Chapter 9 remote control

The function of Nanjing was actually lost before the People's Liberation Army crossed the river. The "capital" went with others, and did not stay in Nanjing because of the stay of Acting President Li Zongren, nor did it follow the nominal capital movers to Guangzhou.It followed Chiang Kai-shek to that Zhejiang Xikou. From the very beginning, the military advisers of the "U.S. Joint Advisory Group" were extremely puzzled by the poor communication between them and the Kuomintang officers and even Chiang Kai-shek himself on the combat plan. In January 1948, Major General David Barr was appointed to be in charge of the "Advisory Group" It was later discovered that the two ways of thinking were quite different.In the organizational structure of the Nationalist government, there is no more essential and core issue than "nepotism". He wrote in his final work summary submitted to Washington after leaving Nanjing, "The chairman's thinking is too Chinese. What he considers are mainly personnel relations and political issues." "No matter how capable a person is, if he wants to obtain an important position and accomplish a task, he must have a backer. The general backer is the Chairman himself."

Xikou will be so lively only when Chiang Kai-shek comes back, and Chiang Kai-shek's visitors are in an endless stream.One day, Chiang Kai-shek said to Chiang Ching-kuo: "We will stay here for three months." The connection between Xikou and Nanjing is through the Kuomintang's military station in Nanjing.According to Wang Zhengyuan, Colonel of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Nanjing Presidential Palace, the main users of the important military telephone stations are: Chiang Kai-shek's three special lines, Song Meiling's and Yu Jishi's three special lines, and one long-distance circuit directly connected to Xikou is installed on the important special line station.Wang Zhengyuan recalled, "After Chiang Kai-shek announced his retirement, Yu Jishi, the head of the bodyguard, called me over and told me that they were leaving Nanjing soon." , for all the information about Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and Huang Shaohong who are talking on the phone, you will notify me immediately after you collect it." Yu said to me, "I will make an agreement with you that these three people will use Mr. A, Mr. B, and Mr. C respectively. Sir, we don’t need to address anything when we talk on the phone, just tell each other our names, you can call Zhengyuan, and I can tell you the content after a while.'”

From this, Chiang Kai-shek knew the current situation in Nanjing like the palm of his hand.Li Zongren's big and small decisions and call records in Nanjing were reported to Chiang Kai-shek in detail. In addition, Chiang also cut off the acting president's financial resources.One day Li Zongren sent someone to Fenghua to plead with Chiang Kai-shek to authorize the administration of government finances to build the Yangtze River defense line, but was flatly rejected.While insisting that Sun Ke in Guangzhou support Li Zongren, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Hu Zongnan to fly to Guangzhou with 200,000 troops to curb Li Zongren's influence, and he paid cash for the transport aircraft provided by CAT (Chennault's Civil Air Transport Company).

At this time, Chiang Kai-shek transported 300,000 direct troops to Taiwan, as well as 26 ships and air forces. About 900,000 Kuomintang troops remained on the mainland, but only 120,000 of Bai Chongxi's troops were dispatched by Li Zongren.Both the police station and the intelligence agency received instructions from Chen Lifu, who represented Chiang Kai-shek who had retired behind the scenes. Even if the acting president agreed to some conditions of the Communist Party, many orders were almost dead letter. After arriving at Xikou, Chiang Kai-shek's first order to his son was to urge him to urge the Air Force Command to complete the construction of Dinghai Airport on time without delay.The reason soon became clear: Dinghai was located between Xikou and Nanjing, and Chiang Kai-shek had virtually no hope of keeping Nanjing and Shanghai, China's largest port city. Four months later, Nanjing and Shanghai fell one after another, and the Kuomintang defenders withdrew to Taiwan by Dinghai Airport.