Chapter 15 trainee agent

Although Dai Li was actually one of Hu Jingan's agents, he later claimed that he was reporting directly to Chiang Kai-shek himself before long. On March 18-19, 1926, the Zhongshan ship moored near the Huangpu military headquarters was moved to Guangzhou by the Communist captain.This dubious move led Chiang Kai-shek to believe it was a left-wing plot to seize power, and he would be surrounded and forcibly boarded on a ship.Later, Hu Zongnan, Hu Jing'an and Dai Li provided him with reports on the activities of the Communist Party within the Kuomintang, including Zhou Enlai, which increased his suspicion.

Based on these reports and conversations with Guangzhou Public Security Bureau chief Wu Tiecheng and other key advisers, Chiang Kai-shek quickly surrounded the warship on the morning of March 20, arrested the captain (who was also chief of the Navy bureau), and relieved the guards guarding the Soviet advisers Armed with the Hong Kong Strike Federation controlled by the Communist Party, military control was announced at the same time, and more than 50 political workers from the Second Division were arrested. As soon as Chiang's opponent, Wang Jingwei, left Canton for Europe, the commander-in-chief immediately apologized to the Soviet advisers, saying that the Zhongshan incident had not involved the CCP Central Organization, and that he intended to resign - which of course was not accepted.Although he said in a speech to Communist Party political workers who had left the army that he was skeptical of claims of a plot to kidnap him, he firmly believed after April 1927 that the Zhongshan incident was a Communist conspiracy.His firmness may have been based on Dai Li's report to him, and this made Dai Li more valuable in his eyes.