Chapter 13 Hu Zongnan

When Hu Zongnan came to Hangzhou once, Dai Li had the honor to get to know him.In later years, Hu Zongnan became a vital ally of Dai Li's Kuomintang generals who had graduated from Whampoa.When Dai Li talked about the process of his acquaintance with Hu, it seemed as if he was describing the alliance of brothers in the novel, which was lifelike. One day he was drying his gray military uniform on a rock at the entrance of Lingyin Temple by the West Lake, while he was hiding in the water naked while waiting for the clothes to dry.A group of students was led by a young male teacher. Some of them came up to pick up the clothes and shoes on the stone.When Dai Li saw this, he yelled and told them to put down their clothes.The teacher found that he was wearing a swimsuit, so he asked his students to put the clothes back to the shore to dry.Although the two men did not exchange words, they exchanged smiles at the embarrassment of the people in the water.

After a while, after the students and teachers left, Dai Li put on his clothes.When he had the opportunity, he went to the local elementary school to thank the thoughtful teacher named Shoushan.That teacher is Hu Zongnan.Soon, Hu entered the Whampoa Military Academy and became one of Chiang Kai-shek's favorite "students of the emperor".Thus, long before Hu became the "King of the Northwest" and Dai Li became the head of Chiang's secret police, the two men discovered that they were compatible, not to mention ambitious.Normal schools in China at the time focused on Chinese language, literature and history, rather than English and mathematics like the Westernized elite universities like Peking University or Tsinghua University.Hu and Dai can talk so well, doesn't this reflect the common characteristics of the young people trained in Chinese normal schools?

Both Hu and Dai had been educated as elementary school teachers, and they unconsciously possessed the conceit peculiar to hooligan intellectuals. They believed that their fate was great and their blessings were great, full of the pride of traditional literati, and to varying degrees believed in Gu Yanwu's " Everyone is responsible" theory.They are self-righteous and ambitious, but arrogantly "take the world as their own responsibility". Western-influenced youth graduating from colleges and universities in big cities often feel resistance and obstacles to their political ambitions, while Hu Zongnan and Dai Li, failing to realize the normal limits to their ambitions, each see in the other Insatiable desire for power and status.The combination of their little intellectual awareness and their repressed aspirations due to their humble status made their longing for power even more intense.

In addition, they are not intellectuals with pens for learning, so they are more willing to express their personal wishes in other ways such as organizing revolutionary organizations or military training than high-level intellectuals such as university professors.No wonder they smell like each other and hit it off. Another important opportunity for Dai Li—a providence, in his own words—was his meeting with Chiang Kai-shek in Shanghai.While the exact date of the meeting is unclear, it may have been in 1921.At that time, Jiang was operating a stock trading market in Shanghai with a group of friends including Dai Jitao and Chen Guofu to raise funds for Sun Yat-sen.Dai Li actually knew all these people, and he was regarded as a "little bastard" by these revolutionaries.When they needed someone to run errands, Dai Li was sent out; when they wanted hot tea, Dai Li was called into the house.Dai Jitao soon discovered that the errand runner who was trying to curry favor with them had the same surname as him, so he started asking the young man what his goals in life were.Dai Li realized that these people were not ordinary journalists or businessmen.Because people who were called "Bachelors" at that time were actually messengers of the Revolutionary Party came and went frequently, Dai Li guessed that they were Sun Yat-sen's secret agents in Guangzhou.But he didn't dare to say this, so he initially answered Dai Jitao, "As long as I have something to eat, I can do anything." Later, he finally told Dai Jitao how his desire to "do a great career" made him He came to Shanghai to live a life of "beating Liu", so this elder's attitude towards "little scumbags" began to change.Chiang Kai-shek noticed that Dai Jitao was so kind to Dai Li. The young man had already started calling Lao Dai "uncle", and he began to give Dai Li more important tasks.Of course, it took a long time before Dai Li became the commander-in-chief's confidant, but their close relationship can be traced back to the days when the chief of the secret police was "beating people" on the streets of Shanghai.

Not only that, although Dai Li hated other people talking about his past (and whoever did it was often bad luck), he himself liked to tell stories about when he was completely living on his own.He often laughs out loud as he recounts how he would have done anything to survive.In his view, those days were the "cultivation" stage, just like a piece of porcelain was formed and a piece of metal was smelted.His only regret was that he hadn't seen sooner that Chiang Kai-shek would rise so quickly later, and so hadn't immediately placed his bets on the future leader of the Kuomintang.