Chapter 7 Chapter 2 The Last 90 Days of the Nanjing Presidential Palace

The alternation of 1948 and 1949 heralded the end of an old political system.The world around Chiang Kai-shek was shattered. Even if he was sitting in the Zichao Building of the Presidential Palace, he could clearly hear the sound of "breaking the ice".Chen Bulei, his personal secretary and brain truster, committed suicide in his residence in Nanking. "Let me be quiet." There is such a sentence at the back of Chen Bulei's diary, "It is time for me to dry up." What he endured was that he found out that his only daughter was actually an underground member of the Communist Party and had given important secrets to the Communist Party.Chen Bulei felt that the defeat of the Kuomintang was inevitable, and blamed himself for not being able to influence Chiang Kai-shek's policies and decisions.

Almost all the military reserves available to the Kuomintang have been put into the vast battlefield two to three hundred kilometers north of Nanjing. Chiang Kai-shek's defenses on the front line of Xuzhou and the Yangtze River have also been breached, and the defection of He Jifeng's army has opened a gap on the left; The Battle of Xuzhou more doomed the fate of the Kuomintang government. At this time, a peace group emerged within the Kuomintang government, believing that only by negotiating with the Communist Party could the Communist Party's attack be delayed.At first, they were led by Guangxi general Bai Chongxi, and soon these people were led by Bai Chongxi's old friend Li Zongren.Bai Chongxi controls 500,000 troops, and Chiang Kai-shek cannot take his demands lightly.

Chiang Kai-shek sent Zhang Qun to fly from Nanjing to Hankou twice to discuss the situation with Bai Chongxi, but almost everyone sang against Chiang Kai-shek.The chairmen of the provincial councils of Hunan, Hubei, Henan, and Guangxi jointly issued a telegram asking him to make an immediate decision on his future. Zhang Qun also told Chiang Kai-shek that he was in favor of peace talks.On Christmas Day, Chiang Kai-shek received a telegram from Bai Chongxi, asking him to immediately negotiate peace with the Communist Party under the joint mediation of the United States and the Soviet Union. The Presidential Palace in Nanjing then experienced a depressing and terrifying week.Chiang Kai-shek convened the main military generals of the country and held a meeting for a whole week.Every New Year, Chiang Kai-shek always used to publish a New Year's message to the whole country. The content of the message was usually released to the public a week before, but in 1949, it was not until the afternoon before New Year's Day that the message was drafted and translated into foreign languages.

On Dec 31st, when Chiang Kai-shek delivered his New Year's speech, he invited about 40 KMT Central Executive Committee members to his official residence on Huangpu Road for dinner.He listened to their cautious speech in silence, and then growled: "I don't want to retire, but you Kuomintang officials want me to retire. I am not retiring because of the Communist Party, but because of some people inside the Kuomintang." That night , all the core figures of the Kuomintang spent time in this house. One month after Chiang Kai-shek retired, the Nanjing government fell into chaos.Sun Ke, who was then the executive director of the Nationalist Government, announced that 80% of the civil servants would be dismissed with three months' salary as evacuation pay. Under the situation of hyperinflation at that time, three months' salary was only enough to cover one month's food expenses.The officials of the Ministry of Finance, who were facing unemployment, surrounded their deputy minister, Yang Daoyue, and fought against a director named Luo Zongwen. As a result, in addition to three months' salary, they also won 3,000 yuan in evacuation expenses.This incident caused various departments to follow suit, and united 2,000 people to petition the Executive Yuan, resulting in the "Government Affairs Conference" having to move its venue three times.

In early February, Sun Ke, head of the Nationalist Government's Executive Yuan, announced that the government would be moved to Guangzhou. He formed a cabinet in the southern metropolis, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.But as to where the temporary capital should be, Sun Ke himself hadn't fully made up his mind.It was originally decided that the heads of government departments at the first level (Executive Yuan, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc.) should stay in Nanjing, but most of them were in Shanghai or went to Guangzhou.Unfortunately for the lower-level officials, 200 people under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 400 family members had just started their long journey, and they waited for 3 days at the very chaotic train station at this moment.Finally got on the train, but on the way to Shanghai, in order to give way to the army, all of them were kicked off the train, and they were delayed for a week at Wusongkou to wait for the ship going south.