Chapter 80 assassination organization

However, assassinations are more of a collective action.The secret organization established by the ruling party to "annihilate" the Communist Party was a political tool emphasizing blind obedience and undivided obedience to Chiang Kai-shek and the Party Central Committee.Men and women who joined the "Shanghai Municipal Comrades' Association" of the "communist suppression" organization had to take an oath of membership, fill out a registration form, and agree to abide by a series of complicated confidential disciplines in dealing with relatives, friends, others, and other members of the organization.As for murder techniques, the Secret Service assassins of the thirties tended more and more to use the modern methods of covert agent assassination teams and group training units rather than the legendary individual hero mode.

The main secret agents who carried out political murders for Dai Li's secret service agency in central China were all composed and led by graduates of the Linli special training class of the military command, including group leader Mao Sen, where they received collective training in the use of swords and guns.The same collective discipline was applied to members of the Secret Service's North China Operations Team, such as Bai Shiwei, Huang Siqin, and Chen Gongshu. It is said that Chiang Kai-shek was very satisfied with the kidnapping and assassination activities of the North China Operation Team of the Secret Service, especially the murder of Ji Hongchang and Zhang Jingyao that he personally arranged for Dai Li.The order to assassinate Zhang Jingyao was issued after the warlords in Henan began colluding with the Japanese, and Dai Li entrusted this task to Zheng Jiemin, the head of the North China Station of the Secret Service.

Zheng in turn handed over the operation to operative Bai Shiwei, who was a graduate of the seventh class of the Whampoa Military Academy.In the eyes of admirers of the Secret Service, Bai Shiwei (a descendant of the Bannerman) is a model of a traditional hero. "Because he has the temperament of a scholar from Yanzhao, he is generous, bold and careful, calm and brave." At 8 o'clock in the morning in May 1933, Bai Shiwei and his classmates Wang Tianmu and Chen Gongshu were in the building at No. 18, Beichang Street, Beiping. Meeting with Zheng Jiemin at a secret base, Zheng said to Bai:

This mission must be completed!At the very least, we must all die together, and we must not fall into the hands of the Japanese, which will increase the government's difficulties and give the Japanese warlords an excuse to invade.There are not many chances of surviving here. If you die unfortunately, what will you explain to your family? Bai replied: "The family has parents, two older brothers, a wife and a daughter Zong Hui who is under one year old. My family still has a small property, so life is not a problem. If unfortunately I die, I hope the government will take care of my parents, wife and daughter. Die and rest in peace."

Zhang Jingyao rented a few rooms at the Liuguo Hotel in Beiping.On the same day, Bai Shiwei found the stronghold of this warlord with "dignity and determination to assassinate".He rushed in and knocked the general down.The screams of the warlord's female companion attracted the waiters and the manager of the hotel, and Bai Shiwei's aggressive behavior frightened them so much that they let the assassin escape under their noses.General Zhang was killed by the assassin's bullet and died in the arms of his female companion.Bai Shiwei, who successfully escaped and survived the Anti-Japanese War, became the chief of the Tainan City Police Department after 1949, and finally became a member of the Tainan City Senate.

Another assassination target of Dai Li was Ji Hongchang.After the signing of the Tanggu Armistice Agreement, Feng Yuxiang formed the 200,000-strong "Chahar People's Anti-Japanese Allied Army" in May 1933, with Ji Hongchang as the deputy commander, and thus clashed with Chiang Kai-shek.After Chiang Kai-shek forced Feng Yuxiang to resign as commander-in-chief, the deputy commanders-in-chief, including Ji Hongchang, were lured into surrendering.But when the order to arrest them was issued, the Kuomintang general in charge of the operation refused to do so. Instead, Ji Hongchang was provided with transportation to Tianjin, where Ji settled in the relative safety of the concession area.In order to avoid Chiang Kai-shek's agents, he rented Room 38 in the National Hotel in the French Concession.

After Chiang Kai-shek asked Dai Li to murder Ji Hongchang, the secret spy chief arranged for Chen Gongshu, the head of the North China Operations Team of the Secret Service, to take charge. On November 9, 1933, Chen and Lu Yimin, another agent of the operation group, went to the National Hotel to assassinate Ji Hongchang.Murder failed.Ji was hit on the shoulder by a stray bullet, but another man, Wang Huanan, was killed by mistake.This incident led to the arrest of Ji Hongchang by the police in the French Concession, who was extradited to the Chinese side and sent to the Peiping Gendarmerie, on the orders of Chiang Kai-shek.After He Yingqin investigated the case as chairman of the "Peking Military Commission", Ji Hongchang admitted that he was a member of the Communist Party.But he refused to surrender, and on November 24, 1933, he is said to have died heroically for it.

The killing of Ji Hongchang is considered one of Dai Li's major successes in North China in the early days of military rule.His most famous similar achievement in the South—later boasted by the Secret Service as an “outstanding work”—was the killing of Yang Xingfo in the French Concession in Shanghai on June 18, 1933.