Chapter 68 Communist Counterintelligence

One explanation for the inability of the military to penetrate the left-wing underground is that the Communist Party has its own extremely effective security system, a combination of Moscow's espionage system and the Communist Party's own creation.The counterespionage effort in the Shanghai area was led by General Chen Geng, who was seriously injured during the Nanchang Uprising in 1927 and came to the French Concession where he was treated by Niu Huilin, a cousin of Song Ziwen, a famous surgeon.After Chen Geng recovered, he disappeared under the heavy mask.Shanghai station somehow learned that he was in the city, but even though Dai Li put Wu Naixian, a classmate of Chen Geng's Whampoa first class, in charge of the case, the Communist security leader slipped through their fingers.

Since then, Secret Service agents have had to redouble their efforts to track down prominent communists.These communists, whether under surveillance or not, always destroyed all traces when abandoning a safe location.In fact, Chen Geng's staff arranged anti-surveillance, paying close attention to the residences of important personnel at Shanghai Station and the head office of the reconnaissance brigade on Fangxie Road. The most notable achievement of General Chen Geng's underground work in Shanghai was the guard he arranged for the Fourth Plenary Session of the Communist Party in January 1931.In order to safely get all the delegates to the meeting under the extremely sensitive eyes of the Shanghai station agents (who had heard about the secret meeting of the Communist Party, but did not know where it was held).Chen Geng set up a fake hospital with medical equipment, doctors and nurses.The deputies arrived in bandages and plasters, or were carried in under blankets, and Dai Li's agents were not at all suspicious.

When Communists were captured, they were tortured horribly.According to Dai Li's operating procedures with the consent of Chiang Kai-shek, the Communists who were arrested by the Secret Service were completely responsible for the Secret Service.These communists were never sent to other institutions for interrogation, but were always charged, sentenced and punished by Dai Li's organization.It was certainly not legal, but as one secret policeman later recalled, in 1934 the agents at the Shanghai station took it for granted that if you were lucky enough to catch a Communist, you would have to punish him without exception, and then put him in prison. He kills unless he promises to change sides.

This makes it easy to cover up mistakes.On one occasion, one faction didn't know what the other faction was doing: a group of field agents at the Shanghai station became interested in a man surnamed Ma, so they pretended to be "progressives" and tried to get closer to Ma, thinking that he was an important person. Underground Communist Party cadres.A ranger team of more than 20 people was established in the military command group, and thousands of yuan were spent on various horse hobbies.However, it all seemed worthwhile, since Ma had credible information about the underground Communist Party, including himself as a key leader of the Communist Party in East China.This information was sent to Dai Li in time. He was so happy with the success of the secret service team that he reported the situation directly to Chiang Kai-shek.Now, convinced they've caught a big Communist fish, the agents decide to close the case by arresting Ma and forcing him to stand trial.But when they arrested him for interrogation, claiming that he was an agent of the Shanghai station, Ma immediately told them that he himself was also a pretended "traitor" working for other secret service agents in Shanghai.The agents quickly checked with the team and found he was telling the truth.He used to be a member of the Communist Party, but now he is working as a "traitor" for the other team at the Shanghai station, and the agents of that team themselves thought he was infiltrating into the enemy's network.

When Dai Li learned of the misunderstanding, he became furious and called the agents at the Shanghai station "rice buckets".As a result, district chief Wang Xinheng scolded the person in charge of the Ma case again and threatened to punish them for not reporting their actions to him.But it was too late: Chiang Kai-shek had been told that the military command was about to arrest a head of the East China Bureau of the Communist Party.Not wanting to make a fool of himself, Dai Li slyly tells Shen Zui that he believes that Ma is really the head of the Communist Party he pretends to be.Dai Li said: "This guy dared to use us to cover his activities. Fortunately, he found out early, otherwise he will suffer a lot!" Since the crime and sentence are all decided by the military commander, Mr. Ma was escorted to Nanjing and became a Cruel victim.Since then, Dai Li has insisted that in the future, all incidents of discovering new traces of the Communist Party or pretending to be progressives must be reported to the Secret Service headquarters in detail.