all the towns in that area, but the Communist Army annihilated the 69th division of the National Army. Who was the winner? The Communist Party. The towns were still there. If they were lost, they could be retaken some time later. But once a division was wiped out, the National Army had lost a division forever. Mao Zedong’s strategy was to make the first aim the annihilation of the national army, not to keep possession of towns. Once the National Army was totally wiped out, who could fight them for the towns? Therefore, from a strategic point of view, Chiang Kai-shek and the National Party were doomed to lose in the long run.
On the 20th of July, the Communist Army began their attack of Datong Town in Shanxi province. In August they surrounded the town, but by September they could not take the town and had to retreat. In October, Marshall was hard at work trying to broker an agreement, but the national government made two last minute demands that again sabotaged his efforts. On October 11, the National Army made a surprise attack and took Zhangjiakou in Hebei province. When Liang Shuming, a mediator belonging to none of the parties, read in the newspapers that Zhangjiakou was taken by the National Army, he sighed, “By the time we woke up, the peace was already over.”
But he was wrong in that. When Mao secretly made up his mind to rule China by himself with his party, peace was already out of the question. Chiang Kai-shek only wanted for his rule and that of the National Party to last a bit longer, hoping to defeat the Communist Party by force. However, he always chose wrong tactics; so his case was already hopeless. Wise stratagems can enable the weak to conquer the strong. If statesmen or generals wish to be wise and victorious, they must learn from history.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-22 08:30 On August 10, the Communist Army occupied some hundreds of miles of railway line between Tangshan and Lanfeng. When the National Army counterattacked, the Communist Army withdrew, but they annihilated another division of the National Army during the process in early September. In late October, the National Army took 25 towns and it looked like victory was theirs. But they were wrong. The Communist Party still had their full forces while the National Army was diminishing, division by division. Once they had a town, they had taken on a burden, just like the Japanese army had done. If Chiang Kai-shek had been wise enough, he would have concentrated his army on wiping out the Communist Army bit by bit. Instead he lost the mainland to the Communists. The tragic fate of the common Chinese people was thus sealed.
From December in 1946 to April in 1947, the Communist Army eliminated more than 40,000 of the National troops and took 11 towns in the northeastern provinces. On the 10th of March, 1947, the National Army came to assail YanAn. The Communist Army withdrew from it and adopted their well-known guerrilla strategies. The National Army could not get at them, let alone to extinguish them.
In Shandong province, the Communist Party often boasted of their best strategy used in the campaign in Menglianggu area from late March to early May. The National Army gathered 450,000 men and planned to occupy all the so-called liberated areas from the Communist Party. The National Army strategy was to advance step by step, pushing forward like a wall and leaving no gap for guerrilla movements, which was temporarily successful. But the strategy of the Communist Army was to make a sham retreat to let the enemy think that they were trying to escape, while they would seek for chances to attack a small part of the National Army. Like eating a big cake, bite by bite.
The 74th division of the National Army was thought of as a trump division, but Zhang Lingfu, their commander, was an arrogant and thoughtless man, though brave. He marched ahead, leaving other two divisions far behind. Although this region was controlled by the National Army, there were gaps between their troops. So the Communist Army made a bold plan to wedge between the groups and surround the 74th division. When Chiang Kai-shek learned that his 74th division was in danger, he commanded other divisions close to Zhang to rush to his rescue. The Communist Army knew that reinforcements would be coming from the National Army, as usual, and so they ambushed them at Huangya Mountain and blocked the way to Menglianggu.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-24 08:50 This was the decisive battle. Whoever won in this battle would win in the entire campaign in the region. The Communist Army reached the top of the mountain a few minutes earlier, seizing the high ground, and got control of the entire battlefield. Though the national reinforcements did their best to launch attack after attack from the foot of the mountain, geography was not in their favor. Meanwhile, the Communist Army poured fire at the surrounded 74th division. The Communist Army sent a suicide squad to steal in and make a surprise attack on the command center of the 74th division, which was in a cave. When they got to the entrance, only three of them were still alive. They shouted, “The first battalion go east; the second battalion west; the third battalion, block the front exit.” Then they yelled inside, “Hands up!” When Commander Zhang Lingfu came out and saw only three of them, he fired and killed one. But a Communist soldier shot him dead before he could do more. The whole 74th division and a regiment from the 83rd division with them were all eradicated, over 30,000 in all.
On the 31st of July, 1947, the Communist Party officially named their army the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA, as it is known today), and it was divided into four so-called field armies. They recruited mostly young people in the countryside, who were generally illiterate and easily tricked into sacrificing their lives. So their army swelled in size. They used ten times the troops to attack the National Army and it was said that when one enemy soldier was killed, they could sacrifice ten of theirs.
In the second civil war, there were three major campaigns besides many minor battles.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-26 09:31 The campaign in the northeastern provinces
The first campaign was waged from the 12th of September to the 2nd of November, in 1948, in the northeastern provinces. There the situation was favorable to the Communist “Liberation” army, because during the Anti-Japanese War, they had guerrillas in the northeastern China controlling wide swathes of the countryside. When the National Army was transported there to take over what was in the hands of the Japanese army, they only occupied cities such as Shenyang, Changchun and Jinzhou. The Communist Party wanted to take over all the provinces in the northeastern China first, because there were factories that could make weapons for them, and also this area provided grain supplies for their army. Then they would go down south to the coastline.
For this campaign, the 4th field army, under the command of Lin Biao, gathered 700,000 men while the National Army had only 550,000. As a result, the casualties of the Liberation Army, including those wounded, were 609,000 and those of the National Army 470,000.
At the beginning of the campaign, the Communist Liberation Army had already surrounded Changchun. They originally planned that if they could take Changchun, they would get supplies from it. However, the city was built so strong that it was not easy to take. Therefore, they had to surround it lest the National Army in the city came out to interfere with their other schemes. On the 7th of September, Mao telegrammed Lin Biao to attack Jinzhou. If they occupied Jinzhou area, they would block the National Army from escaping south.
On the 24th of September, 1948, the National Army telegrammed Chiang Kai-shek for reinforcements. Chiang commanded Wei Lihuang in Shenyang to send a detachment to rescue the army in Jinzhou, but Wei refused to carry out the order on the excuse that it might jeopardize the safety of Shenyang. Chiang had to transport the 49th army by air to Jinzhou. But only two regiments landed successfully. Then the airport was blocked by Communist anti-aircraft guns on the 28th and the airplanes could not land any more. On October 1, the Communist Liberation Army surrounded Jinzhou after taking over all other towns in its vicinity.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-27 08:33 On October 2, Chiang Kai-shek flew to Shenyang to summon a military meeting and decided to send seven divisions from Shandong province by sea to the Hulu Islands, and from there to Jinzhou. Next day he left Shenyang by plane. When Lin Biao learned of Chiang’s plan, he accelerated his attack on Jinzhou. If the Tashan line was broken through by the national reinforcements, the whole campaign would end in failure.
On October 10, the national reinforcements reached Tashan and the fight started. On October 13, Tashan was still under the control of the Liberation Army. On the 14th, Tashan changed hands nine times, but the National Army still could not break through the line. While the fighting was severe at Tashan, an attack on Jinzhou began at 10 o’clock that morning. Some 500 cannons fired at targets in the city. At 11:30AM, the communist foot soldiers rushed forth. When the soldiers in the front fell, the soldiers behind took up their positions. The attack lasted till 6:00PM on October 15 when the Liberation Army entered the city. Over 100,000 National Army fighters were eliminated. The vice commander-in-chief, Fan Hanji, and the commander of the 6th bloc, Lu Junquan, were captured. When the national reinforcements heard of the fall of Jinzhou, they retreated to the Hulu islands.
There were only two cities left to be conquered: Shenyang and Changchun. The eastern half of Changchun was guarded by the 60th army, under the command of Zeng Zesheng, who was a friend of Lu Junquan. Therefore, Lin Biao ordered Lu Junquan to contact Zeng Zesheng to talk him into betraying Chiang Kai-shek and turning over to the Communist Party. A telegram was sent to Zeng in Lu’s name. Seeing the National Army was in a bad situation, Zeng declared an uprising on October 17, with his three divisions, 26,000 in number. That night, the Liberation Army stealthily took up position in the eastern half of Changchun. On October 19 day, the new 7th army surrendered to the Liberation Army. The commander-in-chief in the city, Zheng Tongguo, contacted the Liberation Army and asked for permission to put up two more days’ fake resistance before he surrendered. After he surrendered, a false news bulletin should then be issued that he was captured. Thus Changchun City fell into the possession of the Liberation Army. On October 31st, the Liberation Army surrounded the last city, Shenyang, and at dawn November 1, the attack on the city commenced. After one day’s fight, the Communist Liberation Army occupied the city. All the northeastern provinces were under the control of the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-29 09:08 The campaign in Huaihai River area
The Huaihai River campaign took place between the 6th of November in 1948 and the 10th of January in 1949. The Liberation Army threw in 600,000 men and the National Army had 800,000. The casualties, including wounded, of the Liberation Army were over 100,000 while those of the National Army, including those captured, were as high as 550,000.
The defense minister of the National Party was convinced that if they wanted to control the Yangtze River defensive line, they must control the Huaihai River defensive line. Obviously, the war in the Huaihai River area was very important to the national government. While the campaign in the northeastern provinces were still going on, a battle in JiNan City was engaged. The Liberation Army used 140,000 soldiers to attack the city and 180,000 to block the reinforcements from Xuzhou City. At that time, the National Army in Xuzhou area should have gone to the rescue of the army in JiNan. But the Liberation Army blocked their way. They hesitated to advance.
After the Liberation Army took JiNan on the 24th of September, 1948, they marched towards Xuzhou. The National Army gathered in Xuzhou area for the defense. On the night of the 6th of November, the Liberation Army officially began its campaign in the Huaihai River area. When they found that the national 7th military bloc was receding, they pursued and caught the 7th bloc on the 7th day while the bloc was crossing the Great Canal.
The 63rd army and the 83rd division, bringing up the rear, were quickly wiped out. When the commander of the 7th bloc called the commander of the 13th bloc, the latter refused to come to his assistance, saying that he had to adhere to the original plan to retreat. (That was one of the reasons why the National Army was eaten up bit by bit. No cooperation between commanders. They could not form a fist to strike at the foe, only using fingers separately to tear at it.) On the 8th of November, three-fourths of the national Army defending the river line held an uprising under the instructions of the Communist Party members who were lurking within the army. Therefore, the Liberation Army cut through the line easily.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-1-31 09:19 Having crossed the Great Canal, the national 7th bloc decided to stay at Zhanzhuang and to fight the pursuing Liberation Army. Anyway, more liberation forces came and surrounded the 7th bloc on November 11. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 13th bloc and the 2nd bloc to rescue the 7th bloc, and moreover, sent the 6th bloc and the 8th bloc to the Xuzhou area. The forces of the National Army increased to 800,000. On November 13, the reinforcements of the 2nd and 13th blocs came to the Daxujia line, and were stopped there by the liberation 3rd field army. Since the reinforcements of the National Army got through the blockading line, the Liberation Army quickened its attack and annihilated the 7th bloc on November 22.
On the 30th of November, 300,000 defensive National Army under the command of Du Yuming left Xuzhou and went south. A detachment of Liberation Army of 300,000 chased them. At the time, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Du to go southeast to rescue the 12th bloc, the 2nd bloc, the 13th bloc and the 16th bloc, separately surrounded in the region northeast to Yong Town. But on the 4th of December, the 16th bloc acted on its own, trying to break through the encirclement, and was eliminated. On December 12, the Liberation Army pounced on the 12th bloc and wiped it out on the December 15.
Then the Liberation Army aimed at Du Yuming and asked him to surrender, but Du refused, even though he was already surrounded. Two more blocs were annihilated on the 9th of January in 1949, and Du was taken captive on the 10th. The 6th and 8th blocs deserted their defensive posts between the Huaihai River and the Yangtze River and retreated to the south of the Yangtze River. The vast expanse of land to the north of the Yangtze River fell into the hands of the Liberation Army. Thus ended the campaign in the Huaihai River area.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-2 09:06 The campaign in Peking and Tianjin area
This campaign lasted for 64 days, from the 29th of November, 1948 to the 31st of January, 1949. The Liberation Army threw 1,000,000 troops into that campaign and the National Army gathered over 500,000. The Liberation Army had 39,000 casualties (including the wounded) while the National Army lost 52,000 (including captured).
When the liberation 4th field army occupied the northeastern provinces, they marched south to attack Peking and Tianjin. General Fu Zuoyi (1895–1974) was the commander of the defense of Peking. Before the campaign started, Chiang Kai-shek wanted Fu to bring his army south to strengthen the defensive line by the Yangtze River. But Fu did not follow Chiang’s orders. Fu planned to keep only Peking and Tianjin area in his control and give up the other towns. If the situation became critical, he could escape by sea and get to south of the Yangtze River.
The Liberation Army’s strategy was to surround each of the cities and towns separately to prevent anyone from escaping. They saw Peking as the center of this area and attacked towns along the outermost circle, and closing in their encirclement towards the center. In late December, they took over two towns in the west. On the 14th of January, 1949, they besieged Tianjin City when the defensive army refused to surrender. After fighting for 29 hours, they entered the city, eliminating 10 divisions, 160,000 soldiers (including captured).
At last they came to Peking. They did not want any damage done to the old capital city, and they therefore sent someone to talk to Fu Zuoyi. Seeing that escape was out of the question, he declared an uprising and went over to the Liberation Army. Later, in the second republic of China, he was appointed the Minister of Water Resources.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-3 08:44 The end of the second civil war
As the situation became more dire for the national government, Chiang Kai-shek resigned, leaving everything in the hands of the vice president Li Zongren (1891–1969), who proposed starting peace talks with the Communist Party. Meanwhile, Chiang transferred 4.5 million taels of gold and $384 million to Taiwan (the island of Formosa). At the beginning of 1949, the national government had already moved its capital from Nanking to Canton. On April 1, 1949, the representatives of both the Communist Party and the National Party had peace talks in Peking. The Communist Party wanted the National Party to accept conditions that amounted to a complete surrender. of course, the national government spurned such a suggestion.
On the night of the 21st of April, the combined Liberation Army of the 2nd and 3rd field armies crossed the Yangtze River in wooden sailboats in the face of artillery fire from the National Army along the river. They broke through the weak spots of the defensive line and set foot on the south bank of the River. The 35th army, belonging to the 8th bloc of the 3rd field army, were tasked with attacking Nanking. On the night of the 23rd, they crossed the river and reached Nanking. All the important members of the national government had already left the city by air. So on April 24, the Liberation Army entered the city as if it was entirely undefended. Afterwards, the Communist government decided that the 23rd of April should be the anniversary of the liberation of Nanking, though formally they took over the city on the 24th.
The Liberation Army took over Hangzhou on May 3, and Hankou on May 18, and Wuchang and Hanyang on May 17. They took Nanchang on May 22. At the same time, on May 12, the Liberation Army began to attack Shanghai. They first laid siege to the satellite towns around Shanghai and met strong resistance. Anyway, they took them one by one, and on May 26, they entered the urban area of Shanghai. The next day, all of Shanghai was controlled by the Liberation Army. People in Shanghai welcomed the Liberation Army just as they had welcomed Chiang Kai-shek’s army after the long occupation by Japan, as they had been disappointed by the corruption in Chiang Kai-shek’s government. So now they pinned their hopes on the Communist Party, not knowing at that time whether the Communist Party would disappoint them just the same.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-5 08:30 On April 24, the Liberation Army took Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, and took XiAn, the capital of Shaanxi province on May 20. They stormed into Qingdao, a harbor city in Shandong province, on June 2. On August 4, Cheng Quan, chairman of Hunan province and Chen Mingren, commander of the 1st bloc there, declared he was betraying the national government and went over to the Liberation Army, and so the capital Changsha changed hands peacefully. The Liberation Army occupied Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, on August 26, and then Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, and then Canton on October 14. The national government had already packed up and moved to Zhongqing again. On October 17, they took Amoy but failed in the attempt to take Quemoy on the 25th and the Zhoushan islands on the 3rd of November.
In November, Chiang Kai-shek flew to Chongqing and on November 20, Li Zongren went to Hong Kong. On November 15, the Liberation Army took Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, and Chongqing on November 30 when the national government had already moved to Chengdu. On the 7th of December, the national government declared it was moving its capital offshore to Taipei in Taiwan. So from December 8 to 10, all the VIPs of the government were flying to Taipei. On December 9, the chairmen of Yunnan province and of Xikang province declared they were siding with the Liberation Army, which entered these provinces without any hitch. On December 27, they took Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. The next spring, on March 27, 1950, they took Xichang. By then, almost the whole country was under the control of the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-7 09:17 Part Two The Second Republic—The People’s Republic of China
Chapter 5. The Establishment of the People’s Republic of China
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
When the Communist Liberation Army was still fighting the National Army, the Communist Party summoned the Chinese people’s political consultative conference from the 21st to 30th of September, 1949. A few so-called democratic parties attended the conference, such as the Revolutionary Committee of the National Party (part of the National Party that favored the Communist Party), Chinese Democratic League, China Democratic National Construction Association, China Association for Promoting Democracy, Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, China Zhigong Party, and Jiusan Society, eight in all. These so-called democratic parties have been give the ironic label of “vases” as they were nothing but empty vessels to decorate the political Communist Party conferences as symbols of democracy, because they have no say in whatever national affairs. They can only say yes to whatever the Communist Party says, and if there is a vote, every one of them will put up their hands to make up a 100% positive vote so that the Communist Party can boast of having full support. A standing committee was formed to handle routine matters. The chairman, vice chairmen, and the chief secretary controlled everything. But the chairman had to be a top-ranking Communist Party member.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-9 08:40 In this conference a so-called Common Program was passed as the temporary constitution, which was composed of 7 chapters and 60 articles. The Common Program outlined the state system and the system of the government as the “democracy and dictatorship of the Chinese people” (meaning democracy to the people and dictatorship to the enemy), who consisted of the proletariat (workers), peasantry, petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, and other democratic patriots. (The Communist Party divides the bourgeoisie in China into two types: national capitalists and bureaucratic capitalists.) It was a united front with the proletariat in the leadership (through the Communist Party) on the basis of the alliance of workers and peasants. The government would confiscate all the private properties of the bureaucratic capitalists, which denoted only Chiang Kai-shek, Tse-ven Soong (Chiang’s brother-in-law, who was the head of the executive office, equivalent to the Cabinet), Kung Hsiang-His (simplified as H. H. Kung, and jokingly called Ha-Ha- Kung, who married the sister of Chiang Kai-shek’s wife and was the financial minister most of the time), and the Chen brothers, Chen Guofu (the minister of the central organization ministry of the National Party) and Chen Lifu (education minister). Their father was the sworn brother of Chiang Kai-shek. All other private business owners were defined as national capitalists.
The major articles of the Common Program—the temporary constitution—stated that citizens of the Peoples’ Republic of China had the rights of voting and nomination, but actually none but the leaders of the Communist Party had the rights to nominate candidates. They could nominate whomever they liked and even themselves. As for voting rights, common voters could not vote for whomever they preferred, but were forced to vote for those on the list made by the party leaders. If there were ten candidates, a voter could not vote for fewer than ten. He or she had to make a mark next to every name on the list, or he or she would get in trouble. Once a young worker crossed out a name on the list and added the name of his boss. Although he was also a party member, he was severely criticized for not following the rules.
Another major article asserted that the people of the republic were to enjoy freedom of thought, speech, gathering, organizing societies, communication, personal liberty, living anywhere, moving anywhere, religions and beliefs, and to demonstrate. But all these rights existed only on paper. In reality, no one could exercise such rights. Everything going on under the sun, or even at night, was monitored by the Communist Party.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-10 09:01 The Ceremony of the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China
At 2:00PM on the 1st of October, 1949, the committee of the central people’s government had its first session and selected Mao Zedong as chairman. Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Soong Ching-ling, Li Jishen, Zhang Lan, and Gao Gang became the vice chairmen. Zhou Enlai was the Premier of the state council and the foreign minister as well, and Zhu De was the commander-in-chief of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. At 3:00, a ceremony marking the establishment of the People’s Republic of China was held at TianAnMen (literally Gate of Heavenly Peace). Chairman Mao announced the formation of the People’s Republic of China. On December 2, the central people’s government approved the decision to make October 1 the national day every year.
Accordingly, on the 1st of October, 1950, the leaders of the Communist Party were expected to stand at TianAnMen to watch the parade going through TianAnMen Square. A plot was revealed to murder the leaders. Two tenants had moved into a house at No. 17 in the Ganyu Alley northeast of TianAnMen, two mercenary spies, one Italian and the other Japanese. One night in February 1950, two strangers came to see the Japanese man, who had an 82 mortar. In mid-September, the Chinese police department intercepted a letter mailed to Tokyo, Japan, in which there was a sketch of the clear outline of TianAnMen with two black arrows, one pointing to the top of the gate and the other pointing to tiny figures drawn on the square. The letter described the layout of TianAnMan Square. Through analysis, Beijing police declared that it was evidence of a serious scheme to murder the government leaders. After further investigations, at dawn on September 27, the police rushed to the No. 17 house and broke in. They took the Japanese and Italian spies into custody. In the Japanese man’s room they found letters, documents, diagrams, the 82 mortar, and a pistol with 235 bullets, and found in the Italian’s room a packet of poisonous powder, a diagram with the outline of TianAnMen and a parabola pointing to it. On October 10, the Central Committee of the Communist Party (not the central government) issued an instruction to round up and arrest reactionaries, including spies. Who would be considered a reactionary? Those executing the instruction would define it at will.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-12 09:05 The Ruling System of the People’s Republic of China
There are two vertical hierarchies in the ruling system under the Communist Party. One is the formal government line and the other is the party line. On the same level, there are party organizations as well as government departments. Let’s take Shanghai for an example. On the municipal level, the mayor is the head of the Shanghai government, but there is also the party secretary of the Shanghai municipal committee. The mayor must obey the party secretary, which means that the party secretary is the real head of the city, the over-lord. For every department or bureau in the municipal government, there is also a party organization on the same level.
Urban Shanghai is divided into 10 precincts with the same two-dimensional ruling system at every level. Under the precinct level are street committees, under which are resident committees which are the basic ruling cells. Every resident committee comprises the residents in one block. All cadres of these committees at different levels are paid by the government. Then every block is divided into several groups. The group leaders, though appointed, get no pay from the government. They are either housewives or retired people. The group leaders must report to the resident committee what happens in the block and if they suspect any resident of anything unusual, they must report on that. The head of the resident committee is called director and there is also a party secretary.
The municipal police station also has a party secretary. On the precinct level, there is a precinct station under which there are several police branches at the same level with the street committees. Every police branch will assign a policeman to work with the resident committee and the resident committee cadres obey the policeman.
In the suburbs of Shanghai there are 10 counties. Every county ruled over several villages, which more are called communes in the period from the Great Leap Forward to the end of the Great Cultural Revolution. Under the commune level there are productive teams. All peasants belong to different teams. Peasants and city residents are all tied to where they live and are not generally free to relocate. All their behavior and actions will be reported to the party at different levels. People may work in companies of all sorts, or in stores and schools, belonging to the government. They are told to watch over each other’s behavior and actions and report to the party if anything is suspicious. Everyone takes it seriously, because if one reports some colleague’s misbehavior, he is deemed loyal to the party and will receive some compensation such as a promotion, a small raise, or even be allowed to join the party—the fastest way to become an official. Even relatives and family members will report on their near ones for their own benefits. Under this sort of system one feels that there are spies all around. That is how the Chinese people lived until Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 economic reform and “opening up” policy. (Of course not everyone liked that either: Under this sort of system, it seems that everything is suddenly open, like prostitution, embezzlement and corruption.)作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-14 09:06 Chapter 6. The Massacre of Reactionaries and the Suppression of Bandits
The Movement to Arrest and Kill Reactionaries
The action against “reactionaries” began in December 1950 and went on until October 1951. It involved 3 million people. So lots of innocent people were arrested and many of them were executed. At that time, people were easily executed without proper legal procedures. A person could be killed just on the word of a work team leader. Fan Yuanmao, a communist activist, told of his experience at that time. He had been a district government leader and presided over many public judgments, that is, meetings to decide how many people and which ones should be executed. At one of such meeting, twelve people would be shot to death. A few more people were also named, who were called “to accompany those going to die,” but in fact they were sent there to watch the twelve people being shot, which served as a lesson to others not to do anything against the Party. At Fan Yuanmao’s order, those persons were dragged out into an open field to be executed just as pigs are dragged into a slaughter house. One of the few watchers was mistakenly killed. When asked what to do about the error, Fan answered that he would just hand in another form with the name of that person to bring the number of those executed up to thirteen. Easily settled. No other procedures needed. The lives of common Chinese people weigh no more than a feather, as a Chinese saying goes.
In some places, father and son, brothers, cousins, were killed together, maybe the whole family executed, just like in the feudal age under the rule of the emperors. One “funny” story says that the names of those who were to be executed were written in a booklet, which would be given to a cadre of higher rank for final approval. That guy would stamp a seal on each page that meant that the death decision was final. After the guy stamped a few pages, he stood up to get a glass of water. Then a gust of wind blew in and turned two pages over. When the guy came back to sit at his desk, he continued to stamp the pages till the last page. So the couple of people whose names were on the pages without a stamp were not executed. The gust of wind saved them. All in all, years later, the Party admitted that many innocent people were mistakenly executed. They died for nothing. Victims of the Party and Mao’s overly drastic actions.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-16 09:04 It has been argued that in so many dynasties in the history of China, and elsewhere, many innocent people have been mistakenly killed. It’s difficult to make comparisons. But it is totally wrong to kill innocent people and it does not matter how many or how few are killed. According to the Communist Party, all the dynasties in history were a form of feudalism, a bad political system. That innocent people were killed in a bad system may be no surprise. But the Communist Party of China boasted that socialism is the best political system in the world and claimed from the beginning that the Party was serving the people. So they have no right to kill innocent people as they said they are for the people. Apparently, a hypothetical system is one thing and the individuals who seek to establish and implement it may be a different story altogether.
Some ridiculous things happened during this movement. In February of 1951, Mao summoned a meeting to decide the rate at which people should be executed. They decided that the rate should be one in a thousand, and at first, half of this number should be killed, and then the policy should be reviewed. Mao gave clear instructions to the mayors of Shanghai and Nanking, saying, “Shanghai is a large city of 6 million, and in Shanghai hardly more than 200 are executed out of over 20,000 arrested. It is not enough. In my opinion, at least 3,000 or so should be executed. Nanking was the capital of the National Party; the reactionaries there should be executed and I don’t mean a few more than 200. Far more must be executed in Nanking.” Mao’s decision to kill people was not based on crimes those people committed but based on his own whim.
On the 21st of February, 1950, the state council issued the “Rules for punishing reactionaries in the People’s Republic of China.” Here reactionaries were defined as: people contacting imperialists; contacting, instigating and bribing officials, armed forces and militia to commit treason; gathering armed crowds for rebellion; joining spy organizations; organizing or utilizing any religious groups for reactionary purposes; robbing or damaging public or private property or public equipment; using poison to kill people; making fake documents or IDs; instigating crowds against the government; sowing discord among government officials; spreading rumors; stealing across territory borders; breaking into or escaping from jails; hiding or protecting reactionaries, etc. It didn’t matter if the action had been completed or not.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-17 08:56 Even those Party members who had worked as communist spies in the former government were deemed traitors and killed; let alone those generals who had changed sides from Chiang Kai-shek’s government to the Communist Party. They were also killed. In some people’s opinion, those generals, if they saw no hope of winning the day, should have gone abroad to live a free, safe life, not change sides to the Communist Party to be killed later. They should have known that the Communist Party had killed their own comrades even while they were still at YanAn. Those comrades believed in communism and went there to help wage the revolution. They could never dream that they would die in the hands of their own comrades in the name of revolution. Talk about betrayal.
Then there was the “Revolt of Restitution Party.” It involved over 1,300 persons, including 80 Communist Party members, in PuEr Town in Yunnan Province. PuEr is famous for its PuEr tea. Even the town’s party secretary and the deputy director-general of the police station were included. The first party secretary of the province said that he did not believe it. The party organization itself could not get so many members in such a short time—how could a reactionary organization achieve it? Then it was found that the case was made up. No evidence at all, except for one sign calling for revolt, which was drawn by a primary school teacher under threat. So the ridiculous case was dismissed.
In January of 1954, Xu Zirong, the vice minister of the police department, reported the statistics. In this movement, over 2,620,000 people were apprehended, “over 712,000 were executed, over 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and over 1,200,000 were placed under police control. Over 380,000 were released because their crimes were not serious.” If 712,000 were executed, the ratio was 0.124% as the population at that time was 500 million.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-19 08:49 The Suppression of Bandits
There were two types of bandits operating at this time. One was the kind who had already been bandits during the civil war owing to the chaotic situation. Many of them were common people who had had no other way to survive. The other were former soldiers of the National Army who had escaped from the People’s Liberation Army to dwell in the mountains. They acted as guerrilla warriors for the National Party, but were deemed bandits by the Liberation Army. Most of those bandits hid in the mountainous southwestern regions, but some lived in towns.
Bandits in Western Hunan
When most of Hunan province fell to the Communists, some of those men still loyal to the National Army settled in Western Hunan and formed three groups called the Anti-Communist Army, over 100,000 in all. From October 14 to 16, 1949, the 47th Liberation army besieged Dayong and annihilated their 122nd army (4,333 men) and incorporated 12,000 into the Liberation army. This battle frightened other bandits. Some of them decided they’d better go ahead and join the Liberation Army. But when the Liberation Army marched towards the southwest, they no longer wanted to surrender. On the contrary, in mid-December, they went to take back Dayong. Some of these bandits attacked a squad of the Liberation Army and killed some local armed personnel and pillaged 20 trucks belonging to the army.
To deal with the deteriorating situation, the 47th Liberation Army returned to the Western Hunan province and occupied 8 towns. The bandits escaped to some caves in the mountain. The Liberation Army found the family members of the bandits and made them go into the mountains to ask their husbands to come down and surrender. Finally the Liberation Army attacked the caves and eliminated the rest of the bandits in October.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-21 09:04 Bandits in the southwestern provinces
There were 148 groups of bandits in Yunnan province, 541 groups in Guizhou province, and 300 groups in Sichuan province. The big groups had a few thousand men. In February 1950, the bandits in all those areas grew from 400,000 to 500,000.
To annihilate them, the Communist Party sent the 3rd corps, the 4th corps, the 5th corps, and the 18th corps, plus the 7th army to separately attack the bandits in different districts. The attacks began in March 1950. During one month, the Liberation Army wiped out several groups of bandits numbering 23,000 in southern Sichuan province. By the end of July, 950,000 were eliminated in the eastern Sichuan province. After September, the Liberation Army in the eastern Sichuan province maneuvered to the region in the northeastern Guizhou province and annihilated another 320,000 bandits there. By the end of 1950, over 193,000 bandits were eliminated in the eastern Sichuan province, over 293,000 in the southern Sichuan province, over 83,000 in the western Sichuan province, and over 80,000 in the northern Sichuan province. It was reported that by 1953, more than 1,160,000 bandits in the northwestern provinces were wiped out, and over 700 cannons and over 600,000 firearms of all kinds were captured. During the whole process, the bandits assassinated 157 Liberation Army men and local cadres, spread poison 223 times, and set 316 fires. In 1952, the bandits received 10 airdrops including 13 radio sets, and 14 trained spies were sent from Taiwan and landed in those areas.
Bandits in the western Guangxi province
The bandits gathered more than 90,000 men, spreading over 97 towns out of 102 towns in western Guangxi. They killed more than 500 cadres, took away more than 28,000,000 catties of grain (17 tons) and more than 260,000 livestock. They hid in Dayao Mountain. The Liberation Army gathered 14 regiments plus militiamen from 18 towns, and blockaded all the waterways and roads to outside. The bandits tried to break through and escaped more than 40 times, but in the end it all failed. On the 8th of January, 1951, the Liberation Army started into the Dayao Mountain and wiped out more than 400 men in mountain villages. But the bandits were spread throughout the mountains, and so on the 2nd of February, the Communist Party gathered 13 battalions to go village by village and cave by cave searching for them. This campaign went on for 50 days and no more bandits were left in that area. The ringleaders were all executed.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-23 08:39 A special case
A weird thing happened one evening in 1950. Near Wulong Town in the southeastern Sichuan province, there was a restaurant called Danxin Restaurant which was famous for steamed buns stuffed with ground meat. But what kind of meat it was, no one knew. Someone suspected that it was the human flesh. In the olden days, there were always stories about steamed buns stuffed with human flesh sold in “black inns.” This small restaurant was a meeting place for bandits in this area. The owner of the restaurant was an old man with a fake hunchback: the real owner had a hunchback, but he had murdered him. He took over the restaurant and brought in two of his men, disguised as waiters.
On the 21st of October, ten Liberation Army soldiers passed the restaurant. They were on their way back from the mountain fighting bandits. As they were tired and hungry, they went into the restaurant. They were served steamed buns. A young soldier observed that the meat stuffing didn’t taste like pork, or mutton or beef. So he asked the owner what meat it was. The owner turned to leave without answering the question. Soon the soldiers were drugged, lying on the floor, and were dragged to the basement.
At daybreak on October 23, another five liberation soldiers came into the restaurant and were also served the steamed buns. Soon they all lay on the floor and were put into the basement. Next, more than 100 soldiers came, but this time they entered the restaurant without asking for any food. They had learned that this restaurant was a hideout and meeting place for bandits and had come to arrest those working here. The basement was found and 5 newcomers were still lying on the ground; two of the former ten soldiers were still alive. The other eight soldiers had been killed. One of the two was the squad leader and he told the story. He went on to live his life; but the other, a younger soldier, went mad and was put into an asylum. He died in March of 1959.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-24 09:22 How CPC (communist Party of China) treats Tibet
I. Previous relationship between Tibet and China
The relationship between Tibet and China began the earliest in Tang Dynasty (618—907 AD). In the year of 640 AD, when the famous emperor Tang Taizong (01/28/598—07/10/649) was on the throne (626—649), Srongtsen Gampo, the sovereign of Tibet at the time, dispatched his premier to the capital of Tang Dynasty, bringing 5,000 taels of gold and many kinds of other treasures as gift and asked for the hand of a princess. The Tang emperor was pleased and granted the request of marriage. A legend had it that chieftains of other minorities close to the territory of Tang Dynasty also desired to marry the princess. The emperor wanted to test the wisdom of all the emissaries to decide whom he should choose as his foreign son-in-law, and so gave them a riddle to see who could solve it. He gave them a thin silk thread and a piece of jade with a zigzag hole in the middle, not straight through. Whoever could get the thread through the hole, his sovereign could marry the princess. No one could do it except the premier from Tibet. He got an ant and tied the thread on the ant. He blew his breath at the ant and it went through the winding hole carrying the thread through. Therefore, Princess Wencheng (625—680) was sent to Tibet and married the Tibetan sovereign. The princess brought with her the Chinese culture, the silkworm, seeds of grains, herb medicine and medical equipments, etc. The Tibetan sovereign built the Potala Palace in Lhasa for her, in imitation of the style of Tang palace. In the year of 740 AD, another princess of Tang Dynasty married the great grandson of Srongtsen Gampo. At that time, Tibet was an independent nation and did not belong to China. It was at most deemed a subordinative state to Tang Dynasty, but only in name, as they had marital relationship. Certainly not part of China.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1636—1912), Qing army had once conquered Tibet. However, Tibetans were still free to keep their culture and religion. But with the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Tibet declared its independence in 1913, which was recognized internationally at the time. So Tibet should be deemed an independent state. When the national government was established, Chiang Kai-shek had sent twice the envoy, but he did not take any military means to put Tibet under his rule.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-26 08:25 II. CPC (Communist Party of China) wants to change Tibet to their liking
On the 6th of October, 1950, the communist army defeated the Tibetan army, which had to surrender. So under the order of communist government, Tibet had to send a delegation to Beijing. On the 23rd of May, 1951, the communist government forced Tibet to sign the “Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet.” (The Communist Party of China always uses ridiculous words to cover up the facts. Their so-called “Liberation” is the equivalent to vanquishing and rule by force. How can it be peaceful? Mao's famous quotation is “Political power comes out of gun.”) In the agreement, the Communist Party of China promised autonomy in Tibet, and freedom of religion, but when the communist army entered Tibet, they went back on their promise and never gave Tibet autonomy, and interfered with their belief, just like they had promised Chinese people a united government, democracy and freedom of speech, which are still written in their constitution, but when they seized power, they broke the promise and exercised one-party tyranny. That is the basic problem why the Tibetan people are opposing the communist party, for their breaking their promise. Their promise is not worth even a farthing. The believer in their promise is always found to be disappointed. In 1959 when Mao was pushing his reform all over the country, he wanted to have reform of some kind in Tibet, too. The communist party never wants to know what people really think and really need. They just force their ideas on people. If people refuse to take their ideas, they just exercise oppression or even slaughter. That was why from the 10th day to the 20th day of March, 1959, 100,000 Tibetans followed Dalai Lama over Mt. Himalaya and escaped to the north of India. Then the communist party began to persecute the Tibetans.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-2-28 09:21 Why did Dalai Lama want to escape from Tibet to India? The event of Lhasa happened like this. In the morning of the 10th of March, 1959, people of Lhasa thronged outside Norbulingka summer palace, where Dalai Lama lived. Their purpose was to prevent Dalai Lama from going to the camp auditorium of the communist army to watch some performance. Why did they want to do this? The situation at that time in Tibet told the reason. The Tibetans were really angry with the communist army who came to occupy their land and didn't give them autonomy. CPC set up their puppet government called the “Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region” to rule over Tibet. So Tibetans vented their dissatisfaction by preventing their leader from going to mix with the communist army. People who surrounded Norbulingka shouted, “Chinese, get out of Tibet.” Though Dalai Lama declared that he wouldn't go in hopes that people would disperse. But they still gathered there without intention to leave whatsoever.
When the army leaders reported to the Central Party committee, CPC concluded that the reactionaries in Tibet wanted to kidnap Dalai Lama. Therefore, on the night of the 11th of March, CPC instructed the army leaders in Tibet to prepare for the military action. On the 12th of March, Mao instructed his army leaders “to induce the enemy to attack.” Why? Because the army could “counterattack” on the pretense that the enemy attacked first. It meant that CPC and Mao had already made the decision for killing, not having a peace talk with Tibetans to iron the differences. This is the rule of CPC to deal with people under their control, just like in the event of TianAnMen Square on the 4th of June, 1989, Deng Xiaoping had already decided for the killing of the students. No matter how Zhao Ziyang made efforts to have talks with students.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-1 09:02 Actually in 1950, Dalai Lama decided to cooperate with the communist government, regardless of the advice of his brother in India then to leave Tibet as soon as possible. However, after his cooperation with CPC for five years, he was so disappointed in CPC as Tibetans grew angrier and angrier at the communist government since the government forced land reform in the region Tibetans lived. The resistance of the Tibetan people was already on the swing. So Dalai Lama was now between the devil and the deep sea. He didn't want to support his people for armed riot, not could he send his troops to kill his own people. So his last decision was to escape to India. At first he had still hesitated, but the explosion of two Mortar shells from the communist army very close to his residence expedited his escape. The event ended with the communist army killing the Tibetans in protestation.
How to maintain a peaceful relationship with minorities, there was much experience and examples in the history of China. Even the feudal rulers, that is, emperors, knew that if they wanted a peaceful relationship with minorities, they must win their hearts, not just conquer them physically. If they conquered them by force, they would not obey peacefully. The leaders of the communist party, especially Mao, who had read a lot of history books, should know the principle. But in reality, those leaders, including Mao himself, are the believers of force and violence. Whenever anything happens, they like to use strong angry words for threatening. They never know lenience. That's why people all over the world often criticize them just in hopes that they can change their attitudes to listen reasonably to others and act to the common standards of the world.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-2 08:56 Chapter 8. The Land Reform Movement and Prostitution Reform
The Land Reform in the Countryside
As early as 1946, the Communist Party had carried out some reform policies in the districts under their control. On October 10, 1947, they issued new land laws to distribute the arable land to those who actually tilled it. They expropriated the landowners and gave the land to the peasants, thus winning much gratitude and support from the rural populace. This support took two forms: grain and army recruits. Since most of the population in China was in the countryside, when the forces of the National Party diminished, the Communist Party gained reinforcements by recruiting young peasants.
From winter of 1950 to spring of 1953, the land reform movement began in full swing in all the newly controlled provinces. They divided the arable land belonging to landowners among peasants. On June 30, 1950, the central people’s government issued the “Land Reform Law of the People’s Republic of China.”
Many Party cadres formed work teams and went to the countryside to instruct peasants on how to proceed. The landowners were pulled out of their residences and taken to an open space. They were forced to kneel for long periods on the hard ground. Those peasants who hated their landowners went forward to slap their faces, and they slapped hard. But the humiliation and sense of injustice were worse than the physical pain. Many of the landowners were shot to death. Their families were deprived of their property, leaving them only with the bare necessities of life. Peasants moved into the landowners’ houses.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-4 09:06 Prostitution Reform in Cities
Prostitution was an old business in almost every nation in the world. Prostitution in China had a history of 3,000 years in written records, and it was generally practiced in cities. Most prostitutes were forced to be in this business; some had even been kidnapped and sold to the whorehouse. Occasionally little girls were sold to the whorehouse by poor parents on the verge of starvation. The parents reasoned that at least their daughter would not starve to death that way. Therefore, girls who were prostitutes were not considered blameworthy for their own sake. (In the present China, the importance of money has increased and it is true that most who become prostitutes do it of their own accord. There are cafes and clubs where a man can pay a young and pretty girl to keep him company while sipping tea, coffee or other drinks, or to dance, and he can invite the girl for more. These girls were called ‘Miss.’ So nowadays, if anyone calls a girl ‘Miss,’ she will find it insulting.)
At the beginning of the People’s Republic of China, the Communist Party wanted to end the prostitution business once for all. So every local government closed all the whorehouses in their cities, starting with Beijing. The mayor simply declared, at 5 o’clock in the afternoon on the 21st of November in 1949, a ban on the prostitution business and closed all the whorehouses. The chief of the main police station in Beijing gave orders to gather 2,400 cadres and policemen to form 27 groups. At 8:00PM, every group went to the designated district, and 224 whorehouses were closed and 1,316 prostitutes were penned up in penitentiaries for half a year. After “re-education” and healing and a skills-training process, about 400 of them married workers and shop assistants to start their new life. Around 200 of them married peasants in the suburbs of Beijing. Another 200 became workers themselves in textile factories. It is said that 379 returned to their respective homes, while 62 were assigned jobs in theaters or hospitals.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-6 08:52 On November 23, Shanghai followed suit and began to close all the whorehouses. In Shanghai 7,400 prostitutes were sent to penitentiaries and turned over a new leaf. During 1951 and 1952, all other cities did the same and prostitution was cleared up in China. As there were so many women who had to build a new life, some of them were sent to join the so-called construction army in the very remote northwest, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. In April of 1955, 920 girls started from Shanghai, in new green uniforms, and rode a train to barracks there.
Besides the prostitution problem, another problem in the cities was the great number of beggars, homeless and thieves. They were also rounded up by the local police and put in penitentiaries. Then after skills-training, they got jobs, too. During these years, passengers in trams and buses had no fear of pickpockets. Even housewives, if any needed to work to earn money, could be assigned jobs in some kind of factory or low-paying “productive group.” Jobs in the productive groups including sealing envelopes, making match boxes, or knitting work, etc. Jobs were not searched out and applied for, but allotted by the local government.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-8 08:51 Chapter 9. The Korean War
North Korea Invaded South Korea
A legend about Korea and China goes back to the end of the Shang Dynasty (1765–1122 BC). The last king of that dynasty was a tyrant and often killed innocent people, even his courtiers. When he was overthrown by the Zhou Dynasty (1121—476 BC), he burned himself to death. His brother Jizi escaped to Korea with his followers, bringing Chinese culture, etiquette and government systems there. The natives supported him to be the first king of Korea. It was called Jizi Korea, which lasted from 1122 BC to 194 BC.
The Korean War, or Korean Conflict, began on June 25, 1950, when the North Korean army marched across the line of demarcation, the 38th parallel, and suddenly attacked the 17th Regiment of the South Korean army without any warning. The war ended on July 27, 1953, when the cease-fire agreement was signed.
The Soviet Union was behind North Korea in waging the war, helped by China. Before the war, the leader of North Korea asked China to send over three divisions composed entirely of Koreans. These became the 4th field army under Lin Biao. The three divisions doubled the military forces of North Korea. Then North Korea concentrated great numbers of tanks and troops to press the South Korean army southward. Meanwhile North Korean troops made an amphibious landing at Kangnung on the east coast right on the south side of the 38th parallel. Then North Korean fighter aircrafts attacked Seoul and Kimpo Airfield, destroying a US Air Force C-54 on the ground on Kimpo Airfield. Therefore, John Muccio, the US Ambassador to South Korea, conveyed to US President Truman the request of South Korean government for air assistance and ammunition.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-9 08:08 The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting, which the representative of the Soviet Union did not attend. The United Nations Security Council called in unison for an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of the North Korean army to the north of the 38th parallel and authorized the United Nations members to aid South Korea. The United Nations Security Council requested that the US government establish a United Nations Command under an American officer. General MacArthur was appointed as commander of the United Nations army, and he ordered the US Air Force to attack the North Korean units in the south of the 38th parallel.
The US government began the air evacuation of its citizens from South Korea. The next day, the North Korean army occupied Chunchon, Pochon, and Tongduchon in South Korea. So the US 7th fleet sailed north from the Philippines. The US Air Force started to attack the North Korean army, but failed to prevent it from advancing. Soon the North Korean army captured Seoul, the capital of South Korea, overran the port of Inchon, seized the airfield at Kimpo, and threatened the city of Suwon. Then President Truman ordered some units of US navy to approach the Korean peninsula for the purpose of blockading the North Korea army.
At the end of July, as the North Korean troops kept advancing, the United Nations forces had to retreat to a new defensive line along the Naktong River. Then the United States troops launched their first ground offensive, marching from Masan westward toward Chinju to stabilize the southwestern end of the Pusan line. A few days later, US troops, with the aid of air strikes, drove the North Korean army at the Yongsan bridgehead back across the Naktong River.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-11 08:18 In mid-March, the Chinese forces abandoned Seoul without resistance when the US troops seized the high ground on both sides of the city north of the Han River. Then US air transports, flying from Taegu to Munsan-ni, a region behind Chinese lines some 20 miles northwest of Seoul, dropped the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team and two Ranger companies—more than 3,400 men. The Fifth Air Force fighters and light bombers conquered the opposition of the Chinese army, and so the United Nations forces marched rapidly to the Imjin River, capturing 127 Chinese prisoners of war. The Eighth Army moved northward across the 38th parallel.
With the coming of spring, the Chinese launched an all-out offensive with over 330,000 troops, using their “human wave” tactics. By the end of this month, they advanced to the vicinity of Seoul again. But under the United Nations assaults on the ground and in the air, both men and supplies on the Chinese side reached their limits. So the Eighth Army successfully stopped their further progress.
In spite of the resistance of the Chinese and North Korean army, the United Nations forces broke into the Pyonggang-Chorwon-Kumhwa “Iron Triangle” fortified sanctuaries just north of the 38th parallel. Therefore, on the 23rd of June, Jacob Malik, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations, called for negotiations between the representatives of the United Nations forces and those of the Chinese and North Korean forces for an armistice in Korea based on the separation of the armies along the 38th parallel.
On the 10th of July, Vice Admiral Turner Joy, leading the United Nations delegation met the Chinese and North Korean delegation at Kaesong, some 30 miles northwest of Seoul on the south side of the 38th parallel, for the first conference of the armistice negotiations. Therefore, less actions on the ground and in the air was maintained. But on the 4th of August, the Chinese ground forces violated the Kaesong neutral zone, resulting in suspension of the truce talks. Then on the 10th of August the armistice negotiations resumed at Kaesong with the North Korea promise to respect the neutral zone. However, on the 22nd of August, the Chinese and North Korean delegation trumped up evidence that a United Nations aircraft bombed Kaesong (not considering the safety of their own delegation?), which resulted in the suspension of the armistice negotiations once again.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-13 08:22 Then actions on the ground and in the air resumed. United Nations ground forces withstood the battalion-sized attacks of the Chinese army in the “Punchbowl”, the circular valley in the eastern Korea, west of the Soyang River and rimmed by sharply rising hills. On the 25th of October, at the request of the Chinese and North Korean delegation, the peace negotiations resumed at Kaesong after a two-month suspension. By that time the United Nations ground forces in the western and central sections had gained up to six miles in some places along the frontline.
On the 12th of November, the peace negotiations moved to Panmunjom, a village less than 5 miles east of Kaesong, in a newly established demilitarized zone on the 38th parallel. The United Nations forces ceased offensive ground operations. Toward the end of 1951, the negotiators at Panmunjom argued over the arrangements for an armistice and provisions about the prisoners of war. Ground actions of both sides reduced to minimum. However, at Panmunjom, the negotiations made no progress. To prevent the further attack of the Chinese and North Korean army in the frontline, the main strategy of the United Nations was to hinder the transportation of equipment and supplies to their front positions. So the targets of the air raid concentrated on bridges on rivers, railroads, moving trains and trucks.
In April of 1952, there were two major ground engagements. The Chinese and North Korean forces attacked at night the positions held by the First Marine Division south of Panmunjom and later assaulted the First Commonwealth Division north of Korangpo-ri. The friendly units withstood these attacks. No other ground actions happened this month.
In June, US 45th Infantry Division in the central sector near Chorwon launched two attacks successfully to gain a high ground and repulsed the counterattack of the Chinese troops. But in July, in the eastern sector of Korea, near the coast and near Hill 266 in the US Second Infantry Division area, a battalion of the Chinese army attempted to seize the high ground. It changed hands several times, but remained under the friendly control at the end of the month.
In mid-August, some reinforced-battalions of the Chinese army attacked the United Nations positions in several sectors. Hills in the First Marine Division sector and in the South Korean Second Corps sector changed hands several times, but United Nations forces retained control of those sectors.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-15 08:21 On the 29th of August, at the request of the US Department of State, US Far East Air Force launched the largest air attack against Pyongyang to serve as a dramatic military action during the visit of China’s premier, Zhou Enlai, to the Soviet Union. The State Department hoped that the attack might lead the Soviets to urge the Chinese to accept an armistice in the peace negotiations at Panmunjom.
In September, the heaviest ground activity centered in the sector of the Second Corps of South Korean army with intense seesaw fighting, but effected little change in the frontlines.
Between the 6th day and the 15th of October, the Chinese ground forces assaulted chiefly in the western IX Corps area northwest of Chorwon in a vain attempt to improve their position before the onslaught of winter. In mid-October, the Eighth Army launched an offensive to seize critical high ground in eastern IX Corps area northeast of Kumhwa. But it became a seesaw contest to retain domination terrain.
On the 8th of October, truce talks at Panmunjom recessed over the issue of forced repatriation of the prisoners of war. The United Nations delegates proposed allowing the prisoners of war from opposite sides to choose repatriation or not, but the Chinese and North Korean delegates insisted that all prisoners of war be repatriated.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-16 07:58 On the 16th of October, 1952, North Korea sent a strongly worded protest to the Far East Command concerning the recess in armistice negotiations, but they continued to insist on total repatriation of both Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war. At the end of this month they presented a new prisoners-of-war camp list. In Geneva, the League of Red Cross Societies recommended that the combatants exchange sick and wounded prisoners of war before the cease-fire.
On the 22nd of January in 1953, Beijing radio announced the capture of Colonel Arnold, pilot of a B-29 who was shot down on January 13. But the Chinese government refused to release him even during the repatriation of war prisoners. He was released in 1956.
On the 22nd of February, in a letter to Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea government and Marshal Peng Dehuai, Chinese commander in North Korea, the United Nations command stated its readiness to immediately repatriate those seriously ill and wounded prisoners of war who were fit to travel, and asked whether the North Korea and Chinese leaders were prepared to do the same.
During the first half of March, the Chinese army attacked in company-sized waves in several areas, particularly along the central front in the Kumhwa and Kumsong regions. Later, sometimes, they attacked by the regiment in the central and western sectors. Then US Intelligence found the military strength of the Chinese army growing, with from one to three Chinese divisions en route to or entering the Korean peninsula. The buildup indicated a possible offensive to seize as much territory as possible before the armistice.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-18 07:25 On March 21, North Korean truce negotiators expressed their willingness to observe the provisions of the Geneva Convention and exchange sick and wounded prisoners. At the same time they hinted that the exchange might lead to a resolution of other issues that had hindered the armistice so far.
On March 30, Zhou Enlai, the foreign minister of China, suggested that prisoners of war not desiring repatriation might be placed in the temporary custody of a neutral nation until negotiations determined their final status. Before his proposal, they had insisted on repatriating all the prisoners of war. Their new flexibility on this issue provided an opportunity to resume truce negotiations.
On the 26th of April, after suspension for six months, armistice negotiations between the Chinese and North Korean delegation and the United Nations delegation reconvened in Panmunjom. Representatives of both sides negotiated details of the repatriation of prisoners of war. Then there followed the exchange of the seriously wounded and sick prisoners—6670 Chinese and North Koreans for 471 South Koreans, 149 Americans, and 64 other United Nations personnel, the count at that time.
US aircraft spread leaflets in North Korea, announcing that anyone who delivered a MiG or other jet aircraft to the United Nations forces in South Korea would receive political asylum, resettlement in a noncommunist country, anonymity, and $50,000. An additional $50,000 bounty would go to the first person to take advantage of this offer. In September 1953, after the cease-fire, a North Korean MiG-15 pilot flew his aircraft safely to Kimpo air base in South Korea.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-20 08:03 In the last week of May, the Chinese and North Korean troops made a major ground offensive against the United Nations positions on ridges dominating the US I Corps sector, about 10 miles northeast of Panmunjom. Meanwhile, the armistice negotiations faltered over disagreements regarding the repatriation of the prisoners of war. The Chinese and North Korean delegates wanted North Korean prisoners unwilling to return to their homelands to be detained indefinitely, in effect punishing them for their decision. The United Nations delegates wanted to release all prisoners to civilian status on the day the armistice became effective. To let the Chinese and North Koreans know that the continuance of the war would incur additional political and economic costs, the US Air Force attacked targets in North Korea that had been untouched previously. They bombed irrigation dams, whose destruction would, besides interrupting food production, disrupt further preparations for a ground offensive on the part of the Chinese and North Korean army by flooding the rails and road networks.
By mid-June, both sides had agreed to establish a Neutral Nations Repatriation committee. The final session of armistice negotiations at Panmunjom convened. After meeting for one day, the top negotiators agreed to adjourn while technical experts worked out the cease-fire details.
At 10:00AM on July 27, 1953, the armistice agreement was signed to produce the cease-fire in the Korean War between the United Nations forces, South Korea, and the Chinese People’s Volunteers, North Korea. In accordance with the armistice agreement, in August, the prisoners of war were exchanged in Operation Big Switch—77,000 Chinese and North Korean army prisoners of war, for 12,700 prisoners from the United Nations and South Korean army, including 3,597 Americans, the final count. (The above data was taken from the US government booklet entitled “The USAF in Korea”.)作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-22 08:00 Chapter 10. The 3 Anti-’s and 5 Anti-’s Movements
The 3 Anti-’s Movement
In November 1951, two party secretaries in Tianjin were caught embezzling funds. Therefore, on December 1, 1951, the Central Committee of the Communist Party launched the cost-saving movement which was literally called “Three Anti-’s”: anti-embezzlement, anti-waste, and anti-bureaucratism. This movement was targeted at cadres of the government and government-run enterprises; the ones who had power. Mao wanted to clip their wings. At that time, there were 3,830,000 government cadres. They would be examined through this movement.
The cadres could be divided into three categories. The first were those who had gone through the Sino–Japanese War and the second civil war, who should be dependable. The second category included those newly employed after the establishment of the new republic. The third group were those having worked in the former government, who were undependable, of course. Those who were guilty of the crime of embezzlement were called “tigers.” Through this movement, the Communist Party wanted to “catch big tigers” so that there would not be any embezzlement in the government any more. Anyone who embezzled 10,000 yuan was defined as a big tiger and would be executed. In China, political movements were often carried out with violence. So many targeted persons committed suicide, even though they were cadres.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-23 07:55 The 5 Anti-’s Movement
Right in the wake of the three Anti-’s movement, another program was launched, which was literally called “Five Anti-’s”: anti-bribery, anti-tax-evasion, anti-jerry-rigging, anti-stealing-government-property, and anti-theft-of-government-economic-information. The target of this movement was all the national capitalists; the ones who had money. In feudal societies like Imperial China, the emperor considered that everything on the land he ruled over was his own, and everyone on this land essentially worked for him. Verbally, Mao declared himself as a Marxist-Leninist, but his actions often made him look like the “communist emperor of the Red Dynasty.” His actions showed people what he thought; he didn’t put it in plain words. And given the low level of development and widespread poverty in China, the Communists under Mao sought to cover the basic necessities of life for everyone; and that didn’t leave much extra. All excesses would be confiscated.
On the 26th of January, 1952, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued instructions for the Five-Anti-’s movement. In early February, it started in all the big cities, aiming at businessmen. The Party defined them as capitalists. The Party divided Chinese capitalists into two types: bureaucratic capitalists like Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Tse-ven, K’ung Hsiang-hsi, and the Chen brothers, who were very wealthy and were called the four big capitalist families. All the property they left on the mainland was confiscated. All others were defined as national capitalists, and their properties remained with them for the time being. Now they were the target of the five anti-’s movement.
The local governments organized so-called work teams consisting of cadres, workers and shop assistants. Violence was part of every movement. Some capitalists were beaten or slapped in their faces. Capitalists were forced to confess what they had failed to do so far in these five categories. This was called ‘face to face fight.’ Quite a few capitalists committed suicide. Then the government changed from face-to-face fight to a back-to-back tactic. Workers or shop assistants just revealed the crimes of their bosses, behind their backs, so that no retaliation could be inflicted.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-25 08:12 Statistics showed that during these two movements, in the whole country, 184,270 persons were arrested, 119,355 party members expelled, and 133,760 people were killed or disabled, including those committing suicide or beaten to death, or tortured to death in jails and labor reform camps. Those who committed suicide were mostly capitalists. The means of suicide were various. In some secluded corners of public parks, people were found hanging from big trees. Then, patrols increased to prevent hangings in such places. The most popular method of suicide was to jump from high buildings. It was the easiest way, and hard to prevent. But it was dangerous for pedestrians. A person who jumped from a height could possibly fall on the head of a pedestrian and the pedestrian could be killed, while the one jumping survived. Someone actually did some research to see why people in Shanghai did not jump into the Wangpu River. The answer was that if anyone jumped into the river, he could possibly be saved; besides, if he was not saved his body would be washed out to sea. When his body was not found, the government would suspect him of escaping outside the country and his family would get into trouble. So he had to leave his body to be found. Generally a suicide would leave a note, in which he first criticized himself for whatever crime he had been accused of, then he praised the government so that his family would be treated a little better than otherwise. Poor Chinese people! Even suicide was fraught with difficulties.
Both of the “Anti” movements ended in October 1952.
At the end of the 5 Anti-’s movement, the government determined that every national capitalist had at least committed the crime of tax-evasion and would have to pay a big fine to the government. So all the capitalists had to sell personal belongings like cars, jewelry, or even houses, if they did not have enough cash in the bank. That was the first financial blow to the national capitalists. Another financial blow would soon follow.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-27 08:17 Mao’s Own Lifestyle
Mao wanted government officials to save money and he took money out of the pockets of the well-to-do. Thus his own spending raised a lot of questions in some people’s minds. He could spend as much as he saw fit. He ordered many villas to be built for his own use only. They were needed, apparently, to provide the best protection and comfort for him. He had over 50 villas in the country, 5 in Beijing alone. The villas were all similarly built: looking like a big cement warehouse from outside, but one that could protect him even from an atom bomb. Every villa, or bunker, was only one storey tall, but they were located in beautiful settings, some with lakes. The whole surroundings were enclosed. In the vicinity of every villa, a transportation network was built, such as a military airport, a train line, and a tunnel for cars. Wherever Mao went, the three means of transportation followed him. When he rode in his personal airplane, the airspace would be cleared while his plane flew past. When he rode in his personal train, other trains had to stop while his train went past.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-29 07:50 Chapter 11. The So-Called Gao Gang & Rao Shushi Anti-Party Event
Mao was familiar with Chinese political history. When certain new dynasties began, the first emperors of those dynasties would find fault with some of their faithful supporters who were deemed by those emperors to be potential threats to their future as rulers. Therefore, those supporters were killed or imprisoned for whatever possible crimes could be attributed to them. So was the case with Gao Gang and Rao Shushi.
Gao (1905–1954) came from a poor peasant family in Shaanxi province. In January, 1927, he entered the Yat-sen Military Academy in XiAn and joined the Communist Party in February. In 1933, he was the political commissar of the 42nd division of the Red 26th army. In the Communist Army system, a political commissar was the representative of the Communist Party in the army, a little higher in rank than the division commander. Then he was appointed director of the political department in the Red 15th corps. But in 1935, he was imprisoned as a reactionary and was about to be executed. Just at that time, Mao and Zhou Enlai reached the northern Shaanxi province, with the central Red Army. Mao ordered Gao to be released and Gao was so grateful to Mao he became Mao’s faithful supporter ever after. So in the 7th conference of the Communist Party, he became a member of the Central Political Bureau (equivalent to the executive department of the Central Committee) and the secretary of the northwest bureau. (All over the country, the Communist Party set up six bureaus. Every bureau rules over several provinces.)
After Japan surrendered, the Communist Party intended to occupy the northeastern provinces and set up a northeast bureau. Gao was appointed the secretary to take charge of everything in that region. In 1946, Lin Biao was sent up to the northeastern provinces as the commander of the 4th field army and he worked with Gao in a cooperative relationship. Often they both had the same view. After the new republic was established, Gao was the vice chairman of the central people’s government, the vice chairman of the people’s revolutionary military committee, and also the chairman of the people’s government in the northeastern area. After the Korean War broke out, though Gao disagreed on sending the Chinese army into Korea, he still gave full support in supplying whatever the army needed there. So Marshal Peng Dehuai praised him for that. Gao was also the chairman of the national planning committee—clearly, a very capable man.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-3-30 08:26 Rao Shushi (1903–1975) was born in Jiangxi province. He joined the Communist Party in 1925. Then he was made the secretary of the party caucus of the Federation of Labor Unions of Shanghai and the secretary of the party caucus of the Chinese National General Labor Union. During the Anti-Japanese War, he was the political commissar of the new 4th army. During the second civil war, he was the political commissar of the 3rd field army and the secretary of the east China bureau of the Communist Party. When the new republic was founded, he was the chairman of the east China military and political committee, the first secretary of the east China bureau, and then the minister of the organization department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Also an intelligent, qualified leader.
Gao’s and Rao’s paths in life had never crossed each other; they were in different regions entirely. But they were both accused of the crime of being anti-Party together. Anyway, why were they not accused of being anti-Party separately? It was understood that no man could act against the Communist Party of China, only a clique could try that. And you need at least two powerful persons to form a clique (the same held true during the Cultural Revolution, when Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were put together as the powerful men accused of following the capitalist road).
In accordance with the official statement of the Communist Party, the main accusations against Gao were: criticizing mistakes and errors in the national economic field, namely decisions concerning Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, members of the Secretariat of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee in charge of that field. From the same source, Gao was understood to have further slandered them by saying that Liu and Zhou Enlai had cliques in the Central Committee. Gao and Rao were alleged to have spread a rumor that An Ziwen, the vice minister of the organization department of the CPC Central Committee, had put up a list of the members of the CPC political bureau, at the instruction of Liu. (That meant that Liu privately let An make such a list behind the back of Mao.) Then Gao left Beijing on a vacation to see Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and Lin Biao separately and tried to persuade them to support him. What would his purpose have been? The official statement alleged that Gao wanted to replace Liu in his higher political position. But why would Rao work with Gao? What could Rao get from it? The official statement said that Rao wanted to acquire the power to appoint and promote the cadres. But at that time Rao was already the minister of the organization department of the CPC Central Committee and already had that power.
In 1951, Gao thought of publishing an article he had written as an editorial in the Northeast Daily, but rather than take it upon himself to do so of his own accord, he handed in the article for Mao to read and give his approval first. Think of that. Historians surmise that Mao did want to get rid of Liu, which he did in the Cultural Revolution, but at that time, the conditions were not yet ripe. Conceivably Gao got the wind of it and acted earlier than Mao planned. Mao had to get rid of him lest his cat got out of the bag.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-1 08:03 Another surmise, which came from Khrushchev’s memoirs, was that Gao had sent information to the Soviet Union about things that were going on in the Communist Party of China and what the leaders said. The Soviet Union had provided China with old, rebuilt tanks, and some such things, and the Chinese leaders were dissatisfied. Those leaders included Liu and Zhou. Gao did not mention Mao. To secure Mao’s trust and friendship, Stalin gave Mao the information he had received from Gao. Therefore, Mao wanted to get rid of Gao (but why was Rao included?) and made arrangements with Liu and Zhou. Mao gave Gao the false impression that he wanted to rid Liu, or even hinted that Gao should do something about it. Gao, thinking that he had Mao’s support, fell into the snare Mao set up for him. Gao was then taken into custody. He attempted a suicide in April 1954, but in vain. He made another suicide attempt in August and died this time. Rao was apprehended on April 1, 1955, and sentenced to 14 years. After 10 years he was out of the jail, but was put back in again during the Cultural Revolution and died on March 2, 1975.
It was said that Rao was arrested due to his involvement in another case. During the movement to arrest and kill the reactionaries, Yang Fan, the chief of the police station of Shanghai, thought of a method to use reactionaries to reveal hidden reactionaries. In the process, he did not punish those he utilized and so he was accused of protecting reactionaries—more than 3,300 in number. This involved Rao. Moreover, Pan Hannian, a vice mayor of Shanghai in charge of police affairs, feared that since he had worked with Rao and Yang Fan, he would have to confess his side of the story to the Party so that he might ride out the crisis. He confessed that in the summer of 1943, he went to Shanghai from where the new 4th army was encamped to meet Li Shiqun, a traitor to Japan, and he was kidnapped and taken to Nanking to see Wang Jingwei. Although he did not betray the Communist Party, when he was back at the camp he did not report to the Party what had happened. Now he confessed it and was arrested. Then Rao Shushi, Pan Hannian and Yang Fan were defined as an anti-Party clique. This clique was separate from the Gao Gang clique.
After the Cultural Revolution, some cases were re-opened and examined. Pan was sent by the Party to contact the traitor Li to get information. So his case was redressed, and also the case of Yang Fan. Now what about Gao’s and Rao’s “anti-Party” activities? When Gao had sought Deng Xiaoping’s support against Liu Shaoqi, Deng reported to Mao, and Gao was imprisoned. If Gao’s case was wrong, it shows that Mao’s decision to confine Gao was wrong and Deng’s report to Mao was also wrong. After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping was in power and he would never own that he had done anything wrong, to save face. So the case was not redressed.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-3 08:07 Chapter 12. China’s First Five-Year Plan (1953–57)
Agricultural Collectivization and Peasant Cooperatives
As the basis for their ambitious economic planning, the CPC held China’s first modern census in 1952. The mainland population was estimated at over half a billion—that’s a lot of mouths to feed. The first step toward improving efficiency and productivity involved land reforms.
During the land reform movement, first the arable land was taken from wealthy individuals and distributed to individual peasants and their families. But then the Communist Party called upon peasants to join productive cooperatives, on a “voluntary” basis but with invisible political pressure behind it. Once they joined the cooperative, peasants lost control of their land, which automatically belonged to the cooperative. The cooperative would decide what crops to grow and when harvests were sold, peasants got a certain percentage of income according to the quantity of the land a peasant put in. When a peasant had his land under his own control, he could decide what to grow and what part of the harvest he would keep for his own use, and the rest he would sell in the market.
By the end of 1952, the first 3,600 cooperatives were operating on a trial basis. On the 16th of December, 1953, the Central Committee of the CPC passed a bill to speed up the development of agricultural productive cooperatives. From 1954 to the first half of 1955, cooperatives sprang up all over the country. In spring of 1954, there were already 95,000 cooperatives, which meant that 1,700,000 families had joined them. In autumn of the same year, the cooperatives had increased to more than 225,000. On May 17, 1955, at Mao’s proposal, the Central Committee of the CPC decided to expand the cooperatives to one million in 1956. By July of 1955, the cooperatives reached the number of 650,000 and by the end of 1956, 96.3% of peasant families had joined the cooperatives.
That was the essential change of the agricultural productive style from individual to collective. This process roughly coincided with the consolidation of America’s private farms into a large-scale industrial agro business which was carried out by capitalist means involving loans and debt, price manipulation and other methods. Different means to pursue the same end, although not with the same results.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-4 08:00 Private Businesses Become State Property
The economical ideal of the Communist Party was that there should be no private businesses in a so-called socialist country. Private businesses were the typical symbol of the capitalist system. So at the end of 1955, Chen Yun, in charge of the national economy, declared a reform of private businesses over the next two years. Then Peng Zhen, the mayor of Beijing, proposed to finish the reform in 1956 in Beijing. In January of 1956, in just a few days, Beijing completed the reform. Mao pushed it by visiting a textile factory owned by Rong Yiren, the biggest national capitalist in China at the time, on the 10th of January. Rong offered to turn over his factories to government ownership on the 20th. Others followed suit, in all cities where there were private businesses.
The carefully-formulated process was that the private business owner must send in an application begging the communist government to take over his business. Accordingly the government would approve his application. This was like a traveler offering his belongings to an outlaw and begging him to take them. The outlaw was only willing to accept the offer for mercy’s sake, as if the belongings were so heavy they would break the traveler’s back if he carried them any longer. The outlaw was only relieving him of a burden.
Anyway, in Beijing, on the 15th of January, 1956, there was a celebration on TianAnMen Square where 200,000 people gathered to celebrate the completion of the takeover of private businesses by the government. The takeover was called a “purchasing policy,” which meant that the government bought these private businesses from the private owners and paid them a certain amount of money called “fixed interests,” which would be paid off at the annual rate of 5% of the value of these private businesses. The government decided what was the value of a factory or a store, and the owner had no right to bargain. As a rule, the government should have paid the owner for 20 years at the rate of 5%, but no, the government promised to pay only for 7 years. And at the end of the 7 years it would make a further decision to see whether it would continue to pay or not. Anyway, this sounded better than outright expropriation.
This was the second financial blow to the national capitalists, leaving them only their personal belongings like jewelry and antiques, if they had any left after paying fines. But the final financial blow was coming soon.
The payment of fixed interests might last for 3 years more, which meant the government only paid for 10 years out of the 20 years, only half of the value.
After these takeovers, the former owner would be given a position in the business (as a salesman or other worker). If he was accorded a position like manager, he was only holding the position in name, and had no say whatsoever in the decisions. The party secretary was the one to decide everything, even if he understood nothing about the business. Older owners just retired and lived on the fixed interests while the younger ones accepted their salary as well as the fixed interests.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-10 09:55 Chapter 13. So-Called Three Red Banners
The purpose of the slogan “Three Red Banners” was to help make China a strong and prosperous country in the shortest possible period by building “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” that is, by avoiding certain limitations built into other nations’ experiments with communist/socialist models.
Every dynasty in Chinese history favored a particular color. For the Qing Dynasty, yellow (or gold) symbolized the imperial authority. The Communist Party has always favored red. Initially that red was meant to symbolize the blood of martyred revolutionaries, but over time this image has been broadened in some people’s view to include the blood of those bystanders who became victims to the various campaigns through which regime change was accomplished.
Anyway, the “three red banners” meant the General Line (for socialist construction), the Great Leap Forward, and the People’s Commune.
The General Line
The General Line was “to keep up full energy, to fight your way upstream, and to build socialism quickly and thriftily, abundantly and well.” On October 11, 1955, Mao said at a meeting that the cooperatives must be developed abundantly, quickly and well. Then Li Fuchun (1900–1975), vice director of the plan committee and vice Premier of the state council, suggested adding “thriftily”, which was accepted. So on January 1, 1956, the People’s Daily ran an editorial urging the people to keep this theme in mind while carrying out the first five-year plan. In 1958, the People’s Daily New Year’s day editorial exhorted the populace to continue working with their full energy, to strive to get upstream. So the General Line was formed. In theory, it was a good mission statement (to use today’s terminology). But, in carrying it out, the Communist Party went astray and moved contrary to the reality of how processes unfold, and this was true as well in the so-called Great Leap forward and the People’s Commune movements.
The Great Leap Forward
On the 29th of June, 1957, an article was published with the signature of one Yu Jianhui, in which the slogan of “the Great Leap Forward” was first heard. In September, during the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the CPC, the decision was made to carry out the Great Leap Forward movement in agriculture. On the 13th of November, the editorial of the People’s Daily said, “Some people are infected with Right-deviationist conservatism and have crawled like snails. Since the agricultural collectivization has taken place, we have all the conditions and the necessities to make the Great Leap Forward on the productivity front.” On the 2nd of February, 1958, the slogan of an overall Great Leap Forward was emphasized more broadly.
In spring of 1958, major moves were made for the building of agricultural irrigation systems and for the collection of natural fertilizer on a large scale in the countryside. For irrigation construction, the labor force used reached 20 or 30 million workers in October, and 80 million in December. In January of 1958, it reached 100 million. Some provinces that produced mostly industrial goods guaranteed they would produce enough grain, meat and vegetables for the people in those provinces in that year. Formerly, these had been brought in from other provinces. This was considered the prelude to the Great Leap Forward. In the countryside the Great Leap Forward was linked with the people’s commune movement.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-12 08:08 The People’s Commune
Mao wanted to enlarge the cooperative commune into the so-called People’s Commune. On July 1, 1958, the first People’s Commune was established, merging 27 cooperatives, with 9,360 families involved, in Henan Province. Its official name was Chayashan Satellite People’s Commune. The commune was really a basic local government. It controlled almost everything in the district of the commune, from agricultural production to people’s daily life. It had public canteens—no more eating at home, as a family—kindergartens, clinics, shops, and its own armed forces (called militia) instead of police.
As peasants no longer had their own land and worked for the commune, for very low pay, their enthusiasm for work was essentially quenched. The Party admitted later that it was a mistake, a wrong policy. In order to increase productivity, in 1958, the professor and rocket scientist Qian Xuesen created a theory of “High Productivity,” on the basis of calculation only, without any practical investigation. He was not an agronomist nor a plant physiologist, but he wanted to fulfill Mao’s desire and invented a suitable theory. It was called “high productivity satellite.” When Mao learned of the theory, he gave instructions that all the communes should implement the theory. But the land could not yield as much as had been calculated theoretically. Therefore, false statistics were reported to the Party. From June to November, high production was reported thirty-nine times. The highest yield of wheat was 7,320 catties (about 24 tons) per acre, that of corn 117 tons per acre, and similarly exaggerated statistics for rice, sweet potato, etc. Possibly, Mao believed some of this; but people generally got the impression that everything said in the news was misleading. Simply lies.
As it was reported that the peasants had produced so much grain, Mao and other Party leaders worried about what to do with it all. Mao said the peasants could eat all they wanted, for free, and if the people could not consume so much, they would be able to give the surplus to foreign people.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-13 08:19 They also wanted people in cities to organize people’s communes. In every block, the resident committee had to have a canteen so that the residents could go there for meals, like in the countryside. But most of the city residents did not eat in the canteens. They still cooked at home. So the city people’s commune was a quick failure. Then Mao criticized himself, saying that he had listened to Qian as if he had no brains of his own. Even Tian Jiaying, his secretary, asked him how, coming from a peasant family himself, he could have believed that it was possible to produce such vast quantities of food per acre. It seems that Mao had no grasp of science or mathematics. Qian Xuesen actually did have plenty of brains. He was a US-educated rocket scientist who helped establish the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before being deported in 1955 as a Communist. He went on to build China’s own space program, from intercontinental ballistic missiles and satellites to putting a man in space in 2003.
Mao was in a hurry to bring to life “communist society” before his death. Mao forced the nation to implement his ideas even when they were ill-founded, and as a result, the whole nation sank into economical disaster. Things became scarce, especially food. People in cities were quickly put on rations and had to use their limited coupons to buy all the necessities such as rice, flour, meat, eggs, cloth, cooking oil, sugar, cigarettes, matches, yarn or thread, products based on bean curd, and even bathroom tissue. There were also ration coupons to buy cakes, biscuits, or anything made from rice or flour. If anyone went to a restaurant and ate rice or noodles, he had to give rice coupons besides paying money. The cashiers’ work was made a little more complicated, as they had to calculate the money as well as the coupons.
Ration coupons were distributed according to the number of persons in a family, and were given to the family every three months. At the beginning of every quarter, housewives waited in expectation of the distribution of coupons to buy everything they needed. Every family had two small booklets, one to buy rice or flour in grain stores (with a certain limit) if they wanted to cook rice or use flour in any kind of recipe at home, and the other used to buy coal to fuel the cooking ovens. The “Three Red Banners” ended in failure.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-15 08:21 Chapter 14. Soviet Experts Give Technical Assistance
Soviet Counselors and Experts Help China
The Communist Party was aware that China was very backward and had few technicians and scientists who could take the lead in economical development when they took over the country. Therefore, they asked the Soviet Union for help. In 1949, the Soviet Union sent Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, member of the Bolshevik politburo, on a secret visit to Xibopo where the headquarters of the Liberation Army had moved in May 1948. Stalin wanted to know, first, what attitude the Communist Party of China would hold towards the Soviet Union. At the same time he talked about possible technical aid to China after the Communist Party of China expressed their willingness to accept Soviet leadership. At a meeting on February 1, Zhou Enlai requested the Soviet Union to send experts and equipment for weapons manufacture, and advisors to train troops and help to set up military academies.” Mikoyan could not give any answer but reported to Stalin, and asked the Communist Party of China send a delegation to the Soviet Union for further discussion. In June 1949, Liu Shaoqi headed a secret delegation to Moscow. In August, 220 Soviet financial advisors and engineers came to China with him. At that time in northern China, 1,300,000 out of 1,500,000 cadres were illiterate. So it was very important to have Soviet experts come in.
Besides sending Chinese cadres to the Soviet Union for training and practical experience, the Communist Party of China invited many Soviet experts to manage almost every department of the central government, from security, military, and intelligence, to gymnastics and hygiene. There were over 400 Soviet advisors in the central government, one third of all the advisors and experts in China. According to Soviet statistics, during 1951–1953, there were 1210 Soviet experts working in China. A report from the Communist Party of China revealed that Soviet experts helped to build 51 factories by April of 1953, and from 1953 to 1959, 91 factories were built. The Soviet experts assumed the duties of selecting sites for the factories, the design, and the supply of equipment. They instructed Chinese workers how to install the equipment and how to operate it and manufacture new products. In one report, Li Fuchun said, “Without the assistance of the Soviet Union, we would not have achieved such speed and scale in our construction in the first five-year plan. We would certainly have faced unimaginable difficulties.”作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-17 08:26 The Soviets With Their Advisors and Experts
But in the Korean War, the Soviet Union sold China out-of-date and unusable weaponry. During 1950–1951, one fourth of the airplanes that were delivered to China were not flight-ready but needed repairs. So towards the end of the first five-year plan, the Communist Party adjusted its policy on the use of Soviet advisors and experts. At a meeting in Chengdu City, in March of 1958, Mao criticized the blind worship of Soviet experts and demanded that his people push back against dogmatism and slave-like thinking. This change in Mao’s attitude towards the Soviet Union was after the death of Stalin in 1953. Stalin was openly acknowledged as the leader of the Communist International movements. Although Mao thought highly of himself, he did not dare to challenge Stalin for the international leadership position. Since Stalin was gone, Mao had no great esteem for the new Soviet leader. He thought that he himself should replace Stalin as the leader of world Communism.
In August 1958, Khrushchev, the new head of the Soviet Union, visited Beijing and held talks with Mao. One might conclude from this visit that Mao thought he held a more important position in the communist world so that Khrushchev should come to Beijing to see him. If Stalin were still alive, it certainly would have been Mao who went to Moscow for any talks. Stalin would never have come to Beijing. Anyway, Mao and Khrushchev had different opinions about the need for Soviet advisors and experts. Mao could not tolerate having Soviet advisors intervene so deeply in China’s affairs and wanted to reduce their number, but he still needed the technical experts. So the number of the advisors and experts decreased year by year: 952 in 1957, 915 in 1958, 699 in 1959, and 410 in 1960.
The tension between the Communist Party of China and the Soviet Communist Party became open during the Bucharest conference in June 1960. Khrushchev and Peng Zhen, head of the Chinese delegation, had a quarrel. The Soviet Union accused China of violating their agreement to present a unified front, not displaying the difference in views between the two parties and the Chinese opposition to the common route supported by the communist world. Only Albania stood with China. After the conference, the Soviet Union withdrew all its advisors and experts from China, leaving many tasks unfinished. The notion of an unbreakable friendship between the Soviet Union and China was over.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-19 08:14 Chapter 15. The Anti-Rightist Movement
Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom
In April 1956, Mao gave a speech introducing the “Double-Hundred Policy,” the meaning of which was “To let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred (different) opinions be expressed.” Then the Minister for Propaganda, Lu Dingyi, made a speech explaining to all the intellectuals that they should go ahead and think independently. They would have freedom to debate and criticize, creative freedom, freedom of expression, and the right to their own opinions. It was so sweet to hear that many believed it; but only fools gave out their opinions boldly.
On May 1, 1957, the People’s Daily published “Instructions about the Rectification Movement,” which had been passed at the Central Committee of the Communist Party on April 27. The Party had decided to start a rectification movement within the Party to foster anti-bureaucratism, anti-sectarianism, and anti-subjectivism. The Party called upon people outside the Party, upon people the country over, to express their opinions, to criticize the Party and government, and to help the Party to rectify any shortcomings. The request sounded earnest. This was the sole movement that was aimed at improving the Party itself.
Many people in the country, especially the intellectuals, educated people (which included many of the capitalists, or propertied class), all those and other fools, did criticize the Party for their so many obvious wrongdoings. Even the newspapers followed suit. At that time, people thought that the Party was really being open-minded. It was a snare that many naive people fell for.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-20 08:10 The Reaction
Then the Anti-Rightist movement began. “Rightist” opinions generally included the common complaint of peasants that their life was worse than it was before and that the life of workers in the cities was better than that of peasants; and that the policy requiring peasants to sell a high quota of their harvest to the government forced peasants to starve. Other people demanded to cancel the political lessons in schools and universities; to have the freedom to move to other cities or from the countryside to the city; to have the freedom of speech and publication; to criticize wrong-doings in the previous movements; to criticize Chinese interference in the Korean War (meaning the money used in the war should be used instead to improve the life of their own people or for the construction of China); to criticize the Soviet Union for their soldiers who raped Chinese women in 1946 when they occupied the northeast after driving out the Japanese; to criticize one-party rule; to demand equal opportunity in the elections of government leaders (there were some so-called democratic parties in China); and many others.
Mao’s Anti-Rightist Movement
However, on June 8, the People’s Daily ran an editorial, “Why Is this?” on the first page. It mentioned the term “Rightists.” On June 12, Mao wrote an article, “Things Are Changing,” and circulated it within the Party. On the 14th , the People’s Daily published another editorial, “The Bourgeois Direction Taken by Wenhui Daily.” This editorial was rumored to have been written by Mao. It blamed the Wenhui Daily and the Brightness Daily, two newspapers managed by Party members, for their criticisms of the Party. Thus began the anti-rightist movement.
Mao was said to have commented that the rectification movement was just a trick to “lure snakes out of the hole.” Who were the snakes? Mao seemed to mean the rightists. Mao estimated that about five percent of the population in China were “rightists.” This was really the kind of subjectivism that was decried (taking one’s own view, and using it as the standard of measure), as Mao invented a fixed number of rightists without counting, even when the movement just began. The number should have been calculated only when the results came in. On the 15th of October, the Party issued another document, “Standards by which to Decide on Rightists.” There were six rules for determining who were rightists:
1. Anti-socialist system: people who opposed the basic economic policies of the Party and government; negating the achievements of the socialist revolution and construction; insisting on a capitalist viewpoint.
2. Opposing the proletarian dictatorship and democratic centralism, such as resisting the fight against imperialism; disagreeing with the foreign policy of the government; disagreeing with the five movements; opposing the execution of reactionaries; opposing the reform of capitalists and capitalist intellectuals; demanding to replace the laws and cultural education of socialism with those of capitalism.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-22 07:56 3. Opposing the leadership of the Communist Party in political life, and in the economy and culture; attacking the leading organizations and leaders of the Communist Party and the government for the purpose of opposing socialism and the Party, slandering the revolutionary activities of the Party.
4. Disrupting the social harmony for the purpose of opposing socialism and the Party, such as instigating people against the Party and the government; instigating friction between industrial workers and peasants; instigating discord among minorities; slandering the socialist camp; fomenting discord among peoples of different socialist countries.
5, Actively organizing and joining cliques against socialism and the Party, such as plotting to overthrow the leadership of the Party anywhere; instigating riots against the Party and government.
6. Aiding, advising, passing information to those who committed the above crimes.
There were 552,877 rightists found in China, out of the entire population of 642,380,000 in 1957. Important rightists included Zhang Bojun, head of the Brightness Daily newspaper, Chu Anping, chief editor of that newspaper, Luo Longji, head of the Wenhui Daily newspaper, and Pu Xixiu, chief editor of that newspaper. One of the rightists among the capitalists was Wang Kangnian, who insisted that if the government bought people’s land and property, they should pay fixed interests for twenty years, not seven years, as the rate was five percent. And this calculation was in line with earlier public declarations.
Actually, all the points raised by the “rightists” were proven correct as history played out. As for the fixed interests, at the end of the seven years, the Party decided to continue paying for another three years. Ten years altogether. Then the Cultural Revolution began and no one mentioned it any more. End of story.
What became of the rightists? Some lost their jobs and were forced to clean bathrooms. Their salaries were duly reduced to the level of a cleaner’s. Some were sent to labor reform camps. Hard labor, plus a great famine that took place later, killed many of them by hunger or disease.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-24 07:44 All the rightists were given a “rightist cap,” as it was called in the newspaper. It was actually an invisible cap, only recorded in their personal files. But the files followed them everywhere they went, so it was like having a cap always on one’s head. After 1985, some rightists were restored to full citizenship, but they were still called “uncapped rightists,” which meant that though their caps were removed, they were still deemed different from other people.
During the Cultural Revolution those people, capped or uncapped, were criticized and even beaten. In 1977, many false convictions were overturned, including rightist cases, almost twenty years after the Anti-Rightist Movement. By May of 1980, most of the rightist cases were rehabilitated, and they were no longer called “uncapped rightists.” About 97% of the rightist cases were judged to have been wrong. But 1978, after twenty years, only a little more than 100,000 of the 552,877 so-called rightists survived. Many victims had died.
On in November 2005, Shi Ruping, a retired professor from Shandong University, together with some other professors and their families, signed an open letter to the National People’s Congress and the State Council demanding that the Party make self-criticism and apologies to the intellectuals who had fallen victim to this political persecution, and give them reasonable and satisfactory compensations. In three months, they garnered 1,500 supporters.
In 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Movement, 61 survivors in Beijing signed an open letter demanding that the Party should openly declare the rehabilitation of the whole Anti-Rightist Movement, not just the individuals. But the Party declined to take any such steps.
Through this movement, Mao and the Party intended to quench all opposing voices and even to stifle dissent in people’s minds. Anyone who dared to say anything different from what the Party wanted them to say would get punishment. Mao was said to enjoy reading history books and learning strategies used by ancient military leaders and government officials: stratagems for seizing power, how to defeat political enemies, how to feint and lay military traps, how to appeal to people’s beliefs, or ego, diplomatic ploys and salesman’s techniques. If he couldn’t calculate a harvest, he certainly knew how to calculate to win.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-26 08:18 Chapter 16. Mao’s Goal to Overtake England in 15 Years
Barely had the Anti-Rightist Movement been victoriously completed, in November 1957, when Mao put forward another idea: that China must overtake Great Britain in 15 years. Well, he was referring specifically to iron and steel output and certain other major products. Mao headed a delegation to the Moscow to attend the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s October Revolution. Then he attended conference with representatives of 64 communist parties and worker’s parties from all over the world. Mao announced that since the Soviet Union could overtake the US in 15 years, China could overtake Great Britain in 15 years, too.
At that time England’s annual steel production was 20 million tons. In 15 years, it might reach 30 million tons. So his aim was to reach 40 million tons in steel production in 15 years. From the estimation in an official document on the speed of the steel productivity in China, the result would be that the steel production could reach 12 million tons in 1959, 30 million tons in 1962, 70 million tons in 1967, and 120 million tons in 1972. This sounds like the same kind of estimates that drove the agricultural policy, but the party leaders thought that their aim could be achieved in 3 or 5 years, no need for 15 years. To find new sources of iron ore, local party secretaries led people in their areas into the mountains, even elementary school pupils and the elderly, people in their 70s and 80s, joined in the action. Peasants left their work in the fields and abandoned the harvests to participate in the search for ore deposits. In Henan province, 50% of the grain was left unharvested and rotted in the fields.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-27 08:03 By then, the total goal for iron and steel production had been set at 10.7 million tons. An official Party decision to that effect was taken on the 17th of August, 1958. To achieve that goal, they wanted the whole nation to engage in the making of iron and steel. They ordered people to build old-styled open-pit ovens, like in the kitchens of primitive old houses. In all factories other than steel plants, a couple of ovens were set up to make steel on the side. As to where to get the raw materials, they commanded people to take down all the steel doors, iron bars on windows, and steel fences, and to sell all their household goods made of iron and steel, such as tools and kitchen utensils. If people could have cut their food with wooden knives, they would have ordered them to give up their steel knives. This of course reduced production of other necessities and disrupted the supply chain for other goods. As a result of all these efforts, it was declared in December 1958 that the total output of iron and steel was 11,080,000 tons, task victoriously completed. But more than 3 million tons of the steel and 4,160,000 tons of the iron were no good, all garbage. A complete waste of money and materials and labor force. The loss was estimated at about 20 billion yuan in Chinese currency.
Once they had melted the raw material, how did they make the “steel bricks? Here is a description. Whatever scraps of iron or steel were on hand would be thrown in the oven until they melted a little, just enough to stick together. Then the piece was taken out and put on an iron anvil. One man tightly held the half-softened piece on the anvil using long-handled tongs, and two other men hit it in turn with big hammers, while the person holding the piece turned it around, over and over, until it began to take on the shape of a brick. The two men hit the piece by turns, as is often done in hand-forging, as the piece cools quickly and one man can strike while the other is raising his hammer again. As soon as the shape was fixed, the job was deemed finished. This “steel brick” was put aside and they would go to work on the next one. Three men’s efforts were tied up working at each oven. That was how the steel bricks were made.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-4-29 07:53 Chapter 17. The Meeting On Mt. Lu and Peng’s Letter
Background Information
In 1958 when Khrushchev visited Beijing, he derided China’s Great Leap Forward as a mania of the petty bourgeoisie. During the period of May–June in 1959, when Khrushchev officially visited Albania, he met Peng Dehuai, who let Khrushchev read a memorandum recording some severe criticisms of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune. On July 17, Khrushchev made a speech in Poland criticizing the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune. The next day, the newspapers in the Soviet Union and Poland repeated the same criticisms. That set the international background.
Data from the National Statistics Bureau showed that China’s total output in 1958 was valued at 130.7 billion yuan, 21.3% more than in 1957; the total industrial value was 108.3 billion yuan, 54.8% more than in 1957; and the total agricultural value was 56.6 billion yuan, 2.4% more than in 1957. The total quantity of grain in 1958 was 200 million tons, 2.54% more than in 1957. Therefore, Mao thought that the policies of the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune were correct. So he refused to accept any criticism, though he admitted that there had been some shortcomings in carrying out the policy, like forcing people to do things against their will, exaggerating, commanding blindly, and allowing cadres to arrogate special rights over people.
The Meeting On Mt. Lu
In July, 1959, the Party held a conference on Mt. Lu, on which Mao owned that there were some demerits in the Great Leap Forward and the people’s commune movements, but the Party should yet accelerate the completion of all the tasks of the Great Leap Forward. At first the conference was going peacefully. The representatives toured the mountain in the day and held a dance or had a walk in the evening, besides attending meetings. The purpose of this conference was at first just to let other leaders know these demerits and help to correct them. The conference lasted for nearly a month and all the representatives were happy as it drew to an end. Just then an apple of discord dropped on the table. Peng Dehuai handed in his “Ten Thousand Words Letter” to Mao.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-1 07:50 Peng’s Ten-Thousand Word Letter
Peng Dehuai was the vice chairman of the central military committee of the CPC, the minister of National Defense, and a vice Premier of the state council. Although the administration was not known for inviting input from anyone, he finally decided that he had quite a lot to say. What did Peng say in his “Ten-Thousand Word Letter”? He just pointed out all the mistakes made so far, with an in-depth analysis. In 1959, he said the Party should slow down the speed of development and not keep on with the Great Leap Forward, which had thrown the economy off balance and created new difficulties. He also sharply pointed out that the exaggerated statistics and the passing of false information to party leaders were just the surface of the problem, the deeper cause being the lack of openness to advice and other opinions (an aspect of democracy) and personality worship, which hit home to Mao’s leadership. On July 17, coincidently on the same day as Khrushchev delivered his criticism in Poland, Zhou Xiaozhou, the first party secretary of Hunan province, gave a talk that supported Peng. On July 20, Zhang Wentian, a vice minister in the foreign affairs ministry, supported Peng, too.
Mao refused to listen to Peng, and Peng had an argument with Mao. Mao criticized Peng severely, and called Peng and his supporters an “Anti-Party Clique.” They were removed from their official positions and put in prison. But the people of China respected them for their courage in speaking out. During the anti-rightist movement over 10,000 party members were criticized and were ill treated. All those cases were redressed in 1962, except Peng. It is thought that Peng’s main offense was his failure to protect Mao’s eldest son adequately during the Korean War.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-3 08:15 A Great Leap Backward into Famine
Largely as a result of the foregoing policies, a serious famine hit China from 1959 to 1961. Some reports suggest that at least 30 million people died from hunger. The high estimation was more than 60 million. As the Communist Party kept such statistics a national secret, no one can be sure. If calculated at 37,558,000 (from official statistics recently revealed), the number is 7.65 million greater than the total number of deaths from starvation in all the history of China, almost equivalent to the casualties in the Second World War, which was between 30–40 million.
The Great Leap Forward and the steel making spree damaged the agricultural sector deeply. In 1960, the grain output fell to 158,000 tons, 26% less than in 1957 before the Great Leap Forward. In Sichuan province, renowned for its plentiful grain production, the output decreased year by year from 1959 to 1961. In 1961, it was even less than in 1949. In that province alone, 10 million people starved to death. Some cadres wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the CPC to tell the truth, but they were decided to be an anti-party clique.
Many in the countryside ate grass and tree bark. The Party denied that there was a famine, but called it a natural catastrophe. It really did not matter what they called it. Later, however, Liu Shaoqi, the chairman of the People’s Republic of China, confessed that the calamity was “seven tenths human error and three tenths a natural catastrophe.”
Even during the famine years, the Party exported grain in order to earn foreign currency. And in 1959, when people were starving in the streets, 4,157,500 tons of grain were exported to the Soviet Union and other socialist nations in Eastern Europe in exchange for help to develop the military industry. Given the constant menace from the West, as the Cold War raged on, one could say that there was some strategic basis for this deadly trade-off. But on top of that, in April 1960, they gave 10,000 tons of rice to Guinea, and 15,000 tons of wheat to Albania. Was that just a public relations ploy to deny the true state of affairs?作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-4 08:09 Chapter 18 What is great cultural revolution?
I. Background of so-called cultural revolution
During the so-called natural calamity, as three hundred millions of people were starved to death, the national economy got worse and worse. Therefore, Mao was forced to recede to the background on the political power stage, and Liu Shaoqi stepped into the foreground, helped by Deng, the secretary general of the central committee of the communist Party. Of course, such a very ambitious person as Mao would never, of his own accord, give up the political power he had enjoyed so far and now stand backstage watching others perform on the political stage right under his nose. No, he would never allow it. This was the reason of the occurrence of the cultural revolution he was scheming in his great mind.
In January, 1962, at a meeting of 7,000 people, Mao criticized himself for the mistakes he had committed, having made a mess of the national economy. Liu said then that it was three-tenth natural disaster and seven-tenth human error. But in August of the same year, on the meeting at Beidai River, Mao insisted in his theory of class fight, which was the main danger of the present society as he defined it. Mao thought that there was still the possibility of revisionism taking the upper hand, which meant the revival of capitalism according to his theory. In the later development of the events, one could see that Mao laid a time bomb in theory to turn the table for his benefits. This was his basic theory to wage the cultural revolution in future. Liu and Deng could never see the red lights—the approaching danger. Both were no equal rivals to Mao.
The cultural revolution was certainly unprecedented in the history of China, also in the history of the world. If Mao had his IQ tested, it should be very high. If his scheme for the movement went a bit amiss, the result would be different. He might never retrieve his power, or the whole country might be in civil war. His scheme was accurate in his arrangement, though he never cared how many people would die in the cultural revolution. He was a person cruel at heart. When his third wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested by Chiang Kai-shek's government and killed later, he didn't do anything to rescue her, but married another woman. He sent his son to the Korean War, who died there.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-6 07:53 In February, 1963, the central committee of CPC decided on another political movement, proposed by Mao, imaginably. This was, indeed, Mao's strategy to retrieve his lost power. No one could see through him at the time. Liu, the chairman of the nation then, was of course the leader of the movement. As usual, Liu sent out work teams to the countryside for the movement. Liu thought that the target of this movement was still the common people as the previous movements did. The work teams made a mess there as they really had no idea whom they should target.
In December, 1964, at a meeting of the central committee of CPC, Mao said that it was wrong to aim at the common people. The target (this time) should be the cadres. Of course, Mao meant more than that. No one could understand at the time what he really pointed at. So Liu made self-criticism. A trap Mao set for him to fall in. Then in January, 1965, the central committee agreed with Mao that the target of this movement should be those in power within the Party, who were persisting in going the capitalist road. At that time, no one could guess who were those targeted in power and who were those insisting in going the capitalist road. But Mao had a certain goal in his mind. Another theoretical trap. It was based on this theory that Mao was the right person going the socialist road, and any other persons who held different opinions from Mao should be those going on the capitalist road. The worst thing was that all other leaders of CPC agreed to this theory, making Mao always standing on the summit of correctness. Mao could never be wrong theoretically. It was called the fight between the two roads: the socialist road and the capitalist road. As Mao declared himself and was also accepted as the representative of going the socialist road, Liu was, of course, deemed the representative of going the capitalist road. Going on capitalist road was wrong, according to Mao's theory, which was accepted by others. Liu already lost there. His tragic end was sealed even before the beginning of the cultural revolution since others were all got confused by Mao's theory and did not know how to contradict him.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-8 07:44 However, Mao still let Liu lead this movement, as a Chinese saying goes, “If you want to get, you must give first.” Mao had read a lot of Chinese history books and was versed in all the stratagems in power redemption. Liu, as usual, sent out work teams again. Statistics showed that in the region of Changde Town, in HuNan province, 331 persons were criticized, among whom 21 were beaten, 65 bound hand and foot, 3 hung up, and 42 forced to kneel on the ground. In a suburb of Beijing, 40 people committed suicide. Only this time, the target was the lowest cadres in the countryside, not common people any more as Mao had planned to use common people as his chessmen. Pawns are powerful when getting in a certain position. The red guards were his chessmen too.
Meantime, Mao traveled all over the country. He talked secretly with some important generals and wanted to get their support. He always believed in gun. If he could get those holding the gun to support him, he could go on with his plan. Otherwise, he would stay backstage for the rest of his life. From the Chinese history, a conclusion is true: the wise can always gain the upper hand of the fool. Mao, the wise. Liu, the fool. Among all the generals, two of them were the most important ones, Lin Biao, minister of defense ministry then, and Xu Shiyou, commander of the army covering the area of Nanking and Shanghai. With their support, Mao was sure of his final victory. However, the procedures of the process must be taken very carefully. He could not have a step amiss.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-10 07:50 II. The cultural revolution did begin in the cultural field
1) Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, made public appearance
At that time, most of those in power in local governments were supporters of Liu and Deng. How to seize power from them was a problem. If most of the local government leaders supported Mao, he had no need to start the cultural revolution. Since the situation was otherwise, Mao had to get his ball rolling. However, Mao plotted wisely and nicely. Mao liked to control consensus first so that he could say anything using public opinion against his political enemies. So he commenced his plot in that field.
Mao wanted his wife, Jiang Qing, to help him. Mao married Jiang Qing while he still had his legal wife, He Zizhen, sister of Marshal He Long. At that time Mao's legal wife was in the Soviet Union for the treatment of presumed mental disease. Mao and Jiang held a banquet in a big cave in YanAn. It was the twenty-first of December, 1938. Jiang was twenty-four years old then, twenty-one years younger than Mao. The original name of Jiang Qing had been called Li Yunhe, and her stage name was Lanping. She changed her name to Jiang Qing when she went to YanAn. She had been married before to Tanner. A story went at that time about three couples who had their simple wedding ceremony held under the moonlight before the Liuhe Pagoda, in Hangzhou. The three couples were Jiang Qing and Tanner, Ye Luqian and Zhao Dan, Du Xiaojuan and Gu Eryi. All were movie stars. The witness to their marriage was Shen Junru, a man of letters. After their wedding, Jiang Qing always quarreled with Tanner. Their bad relationship developed and once Tanner wanted to kill himself by drink poison. It happened only sixty days after their marriage. In 1937, Jiang Qing lived together with Zhang Ming, the director of the movie. Then she put a notice on the newspapers to declare that she had separated with Tanner. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Jiang Qing went to YanAn. Later Tanner went to Paris, France and married Anna in 1952. He died in 1988 there. Later some of her former fellow movie stars explained that why Jiang (meaning River) Qing (meaning clear) wanted to change her name to the present one was because her dirty sex history with so many men could only be washed clear in river water.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-11 08:31 Jiang Qing had been also an actress of Beijing opera before she had gone to YanAn and married Mao. She originally lived in Shandong Province. There she was enrolled in Shandong Beijing Opera Institute. Later when she took part in some activities against Japan, she caught the attention of the local government and had to escape secretly to Shanghai. She joined the Left-Wing Drama Union, acting in some plays for revolution. It was said that when she acted in dramas she was okay, but when she was in movies, she was no good. When she was the wife of Mao, she was ashamed of her history as a star and did not want people aware of it, particularly talking of it. In the cultural revolution, most of the stars who had worked with Jiang Qing were put into prison as Jiang Qing feared that they would spread her former history as a third class movie star, which, in her opinion, would make her lose face. Luckily for Tanner, he lived in France at that time. Anyone who mentioned or even hinted at it would be put in prison, too. That was why many people, besides famous actors and actresses who had worked with her before, were persecuted during the movement and many of them died in prison.
As Jiang Qing had learned to sing Beijing opera, she began in the area of Beijing opera reform, which happened between 1964 and 1966, after she published an article “Talk on Revolution of Beijing Opera.” It gave her a bridge over which she could take part in the political movements later. When she had married Mao, CPC had made a decision that she had been forbidden to be involved in politics. The opera reform only involved culture. That's why, maybe, the revolution called cultural revolution, an actual political revolution in disguise. So none in CPC had any objection. Generally Beijing opera was about old stories. The reform made it into modern stories. The ones known in China were “Red Lantern”, etc. Ballet was reformed, too. The famous ones were the “Red Detachment of Women” and the “White-haired Girl”.
On the 10th day of November, 1965, Mao let his wife, Jiang Qing, instruct Yao Wenyuan in Shanghai to write an article criticizing the new historical play “Dismissal of Hairui from Office”. The article was published in Wenhui Daily on the 30th day of November, 1965. It was because nothing could appear in newspapers in Beijing at the time. All officials there were Liu's men. The article said that the play wanted to redress the case of Peng Dehuai, because Hairui was the defense minister in Ming Dynasty equivalent to Peng before his dismissal. This play was written by Wu Han, who was a vice mayor of Beijing at the time. He became the first official Mao wanted to get rid of, which would be a breakthrough into Liu's circle.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-13 07:58 2) The so-called February coup d'etat
Mao wanted Yao's article to be published in all the newspapers in Beijing. But Peng Zhen, the mayor of Beijing then, thought that such an article was not suitable to come out in Beijing's newspapers, and so refused to do it. Besides, the writer of the play, Wu Han, was a vice mayor of Beijing. To support Wu Han, Peng Zhen organized a “five-person cultural revolution group”, approved by Liu, Deng and Zhou Enlai, the premier of the State Council, intending to limit the criticism within the culture, not into politics. And Peng Zhen wanted to protect Wu Han, too. He did not realize the plan of Mao. But Mao would not allow it. So he wanted to get rid of Peng as well. As a Chinese saying goes, if a man of power wants to accuse anyone of any crime, he can easily find a reason whatsoever for the person, no matter if the reason sounds right or ridiculous.
Yao's article connected the play with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai, which smelled of political attack. Mayor Peng thought the criticism of a play was in the field of culture, and should not connect it with a political event. On the 13th day of February, Mayor Peng summoned a meeting of the five-person group, and criticized Yao for his connection of his article with a political event, intending to limit the criticism within the scope of culture. All the attenders supported him except Kang Sheng, a secretary of the central secretariat of CPC, who insisted in the rightness of the article.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-15 08:42 Anyway, the five-person group drafted a report called “February Outline”, saying that any discussion in the field of culture must be based on facts, and respect facts, which meant the connection of the article with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai did not respect truth. On the 8th day of February, Mayor Peng, Kang Sheng and Lu Dingyi, the head of the propaganda department of CPC, went to see Mao and gave him the “February Outline.” Mao pointed out that the gist of the play was the “dismissal” and so had the connection with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai. Mao wanted to use this as a reason to rid of Wu Han, and further of Peng Zhen.
From the 17th day to the 20th day of March, at a meeting of the political bureau of CPC, Mao made a speech: Who controlling the newspapers, magazines and publishing presses is very important; those capitalist authorities in culture must be criticized; the magazine “Frontline” controlled by Wu Han and his supporters is anti-Party and anti-socialism; a cultural revolution must be waged in the areas of literature, history, philosophy, law, and economical theory; how much of Marxism-Leninism is in those areas? So the February Outline of the five-person group was also criticized. Mayor Peng and his supporters were all removed from office and were defined as an anti-Party clique.
It looked that Mayor Peng and his supporters only had different opinion from Mao. How could they plot a coup d'etat? On the 27th day of July, 1966, Kang Sheng said on a public meeting in Beijing Normal University that Peng Zhen planned to have coup d'etat because he had a battalion of soldiers in every university. The crowds believed him as he was a party leader. But that was not the truth. The fact was that in February, 1966, the central military committee decided to strengthen the local military forces and maneuvered a regiment into Beijing for training purpose. The regiment of soldiers was planned to lodge in some empty rooms of some universities. But afterwards, the soldiers found elsewhere to lodge and didn't sleep in any universities. However, the fact was distorted to become a crime of Peng Zhen and his supporters.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-17 07:46 III. Where did cultural revolution go next?
1) Lin Biao set up personal worship of Mao
On the 16th of May (5.16), 1966, on the meeting of the political bureau of the Party, a document, approved by Mao, was passed, known as “5.16 Notice”, which was officially deemed the actual beginning of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the official name. At the same time the “Central Cultural Revolution Group” was organized to replace the “five-person cultural revolution group”. On the 8th day of May, Lin Biao, the minister of the defense ministry at the time, said that Chairman Mao was a genius, every word he said was truth, nothing but truth, and a sentence from him was worth ten thousand sentences from others. This began the “Personal Worship” the nation over. Anyone said anything disrespectful to Mao, let alone against Mao, would be defined as a reactionary and put in prison. For that reason many innocent people became prisoners during the cultural revolution. Ridiculous stories were circulated. A person killed a cat and was jailed because the Chinese word for cat had the same pronunciation as Mao. The person killing a cat was deemed to have the intention to kill Mao. Someone accidentally threw a stone, which hit the picture of Mao hanging on the wall, and he was deemed a reactionary. A person walked in a park and felt tired. He saw a bench, which was dirty from the rain of last night. He put the newspaper he had just bought on the bench and sat on it. He was reported and arrested because there was a picture of Mao on the newspaper. It was disrespect of Mao to sit on his picture, even by mistake. The personal worship of Mao developed to such a degree in the cultural revolution.
Why should Lin Biao set up Mao as the object of the so-called “Personal Worship”? It must be another tactics of Mao. The fact was so clear that those supporting Mao were much fewer than those supporting Liu and Deng. Mao, through Lin Biao, set up himself as the object of “Personal Worship” like a god being worshiped so that no one dared to oppose him. He could be always at an advantageous point. Then the slogan of “Four Greats” about Mao appeared: Great Guide, Great Leader, Great Commander, Great Helmsman. Then Lin Biao, or someone else in his name, invented a style of dance, called Loyalty Dance. Generally the dancers held a card board with the word loyalty written on it.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-18 07:58 2) The red guards movement
On the 25th day of May, Nie, a woman Party leader in Beijing University, together with other six men, put up a so-called Big Word Paper, criticizing the Party committee of Beijing University and the municipal Party committee of Beijing City. At that time Mao was in Hangzhou. When he was reported about it, he praised it, calling it the first Marxist-Leninist Big Word Paper in the country. On the same day, an editorial appeared on the People Daily, calling upon ordinary people to join in the movement, to down all authorities.
On the 29th day, the first group of Red Guards was organized in the subsidiary middle school of Qinghua University. The chaos developed fast. Students in many middle schools and universities rose to oppose the leadership of the Party there. Quite a few university principals were criticized. Seeing this, Liu sent out work teams in an attempt to control the situation. The work teams made 10,211 students the rightists, and 2,591 teachers the reactionaries.
On the 18th day of July, Mao returned to Beijing. On the 24th, Mao held a meeting, criticizing Liu and Deng for sending out work teams. Liu confessed that he did not know how to lead the cultural revolution movement. Deng said that it was like an old revolutionary facing a new problem. That was where Mao set the snare to let them fall in. Naturally, Mao took over the leadership as Liu and Deng did not know what to do. Even if Liu and Deng had not sent out work teams and did something else, Mao could, at any rate, find faults with them easily. It always happened in the struggle for political power in the Chinese history. All the same, the result would be for Liu and Deng to be out of power. The goal of the cultural revolution. Mao's scheme. Now Mao was back in power. It looked as if Liu and Deng were not driven out of power, but as if they were willing to give up the power to Mao as they did not know how to wage the cultural revolution. A real wise move of Mao, so easily to take over the power.
Mao supported the Red Guards. On the 5th of August, Mao wrote a Big Word Paper, titled as “Gun Down Headquarters----my big word paper”. Mao meant that there was a “capitalist headquarters” within CPC, implying to Liu and Deng, who were already out of power. Then Lin Biao was made the vice chairman of CPC, a reward to him for his supporting Mao to get the power back from Liu and Deng.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-20 07:03 At the end of May, Red Guards developed on a large scale. On the 13th day of June, the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council issued a notification that the entrance examination for the university was postponed for half a year. On the 18th day, the editorial of the People Daily said that the cultural revolution must be thoroughly carried out and the education system must be thoroughly reformed. The entrance examination system must be stopped. Therefore, for more than ten years, no new students were enrolled in universities, and for many years, no classes for students in schools. Thus appeared a gap of education and knowledge between the old generation and the young generation. The young generation did not have enough education and enough knowledge. The Chinese culture in a general sense degenerated. Then what were the students doing? They were all taking part in the cultural revolution. Students in universities and middle schools formed red guards of their own. Primary school students stayed at home, being too young.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-22 08:05 The red guards began to travel all over the country to instigate riot. They did not need to buy tickets either on trains or buses. That was the Party's decision. All they needed was an armband with the words Red Guards on it. It was easy to make and get. So other people, who were not students, seized this chance to travel for free all over the nation for sightseeing.
The whole country got into chaos. That's what Mao wanted to retrieve power from so many Liu's local government supporters. So Mao wanted the red guards to “destroy four old things”, which were old thought, old culture, old tradition, and old custom. But it was not easy to define these. So everywhere the red guards went, they burned the old books published hundreds of years ago, the old paintings even by famous ancient painters, and broke curios and relics. They destroyed old wooden shop signs and replaced them with paper ones written in new names. They even proposed to change the name of Shanghai into “July-First City”, which Mao disapproved.
Why the red guards wanted to change Shanghai into July-First City was because the Party declared that the 1st day of July, 1921, was the birthday of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. But data on Internet revealed that it was established in August, 1920, under the instruction of the Soviet Communist Party. In April, that year, the Communist International sent Grigori Voitinsky to China. In May, he found Chen Duxiu, forth-two then, to contact some revolutionary young men in other cities for the establishment of Chinese Communist Party, which was founded in August, 1920. Why the Chinese Communist Party wanted to change their birthday to the 1st day of July, 1921, was that it might have two reasons. One was that they wanted to cover the fact that the Communist International had a finger in it. The other was that CPC did have a meeting in Shanghai and Mao attended it so that they could say that Mao was one of the founders to make Mao look better. But the meeting was on the 23rd day, not on the 1st day. Anyway, the Chinese Communist Party did not even give a correct day for their own birthday. How can we believe the narrations in the Party's history written by themselves? (For details of the establishment and development of CPC, please read my other book titled Two Republics in China.)作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-24 08:26 The red guards went to private houses and ransacked and destroyed or took away all the valuable personal belongings. They even beat people to death. Statistics showed that in one month from the 18th day of August, 1966, in Beijing only, houses of 114,000 families were ransacked, and 85,198 individuals were driven to where they came from in the countryside or other towns. From the 23rd day of August to the 8th day of September, in Shanghai, 84,222 families were openly robbed. And in Tianjin City, 12,000 families suffered the same disaster. Another statistics showed that during August and September, in Beijing only, the red guards got 103,000 taels of gold, equivalent to 5.7 tons, 345,200 taels of silver, 55,000,000 yuan Chinese paper currency, and 613,600 curios. In Shanghai, between the 23rd day of August and the 8th day of September, besides large quantity of gold, silver and gems, etc., they got 3,340,000 US dollars and other foreign currencies worth 3,300,000 Chinese currency, 2,400,000 yuan of silver coins and 3,700,000,000 yuan of Chinese currency. A Party document confessed that even before that, the red guards already got 1,180,000 taels of gold, equivalent to 65 tons. That was really the aim of “destroy four old things.” That's what Mao and CPC really wanted, in such a name, to rob people of their valuables. A broad daylight robbery! The robbed could not resist, nor even report to the police. The robbery was lawful, supported by CPC and Mao. That was also unprecedented in the robbery field of the world. What was the use of laws in such a country? Peng Zhen once said that the Party (supported by gun, of course) was above the law. Now all the valuables in possession of common people were taken. After that, they had nothing worth to be taken away by the Party. They were safe now, as poor as a lazy squirrel with nothing in store for winter. The pillaging action even affected some old workers who had something worth a little money saved through their hard work in the old time, before CPC came to reign.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-25 08:05 And many antiques were destroyed, worth billions. From the 9th day of November to the 7th day of December, 1966, during less than a month, more than 6,000 articles of curio, more than 2,700 volumes of ancient edition, more than 900 rolls of paintings and calligraphy by famous ancient people, and more than 1,000 stone tablets, were destroyed. Who should be responsible for all the loss? The red guards or Mao and CPC?
As to death rate during the red terrorism, the official statistics showed that only in Beijing, the capital city, 1,700 people were beaten to death. A massacre took place in Daxing Town outside Beijing and during three days, 325 persons were killed by cruel means, including some buried alive, like the massacre in Nanking by the Japanese army. Those who made suicide reached 200,000. In the whole period of the cultural revolution, the estimate of the death rate in the whole country was between 2 million and 7 million, one percent of the whole population in China at that time. Who should be responsible for it? The red guards or Mao and CPC?
In Shanghai, the red guards of Shanghai Museum went to all the collectors on their list to take all the curios to the museum, they said, for the sake of protecting them, or the red guards from Beijing might destroy them. Some collectors even called the museum, asking it to send their red guards to their homes and take their curios away. Fortune sometimes means misfortune.
Other things happened in Shanghai during the red guards movement. At first, their action was only limited in the streets, destroying old shop signs. When they saw some women wearing high-heeled or pointed shoes, they would force them to take off and they would cut through them with scissors they seemed always carrying with them. They called it capitalist life style, included in the four old things. Once some red guards saw a girl wearing trousers in jeans. They thought it was the capitalist life style and forced the girl to take it off, and the girl had to run home in underwear. They laughed after her.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-27 07:01 Then when they heard what their fellow red guards did in Beijing, they started to attack private houses, too. Mostly they went to big houses, generally belonging to the capitalists. Some stayed in one big house for months, eating their canned food and chocolate in store. Some embezzled gold and silver articles and diamond rings. Others took away the interesting novels for their own enjoyment. The stupid ones they were deemed. Some of the capitalists were forced to kneel on the ground and beaten or abused. Lots of red guards went to Canton and tried to break past the border sentinels to rush into Hongkong. They declared that they wanted to make revolution there, but were stopped by the Chinese army. The red guards even blamed Kim Il-Sung, leader of North Korea, as going the capitalist road and wanted to go to Korea to arrest him. So when Kim Il-Sung learned it, he was so enraged that he ordered the graves of the Chinese People's Volunteers broken, including the tomb of Mao's son, which was repaired after the cultural revolution.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-29 08:11 In 1967, in Canton, there raised a wave to kill the released prisoners from labor reform camps, who were thought as bad people and deserved to die. From the 27th day of August to the 1st day of September, in six days, 325 of those people and their family members were killed. The oldest was 80 years of age and the youngest was only 38 days. What a nation for that!
All the professors in universities and old teachers in middle schools were criticized or even beaten. Some professors were forced to crawl around on the college playground. Some were made stand for long hours in a bowing posture with two arms stretching straight behind, looking like a jet airplane. Some were ordered to bow before the picture of Mao for a long time, too. In Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the professors were forced to slap each other's faces in public. Never say that Chinese people are not wise enough for invention. Since old time, they have invented a lot of new torture equipment and styles. A standing cage was one of them. Any offender would be put inside with his head on the top of it, the neck in a small hole so that he could not move his head down into the cage. He must keep in a standing position for how long he was sentenced to be. It was a trivial torment. For a prisoner, if he rejected to confess his crime what the government official wanted him to confess, two thick wooden sticks would be put on his forelegs, one above and one under, with ropes on both ends. When the ropes were tightened, the pressure on the forelegs through the wooden sticks inflicted pain to the prisoner. The tighter the ropes were, the acuter the pain grew, till the prisoner fainted. For women, small sticks were used between her fingers, with the same effect on her. Another invention was to use an iron piece, made hot in the fire, then put on the chest of the prisoner. His skin on that part would be burned. No one can imagine the pain this torment caused without experience. Brutal inventions of wise Chinese people!作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-5-31 08:07 IV. Power-seizing stage of great cultural revolution
Then, the target of the cultural revolution changed to the authorities of the local governments, under Mao's instruction. Mao thought that most of them were supporters of Liu and Deng. Therefore, so-called rebels rose and attacked the local government leaders. They seized power from the leaders and organized so-called Revolutionary Committees to replace the local governments.
Now the cultural revolution was on the power-seizing stage, which was really what Mao aimed at. It began with a movement targeting the petty cadres, really a false move of Mao to set up a snare for Liu; then it went to a stage to openly criticize a play to get rid of some important supporters of Liu in the capital Beijing; then it developed to the red guards stage to cause chaos in the country; then in the chaos, it got to the power seizing stage. It was the critical stage. If successful, smoothly, the last stage would be easy to tide over. The last stage was to put all the supporters of Mao in the local governments after getting rid of all Liu's supporters. The cultural revolution would thus end as planned by Mao and as we can see, looking back. On this critical stage, if Chiang Kai-shek had ordered his army to attack the mainland, no one could tell what would be the future of China. But the stupid Chiang Kai-shek let the opportunity go like sands through his fingers.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-1 07:45 Many rebellious groups were organized and fought each other to vie for taking over the power. Generally, at first, they got into a debate. At that time, people all over the country were learning The Little Red Book. Every time people wanted to say something, anything, they must quote something from the Little Red Book first. Even when anyone was to write some self-criticism paper, he must also begin with a quotation from it. Sound ridiculous? That's the fact at the time. So when a debate began between two groups, the debater in each group must quote something from the Little Red Book to prove that what he was saying was in accordance with Mao's instruction. Then the debater from the other group followed suit. But no one could persuade the other. It was called “Quotation Battle” since both sides used Mao's quotations to prove they were the right side. Debates often continued in a fight. But it seemed that quotations from the Little Red Book contradicted each other, or how could the opposite groups both cite from it to support their different opinions?
The rebels among workers in Shanghai called their organization as Shanghai Worker Revolutionary Rebellious Headquarters. The commander-in-chief of this headquarters was Pan Guoping, a young worker from a factory. The famous Wang Hongwen was, at the beginning, the vice commander-in-chief, who was a Party member and a cadre of the lowest rank. On the 3rd of January, 1967, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, two members of the Gang of Four, came back to Shanghai from Beijing and supported Wang Hongwen to seize power from Shanghai municipal authorities. Pan, being too young, was out of power, and was only made a member of the revolutionary committee. This event was called “January Storm”, which caused the power-seizing action to develop to the whole nation. That was what Mao desired.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-3 08:00 V. Quarrel in Huairen Hall in Beijing in February
Huairen Hall is in Beijing, a gathering place for meetings of the leaders of the central committee of CPC. The event began like this: during the “January Storm” in Shanghai, Chen Pixuan, the first secretary of Shanghai municipal party, was afraid of the chaos to paralyze the municipal administration and called Tao Zhu, a member of the central cultural revolutionary group on the 3rd day of January, 1967. Previously on the 25th day of December, 1966, to protect those old revolutionary cadres, Tao Zhu had had a severe quarrel with Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and Zhang Chunqiao, who were those tools Mao used to fight Liu and Deng, and their local supporters. After the power seizing, Zhang Chunqiao became the head of Shanghai.
When Tao Zhu received the call from Chen in Shanghai, he went to see Mao and reported it. Mao looked like supporting Tao when Tao was in his presence. But Tao was soon removed from office. Then, premier Zhou Enlai, said to be instructed by Mao, drafted a list of old cadres for protection, including all the first secretaries of provinces. They were escorted to Beijing so that no one could harm them. But Chen Pixuan, the first secretary of Shanghai, was detained by Zhang Chunqiao, which was the fuse of the dispute in Huairen Hall.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-5 08:32 In the afternoon on the 16th day of February, 1967, premier Zhou summoned a meeting in Huairen Hall. When Tan Zhenlin met Zhang Chunqiao at the gate, Tan asked Zhang why Chen Pixuan was not coming. Zhang said that Chen was detained by the revolutionary crowds in Shanghai. At the meeting, the question of Chen's absence was mentioned again and other old cadres were also infuriated that the central cultural revolutionary group wanted to push aside all the old cadres and take over power into their hands. They used the so-called revolutionary crowds who had actually been organized by them as an excuse to fight old cadres. Ye Jianying, a leader of the liberation army, criticized Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao, etc., for their intention to let the revolutionary crowds to attack the army and take over the command of the army from the old cadres. Ye broke his little finger when he slapped his hand on the table in ire. If at the beginning of the cultural revolution, the old cadres did not yet realize what Mao and his supporters wanted, now they came to be clear that they wanted to push aside the old cadres, or even torture them to death so that they could rule China by themselves.
On the 18th day of February, Mao summoned the central political bureau, and taking off his two-faced mask, jumped forth to criticize old cadres, to the delight of Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan, the so-called “Gang of Four.” This event was literally called “Current against the (revolutionary) flow in February” by the gang of four. Then the central political bureau stopped its administration and the central cultural revolutionary group replaced it, becoming the administrative center of the whole nation. That was what Mao wanted and long planned, but none of the gang of four had the abilities to run such a vast country like China, and so at length, Mao had to let Zhou Enlai took charge of the state affairs.
In 1971, after the event of Lin Biao crashing in an military airplane in Mongolia on the 13th day of September, the so-called “Current against the flow in February” event was redressed. Mao said that the event was to aim at Lin Biao, which meant that as now Lin “betrayed” the Party and escaped to the Soviet Union, the event against Lin Biao was correct and so must be redressed.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-7 08:50 VI. How did armed fight start the country over?
On the 6th day of May, 1967, the leftists pro the communist party in Hongkong, began a riot against Hongkong government. The riot started with strike and demonstration, and developed to assassinations, bombing and gun fight. Luckily, it ended in October. 52 people died, including 10 policemen. 1,167 bombs exploded.
Almost everywhere in the country, rebels had benefit conflicts among themselves and they formed different groups and fought one another. Some, supported by the army, got guns. So gun fight began. Once, even tanks appeared in the streets. The most serious fights were those:
From the 26th day of February to the 5th day of March, 1967, in XiNing Town of Qinghai province, T55 tanks appeared in the streets and 822 persons died and 1,355 persons wounded. From the 2nd day to the 25th day of August, 1967, in Yichun Town of Heilongjiang province, 37 government buildings were destroyed and two military camps were gunned down in cannonade. 1,944 persons died and 1,806 persons wounded. From August to November, the rebels in Huaihua Town of HuNan province occupied some labor-reform farms and factories and resisted the attack of the army. 37,700 persons died and wounded, including 430 military men. The death was 13,300. From June, 1967, to March, 1968, in Yibin Town of Sichuan province, more than 170,000 people joined in the fight, including two army regiments. 43,800 persons died and wounded, the death was 21,100. From October, 1967, to the end of May, 1969, in Inner Mongolia, 56,200 persons were killed, and over 377,000 persons imprisoned, and over 3,550,000 involved, one-fourth of the population of the Inner Mongolia. From April to July, 1968, in Nanning Town of Guuangxi province, 22 battles took place. Over 101,000 persons died, and 74,000 people wounded. From December, 1968, to February, 1969, in eight ammunition factories in Baoji area of Shaanxi province, out of 70,000 staff, over 45,400 workers were judged as reactionaries and 297 among them were executed, which caused rebellion. Tanks, armored cars, cannons, and fire-throwers were used. Over 13,300 persons died, including some government leaders. Later, Mao and the Party strictly forbade this and the fight gradually subsided in August, 1968, and no more fight after 1969.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-8 08:19 The climax of fighting happened in WuHan City of Hubei province, called 7.20 event. At that time, many cities had set up so-called Revolutionary Committees to replace the local governments, but there were still places where the fight was going on. WuHan city was one of them. The largest group named themselves as “Million Heroic Division”, though they didn't have a million members. They were against the local authorities supported by the Independent Army Division. It was arranged that on the 16th day of July, 1967, Mao wanted to go to WuHan to swim in the Yangtze River. The health of the communist leaders is always a secret, and also a concern of the nation, or even of the world. At such a critical moment, Mao decided to swim in the river to show that he was still healthy at the age of over seventy. But in reality, he went there to solve the fighting problem himself. He never had a chance to swim that time. Openly there was a delegation sent there by the central committee of CPC to solve the problem. Later, Zhou Enlai went there too. But one of the delegation member by name of Wang Li was detained and beaten by the revolutionary people of Million Heroic Division, because they were deemed in the wrong. Their detention of a member of the delegation from the central committee of CPC was thereby defined as reactionary action. Once they were thought by authorities to be in the wrong, their doom was already sealed. And some other groups supporting the local authorities were in the right. That was the reason for fighting. As a rule, the wrong side would be persecuted. Therefore, they wanted to keep on fighting in the hope of turning the table. Why the central committee didn't think much of them was because they were mostly common people while their opposite groups were mostly veterans. When Mao and Zhou stayed in the city, crowds of Million Heroic Division were seen almost everywhere, carrying long swords and guns. So Mao and Zhou felt a danger and threat. Mao escaped secretly under the protection of his bodyguards. Then Zhou and his followers disguised themselves as members by wearing armbands of Million Heroic Division. When they met the real members in the streets, they even shouted, “Final victory is Million Heroic Division's!” Such things never happened before. In the Chinese idea, it is a shame for leaders to escape like this. Anyway, they safely reached the military airport and flew back to Beijing. Once in Beijing, Mao and Zhou maneuvered troops to WuHan for armed suppression. Wang Li, the member of the delegation, was safely back to Beijing at last. Thus ended the 7.20 event.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-10 08:53 Supposing, under the most serious riotous circumstances, if Chiang Kai-shek sent his army to land on the mainland, the rebellious groups, who failed in power-seizing actions, would probably go to Chiang Kai-shek's army for support. Even Party members would do so for their own interests. Don't think that Party members are always loyal to the Party. Many Party members are opportunists. They join in the Party for benefits or for the hope of becoming a cadre. A cadre would surely get benefits easily. And look at the facts that many upright Party members are imprisoned for their criticisms of the Party. Zhang Zhixin, a woman Party member, was killed by the Gang of Four for criticizing the wrong-doings of the Party. For fear that she might shout out something unfavorable to the them, her throat was cut when she was taken to the execution site and killed. No government will do so except the communist government in China. A brutal deed.
But no gun fight happened in Shanghai. The army there was under strict control. The largest event was the fight in Shanghai Diesel Engine Factory, which was located in the northeast part of Shanghai and had 10,000 people working in it. At the beginning of the rebellious period, there were two groups in the factory: one called the East Red group consisting of Party members and cadres, and the other called United Headquarters group consisting of workers and other staff. At first, United Headquarters group seized power and was in the leadership of the factory, since majority of workers joined this group, but East Red group wanted to take over the leadership as they thought themselves to be the Party members and cadres and should be the leaders of the factory. Then fight began between the two groups. When Wang Hongwen became a leader of Shanghai, he supported the East Red group as he was also a Part member and a cadre. United Headquarters group rejected to give up the leadership.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-12 08:10 On the 4th day of August, 1967, Wang Hongwen sent 10,000 people to attack the United Headquarters group in the factory, and the vanguards were the trained firefighters. He did not dare to send army or police force there. The United Headquarters group defended the factory with only 3,000 people. The weapons both sides used were mainly axes and steel bars. The defenders also used some glass bottles containing materials easily catching fire and big nuts to shoot from giant rubber bands.
Wang Hongwen acted as the commander and 10,000 people surrounded the factory. Finally the attackers used crawler crane to knock down the gate and rushed in. Every man captive got a good beating. Thousands of captives with blood all over walked between the attackers, singing the Internationale, into prison vans. Those who were injured seriously and could not walk were thrown into vans. The women were treated a little better. The next day, the members who had not been in the factory that day were arrested one by one. During the fight, thousands of people were hurt on both sides altogether. No one died, as no guns were used.
In all those days of power transferring, Big Word Paper, posted all over the walls and shop windows in the streets, revealing all the information most people generally did not know, information about the behavior and activities of the central leaders, which were national secrets before, about how a leader staying in a special hospital for minor health problem had raped a young nurse. Such wrong-doings were deemed nothing as long as he stood on Mao's side politically. If he was against Mao, this would be one of his crimes. If a high-ranked cadre killed a common person, he might be removed from his office. If a common person killed another common person, he would be sentenced to death. Life paid for life. But for a high-ranked cadre, only his rank paid for death of another.
Many jobless men also organized some rebellious groups and went to the Street Committee. They did not seize power from authorities there. They just waited there and if any factory or store or anywhere sent in a notice to hire someone, one of them would put in his own name and use the seal to stamp on the paper. He took the paper and went to, say, the factory to work. He at last got a job this way. The authorities there did not dare to prevent him, afraid that all jobless people would get angry and beat them.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-14 07:48 Since universities did not enroll students from high schools, the high school graduates must be given jobs. However, there was no vacancy anywhere, and so it was impossible for them to have jobs. Then the Communist Party thought of a way to dispose of them. The high school students graduated in 1968 and 1969 must go to the countryside to be re-educated by peasants. It sounded so funny. From the theory of the Chinese communist party that the illiterate peasantry represented the backward productivity and had the backward thinking, how could such peasantry re-educate the high school students who had at least had 12 years of education? Ridiculous. It should be that the communist party wanted to throw the students who could not be given jobs in cities to the countryside to make them maintain their lives at the lowest level of living standards so that the government could save a lot from them.
How did those students fare in the countryside? They must work and live with peasant families. Life was hard in the countryside in that time in China. Some students who could not have enough to eat would steal something from peasants. If they were caught, they got a good beating. Some students who had families with money saved in banks got food parcels from time to time from families. If one of them could give gifts to leaders, he would become their favorite and got better treatment. City girls looked much better than village girls. So the sons of village leaders loved to marry city girls in the village by luring them with personal benefits or even by force. Some girls who could not bear the hard life there married the sons of the leaders and lived better.
But a few years afterwards, the communist party had a policy that the students thrown into the countryside could return to cities where they came from on certain conditions like they must still be single or have some sicknesses. Therefore, some girls having married the leaders' sons got divorces and went back to their parents. Sometimes two students married each other. Now under such policy, they had to divorce first and applied to return to cities separately; then got married again in the city if they still loved each other, or married someone else respectively.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-15 07:06 VII. Why did Lin Biao's betrayal of Mao happen?
1) Background of the “9.13” event
On the 8th day of March, 1970, Mao made a decision and informed all other leaders that China should no longer set the position of the National Chairman (as vs the Party Chairman as Mao had the position at the time). He also declared that he would not take the position of the national chairman in the future. Why did he make such a decision? It was said that since he had given up such a position and let Liu Shaoqi have it when he had brought China into an economically bad situation, if he took it again when Liu was driven out of it, he would lose face like a child who had given a toy to someone and then take it back when after a quarrel. People would think that he had not willingly, but forced to resign the position as the national chairman, and now when the position was vacant, he would take it again. In the idea of Chinese people, it looked ridiculous for anyone to do so. Mao would never do it to lose face. A typical Chinese idea. Therefore, he thought that it was not suitable for anyone else to take this position, except for himself in the present condition. Besides, he feared that anyone else taking this position would surely get part of power from him just like Liu Shaoqi had done before. He would never have such a threat like a time bomb by his side. So the best way to elude it was not to set such a position any more in the constitution. He even suggested to revise the constitution about this point.
The national chairman was deemed as the head of the nation. Theoretically, a nation could have no head to represent it in the world, but in reality, on certain occasions, there should be a head of the nation to receive foreign VIPs or attend some international ceremonies. A party chairman could not do the duties of the national chairman. Therefore, Lin Biao, the vice party chairman at the time, and other party leaders thought that China must have the national chairman. That was why Lin made the proposal to keep the position of the national chairman. Mao thought that Lin wanted to take this position, though Lin manifested that he would never take this position and even proposed that Mao resumed it. He did not know why Mao rejected the position.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-16 08:08 2) Different opinions for that matter became open at a meeting on Mt. Lu
In the afternoon on the 23rd day of August, 1970, the second session of the ninth party conference started on Mt. Lu. Three items were to be discussed for final decisions. First was to revise the constitution. Second was to make national economical plan. Third was to make preparations for battles, because at that time the crisis of territory occupation between the Soviet Union and China arose with potential warfare in the north frontier.
The most severe debate happened in whether there should be the revision of the constitution to abolish the position of the national chairman. Many representatives supported Lin for his opinion to ask Mao to be the national chairman, and also proposed Lin as the vice national chairman, which Mao did not like. Mao did not want Lin to have more power as he had already had as the vice party chairman, though Lin showed no desire to usurp Mao's power. He was lawfully decided the successor of Mao.
Lin had quite a few followers in the army as he had been the commander of the 4th field army in the second civil war. Four of his followers in the army supported him on the meeting and also his wife. Mao determined that anyone who was in favor of the idea to keep the position of the national chairman was wrong and must have self-criticisms. So the four followers and Lin's wife had to criticize themselves, but not to Mao's satisfaction. Mao thought that Lin was behind all this and Lin should make self-criticism, too. However, Lin thought that he was not wrong in the proposal of Mao to be the national chairman. He had declared that he would not be the vice national chairman even if Mao was elected the national chairman.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-17 08:05 3) How Mao pushed Lin Biao into a deadly snare
After the meeting, Mao wanted to get rid of Lin Biao as he had got rid of Liu Shaoqi. Anyone who had different opinions from him, he could not endure like ancient emperors to their courtiers. He needed absolute obedience. So he traveled outside Beijing again to make preparations, just like he had done so before his riddance of Liu. He went to talk to the army commanders in several major provinces about Lin's intention to be the national chairman, which was an action of anti-party since Mao thought himself to be the representative of the party and anyone against him was against the party. This was the traditional thinking of ancient emperors: “The state, it's me!” Mao demanded the absolute loyalty to him from those commanders. The trick lay there: he warned them to keep the talk as a secret. But secretly he let the talk leak out and let Lin Biao and his family get wind of it. Mao reckoned that if Lin was patient enough to wait for Mao's next step without any rash action, his wife and son were young and inexperienced and must take some drastic means to fall into his snare.
The official record of CPC said that Lin's son had organized a secret assassinating group, called “United fleet”, to murder Mao. But another article said that at first he organized it to deal with Wu Faxian, the command-in-chief of the air force, because Wu declared his loyalty to Lin Biao while he also declared loyalty to Jiang Qing, a typical two-faced man. But when he got the news having leaked out secretly that Mao wanted to get rid of his father, he plotted to use the United Fleet to kill Mao by using antiaircraft guns to level at the train Mao rode in from Hangzhou to Beijing, without the knowledge of Lin himself. (It was so said to all the Chinese people after the crash of Lin's plane.) But Mao made a false move, somehow, as the party told Chinese people in their official record, and safely arrived in Beijing. However, people doubted if there really had been a plan to murder Mao. As there really nothing happened to Mao, people could be in no way to know if this was the fact or just what CPC invented to tell people as the pretense to plot Lin's death since CPC always made up “facts” as they desired. Anyway, it was said in the official report to people that when their plot failed, Lin's wife and the son wanted to escape first to Canton to set up another central government against Moa's Beijing government. People was so told. On the 13th of September, 1971, Lin's wife dragged Lin out of bed and pushed him into a car to drive to a military airport, and when they boarded a military plane with the son and some followers, they were told that the gas in the tank was not enough to fly to Canton, and so they changed their plan to fly to Russia as Lin had been in Russia for treatment of his illness. (It is also on the official record.)作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-19 08:02 Then the Party told all nation that an event happened that Lin, his wife and his son died in the plane that crashed in Mongolian Republic. How could a leader's plane so easily crash? The explanation was not so satisfactory. Then a rumor was in circulation that the plane was downed by a missile from the inner Mongolian area just as the plane was crossing the border into Mongolian Republic. The commander of the army stationed there was General You Taizhong at that time. In communist China, rumors are always based on facts, as facts are always covered up. The saying “Rumors have short legs” is not fit to use in communist China. Facts have to be circulated in the form of rumors. Or the Party declares the fact as a rumor as they cannot deny the fact some other way. A new idiom was invented: “Rumor ends in transparency.” If the facts are shown in a glass house for everyone to see, who will make up a rumor and circulate it? In details, a rumor may be a little different from the truth, but very close basically. So if Lin's plane was not downed by a missile, the crash must be a schemed one.
Many years later, Zhang Ning, the girlfriend of Lin's son, wrote a book narrating the event. She was with Lin family when the event took place. According to her, readers can draw such a conclusion that Lin's death was a trap set up by Mao and Zhou Enlai, the premier. Mao had talks with some concerned leaders of local governments and warned them to keep it a top secret, but he let someone leak it to Lin's wife and son, as Lin was sick in bed. The secret leaking out was made to sound like Mao wanted to have Lin arrested or even killed. Lin's wife and son fell in panic and wanted to escape. They dragged Lin out of the house and pushed him into the car. The chief guard Li, who was sent here by Zhou Enlai to guard Lin for his safety, got into the car first so that Lin's family members would naturally follow him in without a second thought. But when Lin family sat in the car, he jumped out. He shot at himself at his left arm so that he would be sent to a clinic for treatment. If he went with Lin family, he would die in the crash, too. He must have known the result and acted like that to shun the inevitable death. When Lin's car sped away, the soldiers guarding the place could easily stop it, but no one took any action. Lin family got to the military airport and climbed on the plane especially used for them. A few minutes after the plane rose into the air, it seemed that the plane wanted to re-land, but all lights in the airport were out and the runway was in dark. How could that happen? It seemed that all this was arranged beforehand. They had to fly north. The Party added that at first Lin wanted to fly to Canton to establish another government against Mao, but as there was not enough gas in the tank of the plane, he had to fly to Russia, taking the shortest route. As the plane crossed the borderline, it fell in the territory of Mongolian Republic. Although Chinese people had doubts about the whole thing, yet they did not care that Lin died. He supported Mao, or the cultural revolution would not happen. There is a Chinese saying going like that: when there are no more rabbits, the running dogs will be cooked. This was a typical example of Lin. It was said that Mao wanted to wipe out all the old cadres from the Long March and YanAn to make way for the Gang of Four, Jiang Qing, his wife, Wang Hongwen, the vice chairman of the party at that time, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. Later, Mao wanted to wipe Zhou Enlai out of power. His intention was so apparent, like the nose on the face.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-22 08:13 Recently a recording of the last five-minutes conversation in Lin's plane was discovered. The pilot Pan Jingyin didn't take his co-pilots, his navigator and radio operator. What was his intention? The recording revealed it. Originally, Lin family wanted to go to Canton. So pilot Pan began to fly south, but then he made a wide roundabout turn to north without anyone else on the plane knowing it. The following is what the recording exposed:
Lin's son asked, “What's the time now?”
Liu Peifeng, working under Lin's son, “2:27.”
Lin's son, “Where are we now?”
Liu, “I'll go to ask.” (It seems he's going into the cockpit.)
Liu, “Old Pan, where are we now?”
Pan, “We are over HuNan province.” (It's a province in the south.)
Liu, “How long will it be to Canton?”
Pan, “Another half an hour.”
Liu (sounds like speaking to Lin's son), “Old Pan said that we are over HuNan, and half an hour to Canton.”
(Suddenly a sound of explosion and the plane shook for a while.)
Lin's son, “What's the matter?” (It seems that they looked outside the plane window.”
Lin's son, “There's flame on the right wing. Old Pan!”
Pan, “Really? Could it be the enemy's missile?”
Lin's son, “What did you say? What enemy?”
No answer from Pan, and the plane is making a wide turn.
Ye Qun (Lin's wife going into the cockpit), “What's the matter?”
Lin's son, “Old Pan, you are turning round. Why do you want to turn round?”
No answer from Pan.
Ye Qun, “Where are we now?”
Still no answer from Pan.
Lin's son, “Speak, Old Pan.”
(The plane violently shook again.)
Pan to the microphone, “Director Wang, Director Wang, please answer!” (Almost crying.)
Yang ZhenGang, shouting from the entrance of the cockpit, “Pilot, who are you talking to?”
Still no answer from Pan.
Lin's son, “The explosion sounded like a time bomb. Someone wants to murder Lin.”
(The plane is going downwards.)
Pan, “Too bad, too bad!”
Liu, “What's the matter?”
Pan, “We are over Mongolia. Now flying back to our country.”
Liu, “Mongolia?”
Lin's son, “Mongolia?”
Pan, “Before taking off, Director Wang wants me to fly into Mongolia and then wait for his further command. But now, he cuts connection with me.” (Looks like Director Wang deserted him.)
Liu, “Why didn't you bring two co-pilots?”
Pan, “Director Wang said it's a special task. We don't need them.”
Lin's son, “How long have we been in Mongolia?”
Pan, “I don't know. Maybe, about 10 minutes.”
Ye Qun, “If we enter Mongolia, we'll be deemed as traitors.”
Lin's son, “If we die here, we'll be deemed traitors forever.” (It's what Mao and Zhou planned for them to make them look like traitors.)
Pan, “I am too stupid. Director Ye (addressing to Ye Qun), I've betrayed you all.”
(The plane is still going downwards.)
Pan to the microphone, “Technicians, shut all three engines.”
Pan, “The speed can't be decreased. The air brake doesn't work now. Maybe it already broken. The wings are out of control now.”
Lin's son, “Let's have forced landing.”
Pan, “It's out of control. Someone sabotaged the plane.”
Yang, “Pilot, I can't die. I have wife and children.”
Pan to the microphone, “The plane will soon land. Everyone back to the seat and buckle the safety belt. Take off your shoes. Let destiny decide our life or death.”
Pan, crying, “Vice Chairman Lin, I'm sorry to you.”
Then a loud sound. The end of the recording.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-24 07:48 VIII. Why did Mao want to criticize Lin Biao connected with Confucius?
On the 18th day of January, 1974, Mao instructed to have another movement, called “criticize Lin and criticize Confucius.” What did Confucius have anything to do with Lin Biao? They lived thousands of years apart. It was said that after Lin's death, Lin's rooms were searched and some quotations from Confucius were found written on paper stuck on the walls. And Lin had said that Mao was like the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, the tyrant, who had buried alive hundreds of scholars and burned books he did not like. It resembled the anti-rightists movement of Mao against intellectuals. When Mao learned it, he said that he loved the tyrant emperor and hated Confucius. That was why Lin and Confucius were combined for criticisms.
Then at Mao's instruction, “criticize Zhou” was added. The slogan became “criticize Lin, criticize Confucius and criticize Zhou.” Zhou was meant premier Zhou Enlai. After getting rid of Liu, and then of Lin, now Mao wanted to get rid of Zhou to clear way for the gang of four to take over the national power. But as all the old cadres supported Zhou, and as Mao knew that Zhou was wise enough to fall into any trap, Mao had to let this movement slip by without any results.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-26 08:42 IX. April-Fifth event in 1976 on TianAnMen Square
1) Background of this event
After Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were out of their leading positions at the beginning of the great cultural revolution, both had different destinies waiting for them. Liu had serious diabetes and was lying in bed in a hospital with tubes in his nose and throat. In October, 1969, Lin Biao ordered Liu to be moved to a prison in Kaifeng City of HeNan province. He was put on a stretcher without clothes on, only covered with a blanket. He was flown to the city in a military plane. Since he had only a thin blanket on, he got cold and then pneumonia. He was thus thrown in a special cell in the prison. On the 13th day of November, when a nurse came to check on him, he was found without breath. So his body was sent to crematories and burned to ashes. On the paper work of the crematories, his name was written as Liu Weihuang, not Liu Shaoqi. His job title was vagabond, not the chairman of the People's Republic of China. His case was redressed in February of 1980.
As to Deng Xiaoping, when Liu was carried to jail, he was sent to labor in a factory repairing agricultural tractors in Xinjian Town in Jiangxi province. Luckily for Deng, the leader of the factory had been an subordinate of Deng in the war period and so took good care of him. Deng just did some light work. In February, 1973, Deng returned to Beijing. When premier Zhou was found to suffer from cancer, Deng was appointed to be in charge of the state affairs.
On the 19th day of May, 1975, in the annual routine checkup, Zhou was found to have cancer in bladder. The doctors in charge reported it to the central committee of CPC and got instructions: first, no more examination; second, don't have operation; third, keep it a secret from Zhou himself and his wife. This decision was made by the gang of four. They wanted Zhou to die as soon as possible.
On the 8th day of January, 1976, premier Zhou died. By his will, his ashes were not put in an urn and buried anywhere, but were spread on the land of China. A very bad tradition in ancient China was that anyone in power would dig up the body of his enemy and would flog the body to vent his fury. That was why Zhou did not want to keep his ashes in any special place lest his urn should be insulted some day when the gang of four got into power.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-6-29 08:11 2) The April-Fifth event on TianAnMen Square
On the 4th day of April, 1976, the tomb-sweeping day for the dead, people in Beijing gathered on the TianAnMen Square in memory of Zhou Enlai and criticized the gang of four without mentioning their names. Sometimes, the people gathering there amounted to over 2 million. So in the night of that day, police were sent to clear the square of the wreaths and slogans and also began to arrest people, which prolonged till the dawn of the 5th day. There was a three-storeyed house in the southeast corner of the square used as a commanding center. Angry crowds burned some cars and surrounded the house, demanding to have a talk with someone in charge in the commanding center, but was refused. So crowds set fire to the house, but those inside escaped and no one was hurt. At night of that day, over 10,000 militiamen, five battalions of soldiers and 3,000 policemen rushed to the square to disperse the throngs. As the militiamen, soldiers and policemen only carried wooden sticks, no guns, there was no one bleeding. The gang of four thought that Deng was behind this as the crowds on the square had shouted their support of Deng, and so on the 7th day of April, Deng was out of office again and put in confinement. Then Hua Guofeng was appointed the premier and the first vice chairman of the central committee of CPC.
No slaughter on TianAnMen Square happened this time, but this event was defined as a reactionary event. In November of 1978, the case was redressed and all those who had been arrested and imprisoned were set free.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-1 08:13 X. The arrest of the gang of four – end of cultural revolution
1) The downfall of the gang of four with the death of Mao
After the death of Lin Biao, the health of Mao turned bad. In 1972, he had a serious shock. Then he suffered from cataract and could not see like blind. In 1975, after operation, he could see something. On the 9th day of September, 1976, he died at the age of 83, of some kind of disease, no definite diagnosis mentioned. His title at the time was the chairman of the central committee of CPC, the chairman of the central military committee of CPC, and the honorary chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. So he was only the head of the communist party, not the head of the nation of China. But as he was the chairman of the military committee of CPC, he was the most powerful man in the country, because in China, the military forces were controlled by the communist party, not by the government, or the nation. That was why when he had given up the position of the chairman of the republic, but not the position of the military committee of CPC. Before his death, he appointed Hua Guofeng as his successor, as he clearly knew that none of the gang of four, not even his wife Jiang Qing, had abilities to administrate such a huge country like China. If he appointed his wife as his successor, the old cadres would surely oppose his decision. But if he appointed one of the old cadres as his successor, the gang of four and their followers would have objection, too. And Hua Guofeng, though also without enough abilities for the position, was acceptable to both sides. In any political play, a politician should make balance among all sides, and then he could stay safely in the center.
Chinese people knew that the gang of four was supported by Mao only. Now when Mao was out of the picture, the gang of four would not stay long in power. And now there lay before Hua Guofeng a choice: on which side he must lean, the gang of four or the old cadres. A wise man could see which side he must choose. And Hua was a wise man and stood with the old cadres.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-3 07:53 2) The cultural revolution ended with the arrest of the gang of four
Just after the death of Mao, Jiang Qing, in the name of Mao's wife, demanded Zhang Yufeng, the personal secretary of Mao, to give her the key to Mao's safe, but Zhang refused, saying the everything belonging to Mao belonged to the Party. She must give the key to the chairman of the Party, Hua Guofeng at the time. Jiang had to leave without the key. What was so important of Mao's safe? It contained the top secret documents of the Party and the state, and some delating letters to reveal some personal secrets of high-ranked cadres, etc., besides Mao's passbook and check book. Whoever controlled those documents and letters could control certain persons, or even the state power. Zhang reported it to Hua Guofeng afterwards, and Hua came to know the importance of Mao's safe and sent Wang Dongxing, commander of the central security bureau for the safety of the Party and national leaders, to take care of it.
On the 21st day of September, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao recommended Li Xing as the commander of the central security regiment. They wanted Li to report to them all the information of the security regiment and addresses of all the members of the political bureau and conditions of how to guard their residences, etc. Li promised to give them all the information they wanted, but at the same time, he reported it to Wang Dongxing, and then to Hua Guofeng. Both sensed the danger of coup d'etat from the gang of four. Before Mao's death, Mao's nephew, Mao Yuanxin, was appointed the liaison officer between Mao and the central political bureau of CPC. Naturally Mao Yuanxin worked under Jiang Qing, Mao's wife. At dawn of the 4th day of October, 1976, Li Xing heard Mao Yuanxin informing the gang of four at breakfast that he had maneuvered two divisions from Shenyang military zone, which stationed now only one day's distance from Beijing. If summoned, they could reach the capital in one day. Li immediately reported it to Hua. Hua decided that he must take action at once. So he went to see Li Xiannian and Ye Jianying, two old cadres in charge of the army. They decided to notify the gang of four to a meeting and would arrest them then and there. Meanwhile, they notified the commander of the Shenyang military zone to order the two divisions to return to their original camps.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-6 07:19 Wang Dongxing was entrusted for the apprehension of them. Zhang Chunqiao came first and was caught in the dark corridor to the meeting room without any trouble. Then Wang Hongwen was put under custody and pushed into the room when he suddenly struggled out of the hands of the security guards and dashed to Ye Jianying with the intention to grip Ye's neck, but was stopped and handcuffed only one meter from Ye. Yao Wenyuan did not make any resistance when arrested. Jiang Qing was always quick-tempered and threw a porcelain vase to the guards, but was subdued at last.
In the morning of the 25th day of January, 1981, the gang of four were judged at court. Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao got the death verdict, but suspended for two years, which generally meant that the prisoner would not be executed at the end of the suspended period, but the sentence would be changed for life. Zhang Chunqiao said nothing at court, by which he showed his contempt for the so-called people's court. After two years, Zhang's verdict was accordingly changed to life sentence in January, 1983, and in March, 1993, hie verdict was changed again for 18 years, but in January, 1997, he was released for medical treatment. He died of cancer on the 21st day of April, 2005, at the age of 88. At court, Jiang Qing made a lot of protests and even gave a speech that sounded like reading the composition of a primary school girl. In January, 1983, her verdict was also changed to life sentence. On the 4th day of May, 1984, she was released for medical treatment of throat cancer. But on the 14th day of May, 1991, she hanged herself in the bathroom using several handkerchiefs tied together. She died at the age of 77. Wang Hongwen was sentenced for life and since 1986, he was moved to a hospital in Beijing and died of liver disease on the 3rd day of August, 1992, at the age of 58. Yao Wenyuan was sentenced for 20 years and was released after 20 years on the 6th day of October, 1996, and died of diabetes on the 23rd day of December, 2005.
Chinese people watched the whole process on television like watching a drama. A political drama for people to enjoy. Nothing more. It was just a fight within the communist party, like dogs fighting for a bone—political power. Whoever won the game had nothing to do with common people. The winner became the king and the loser became the prisoner, as a Chinese saying goes. Thus ended the great cultural revolution and began a new era for China. Good or bad for Chinese people? Wait and see.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-8 07:10 Chapter 19 Birth control policy began in 1970
I. The general regulations of the birth control policy
The one-child policy is only limited in the Han tribe, especially in the towns and cities. The party called upon young people to marry late, generally, boys after 30 and girls after 25, so that there would be less births. As to the minorities, there was no such a limit. The peasant families in the countryside, and the families of the couples, each of whom already was one child, could have a second birth. So the accurate name for the policy should be the birth control policy, not the one-child policy. The enforcement of the policy decreased the birth rate in China. In 2000, the nationwide census showed the decrease of 250 million child birth, and in 2010, the rate of the population growth reduced to 0.57%.
What would the government do if a couple wanted to have a second birth and the wife was already pregnant against the regulations? At first, the cadres of the resident committee would come to persuade them to have abortion, and leaders of where the couple worked would do the same. They would even threaten the couple by stopping the pay of wages or salary if the couple insisted to have the second birth. Without income, how could the couple live? So generally, the couple had to yield and had abortion. There was a special example in Shanghai. The wife did not have job and was pregnant again. And the government could not stop her pay. The stop of the husband's pay was no use, because his father had been a capitalist and had money to support the couple. As the regulations did not have any penalty to the father in such a situation, the government could do nothing to the father. So the only way the cadres of the resident committee could adopt was to go to see the wife everyday and sat in her house to persuade her all day long. If the wife could not bear the bothering any longer, she might have the abortion. But to the surprise of the local cadres, she played disappearance. They could not get any information where she had gone from the father and the husband. The wife went to hide in a relative's home in another town. She gave birth there and brought child back. The local cadres could not kill the child. No such policy. Afterwards, the policy decided that the couple against the regulations to have the second birth must pay a fine. However, in smaller towns or countryside, things could be very different.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-10 07:30 II. Serious events happened concerning the one-child policy
Some illegal performance happened in carrying out the birth control policy in Shaoyang Town of HeNan province. The local cadres, in order to get money for government, “confiscated” by force the child born unlawfully, i.e., taking the baby away from the parents. The family must pay 10,000 yuan fine to get back the child within the time limit. If the family did not hand in the money, the child would be delivered to a local orphanage beyond the time due. They would make up a document to change the status of the child into an orphan, whose surname would be changed to Shao, which was the first word of the town Shaoyang. Some of the orphans were really lawful children of the one-child policy. They took them away from the families by force. The orphans stayed there to be adopted, often by foreigners through lawful procedures, but they must pay 3,000 American dollars. $1,000 would go to those local cadres as commission. This event began in 2000 through 2005. It was revealed on the 21st day of March, 2006, in the South China Morning Post in Hongkong.
Another event was that in Changli Town of Hebei province, where a couple must apply for a “birth service certificate” to have the baby delivered in a hospital. Yang Zhongchen, the husband, and Jin Yani, the wife, got the marriage certificate on the 5th day of May, 2000, and became lawful couple. Then when the wife was pregnant for 9 months and still did not get the birth service certificate, the local cadres forced her to go to the birth service station in the town and she was given an injection for abortion. The 9-month old baby died in the womb, but the dead baby was too big to be easily taken out. An instrument was put in the womb to crush the baby's head and taken out bits by bits. The woman got serious injured and was diagnosed to lose the ability to have child ever afterwards. And the couple was forced to pay the abortion service fee. On the 16th day of January, 2007, the couple sued them for some compensation. Although the court accepted the case, yet the court passed the judgment to overrule the case on the 18th day of May. A similar event happened in Ankang Town of Shaanxi province.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-13 08:14 On the 25th day of February, 2007, an event took place in DunGu Town of Bobai county in Guangxi province. The town government decided to gather fines from those families who had had the second birth since 1980. They must pay the fine in three days. Besides, every local cadre must fulfill an allotted quota to have at least one married woman to have the Fallopian tube tied up, which was demanded by the government as one way for efficient birth control. (Sometimes, the husbands were demanded to tie up the seminal duct.) The quota also included the collection of the fines for 500 yuan by the end of August. This decision involved many families. So it developed on the 17th day of May that more than 300 people gathered before the gate of the town government. Some people attacked the government cadres and policemen. On the 18th and the 19th days, such things happened in other six towns. The people gathering once reached 3,000. The event was quieted down on the 23rd day under the pressure of the local governments. Statistics showed the the government income from the fine of the enforcement of the one-child policy reached more than 200 millions a year.
Some Chinese husbands with feudal thinking like boys and hate girls because boys can hand down the family name, in the countryside, some illiterate fathers will kill the baby girl so that he can have a boy born to him next time, especially since 1971 when child control policy was forcibly carried out. In the actual situation since China has such a giant population, the one child policy is correct, or China would have much more population than now, a heavy burden to the nation and to the world as well. What was wrong was Mao, who had encouraged people to have more children like the Soviet Union had done after the World War II. But the block-headed Mao never knew differences between different things. After the second world war, the population in the Soviet Union was only 167 million while that in the fifties in China was round 600 million. The right policy at that time should not encourage people to give more birth. If so, the population nowadays will not be so great. And one child policy is not needed. From all the facts in China, a conclusion can be easily drawn that Mao always made mistakes to bring China into all kinds of troubles: from economical plight to excessive population. Who can deny all the truth? Looking back, in 1950, Ma Yinchu, the president of Beijing University and the vice director of the central financial committee, had proposed the birth control, but Mao did not listen to him. In 1970, the population in China reached 813 million while that in India was only 549 million. If Mao listened to Ma Yinchu in 1950, the population problem will not be so serious.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-15 07:07 Chapter 20 The economical reform and the open policy
I. Deng Xiaoping came into power again
After the chaos of the 10 years of the cultural revolution, the whole nation wished for restoration of peace and production of necessities for living. At that time, the chief leader of the party and the country was Hua Guofeng, who had no abilities for the management of the national economy. And Ye Jianying was in charge of the army and was not deemed as a person who could shoulder the responsibilities for the national economy. Therefore, almost everyone, even Chinese people, thought of Deng Xiaoping, the famous person, in Mao's words, to go the capitalist road. Now China needed to go the capitalist road for the restoration of the national economy.
An old data showed that in 1820, the GDP of China was 32.4% of the world total GDP, the first in all the countries; in 1919, GDP was 9.1%; in 1952, GDP was 5.2%, while in 1978, after the cultural revolution, GDP fell to 1.8%. So the urgent task for China was to raise its GDP as fast as possible.
At the beginning of 1977, after the downfall of the gang of four, there lay before China a big question mark: where China should go? Hua Guofeng, as the successor of Mao and the new leader of the country and the party could not answer this question. He just put up his policy of “two whatevers”: “Whatever policies Mao had made, we must support; whatever instructions Mao had given, we mush follow.” But all the old cadres opposed the two whatevers as they looked upon it like Hua wanted to continued what Mao had been doing. They thought that China must get rid of Mao's leftist route and then could go the rightist route—the capitalist road, as Mao had put it. Therefore, the two whatevers policy was criticized and Hua was criticized likewise at the meeting of the central political bureau on the 16th day of November, 1980. But the most unforgivable fault of Hua was that he did not support the old cadres to restore to their former positions and work. So Chen Yun openly said that Hua was not suitable to be the leader. Therefore, Hua was forced to resign. On the 5th day of December, his resignation was approved by the central political bureau of CPC. Naturally Deng became the new leader of the party and the nation. Hua died of some kind of disease on the 20th day of August, 2008.
Deng had two famous quotations: One is “practice is the sole criterion to determine what is truth.” The other is “It doesn't matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat, the cat that can catch the mouse is a good cat.” The second quotation clearly reflects his pragmatism.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-17 08:33 II. Deng's goal to let part of Chinese people get rich first
Deng did not say who could be get rich first. But from the later development of the economy and cases of many individuals, who got rich first, being then fined for tax evasion or whatever reasons the government could think of to be poor anew. Some were even imprisoned for violation of this law or that. But the family members and relatives of the party leaders and government high officials were all safe from penalty or jail though they were known publicly having violated laws.
Anyway, though Deng wanted to go the capitalist road as against Mao's socialist road, he met with oppositions, because just after the cultural revolution, Mao's leftist thinking was still maintained by many people. But it was the fault of Deng himself too, as he did not criticize Mao's leftist thinking first before he went the capitalist road. If he could have started a movement to criticize Mao's leftist thinking, it would be easier for him to go the capitalist road. Why did he still want to keep Mao as the idol of the communist party and not entirely abandon his influence? No one could have the answer. Since the signboard of Mao was still upheld in the present time, the reform, even in the economical field only, had certain limits, which tied the hands and feet of the party leaders. If China wants to make further advance without a hitch, the idol of Mao must be overthrown forever. They must declare to be entire capitalism, not the initial stage of the socialism, but going the capitalist road financially and the socialist road politically.
There were debates about certain problems. When going the capitalist road, there would be private businesses and the owners of the private businesses must hire employees. According to socialist thinking, there should not be exploitation of employees by the private business owners. The debates went on for a couple of years. Finally, Deng made the decision: Let there be exploitation if China must go the capitalist road. Deng's decision is actually opposite to the idea of socialism, as Marxism decided that exploitation is typical of capitalism, though Chinese communist party repeatedly declares that China is a socialist country. Of course, the world knows that it is a false declaration. And as the CPC always tells lies, it is no surprise to the world.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-20 07:20 In the early 80s of the 20th century, as approved by the central political committee of CPC and the state council, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Amoy in the southern coast area became the special economic zones. Therefore, the local governments invited the investment of the foreign capital for the development of the local economy. Another problem arose. The foreign businesses might employ some Chinese personnel as managers. Thus there would be a new compradore class, which reminded some old people of the old China where the so-called imperialists had made the economical invasion.
On the 24th day of January, 1984, Deng went to inspect Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Amoy, three special economic zones, and was satisfied with the situation. He decided to open more harbor cities like Dalian and Qingdao, as the special economic zones. At that time, Deng was the director of the central counselor committee and the chairman of the central military committee of CPC. It meant that he had the control of the army. So every party leader must listen to him. His decision was the final, though he had no position in the central government.
In April of 1988, HaiNan Island was made an independent province and also a special economic zone. In June, the local government and a company from Hongkong signed an agreement that 30 square kilometers of land in Yangpu Peninsular would be leased to the company for 70 years. The company could use it at its own discretion. It was the first time that the communist party adopted such a style in its open policy. It was called Yangpu Style. Some old people connected it with the foreign settlements in old China, criticized it and opposed it. In March of 1989, this event developed into a so-called Yangpu Storm, politically. Many party leaders went there for inspection. Then Deng interfered and the storm quieted down. On the 9th day of March, 1992, the state council approved the official set-up of the “Yangpu Economic Developing Zone.”作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-7-22 07:13 III. How Hu Yuebang got into and out of power
1) Hu Yuebang became general secretary of central secretariat of CPC
Hu Yuebang (11/20/1915—04/15/1989) was from a poor peasant family and joined the communist party in 1933. When Hua Guofeng was forced to resign in June, 1981, there arose the question who would be the chairman of the party? Deng Xiaoping, 77 of age at the time, wanted to be the chairman, but Ye Jianying did not support him because he did not like the resignation of Hua. Someone nominated Ye as the chairman, but Ye declined because he was over 80 then. Since Hu Yuebang had a lot of merits in his work to the party, he was agreed to be the chairman of the party. Zhao Ziyang (10/17/1919—01/17/2005) was made a vice chairman of the party. After Hua resigned all his positions, Zhao was made the premier of the state council. Then Hu Yuebang proposed to have Hua as a vice chairman of the party and his proposal was agreed upon. Deng was the chairman of the party military committee.
In the 12th party conference, Hu Yuebang wanted to resign from the position of the chairman of the party and proposed Deng to be the chairman, and Hu himself to be a vice chairman. Deng proposed Ye to be the chairman, but Ye declined once more and said, “You two dwarfs can work together for the party.” (Deng Xxiaoping and Hu Yuebang both had short stature.) But Hu insisted in not being the chairman of the party. He could take the position of the general secretary of the party. Then the position of the party chairman was vacant for many years. The general secretary took charge of the party affairs.
When Hu had been the minister of the organization ministry of the central committee of CPC, he had done a great job in the correction of many wrong cases, the biggest one being the case of the so-called anti-rightists movement, which involved over 550,000 rightists.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-1 14:59 2) How Hu Yuebang was forced to resign from general secretary position
The cause of Hu's resignation was his different opinion with Deng about Deng's full retirement from power. Since Mao had stayed in power till death, Deng likewise wished to have power as long as possible. In May of 1986, Deng made a false move, a typical two-faced person like Mao. Maybe, he just learned it from Mao. Deng invited Hu to come to his home for the discussion of the personnel arrangement of the party positions in the 13th party conference. Hu said that he was over 70 and must retire in the 13th party conference. Deng said, “Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, and I will all retire. You (Hu) can half retire, no longer to be the general secretary, but still can be the chairman of the military committee or of the nation for a term. Then you'll see what to do.”
On the 22nd day of August, 1986, Deng had a birthday party for his 81st anniversary. At the party Deng said that he would retire in the 13th party conference. Hu believed it. The stupid dwarf, Hu, was no match for the wise dwarf, Deng. In October, on the meeting of the central political bureau, Hu openly said that he supported Deng to retire and then other old cadres would retire, too, so as to make way for the younger comrades. He added that he would retire from the office of the general secretary at the end of the term. Some old cadres agreed with Hu, including Wan Li. When Deng asked Wan why Hu wanted him to retire, which showed that Deng never actually wanted to retire, Wan said that Hu might just have a slip of the tongue. Deng asked again if Hu wanted to show himself off by so doing. Wan replied that Hu was not such a sort of person.
Anyway, on the 10th day of January, 1987, on an informal meeting of the political bureau, some of Deng's supporters criticized Hu and asked him to resign right away. Therefore, He had to resign on the spot. But people remembered him for his integrity. In the 13th party conference, he was elected the member of the central committee of CPC by over 1,800 votes, and was elected the member of the central political bureau with almost the full votes less 7.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-1 15:00 Chapter 21 The slaughter of students on TianAnMen Square
I. The background of the TianAnMen event
In 1986, there was a democratic atmosphere on the political stage in China. As the economical reform had an obstacle from the political system and the economical system, the reform, though somewhat having some achievements in the countryside, met with difficulties in cities. Prices of goods rose. Inflation happened. Officials became corrupt. Belief crisis worsened. Therefore, there originated the conflict of two different opinions among the party leaders. One was to support the reform and the other objected the reform by opposing the so-called bourgeois liberalization. Deng at first tended to the former, but then turned over to the latter. He might be afraid that the bourgeois liberalization would endanger the tyrannical rule of the communist party.
After the resignation of Hu Yuebang, Zhao Ziyang became the general secretary. Li Peng was made the premier of the state council. On the 13th day of May, 1987, Zhao Ziyang, instructed by Deng, gave a speech to actually cease the anti-bourgeois-liberalization movement. Deng changed his attitude again. At the suggestions of some economists, Zhao tried to carry on the reform from the prices of goods. The goods price reform caused a stampede of purchase that had an impact to the price control. Those who opposed the reform thereby persuaded Deng to stop. Criminal cases of all kinds increased.
College students had the sharpest sense to the change of the political situations and the social conditions. Some renowned intellectuals, especially the university professors, demanded to release all the political prisoners. On the 6th day of January, 1989, Fang Lizi, a famous scientist, wrote an open letter to Deng for amnesty of political prisoners, especially Wei Jingsheng, who later was allowed to leave China for the US.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-1 15:00 In universities in Beijing at the time, there was a wall,on which students could openly post their opinions written on paper stuck on it. Since all the opinions could be openly expressed there, the wall was called “Democracy Wall.” The famous wall was the Xidan Democracy Wall, located in Xidan of Beijing, not within any of the university campus. It had developed from the big-character paper in the cultural revolution stuck on the wall. In 1978, a lot of articles and poems were posted there. On the 16th day of November, an article posted with an alias of Mechanician #0538 conveyed the criticism of the historic mistakes of Mao and requested to abolish the tyranny, and to have democracy and the freedom of speech. There gathered sometimes as many as more than 10,000 people, including foreign press.
On the 8th day of January, 1979, Fu Yuehua, a female textile worker, had a demonstration on TianAnMen Square with thousands of other people for the human rights. They held up a banner bearing the words: Democracy and human rights. On the 9th day of January, Fu Yuehua was apprehended. On the 22nd day of March, 1979, Beijing Daily published an article “Human rights are not the proletarian slogan.” On the 25th day of March, Wei Jingsheng posted his article on Xidan Democracy Wall titled “Democracy or new tyranny” to openly criticize Deng going the tyrannical road. On the 29th day, Wei was arrested. The reason for the arrest of Wei made open by the government was that Wei sold military information to foreigners at the price of 20 yuan of Chinese currency. It meant that Wei was so destitute in need of 20 yuan. Many Chinese people had 20 yuan at that time. Who would care for 20 yuan? And did they mean that Wei did not know the importance of military information and that he would sell it for only 20 yuan? No wonder. The communist government always tells lies. On the same day, Beijing government put up a public notice to prohibit this, prohibit that, anything to criticize the government and the party. They also forbade the posting of the big word paper and demonstrations.
On the Second Session of the Fifth National People's Congress in June, Hu Yuebang said that some comrades criticized him for supporting liberalization which would encourage anarchism, but he wanted to maintain his own viewpoint. As to the apprehension of Wei Jingsheng and others, Hu said that for these brave people, they did not care to be imprisoned. If Wei Jingsheng died in the prison, he would be deemed a martyr in the eye of people. Hu implied that it was not worth letting Wei die in prison. Hu's hint meant that political prisoners were always maltreated in jail.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-3 07:41 II. The fuse to university students protesting on TianAnMen Square
On the 15th day of April, 1989, Hu Yuebang died of heart disease. He was thought by Chinese people, especially university students, as a firm political reformer. With the termination of the chaotic cultural revolution, people pinned hope on Deng to go the capitalist road, but Deng disappointed them by going the capitalist road financially only, and refusing to go the capitalist road politically. The disappointment of Deng also lay in his rejection to redress the anti-rightist movement as a whole and in his forcing Hu to resign.
From the 15th day to the 17th day, people kept coming to the TianAnMen Square and put wreaths, white banners, white flowers and paper couplets around the Monument of People's Heroes in memory of Hu. On the 16th day, a student from Beijing University quietly sat there on a small stool he had brought with a long slip of white paper on him bearing the words: “Eternal farewell, (Hu) Yuebang!” In many universities in Shanghai and other cities, students put up slogans in memory of Hu. Everything was in order.
On TianAnMen Square, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the 17th day, over 20 students played mourning music and shouted something like “Long live freedom!” “Long live democracy!” “Long live law system!” (In communist China, law is only a decoration. The party decides everything even against the law they make.) And some other slogans. At 4:30, a parade came into the square, singing L'Internationale. Then they dispersed quietly. Round 7 o'clock, about 3,000 people gathered there in memorial activities. Past 8 o'clock, the memorial service of the crowds reached its climax. Many students chanted poems of their own composition and applause sounded vehemently. Just past midnight on the 18th day, more than 1,000 students from Beijing University came, joined by students of other universities, totaling 3,000. They yelled with something like “Long live freedom!” “Long live democracy!” and “Down with bureaucratists!” while singing L'Internationale.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-3 07:43 In the early morning of the 18th day, hundreds of students sat before the Great Hall of the People demanding the reception of the leaders to have a talk. They made 7-items requisition:
1, re-evaluate the merits and demerits of Hu Yuebang and acknowledge his points of view in democracy, freedom, leniency and harmony.
2, thoroughly negate decisions of anti-bourgeois-liberalization and clearing spiritual pollution. Redress the wrong cases for intellectuals.
3, yearly income from all sources of the national leaders and their family members must be open to people. Oppose corruption and embezzlement.
4, lift the ban and permit people to run private newspapers. Have freedom of speech.
5, increase the educational expenditure and pay of intellectuals.
6, denounce the 10 regulations issued by Beijing government about demonstration.
7, demand government leaders to make open self-criticisms to people for their mistakes and re-elect part of the leaders through democratic method.
The students demanded that the government should put their requisitions on newspapers and make an open answer to people. Would the party leaders meet the wishes of the students? Surely never. Most Chinese rulers from the history always resorted to arms in their dealing with common people. How could the communist party be an exception, though they said that they served people? Besides, all the requisitions were what they hated. They hated democracy, freedom of speech, of publication and of demonstration. The requisition they could not accept mostly was to let their illegal income open to public. Supposing if they yielded to demand of students, it would make them lose face. In Chinese tradition, face is very important to the individual, especially to those in power. They will never do anything to lose face if they can help it. Moreover, they were never lenient to common people. Therefore, the result was foreseeable and predictable. The bravery of the students was much admired by the world as they certainly knew that when they were doing so, they were taking the risk of imprisonment and even death.
At the time, Zhao Ziyang was the general secretary. According to theory and rules, he should be in charge of everything in the country. He should have the final say. So he sent someone to receive the representatives of the students and accept their letter of petition. However, he could not make the final decision about their requisitions. He had those old cadres over him or behind him. Those old cadres controlled the army while he did not. In communist China only those in control of the army had the final say to anything and everything.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-5 07:53 In the night of the 19th day of April, 3,000 students gathered before Xinhua Gate, which is the entrance to Zhongnanhai, where the party leaders lived. There were also 7,000 spectators. The whole day, no leaders came out to see the students. So they yelled, “Come out, Li Peng!” Li Peng was the premier at the time. Leaders of the party and government divided into two different opinions towards the students. Zhao, the general secretary, wanted to have a talk with students while Li, the premier, and those old cadres, refused to talk with those youngsters. The leaders of Beijing City handed in a report to the central committee of CPC in a negative attitude.
From 11 o'clock at night of the 20th day, to 1 o'clock in early morning of the 21st day, students of Beijing University had a meeting to decide to set up the “Preparatory Committee of Solidarity Student Association of Beijing University” to organize the united action. They made another demand to release Wei Jingsheng. They contacted the students of other universities to set up a common organization for the petition. It was because three students, when returning to dorm after the memorial activities in the night of the 19th day, were attacked by police and one of the students, Wang Zhinyong was severely hurt. The students required to punish those attacking the students. They refused to go to classes like on strike. Some hundred students from Tianjin or other cities came to Beijing to join in the memorial activities in support to Beijing students. Even professors, writers, the press, and people of other callings, supported the students.
In the morning of the 22nd day of April, there was a funeral for Hu Yuebang in the People's Hall. During the whole process, till Hu's hearse went to the graveyard, everything was in order. Students quietly mourned. Three students knelt before the People's Hall, holding the letter of petition, because no one came out to take the letter from them yet. In front of them there lined up armed police and soldiers. There were more spectators than students. The crowds had somewhat body touch with the police. Some students came to tell crowds to stand back and order restored. Then two men came out to talk with the students. At round 1:30 in the afternoon, students went back to their dorms, but they still refused to have classes, as they were waiting for the reply from the government. News went round that the 38th army was maneuvering to Beijing. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the 23rd day of April, there appeared the declaration of the ph.d. students in the People's University of China, which read as follows:作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-7 06:50 1, entirely support the 7-items requisitions of the university students in Beijing, firmly support all the patriotic democratic movements of people of all classes.
2, all ph.d. students join the strike from this moment.
3, (now that it is) “collective leadership, and the mistakes from policies made collectively,” (words of Li Peng) leaders should resign collectively to show the honesty of the “collective responsibilities.” (words of Li Peng.) (This requisition meant that Li Peng's cabinet must resign collectively.)
4, strongly demand that all the leaders over 75 years old, either in the party, or in the government, or in the army, should resign.
5, stop violence, protect human rights. The army should not interfere with national affairs.
6, the expenditure of the CPC should not be paid from the national treasury.
7, lift the ban to newspapers. Freedom of the press. Permit private newspapers, radio and TV stations.
8, let people from different classes organize a probity committee to check the corruption among the leaders of the party and the government. Investigate the unlawful business activities of the children and relatives of the old cadres and publicize the results.
When Li Peng was reported about it, he said that this declaration was openly to challenge the party. In other cities students joined in the patriotic movement to save China from corruption. In XiAn, some students in the demonstration were beaten and wounded. Some even disappeared after arrest. In Shanghai, Jiang Zeming, the municipal party secretary ordered Qin Benli, the chief editor of World Economic Herald to be dismissed from office because he supported the students' movement. Jiang's suppression of the World Economic Herald was much appreciated by the old cadres and that was why he was later to be selected as the general secretary to replace Zhao Ziyang. Hu Jintao was selected as the successor of Jiang Zeming because he suppressed the Tibetans when he was the party secretary there. From this, the world can see that the Chinese communist party selected their successors by the rule that the successors should be firmly against the people, never for the people. Those for the people must go down from power like Hu Yuebang and Zhao Ziyang.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-10 09:01 On the 26th day of April, the People Daily published an editorial to define the students' petition as a riot. The bugle for killing sounded, but the students ignored. Maybe, they were too young to be aware of such dirty political plots. A student told his family that he would sacrifice his dear life to save the country. He determined that once he left home, he would never come back alive. On the 27th day, besides in Beijing, students in many main cities held demonstrations. Under the approval of Deng, a tank division of the 38th corps maneuvered towards Beijing. But at the time, no soldiers interfered with students' demonstrations. Anyway, party leaders had different opinions about the students' movement. The general secretary Zhao maintained the idea to talk with students to solve the problems and to have press reform for freedom of report while Li Peng, the premier, opposed it, supported by Deng and old cadres.
On the 4th day of May, 1919, university students in Peking had a demonstration. Therefore, the 4th day of May was set as Youth Day when the communist party began their rule in mainland, China. Every Youth Day, students will have some activities for celebration. Now the Youth Day would soon come in 1989. The authorities knew that students would have a parade. So the general secretary Zhao would make a speech. The premier Li wanted Zhao to add “anti-bourgeois liberalization” in Zhao's speech, but Zhao said that it was not appropriate to add such a phrase in the speech at the time. Now it's time to appease but not to enrage students. The reasonable speech was welcomed by students, but some old cadres criticized Zhao for so saying. They wanted strong words to threaten students so that students could be quieted and go back to their desks. Therefore some leaders from Beijing government criticized the letter of petition handed in by students and declared that there were some evil conspirators behind all this. That was not the truth. Students could not accept it. As a matter of fact, this is the old ruse the communist party often uses. Whenever there are some riots among people for maintaining their lawful rights harmed by the local governments or those supported by local governments, the communist party will say that there must be some international plotters or imperialists behind the riots.
This May-4th was the 70th anniversary of May-4th movement in 1919. Students in Beijing and in other main cities held parades. Even newspapers staff took part in. General secretary Zhao gave an impromptu speech in order to assuage the students. But premier Li thought that Zhao's speech was against the spirit of the April-26th editorial, which had already defined the students' movement as a riot. In the communist notion, any riot should be suppressed by force, not smoothed off by talk and yielding.
In the afternoon of the 9th day of May, two newspaper reporters handed in a letter of petition with 1,013 signatures to the leaders in charge of the party's propaganda work to ask for a talk how to restore Qin Benli to be the chief editor of the World Economic Herald. Of course, it had no result.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-12 08:38 III. The students' hunger strike began
Since the government did not give students a reasonable answer, the students decided to go on the hunger strike. Their slogan was “I love food, but I love truth more.” They did not say how long the hunger strike would be. A student said that it would be timeless, meaning till they got satisfactory answer from the government.
On the 13th day of May, in the morning, they made a Declaration of Hunger Strike, which read in the following (extract):
“In the sunshiny May, we go on hunger strike. In the best time of youthfulness, we have to leave behind us all the beauties of life. We are so unwilling, so reluctant. ...
Democracy in life is the greatest emotion for living. Liberty is the human rights endowed by Heaven with birth. So for these we will use our young lives to exchange. Is this the pride of the Chinese nation? …
We are still children, we are still children! Mother China, open thy eyes to look at thy children! Although hunger's mercilessly destroying their young lives, and Death's approaching them, how canst thou not be moved?
We don't want to die. We want to live happily, because we are in the prime of our years. We don't want to die. We want to learn more, as our motherland is still so short of things. We are not so heartless to die thus, leaving our motherland behind like this. Death is not what we are in pursuit of. But if death of someone, or some ones can make most people live better, can make our motherland flourishing, we have no reason to treasure our lives.
Fathers and mothers, when we are suffering from hunger, do not lament. Uncles and aunties, when we bid farewell to our lives, do not cry. We have only one wish to make you live better. We have only one request: don't forget what we are going after is not death. …
Farewell, our people, please allow us to have to thus end our lives to show our loyalty! ...”
Among those on hunger strike was the world-renowned Liu Xiaobo, the winner of Nobel peace prize. The communist government refused him to be present at the ceremony and receive it. In the evening of that day, 300 professors and young teachers of Beijing university wrote an open letter to the central committee of CPC, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the state council. On the 14th day, part of the teaching staff of some universities proposed teachers' strike. Some government leaders did have a talk with the student representatives, who requested that for a good commence of the talk, the first question that should be solved was that this event was a patriotic movement to save the country from corruption and embezzlement, not a riot against the party and government. But the government leaders did not make a positive reply so that the talk could not be continued.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-14 08:39 During the hunger strike, Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet communist party, came to China on a visit. Since the students occupied the TianAnMen Square, the Chinese government had to change the location for reception ritual, which, in their opinion, made them lose face. In their narrow mind, the relationship between students and the government should be like father and son. No equal rights between them. So the party leaders were angry. The general secretary Zhao was criticized for the weakness in his attitude towards the students. Besides, in Zhao's talk with Gorbachev, he was thought to have said something like Deng Xiaoping, though not the head of the nation or the party in name, could decide everything in national affairs. Those old cadres thought that this was a secret and should not be known to a foreign leader, but all the Chinese people knew it, let alone the foreign leaders, that Deng, though only the chairman of the central military committee in control of the army, was in fact over the general secretary Zhao in power. The Chinese party leaders always played the ostrich, burying its head in sands. They thought that once they controlled the press, the radio and TV stations, people would not know what happened in China. Besides the above-mentioned, Deng wanted to put Beijing under the martial law, supported by premier Li, but Zhao said that it was not the right time to do it. On such accusations, Zhao was removed from the office of general secretary and put in confinement ever since. All the time during his confinement, he just played golf and relaxed. He rejected to self-criticize as he thought he was not wrong. He died of kidney disease on the 16th day of January, 2005.
Then who would be the general secretary was an urgent question. According to the tradition of the communist party, the premier would be the first candidate, like when Hu Yuebang was out of the office of the general secretary, the premier Zhao Ziyang succeeded him. Now the premier Li Peng should be the successor, but some old cadres said that Li's disrepute among people made him improper to take this office. So finally, the old cadres decided that Jiang Zeming, the party secretary of Shanghai should be the general secretary as he was firm in opposition of the student movement. Jiang became the next general secretary of the party. In accordance with the communist party constitution, the change of the general secretary must be decided in the central committee of CPC, not decided privately by some old cadres. Therefore, this was deemed as a bloodless coup d'etat, not a routine procedure. Premier Li had expected to be made the general secretary, but now was disappointed. Deng, as a shrewd politician, had a talk with premier Li and hinted a warning to him not to form any clique.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-17 09:43 IV. The slaughter of the unarmed students on TianAnMen Square
Generally people thought that the slaughter mostly happened on TianAnMen Square, because foreign reporters mainly lodged in Beijing Hotel, and so they knew mostly what happened around TianAnMen Square in their reports. But most killings occurred in Muxidi in west Beijing, 3 or 4 km from TianAnMen Square. The army went through this place to TianAnMen Square. That is where the army began the killings. That is where most people were killed or wounded.
Therefore, the martial law was carried out. The armed forces in positions ready to act reached 180,000. The 24th army, the 27th army, the 28th army, the 38th army, the 63rd army, the 65th army, and the 39th army and the 40th army from Shenyang military zone, and the 54th army and the 67th army from JiNan military zone, were ordered to maneuver to the assigned positions. It looked like another civil war would have soon broken out. What the army facing was only the unarmed students. But the commander of the 38th army refused to move. Some army officers wrote an open letter to the central military committee of CPC not to suppress the innocent students, who were not the enemy of the nation.
The martial law incited students and common people in Beijing as it had never occurred since the establishment of this republic. So people in Beijing used everything to set up barriers to prevent the army from entering the city. Throngs of people went to meet military trucks and surrounded them so that the trucks were stuck there. At that time, the order was not to use weapons.
An alabaster Statue of Democracy was made. On the 30th day of May, this statue was erected in TianAnMen Square in comparison of the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Students on hunger strike knew that talk with the government was impossible to continue. But many students persisted. On the 1st day of June, the international children's day, some parents brought their children to TianAnMen Square and took photos under the Statue of Democracy. In the morning of the 2nd day of June, the old cadres had a meeting to determine to clear the square of the students on hunger strike.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-19 08:54 At 6:30 in the evening on the 3rd day of June, the government of Beijing announced an urgent proclamation warning people not to go out, especially not to TianAnMen Square, and as long as people stayed at home, their safety was guaranteed. This public announcement smelled of gunpowder, but students on hunger strike did not think that way. They felt safe with the conviction that the communist party loved their people and the people's government would never kill their own people. If it did occur, it was really unprecedented. It is true that humans have short memory. Just over 10 years, the cultural revolution happened, which was thought unprecedented. If one thing unprecedented happened, why could not another unprecedented thing happen too?
After 10 o'clock at night, the 27th army marched into the city, people in Beijing still tried to stop soldiers from coming into the city. But this time it seemed that CPC determined to let their soldiers kill people. Common people in Beijing who supported the students began to push five trolley buses onto the Muxidi Bridge, through which way the army would come to TianAnMen Square. When a tank came to shovel the buses away, so many crowds forming a human wall on the other side of the buses pushed the buses against the tank. There was a loud bang. The tank didn't succeed to shovel away the buses. Crowds gave out loud cheers. It repeated several times. Such heroic scene had never been sees even in movies. Then the army used tear shells and people had to retreat and hide among bushes or after buildings. So more than a tank came to push aside the buses and soldiers rushed in while they randomly shot their guns. Gun reports were heard and the wounded were carried away for treatment. The soldiers came to the housing building where some old cadres lived, and so it was called the Minister Building. Some hundreds of people stood on the flat roof, watching. They never thought that the soldiers would shoot at them since they were just on-lookers. But the soldiers did fire at the building, which caused the protest of the old cadres later in the congress. Then some soldiers set fire to the buses, making it a false evidence that mobs did it and so they were right to shoot mobs, just like the case of Reichstag fire by Hitler in Germany.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-21 07:57 At 11:30, the first tank appeared in TianAnMen Square. People put barriers before it too and then it went away, crushing the barriers. At 3 o'clock in the morning on the 4th day, Liu Xiaobo and three others told the students that bloodshed began and they must leave. At 4 o'clock, all lights went out on the square. Some soldiers shot down the big loudspeakers that the students tied on some lampposts. They drove students away with guns, not firing yet. So student started to retreat, but at 4:30, all lights were on, and the withdrawing students found facing soldiers and tanks in front. There still were around 200 students staying in the square. Soldiers encircled them. Many people, including students, were apprehended. The statistics of casualties and the wounded varied as the government never issued the exact numbers. They even denied that slaughter happened on the square, a typical lie with so many witnesses. Anyway, the Chinese red cross gave their statistics that the casualties were 2,600. Afterwards, an officer from International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies revealed that about 5,000 were killed and close to 30,000 wounded.
Since the slaughter caused the strong reaction from people and some old cadres, the CPC military committee maneuvered the 38th army to replace the 27th army for the aftermath clearance. But an the 27th army withdrew out of Beijing on the 7th day of June (07/06), on the way some soldiers fired at the Diplomatic Residence Compound, causing the escape of the frightened foreigners in Beijing, which was called the 07/06 event.
From the TV screen people in the world could see tanks moving forth and a young man jumped on one tank and then jumped down. He was later arrested and no one knew what became of him. A rumor went that all the soldiers participating in the massacre had been forced to have injection of some kind to make them exciting for killing, or not caring for killing. All countries in the world made protestations against such brutal action. All people in the world were shocked at the massacre of the unarmed students. It showed that the communist party of China can do anything for their own benefits. How can they be trustworthy?
Before CPC came into power on the mainland, they always criticized Chiang Kai-shek government when Chiang's police only used fire hydrant water to disperse students in demonstration. They never used guns to kill students.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-24 08:53 Chapter 22 What else happened before the death of Deng Xiaoping
I. The dispute of Hongkong issue
When it was still the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government was defeated in the first opium war by England and signed the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. For the second opium war in 1860, the Qing government signed the Treat of Peking. In both treaties, the Qing government agreed to alienate Hongkong and Kowloon to England forever. No time limit for these two regions. But on the 9th day of June in 1898, the Qing government signed The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory to lease the new territories to England for 99 years.
In March of 1979, Sir Murray McLehose visited China to start the negotiation for the Hongkong issue. On the 24th day of September, 1982, Mrs. Thatcher, British prime minister, came to China to negotiate with Deng Xiaoping about the Hongkong issue. Mrs. Thatcher held that since Hongkong and Kowloon were alienated to England forever, China should not take them back. China could take back the new territories at the end of the 99 year lease. However, Deng said that the communist party never acknowledged the legality of the occupation of Hongkong and Kowloon. And Deng added that China would take back them together with the new territories, even by forces, if needed. The argument of Mrs. Thatcher went against a wall. A wall with no reasoning.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-26 07:33 What can a lady do in face of a thug? A thug will do everything by hook or by crook to serve his purpose. Therefore, Mrs. Thatcher had to consent to return Hongkong, Kowloon, and the new territories to China on the 1st day of July in 1997. And Deng guaranteed that the present system in Hongkong would not change in 50 years. What about after 50 years? Deng didn't say. But everyone could understand that changes would certainly occur.
Then Deng made a policy called “one nation, two systems.” Deng thought that this policy could be used to Taiwan issue too, if some day Taiwan surrendered to the mainland. Can the Chinese communist party permit the co-existence of the democratic system and the tyrannical system within their power? Impossible. Once the president of Taiwan declared that if the communist party could adopt democratic system, Taiwan would immediately unite with the mainland. It is thus simple for the mainland and Taiwan to unite. But the communist party will never change their tyrannical system and the solution of the Taiwan issue will surely be done by force, in the future, like in the Chinese history.
After the return of Hongkong, it was made a special administrative region. The head was called chief executive. But the chief executive was decided by the communist party in Beijing, even if by election. The communist party can use their influence to let the chosen person get more votes than others, if there are other candidates. So the chief executives in the special administrative region are all puppets of the communist central government. The communist party is trying to change the administrative system even before 50 years is over. Their scheme failed because of the strong opposition of Hongkong people. But it is foreseeable that sooner or later, the communist party will make changes in the political system in Hongkong by force as they have army already there.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-28 08:40 II. Two different views among party leaders: reform or not reform
After the June-4th event in 1989, especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union in August, 1991, there arose two different opinions about reform and open policy among the party leaders. Some thought that reform went too fast. When Jiang Zeming became the general secretary, he and premier Li Peng held conservative views about reform. There even sprang up the old question of whether going the capitalist road or the socialist road. Recent facts revealed that Jiang Zeming's father, Jiang Shijun, alias Jiang Guanqian, had worked in the puppet government of Wang Jingwei in Anti-Japanese War. Anyone worked with the Japanese was defined as traitor. It was, of course, that a son was not responsible for the action of his father. Only Jiang Zeming concealed this fact to the party, or he would never be chosen as the general secretary of CPC, the son of a traitor.
Accordingly, Deng was the one insisting on going the capitalist road. On the 18th day of January in 1992, Deng traveled south, imaginably imitating Mao traveling south before the cultural revolution, but this time no one had such strength and power to oppose him. Unlike Mao having secret talks with local leaders, Deng made open speeches to warn those in opposition to the reform. He said whoever against the reform must resign. Then the general secretary Jiang Zeming declared to support Deng. Unlike Zhao, the ex-general secretary, an upright man, persisting in his viewpoints, Jiang was a typical opportunist, changing his views easily. If he dared to say anything against reform, he would certainly be forced to resign. In China, power means safety for life. Once out of power, no one can predict what will become of him. Besides, power means personal benefits. So the reform and open policy was carried out without further objection.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-8-31 08:19 III. The Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River
In the early years when the communist party came into power, party leaders intended to construct a colossal dam for the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River. Only at that time, their weak economy could not support such a giant construction work.
The three gorges on the Yangtze River is a beautiful scenic zone in Sichuan province. A legend has it that there lived a goddess on Mt. Wu, who had sex with King Chu thousands of years ago. The ancient poets had written poems about the beauties of the zone.
Then there was a discussion about the goodness and badness of the project. The goodness was the generation of electricity, which could reach 84.6 billion kilowatts annually while able to save the consumption of about 50 million tons of coal; the control of flood or drought in the downstream areas; and the development of fisheries in the reservoir, etc. The badness was that the reservoir would be polluted by the accumulation of garbage or the like, causing epidemic and the water unable to drink; that the natural ecological system would be damaged; and that the geological disasters would happen like landslides, etc.
The party leaders supported the project while experts opposed it. Another reason for objection was that if a war broke out, the dams would be the target of attack. But party leaders had the final say. So on the 3rd day of April, 1992, a bill was passed in the congress about the project. On the 14th day of December, 1994, the project commenced. The reservoir would cover 632 square kilometers and 129 cities and towns would vanish and more than 1.2 million people were forced to relocate at little compensation from the government. The construction lasted for 17 years. A joke goes that the goddess must relocate, too.
The three gorges project on the Yangtze River was boasted of the control of flood in the downstream areas. However, from July to September in 1998, a huge flood took place along the Yangtze River. Several provinces were affected. More than 100 million people suffered from the disaster. 1,000 acres of crops were damaged and over 4,150 people died. 56 million people deserted their homes and went somewhere else for living. Over 4.3 million houses were crashed and the loss was over 255.1 billion yuan of Chinese currency.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-2 08:00 Chapter 23 What happened after the death of Deng Xiaoping
I. The issue of FaLunGong
After the death of Deng on the 19th day of February in 1997, the general secretary Jiang was now in full power. The major thing he did was his suppression of FaLunGong (FLG), which denotes not persons, but a kind of exercise for health. The persons learning the exercise are called FLG learners.
The event originated like this: a magazine in Tianjin City published an article to imply that anyone who practice FaLunGong would cause trouble, even the destruction of the whole nation. No one knows why an exercise style will have such an effect. When some learners read it they went to the magazine publisher to explain what the exercise really was on the 23rd day of April in 1999. Then came 300 policemen to disperse the crowd and beat and arrest 45 learners. The police said to the learners that if they wanted to petition, they must go to Beijing for it. That was later thought to be the induction to have them to be in Beijing so that the event could be made serious, because generally the local government did not like its people to go to Beijing to complain, which would show the inability of the local government. Now that they were urged to do so was very suspicious. It was naturally thought that the police in Tianjin was instructed to entice the learners to go to Beijing with some sort of purpose. The year of 1999 was the 10th anniversary of the June-4th slaughter. It was the sensitive time to be close to the 4th day of June. Petition of crowds could be deemed a political event against the Party. Anyway, early on the 25th day of April, over 10,000 learners gathered before the reception room of the state council, requesting to stop bothering learners and release learners under custody. The premier Zhu Rongji at the time received the representatives of the learners and learners under custody were released. Everything seemed okay now. But the general secretary Jiang was not happy. He criticized premier Zhu to be too weak in the talk with the learners.
Before this event, quite a few party leaders of high rank supported FaLunGong and said that it was a good exercise for health. Why Jiang wanted to suppress FLG learners was a hard guess. It attributed to that Jiang intended to get rid of some political enemies, who were also learners of this exercise. Nevertheless, Jiang was personally responsible for the suppression of the learners. Jiang set up the 610 Office for that aim. On the 22nd day of July, the government announced to prohibit the exercise of the FaLunGong and declared it to be an evil cult. In fact, FaLungong was only a form of exercise, not a religion. Anyway, in China, the party leaders want to say what you are, and you are whatever it is. No argument.
Then the police wanted to collect evidence for the accusation. They went to homes of the individual learners without a search warranty and took away personal things. A serious event took place on TianAnMen Square on the 23rd day of January, 2001. Xinhua News, the government organization, announced that five FLG learners burned themselves on TianAnMen Square that day. But FLG learners denied that any learners did such a thing. It was conducted by the communist party, just like the Reichstag fire in Germany conducted by Hitler in 1933. After that, learners were arrested and tortured in prison. Many were tormented to death.
If say that this is a political event, it is not true, because no learners had declared to overthrow the rule of the communist party and no learners had criticized the party before the event happened, unless Jiang had a political purpose in doing so.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-4 07:20 II. Human organs removal alive in China
Generally for donation or sale, human organs are taken from the body after death. But things in communist China are always different from those in the world. In Guangdong province, people eat the monkey brain alive. Somewhere, the cook cuts chicken meat when the chicken is still alive, which they think is more tasteful than after the chicken is dead. The gall of the bear can be used in Chinese drugs. Recently, people cut the gall out when the bear is alive. Therefore, it is believable that the communist party has the human organs removed alive from FLG learners they had imprisoned secretly somewhere. The targets for the purpose include Tibetans, Uygur people (a minor nationality living in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China), Christians who were forced to gather secretly in the private houses for prayer, and those criticizing the Party.
The crime was first exposed in a hospital in Sujiatun Town. On the 9th day of March, 2006, a doctor there confessed that he himself removed 5,000 corneas from learners alive. 20 days later, the communist government disowned the accusation. But a secret witness pointed out that all the evidence was destroyed or transferred. An anonymous military doctor said that it needed only one day's time to transfer 5,000 people in locked-up train carriages.
Israeli government had apprehended an intermediary for sale of the human organs taken from learners and death-penalty prisoners, and he confessed that these organs were taken when humans were still alive. In 2007, the Canadian independent investigating team issued an investigating report that the accusation was correct. Manfred Nowak, a commissioner from the United Nations, wrote in 2007 to the Chinese government asking for the data of death prisoners. But the Chinese government refused to provide. In November of 2008, the United Nations Committee against Torture suggested that the Chinese government could let an independent team to investigate for this charge. But the Chinese government refused it either. Their refusal just made the world believe that their crime was true. Innocent people will surely let others investigate for the truth to prove their innocence. Such a crime is also unprecedented in the human history.
III. The cession of Chinese territory to Russia
On the 9th day of December, 1999, the general secretary Jiang and the Russian leader Putin signed a treaty that made China lose territory of 1.6 million square kilometers comprising of 2,444 islands along the eastern frontier between Russia and China. This news was kept secret from Chinese people, but it soon leaked out and Jiang was blamed as a traitor to the nation on the Internet. Then comments about this issue on the Internet were deleted and people were forbidden to say anything about it. A calculation was made that the territory lost in the northern China was equivalent to 11 times of the area of Taiwan and many many times of the area of Senkaku Islands.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-7 07:51 IV. The development of corruption and embezzlement
Corruption and embezzlement always exist in the history of China and has only different degrees in different times. They are almost the important reason for the collapse of every dynasty. That was why, after the communist party gained the reign of the mainland, Mao started a few movements against the corruption and embezzlement among the cadres. Mao himself did not need to embezzle anything, for he could have anything he wanted just like emperors did in the long history of China. That anyone else committed embezzlement was like to take money from his pocket. He must wage movements to stop it.
On the 10th day of February, 1952, two cadres, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, were executed for the embezzlement. Both embezzled only less than 20,000 yuan. The amount of embezzlement at present reached billions and most embezzlers were not executed. Those executed did not have powerful background as support or were not the family members and relatives of the powerful cadres, who were above the law.
Before the economical reform and open policy, the prices of goods were low and the income was also low. No one could embezzle a lot of money like nowadays. Afterwards when foreign visitors were allowed to come into China, there were two price systems. There were special restaurants and stores for foreigners and the prices were high because foreigners were thought to have high income. The Chinese people had low income, and so the prices set for them were low as they could not afford expensive things. If someone wants to ask: why not let foreign visitors buy things at low prices? The Chinese government wanted to earn more money from foreigners.
After the beginning of the reform and open policy, more and more foreign visitors came and even foreign investors, and so the two price systems had difficulty to maintain. Therefore, low prices were raised to the high level and pay was also raised to corresponding level. But the prices rose faster than the pay and so common people began to hate Deng. That was why the June-4th event happened.
After the death of Deng, the corruption and embezzlement developed rapidly. Anyone who reported and exposed the crime of a cadre would be persecuted. The communist law did not protect common people. On the contrary, it protected cadres even if they committed certain crimes, as long as they did not oppose party leaders. A cadre in a certain province was found guilty and removed from office, but some time afterwards, he was given a position in another province. The crime did not affect him at all.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-9 07:53 There were some examples of the cadres who had verdicts. In 1985, Tao Siju, the ex-minister of the Ministry of Public Security, embezzled 700 millions and was only removed from office. In 1995, Chen Xitong, the ex-mayor of Beijing, was put in jail for the embezzlement of 40 millions and was sentenced for 16 years. From 1996 to 2003, Tian Fengshan, when he was the leader of Heilongjiang province and of the Ministry of Land and Resources, took accumulated bribes of 4.36 millions only, but was sentenced for life. On the 22nd day of May, 2005, Wang Zhenzhong, the deputy chief of the municipal police station in Fuzhou City of Fujian province, escaped to the United States with his mistress and with one million dollars. He died in New York City on the 10th day of June, 2007. Many embezzlers, following his example, escaped abroad. Some cadres only let their family members, like wife and children, go abroad, and they themselves still stayed in China, maybe for more embezzlement.
There are some funny things about the embezzling cadres, most of them have mistresses besides lawful wives. The statistics shows that some cadres have more than 100 mistresses. The cadres must support the mistresses if they have no jobs, or must give them expensive gifts like cars and housing, or even money. If not for those gifts or money, why will some younger women be their mistresses? Sometimes if a cadre treats his mistress badly or doesn't meet her demand, the mistress will expose and report his embezzlements and other crimes to authorities. The cadre will be dismissed from office or even arrested. Embezzlements also happen in the army. Wang Shouye, a vice commander of the navy, had a few mistresses, one of them was Jiang, much younger than he. Jiang had been an actress in an army performance troupe. They had a son. So Jiang wanted to be his lawful wife, but Wang could not meet such a demand of hers. Finally Jiang exposed his crimes to the government. On the 29th day of June, 2006, Xinhua News issued an important piece of news that Wang Shouye was removed from his office for the crime of embezzlement amounting to about 100 million. People suggested online that if the Party really wanted to oppose the embezzlement, the government could call on all the mistresses to report the crimes of the cadres.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-11 08:54 Another case in Chongqing City is also interesting. Xiao Hua, owner of the dress company WALLENDA, used a female employee Zhao Hongxia to lure Lei Zhengfu, a government cadre, for sex and a photo was taken when they were in the action. Afterwards, the owner used the photo as a threat to the cadre, who had to meet all the owner's demands lest the photo be exposed publicly and he would be removed from office. It happened in 2008. On the 20th day of November, 2012, an article was posted on Internet, with photos of sex actions, revealing the illegal doings of Lei, together with some other cadres. The cadres were, of course, dismissed from office. Then the girl was deemed a heroine since her action caused the downfall of the cadres.
There was a report to the Party when Wu Guanzheng, the secretary of the discipling committee of CPC, left his office at the end of his term. Some statistics is interesting in the report. The value of the property of the high-ranked and mid-ranked cadres in Shanghai is: over 90% have more than 10 million worth of property. In Guangdong province, the percentage is over 99%. From 2003 to 2006, the expenditure from the national treasury for cadres in drinking, eating and other merry-makings reached 300—350 billions. The purchase or change for new cars for cadres to use was of 500,000—650,000 cars per year, costing 200 billions. 95% of the secret entertainment places for cadres had the so-called “red zone”, meaning secret whores, which was under the protection of the local government.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-14 07:53 V. Chen Liangyu, victim of the political conflict between two party leaders
Sometimes, the arrest of an embezzling cadre was only for the aim of striking a blow to the political enemy. Chen Liangyu, the municipal party secretary of Shanghai, was a faithful follower of the general secretary Jiang Zeming. When Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang to be the general secretary, he wanted to take over the power, not just the name, of the leading position. For this purpose, he must get rid of the supporters of the former general secretary and appointed supporters of his own. Chen was chosen to be the one to rid of as Shanghai was an important place.
The accusations of Chen included the following crimes. Chen helped his brother Chen Liangjun to get illegal profit of 11.8 billions in the sale of land. In communist China, all land belongs to the government—the Party. Afterwards in the reform and open policy period, powerful people or their relatives and friends could get the right to the use of a certain piece of land. So through the influence of Chen, from 2002 to 2003, his brother got the right to the use of 600 mu (15 mu = 1 hectare), and then 100 mu, both illegally. Then he sold the right to the use of the land and gained vast profit. It was decided to be the “neglect of duties,” not a crime of embezzlement, for Chen Liangyu.
The second thing was that he assented to let some company use one billion of the Shanghai social security funds unlawfully in 2004. And with the consent of Chen, his son got a high position in the company and his annual salary was one million yuan. This was decided to be the abuse of duties. He was also accused of taking bribes amounting 230,000 Hongkong dollars and 100,000 yuan. His wife was assigned a position in Shanghai MWB factory, but never actually went to work there, and got pay amounting 430,000 yuan from 1996 to 2006. So on and so forth.
On the 11th day of April, 2008, Chen Liangyu was sentenced for 18 years and the payment of penalty for 300,000 yuan. Compared with other cases, Chen's case was trivial. Someone commented that Chen was a good cadre and if all the cadres could be like him, the situation in China was much better, and desirable.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-16 08:14 VI. Two attempts of assassination of Hu Jintao on the Yellow Sea
In early May of 2006, Hu Jintao, as the chairman of the military committee of CPC, went to Qingdao City to inspect the Chinese navy on the Yellow Sea. At the same time, Jiang Zeming went there, too, with his favorite woman Chen Zhili (not his wife), a member of the state council. Hu was on board of a missile destroyer for the inspection while suddenly two warships of the same fleet opened fire at his vessel. Five enlisted sailors around Hu for protection were killed. The missile destroyer turned round and accelerated away at top speed till it reached a safe zone. To avoid another trial of assassination, Hu rode on a helicopter on the missile destroyer and flew to the base in Qingdao. Then he flew directly to Yunnan province, not to Beijing, as he did not know what was waiting for him in Beijing.
When Jiang was reported that several persons fell on the spot Hu had stood, he was excited, but soon disappointed that Hu was not among those killed. The navy commander Zhang Dingfa was his man, who arranged it. After a week when Hu was sure of his safety, he went back to Beijing. But he could do anything to Jiang or to the navy commander. There was no evidence pointing to either one.
On the 23rd day of April, 2009, there would be a united military operation on the Yellow Sea, joined by 14 countries. Hu got a secret report that there would be another attempt of murder of him at 9 o'clock in the morning that day, which was the time of the beginning of the operation. Therefore, Hu took some preventive steps. 15 minutes before the operation, all of a sudden, Hu gave an order to invite the leaders of the navy delegations from 29 countries to be present at the welcome ceremony at 9:30, which meant that the time of the start of the operation would postpone and which meant that the arrangement of the murder leaked out. Jiang was enraged. The warships arranged for the murdering action must have been controlled by Hu. Another attempt aborted.
The operation began at 2:20 in the afternoon and safely ended at 3:10. The vessels taking part in the operation were the Russian missile cruiser “The Varyag,” the American destroyer “The Fitzgerald,” the French missile frigate “The Vendemiaire,” and the Indian missile destroyer “The Bombay,” etc. etc., plus many Chinese warships. Another victory for Hu over Jiang.
However, though Jiang lost twice against Hu, he had won once in 2002, on the 16th party conference. A decision was passed at the meeting of the political bureau that Jiang must resign from the position of the chairman of the military committee of CPC as well, not just from the position of the general secretary of CPC. But on the 13th day of November when the conference was still in session, out of the expectation of all the representatives, Zhang Wannian, a general of the army, put up a special motion together with other 19 generals, all promoted to the generalship by Jiang. The motion suggested that Jiang should continue to be the chairman of the military committee of CPC. As generals had the command of the army, no representatives dared to say NO. Furthermore, General Zhang forced Hu to say yes or no. He had to agree, though it was against the Party's rule. Nevertheless, Jiang could not be the chairman forever, like Mao till his death. He had to resign in the due time. It was deemed a kind of coup d'etat.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-18 07:20 VII. How epidemic in China was treated
In the winter of 2003, SARS broke out in many countries in the world. China had SARS, too, first in the southern provinces and them spread to Shanghai and Beijing. The communist party was used to concealing anything bad from its own people and the world. So China didn't at first report it to the the World Health Organization, because it was round the National Day of the communist China. They planned to have a parade, which could not be canceled owing to the epidemic.
The government announced a SARS vaccine was found and would give it to people in Beijing, especially the students and soldiers who would take part in the parade. So the vaccine was used without first testing it for the actual result in humans. Then all the hospitals in Beijing received a lot of fevered patients, including 7,000 to 8,000 children. On the 27th day, October, a student from Beijing University of Aeronautics died of SARS. For so many SARS patients, some doctors told the truth that the epidemic was really caused by the SARS vaccine. People in other cities like Shanghai refused to have injection of this vaccine.
On the 28th day of October, the Health Ministry gave out SARS statistics that 6,345 cases were confirmed as SARS, including 4 people died of it. But a representative from World Health Organization said that as far as he learned, in Shanghai only, there were over 42,000 cases. It showed that China always gave out fake information about bad things while always exaggerating good things.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-21 07:33 VIII. The labor reform system in China
The labor reform system was set up in 1950, which was learned from the Soviet Union. Although the regulations for the labor reform decided that the length of the labor reform was four years, yet there was really no time limit. It depended on the likes or dislikes of the cadres who ruled a certain labor reform camp. If a reformed person could flatter or even bribe the cadres, he or she would be released earlier. If a reformed person offended them, he or she would serve longer time than others. Who would be sent to the labor reform camps? The local government could send persons with minor offenses to the camps without even going through law procedures, such as stealing, fighting in public, some rightists, rapists, even those who had sex with someone other than the spouse. But it was revealed in the cultural revolution that some cadres of high rank stayed in special hospitals raped young nurses and were not punished for it. The communist law is used to deal with people at large, not themselves.
How did the reformed people fare in the labor reform camps? Some women wrote down what they had experienced in the camps and on the day they were released, they wrapped papers written in tiny words in plastic and stuffed it in their vagina, thus brought it out. It was because when they were released, they would be searched from head to toe. If it was found, they would surely get severe punishment or even beaten to death.
In the camps they were badly tortured, sometimes with electricity, cucking stool and other torments. Beating was ordinary. In September of 2011, Wang Guilan, a woman of 62, was released, who brought out a diary written by another woman called Wang Hua. Both lived in the same room. In the labor reform camps, every offender must labor and produce something to reach a certain quantity.
In the diary, on the 22nd day of June, 2011, a woman called Wen Nuan could not complete her assigned quantity and was beaten for several days with black and blue on face. She was forced to clean bathrooms in the daytime and work overtime at night. Once she failed in the suicide by cutting her wrist and got more tortures.
On the 18th day of August, 2011, a woman by the name of Zhang Yahua, was kicked at the crotch, which became swelling and she could not urinate. So on and so forth. Some were tortured to be handicapped. Martin Schulz, the chairman of the European Parliament, said that the labor reform system of China was against the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” No one should be imprisoned without judgment.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-23 07:56 IX. Poisonous food and fake drugs in China
It is universally known that many sorts of food in China contain some bad substances that will harm the health of people, and some will even cause death. Here listed only part of them: milk for babies, soy sauce using materials from garbage containing protein like human hair and used medical cotton balls, fake chicken eggs made from chemicals, which is said to be able to bounce like ping-pong balls, flour mixed with talcum powder, etc.
The typical cases were baby milk powder of “Three Deer” brand containing over-dosed melamine which caused kidney stone in babies. By the 21st day of September, 2008, babies that were cured were 39,965; 12,892 were still in the hospital and 4 died. That's why people had no trust in milk products of China make and rushed to buy those of foreign make.
Another case was the poisonous dumplings, which were made by Tianyang food factory in the town of Shijiazhuang in Hebei province in China. The dumplings were exported to Japan and were found to contain methamidophos and DDT, causing over 200 people in Japan to be poisoned. At first the Chinese government said that Japan put in the poison. But on the 27th day of March in 2010, the police in Hebei province arrested the worker called Luu Yueting, who put poison in the dumplings. Maybe, he was just a scapegoat. Who knows?
One more case was the recycled cooking oil, which was the used oil let out into gutter from restaurants. The gutter oil was taken to be reproduced through process of filtering, heating, depositing, and separating, to become cooking oil. The recycled cooking oil is found to comprise cancer-causing substances, bacteria, viruses, and heavy metals, its toxicity being 100 times of that of arsenic.
Besides the poisonous food, there are also fake medications. Some fake medicine makers said that the profit from the fake medications were much higher than selling drugs like cocaine or making fake money, and with less risk. In February, 2012, the police in JiNan City of Shandong province found a place with 1,500 boxes of fake medicine for cancer and 8 machines to make the fake medicine. The medicine was sold in 14 provinces and worth over 11 millions. In June of the same year, in Tianjin City, the police arrested 9 suspects and the fake medicine was worth over 10 millions. The statistics from the prosecutors' office of Shenzhen City in Guangdong province showed that from 2009 to 2011, there were 17 cases of making fake medicines, involving 25 suspects.
It was said that a medicine selling for some thousand yuan had its cost only for 5.5 yuan. What profit! The police in Canton found a fake medicine case. The suspect confessed that he sold this medicine to some agency for 4,000 yuan and the agency sold it to some beauty parlor for 10,000 yuan and the beauty parlor sold it to their patronesses for 23,800 yuan.
There are also forged wine sold in China, generally made from methanol used in certain industries. During the Chinese new Year, 2013, five persons died of the forged wine. In 2012, 10,997 companies were found to have produced forged wine. There were 1,681 cases about it and the worth of all the forged wine was 1,116 millions.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-25 07:54 X. An 8 magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan
An 8 magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan in Sichuan province, China, on the 12th day of August, 2008. The earthquake center was 79 km northwest from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan province. The area affected covered 100,000 square kilometers. The tremor was detectable even in Liaoning province in the north, in Shanghai in the east, in Pakistan in the west and in Thailand and Vietnam in the south. By the 18th day of September, 69,227 people had died, 374,643 wounded and 17,824 not found. It damaged lots of houses, school buildings, communications and traffic equipments, and changed geographic features, and affected the hygeian and biological environments. Volunteers for the rescue came from many areas of China and even from many countries in the world. And also did the donations. But people doubted why no donations came from those most wealthy persons who were the families and relatives of the party leaders and who monopolized most of the largest enterprises in China.
Since 5,335 students died among the dead, there arose a question about the bad quality of the school buildings which crumbled in the earthquake causing the death of students. There are always the problem of bad quality buildings almost everywhere in China, because the builders only considered about less cost and more profit, not about people's lives. If any building collapses and people die from it, the builders pay only a small sum of money as compensations. In the idea of Chinese people, whoever kills people will pay with his own life. That means that if a building collapses and kills people, the builder should be at least put in prison for it, but no such things happen. So some bold builders just use bad quality materials for the buildings to lessen the cost. If they will be imprisoned for the bad quality, less builders will be so brave to do it. The law system in communist China protects the rich and powerful, not the people at large.
A special case happened after the earthquake. Many parents of the dead students wanted to sue the builders for the bad quality school buildings that occasioned the death of the students. On the 3rd day of June, 2008, they gathered before the court to demand the acceptance of the case. Then the police came and arrested some of the protesters. They also detained two Japanese reporters from Kyodo News Agency for one hour. Huang Qi, a Chinese citizen, helped the parents to make investigations and was sentenced for three years, charged with the guilt of “illegally possessing the national secret document” on the 23rd day of November, 1009. Guo Quan, an assistant professor of Nanking Normal University, wrote an article to criticize the bad quality school buildings and was convicted for ten years, charged with “the intention of overthrowing the regime.” Tan Zuoren, a writer, investigated the problem of the bad quality school buildings and collected the names of the dead students, and was sentenced for five years, charged with “the intention of overthrowing the regime” on the 9th day of February, 2010. People had such a doubt that if the communist regime was so weak to be overthrown by an article to criticize the bad quality school buildings or by the collection of the names of the dead students, this regime had long been overthrown. It is very astonishing that the communist party of China can invent such a ridiculous criminal charge.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-28 08:44 XI. The Olympic Games in Beijing
Why was the communist party so crazy about hosting the Olympic Games in China? They thought that Olympic Games would bring the economy of China to a higher level, just like South Korea did in 1988. Many Chinese people believed it. Therefore, on the night of the 13th day of July, 2001, when the International Olympic Committee announced its decision that Beijing would host the Olympic Games in August of 2008, 400,000 people in the city gathered on TianAnMen Square for the celebration.
Then the Chinese government made all the necessary preparations. First, they invested $40 billions, but actually $42 billions were spent, equivalent to 290 billions yuan of Chinese currency. Although the party bragged of having lots of foreign currency in possession, yet they asked people for donations of money. It was said that they even deducted some money from the salary or wages of those who worked in government-run enterprises before paid to them. The forced donations. Second, there must be enough space to build competition areas like stadiums. So houses of about 1.25 million families were pulled down to make the space for Olympic Games.
Freedom of news report was temporarily allowed within a certain limit during the days the Olympic Games were going on. However, before and after the games, they tightened the mouth of reporters as usual. To win the applause of the audience, they appealed to the means of falsehood. The typical case was that the girl who sang the song in the opening ceremony was found to open her mouth to the music like she was singing, but actually another girl was singing behind the scene, because the girl stood on the stage having a poor voice, but a pretty face, while the girl actually sang having a good voice, but a plain face. And the fireworks were made up through computer 3D technique, not real fireworks, except for those over the main building of the Bird Nest which were real. To win gold medals, the false age of some girl athletes was given to authorities. It was said that the tickets were not actually sold to the public, but distributed to the controlled people who would not take drastic actions in the competitions to make the communist party look bad to the world.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-9-30 07:45 XII. Guess what happened in car accidents in China
A special case was that in deep night on the 20th day of October, 2010, Yao Jiaxin, a junior student in XiAn Conservatory of Music, drove his red Chevy and knocked down a girl Zhang Miao on a motor bike in the same direction. The girl fell on the ground. Yao got out of his car to check on the girl, but when he found that the girl was still alive, and afraid that she had seen the plate number of his car and would report to the police causing him further trouble, he took out a knife from his car and stabbed her 8 times till she had no breath on the spot. Then Yao was caught by crowds and sent to the police station. He was sentenced to death.
Some cases of a child ran across the street and was knocked over by a car. Generally the driver of the car should stop and take the child to hospital. But in China, no such things occurred. The driver just rolled his car again and again, backwards and forwards, over the child till he was sure the child was dead and then sped away as fast as he could. No bystanders would interfere for fear of revenge later by the driver.
Another case was in Hangzhou City of Zhejiang province. A couple of boyfriend and girlfriend knocked over an old woman. They got down and lifted the old woman into the back seat of their car when they told bystanders that they would drive the old woman to hospital. But as a matter of fact, they drove to a suburb and buried the old woman alive. Then they deserted the car and escaped. At last they were caught by the police. The boy was convicted for life and the girl got service for a couple of years as accomplice. Such things only happened in the communist China, seldom in other countries.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-2 07:46 XIII. Bo Xilai Event
1) Bo Xilai's demotion
Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo (1908—2007), who joined CPC in 1925 and was defined as an old cadre. In China, people call sons (including daughters) of those old cadres as Clique of Crown Princes, because they are blue-blooded. Their fathers are newly-rising nobles in the communist red dynasty. Bo Xilai is one of them. He is very proud of his noble birth. He is always against traditions, for which he often had different ideas from others, even his superiors. His ambition was to be a party leader in the central committee of CPC, even the secretary general. At the time, Hu Jiaotao was the secretary general, who did not like the ambitious Bo, and nor did some old cadres. So finally he was demoted to be the party secretary of Chongqing City in Sichuan province in western China.
Once Bo arrived in Chongqing City, he complained to his buddies like Chen Gaosu, son of Chen Yi (1901—1972), the minister of foreign minister and a military marshal, and He Guangye, son of He Changgong (1900—1987). All three were from red families. They looked down on He Jiaotao, who came from the family of common people. They had a theory that when the fathers got the rule of the country, the sons were the lawful successors, like emperors and their sons. They deemed Hu Jiaotao as a CEO just working for the company while the Clique of Crown Princes were real owners. So they had a grudge against Hu.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-5 07:44 Bo wanted to do something special to show that he was a talented man. Then he summoned Wang Lijun to Chongqing from Liaoning province, where Wang had worked under Bo. Wang was a very capable and cruel man. They both had a finger in the “taking human organs alive” crime. When Wang reached Chongqing, he was appointed a vice mayor and the municipal police commissioner. They had arrested and executed the head of some mafias, which had won the applause of people. Then they expanded their action to some so-called red businessmen and confiscated their property. By law the confiscated property should go to the local government treasury, but later, when a businessman escaped to Hongkong, he exposed that it all went to the pocket of Bo.
However, Bo planned something good economically, such as to let peasants relocate to the urban area from countryside, for which he wanted to build in three years 4,000 square kilometers of government-run low-rent housing. Once peasants relocated in the city, they could have permanent residence registration. All his plans were to develop local economy. His plans were called Chongqing model. He thought that his model could solve the financial problems in China, by which he hoped that he would be chosen to be a member of the standing central committee of CPC, but some party leaders did not think so while a few supported him. Anyway, his promotion looked promising without a hitch.
At the same time, Wang Lijun, on the pretense that he needed more supporters to deal with mafias, summoned more than 100 men that had worked under him from Liaoning province. He also secretly recruited 3,000 men as military police and police detectives so that he had an armed force under his control. The municipal police station in Chongqing became his independent regime outside the party leadership.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-7 08:45 2) Gu Kailai's murder of Heywood
Gu Kailai is the wife of Bo. High officials of CPC often had mistresses besides the wife. So Bo had some mistresses, too, and ignored his wife sexually. In the early nineties of the last century, Neil Heywood, a British businessman, came to learn Chinese in Beijing Languages University. After graduation, he went to teach English to those noble posterities in Dalian City, where he got to know Bo Guagua, son of Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai, then got acquainted with the mother. As she was ignored a long time for love-making, she was thirsty for that and could not refrain herself before the handsome British man. If her husband could have mistresses, why couldn't she have a love partner? Did nowadays male and female have equal rights? Then Bo Xilai found it out, but he could not get divorce, nor expose it, because it would certainly affect his plan to get promotion to be a member of the central committee of CPC by this moral defect.
After a while, Heywood grew tired of the mid-aged woman and began to alienate her, and finally refused to meet her. But Gu Kailai did not give up and bothered him by phones and emails. Heywood did not make any answer, and meanwhile, he secretly took her money from her accounts in foreign banks. Now Gu got really angry and decided to get rid of him. On the 15th of November, 2011, Gu let Zhang Xiaojun, who worked under Bo Xilai, poison Heywood. The police detectives went to the crime scene for investigation and found evidence through video data and decided that the murderer was Zhang Xiaojun. So they reported to Wang Lijun. Wang was a sly man. On one side, he followed the instruction of Gu to cremate the body of Heywood to cover the crime, but on the other, he collected proofs of the murder, like the hair and blood sample of Heywood. He had them for forensic analysis in writing.
According to Gu Kailai, confessed when cross-questioned at court, Heywood kidnapped her son because they had economic dispute. That was why Gu wanted to kill him. At first, Wang Lijun had a part in the murder and even suggested to induce Heywood to Chongqing and kill him on the excuse that he was selling drugs. But afterwards, Wang withdrew from the action, and Gu had to do it herself. However, this was her side of the story. Since Heywood was dead, his side of the story could never be known. At length, Gu was sentenced for life. This case was exposed by Wang Lijun when he went to the US consulate, or the public would never know it.
With such hard evidence in hand, proving Bo's wife's murder of Heywood, Wang went to see Bo and asked for more benefits and higher promotion. Bo Xilai was not a man to be threatened to agree to unreasonable demands. Therefore, he removed Wang from the dangerous position of the municipal police commissioner and let him work in education and health department. This meant demotion. He summoned the meeting of municipal party committee to make this decision on the 2nd of February, 2012, but the mayor Huang Qifan disagreed, saying that such a decision must be approved by the Ministry of Public Security of the central government. Bo could not stand any objection and was infuriated. He just threw his tea glass towards Huang, who left the meeting room. Other committee members all signed their consent on the document.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-9 08:41 3) Wang Lijun went to US consulate in Chengdu City
Wang Lijun was very familiar with the way of Bo's action. He felt an upcoming threat to his life. He want to escape from it. He made careful plan and preparations. On the 6th of February, with the help of his friends in the police station, he got the permission to go into the US Consulate in Chengdu City.
On the way there, he changed cars four times to escape from pursuit and assassination. Once he had to hide in the deserted car having traffic accident and let his friend drive his car to mislead the pursuers. Another time, he had to make a detour round the toll booths on foot. His friend drove the car through the toll booths and then he got into the car again at a safe distance.
He reached the consulate about between 1pm and 2pm next day, accompanied by the vice director of the police bureau of Sichuan province. He walked into the consulate hiding among the consulate personnel, which he explained later that he had seen some strangers standing by the consulate building with hands in pockets. Their posture revealed that they carried guns.
Once inside the consulate, he talked with the commercial attaché and told him the murder of the British businessman Neil Heywood by Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo, who wanted to kill him, because he had cracked the case. Then he produced a slip of paper written on it his request of political asylum, which stunned the consulate officials present. The situation was that soon after Wang entered the consulate, the police force from Chong1ing City sent by Bo under the command of the mayor Huang Qifan were surrounding the consulate. They came in seventy cars with the intention to arrest Wang. Meantime, the consulate reported the incident to the US embassy in Beijing, which reported to the administration in the United States for instructions how to deal with this emergency. The consulate was told not to grant the request of political asylum.
Mayor Huang Qifan came to talk with Wang Lijun and wanted him to surrender. But Wang said that he would only surrender to the central government, not to the local government Chongqing, because he knew clearly that once he went to Chongqing, he would soon be killed secretly. Then Hu Jiaotao learned the incident and ordered Liu Qibao, the party secretary of Sichuan province, to let provincial police force surround the police force from Chongqing. Then Hu called Bo and insisted that Bo should withdraw his police force. Bo had to accede and called Huang to beat a retreat.
Then Hu sent Qu Jin, a vice minister of Ministry of State Security, to take Wang to Beijing. Now Wang Lijun was safe, out of the reach of Bo Xilai. And now Bo feared that Wang would expose all the bad things he had done. Thus, Bo not only lost the chance of promotion, but also his life was at risk.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-11 08:01 4) How Bo Xilai ended up
With such fear, Bo went to visit the 14th army group, of which his father had been the commander. This was really a bad move. Central party leaders would think that he wanted to launch a coup d'etat. So Hu Jiaotao sent his vice chairman of the central military commission of CPC, to warn the high-rank officers of that army group not to do anything wrong against the Party.
His buddies, Chen Gaosu and He Guangye, learned the incident, and advised by Zhou Yongkang, the head of The Central Politics and Law Commission of CPC, went to Chongqing City to comfort Bo while discussing how to deal with the situation. Zhou Yongkang wanted Bo to calm down first since it was the time that the term of Hu Jiaotao would soon be at end and Xi Jinping, who is also the son of an old cadre, belonging to the so-called clique of crown princes, would take over the power.
Chen Gaosu thought that Bo was too rash to make such a decision to remove Wang from so important and powerful position and urged Wang to take this exasperate step, which gave Hu Jiaotao a very good reason against Bo Xilai. It looked like Bo put the noose on his own neck. Anyway, their discussion brought up another decision that they had to struggle against Hu Jiaotao to the end, even to make the coup d'tat.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-12 08:17 First they let the mayor Huang have an interview with the Phoenix New Media in Hongkong and deny that Huang had sent seventy police cars to surround the US consulate in Chengdu City. It was a rumor spread by their enemy (implying Hu Jiaotao). He said that he rode only in one car with three others. He said that since one of his vice mayor went into the US consulate, as the mayor, he had the responsibility to go there to take his vice mayor back to Chongqing. He also said that photos on websites showed the police cars, which belonged to Sichuan province government, not to Chongqing government. What he said was a challenge to the province police, who made a declaration to refute Huang. All this happened just before the opening of the National People's Congress. Hu wished to keep the safety and peace before the conference and so he sent He Guoqiang to see Chongqing delegation in Beijing with the real intention to warn Bo Xilai not to interfere with the opening of the conference, but Bo refused to comply with it. On the contrary, he boasted of his Chongqing model and said that Hu would go to Chongqing to affirm his achievements while Hu didn't have such an intention. As a matter of fact, Bo wanted to put Hu in an awkward position and do what he desired, which actually made Hu and other members of the standing central party committee furious.
At first, on the 16th of February, the central party committee already decided to give Bo only party discipline, like a warning fr something, not to the legal level. Now on the evening of the 13th of March, Hu held an emergent meeting and proposed to remove Bo from the position of the municipal party secretary of Chongqing City. Out of nine members, eight of them gave their pro votes except Zhou Yongkang, who gave his con vote. On the morning of the 14th of March, the day that the conference ended, Bo Xilai was arrested and put in confinement. On the 15th of March, Xinhua news agency made an official declaration to relieve Bo Xilai of the post of the party secretary of Chongqing. On the 25th day of October, 2013, Bo got the verdict for life.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-14 07:55 5) 3.19 event
Chen Gaosu and He Guangye always had a deep hatred for Hu Jiaotao. It began when the trio worked in the central committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League. Chen and He despised Hu for his common birth background while they were very proud of their noble blood. Moreover, Hu got promotion after promotion while they almost stayed in the position of the same level. They never blamed themselves for their inabilities, which was the typical Chinese character. They never exerted themselves to do better than the one they hated. They just wished to make the one they hated fall from high position to where lower than their own posts so that they could laugh at him. Ridiculous?
As Bo Xilai was under custody, Chen Gaosu and He Guangye went to see Zhou Yongkang to instigate him for another attempt of coup d'tat. Zhou, as a member of the standing central committee of CPC, in charge of The Central Politics and Law Commission, had the command of the armed police. Since Zhou was a supporter of Bo Xilai, when Bo was out of power, the situation might develop unfavorable to him. Chen and He knew it and they wanted to persuade Zhou to use his armed police to attack ZhongNanHai, where the party leaders lived, and disposed of Hu Jiaotao. It was on 19th day of March (3.19), 2011.作者: 海外逸士 时间: 2020-10-16 07:32 Hu Jiaotao, as the chairman of CPC, of the military committee, and of China as a nation as well, had his own way to get the information. He sent for Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both the vice chairmen of the military committee of CPC. Another vice chairman, Xi Jinping was away from Beijing at the time. With the support of Xu and Guo, Hu ordered the 113th division, belonging to the 38th army group, to maneuver to Beijing immediately, together with the 6th tank division and the 8th regiment of the air force. Once they arrived in Beijing, they should surround the buildings of Ministry of Public Security, of the headquarters of the armed force, and of the 8th Bureau of Ministry of Public Security. Then they should wait for further order. At the same time, Chen and He was having an urgent talk with Zhou in Zhou's office in the building of The Central Politics and Law Commission.
Just then, an officer of the armed police came in to report that their building was surrounded by some divisions from the 38th army group. They knew that Hu acted faster than they. They were hopeless now. Zhou detained Chen and He. Zhou would deliver them to Hu as he did not start his coup d'tat yet. He would let Chen and He be responsible for it. Meanwhile, he took He's advice to call Jiang Zeming, the ex-chairman of the military committee of CPC, to report this, as he was deemed as Jiang's man.
There was an agreement when Jiang retired from the post of the chairman of the military committee that if Hu wanted to take any military action, he must get the ascent of Jiang and Jiang had the right to say NO. So now he called Hu and advised Hu to withdraw the army. Hu and Zhou should make explanations to all this happenings at a special meeting of the standing central party committee. Hu had to comply with Jiang and the event thus ended. Later, Zhou was put in confinement, too.
As for Chen Gaosu and He Guangye, at the request of Jiang, Hu pardoned them. If Hu insisted on punishing them, he might offend the so-called clique of Crown Princes as a whole. Now Xi Jinping took over the power and became the chairman. He may still conceal the coup d'tat and accuse Zhou only of his other crimes, such as taking bribes.
