Chapter 4 Chapter Four: The Mysterious Zhongshan Ship

It seems that the revolutionary situation in Guangzhou is very good, but the undercurrent is turbulent and dangerous, and if you don't pay attention, you will be smashed to pieces. In late March 1926, a major event that could affect the course of Chinese history occurred in Guangzhou.Let’s take a look at some well-known facts: In the early morning of March 19, the Zhongshan ship, the Yongfeng ship that Sun Yat-sen took refuge in during the "bombardment of the presidential palace", suddenly left the military port and entered Huangpu. In the afternoon of the same day, the Zhongshan ship left Huangpu and returned to the military port.

The next day, March 20, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized the army to declare martial law, cut off traffic inside and outside Guangzhou, arrested Communist Party member Li Zhilong, detained the Zhongshan ship and other ships; The Soviet Advisory Office; Expulsion of the Whampoa Military Academy and the Communist Party members headed by Zhou Enlai in the National Revolutionary Army. what the hell is it?Let’s first listen to the different voices of different parties. 1. The "History of the Communist Party of China" describes the "Zhongshan Ship Incident" in this way: Second, Chiang Kai-shek's self-defense.The information comes from Chiang Kai-shek's diary.

According to the diary, Chiang Kai-shek created an image for himself of "being framed by the Communist Party and being forced to fight back", but is the above-mentioned diary trustworthy? According to the diaries and memories of a large number of parties involved, such as Zhang Chentong, etc., the currently declassified history of the three parties of the country, the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union, as well as the research of many scholars on this incident, can roughly restore the entire process of the "Zhongshan Ship Incident".The sources of historical materials cited below are too numerous and complex to list them all.

In early March, after inspecting Feng Yuxiang, a high-level delegation sent by Stalin arrived in Guangzhou, the last stop of the trip to China. The head of the delegation was Bubnov, a powerful figure from the Soviet Union. Strangely, in the days after the Soviet delegation arrived in Guangzhou, the situation in Guangzhou became even more bizarre. From time to time, people distributed anti-Chiang leaflets on the streets, and rumors abounded.Rumors such as "Chiang Kai-shek and Jishanjia fell out, the Soviet Union judged Chiang Kai-shek to be a counter-revolutionary, the Communist Party and Soviet Russian advisers wanted to hold Chiang Kai-shek to Moscow for trial", "Chiang Kai-shek planned to launch a rebellion to expel Wang Jingwei and the Soviet advisory group" and other rumors.

During this time, a strange thing happened. On March 10, Li Zhilong, a first-year student of Whampoa, director of the Political Department of the Navy Bureau, and a member of the Communist Party, was promoted to the acting director of the Navy Bureau and the captain of the Zhongshan Ship, and his rank was also promoted to vice admiral. Zhou Enlai became the highest-ranking Communist in the National Revolutionary Army. Li Zhilong has to thank one person for being able to climb to the position of director. This person is Ouyang Ge, vice principal of the Naval Academy, and he did two things to "help" Li Zhilong.

The first thing: Ouyang Ge disclosed an "inside information" to his cousin, former head of the Navy Bureau, and Zhongshan ship captain Ouyang Lin: Your subordinates used the warship to collude with criminals to smuggle and collect protection fees from it. I want to check you! Subsequently, Ouyang Lin left without saying goodbye and fled to Hong Kong. But later facts proved that this "inside information" was purely false. In other words, Ouyang Ge was fooling his cousin. Ou Geyang's weird actions didn't stop there, he also created an incident: provoking the soldiers on the Zhongshan ship to make trouble.Li Zhilong then led the military police to deal with the incident in the name of the director of the Political Department of the Navy Bureau.In this case, Wang Jingwei appointed Li Zhilong as interim director of the Navy Bureau and captain of the Zhongshan ship.

According to some historical experts, Ouyang Ge is a fan of the government. He did these things to drive away his cousin Ouyang Lin and replace him by himself. Unexpectedly, it made Li Zhilong cheaper.But if you think about it carefully in connection with what happened later, this reason does not seem sufficient. When Li Zhilong was in high spirits, Principal Jiang's nerves were on the verge of collapse. Although there are rumors about him everywhere, he can't come up with any good solutions.In desperation, he had to resort to the old trick-resign. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek found Wang Jingwei and asked to resign from all positions and go to the Soviet Union to recuperate.This was not the first time that Chiang Kai-shek asked to resign. Every time they met, Chiang Kai-shek would make a small report on Ji Shanjia, asking Wang Jingwei to bring Ji Shanjia back to the Soviet Union, and even threatened to resign many times.But because he played this trick too frequently, the effect became worse and worse, and it also aroused Wang Jingwei's rebellious psychology.

Therefore, this time Wang Jingwei was very angry and did not save face for Chiang Kai-shek: The time for the Northern Expedition is not yet available, and the Soviet advisers and the Communist International are not in favor of it, so you should not start a dispute because of this! In Wang Jingwei's view, Chiang Kai-shek's behavior of putting down the pick was to disregard the overall situation of Sino-Soviet cooperation, and he did not pay attention to Premier Sun's three major policies. Seeing that Wang Jingwei stood on the side of Ji Shanjia with a clear-cut banner, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly felt that Wang Jingwei was "deeply slandered", and was entangled and depressed (unable to explain himself) about his situation in the party and outside the party, so his willful temper broke out. He insisted on going to the Soviet Union to recuperate.

After careful consideration, Wang Jingwei felt that Chiang Kai-shek's departure might ease the conflict between Chiang Kai-shek and Ji Shanjia and be beneficial to the stability of the revolutionary situation, so he agreed to Chiang Kai-shek's request. Of course Chiang Kai-shek didn't want to go to the Soviet Union, but he didn't expect that Wang Jingwei didn't know people, so he didn't continue to persuade him to stay, but he promised. However, the result disappointed Chiang Kai-shek again. Probably because Chen Bijun was also happy to go to the Soviet Union to broaden his horizons, and blew the pillow wind in his husband's ear, and Wang Jingwei once again agreed to Chiang Kai-shek's request.The funniest thing was that Chen Bijun, who couldn't contain his joy, quickly finished the preparations for his outbound travel, and called every day to ask when Chiang Kai-shek would leave.

Having said that, I have to emphasize one of Chiang Kai-shek's traits: Suspicion.When encountering complex situations and changes, you will fall into extreme doubt and even anxiety. Therefore, the harder Chen Bijun urged, the more Chiang Kai-shek believed that Wang Jingwei had fallen to Ji Shanjia's side and really wanted to take him down. Chiang Kai-shek's suspicion of Wang Jingwei buried a big explosive bag between the two, and the fuse was pulled, waiting for the person who ignited it. Soon, the people who lit the fire arrived. On the afternoon of March 18, 1926, the duty room of the headquarters of the Huangpu Military Academy received a call for help: a merchant ship was robbed off the Huangpu River and was in urgent need of military protection.

However, the Whampoa Military Academy has no ships to send, and the only place capable of dispatching warships is the Navy Bureau.Therefore, the Whampoa Military Academy had to ask the Navy Bureau for help, and this task was handed over to Ouyang Zhong, director of the military academy's provincial (Guangzhou) office as its business counterpart. At that time, Li Zhilong, acting director of the Navy Bureau, was away on business, and Zou Yi, chief of the Operations Section of the Navy Bureau, received Ouyang Zhong. Ouyang Zhong told the other party: Just now I received a call from the dean of education of the military academy Deng, and I was ordered by President Jiang to send two capable warships to Huangpu overnight to wait for President Jiang to dispatch them. Please remember Ouyang Zhong and his remarks. Zou Yi is a business-like person. He neither shirks and procrastinates in an official tone, nor does officials protect and open the back door. He has done two things in accordance with the regulations: The first thing is to ask Ouyang Zhong to write a transfer letter, written in black and white, so as to prevent the other party from denying the account in the future, and Ouyang Zhong will do so. The second thing is to write a letter of introduction to Ouyang Zhong and ask him to find Li Zhilong by himself. Therefore, Ouyang Zhong came to Li Zhilong's house. At that time, only Li Zhilong's wife was at home. Ouyang Zhong left after leaving Zou Yi's letter. On the night of the 18th, Li Zhilong came home and saw Zou Yi's letter: Because the Liberty Ship was under repair, Li Zhilong ordered his confidant, acting captain Zhang Chentong, to lead the Zhongshan Ship to Huangpu immediately. At 6 o'clock in the morning on the 19th, the river was filled with fog. Zhang Chentong led the Zhongshan ship to the Whampoa Military Academy, and then went ashore to report to Deng Yanda, the dean of education of the military academy, and asked for instructions. But the strange thing is that Deng Yanda was at a loss about this, saying that he absolutely did not ask for a warship. Have a question?Ouyang Zhong wrote in black and white, with a red mouth and white teeth, making it clear that he received a call from Deng Yanda?However, as one of the leftist leaders of the Kuomintang who is pro-Soviet and pro-communist, Deng Yanda has no need to lie and murder Li Zhilong. Is there something wrong with Ouyang Zhong? To find out whether Ouyang Zhong has a problem, he has to pay attention to the subsequent development of the incident. On the morning of the 19th, Chiang Kai-shek received several calls. No one could have imagined that these few phone calls would be the last straw that broke the camel's back. The first three straws came from Wang Jingwei. In addition to discussing work with Chiang Kai-shek on the phone, he also asked him three times whether he would go to Huangpu today. Chiang Kai-shek, who was in a bad mood, replied that he would not go.The last straw came from Li Zhilong. Because the Soviet delegation proposed to visit the Zhongshan ship, Li Zhilong called Chiang Kai-shek to ask for instructions. Only then did Chiang Kai-shek know that the Zhongshan ship had gone to Huangpu (Yang Tianshi's "The Mystery of the Zhongshan Ship Incident"). While Chiang Kai-shek agreed to transfer back the Zhongshan ship, he was deeply surprised: Zhongshan ship went to Huangpu?What's the matter with going to Whampoa without my order?Why do you ask me for instructions when you go and don't tell me when you come back?He felt that the vague worry of the previous days was gradually becoming a reality, and then thinking that his passport to Russia had just been approved, Chiang Kai-shek thought about all the things that happened during this period of time, and soon there was an entry in his diary. The conclusion-"I want to manipulate and trap me". The development of what Chiang Kai-shek imagined or what he expected should be as follows: when the Zhongshan ship arrived in Huangpu, Ji Shanjia kidnapped him on the Zhongshan ship in Huangpu, and then sent him to the ship bound for the Soviet Union; after he had just confirmed with Wang Jingwei that he would not go to Huangpu today Later, the other party believed that the conspiracy had been revealed, so Li Zhilong, a member of the Communist Party, used the Soviet delegation to visit the warship as an excuse, and deliberately asked him for instructions to return the Zhongshan ship to destroy the evidence (Yang Tianshi's "The Mystery of the Zhongshan Ship Incident"). According to Chiang Kai-shek's diary, the next plot should be: He planned to hide in Shantou, his own territory, to avoid the limelight, but on the way to Shantou, he suddenly changed his mind and decided to "counter the rebellion" by force. As for how this psychological change occurred, he himself explained it as "Why am I showing weakness to others".But it has to be said that this explanation is quite far-fetched.This is because the Communist Party has a relatively clear judgment on the current situation, and Chiang Kai-shek, who is stronger, cannot have a basic understanding of the conspiracy behind the current turbulent situation. On March 19, Zhou Enlai conveyed his judgment on the current situation to Bubnov: "It seems that the rightists are now ready to take action... The current situation is similar to the situation on the eve of the murder of Liao Zhongkai. There are rumors and leaflets everywhere." (Yang Yunruo and Yang Kuisong's "The Communist International and the Chinese Revolution") Unfortunately, Bubnov did not accept it. Therefore, according to the facts that happened afterwards and Chiang Kai-shek’s consistent distrust of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, it is more likely that Chiang Kai-shek decided to “slow the boat along” and take advantage of the opportunity to eliminate the influence of the Soviet advisers and the Communist Party on the Kuomintang, split the cooperation between the KMT and the Communist Party, and Seize leadership over the party, government, and military. With the determination to fish in troubled waters, Chiang Kai-shek opened the prelude to the "Zhongshan Ship Incident". In the early morning of the 20th, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Liu Zhi, commander of the Second Division of the First Army, Chen Lifu, and others who were his cronies, and discussed the action plan.What happened next is the "recognized fact" mentioned above. This is probably the whole process of the relatively complete "Zhongshan Ship Incident". Through this "story", we can determine four points: First, the sailing of the Zhongshan ship to Huangpu was not Li Zhilong's "correction order", and it had nothing to do with the then Chairman of the Nationalist Government Wang Jingwei, the Soviet adviser Ji Shanjia, and it had nothing to do with the Communist Party. Second, there is no evidence to prove that Chiang Kai-shek directly gave the Navy Bureau or Li Zhilong an order to transfer ships. Third, the root cause of the incident lies in the intention of the KMT rightists and Chiang Kai-shek to compete for the leadership of the revolution, as well as Chiang Kai-shek's suspicious and extreme character. Fourth, Ouyang Zhong, director of the Guangzhou Office of the Whampoa Military Academy, is the key to unraveling the puzzle. Since the means of communication were not well developed at that time, there were neither mobile phones nor online chat tools, so Ouyang Zhong received the task of asking the Navy Bureau for help after several layers of relays (about 5 people).Therefore, many scholars believe that the reason why Ouyang Zhong said that the order to adjust the ship came from Deng Yanda and Chiang Kai-shek was because of the distortion of information caused by the layers of transmission, which was a misunderstanding and a coincidence. But this statement seems untenable in the face of one "coincidence" after another. First of all, the three key figures in the "Zhongshan Ship Incident" are very close and belong to a family.Ouyang Lin and Ouyang Ge are cousins, and Ouyang Zhong is Ouyang Ge's nephew. Secondly, on the morning of March 18, Ouyangge wrote a letter to Li Zhilong, inquiring carefully about the situation of the Zhongshan ship: how is the Zhongshan ship currently maintained?Do you have the ability to perform tasks immediately?Out of politeness, Li Zhilong replied truthfully: The Zhongshan ship has been repaired and is in good condition.From this point of view, Li Zhilong's vigilance is very problematic, and he does not understand the truth that "maintaining a high degree of vigilance is the prerequisite for avoiding infringement". Ouyang Ge knew that the Zhongshan ship could carry out the mission on the first day, and the Zhongshan ship was involved in the vortex of political struggle the next day. Could this also be explained as a coincidence? Inquiring about the situation of the Zhongshan ship was definitely not because Ouyangge had nothing to do and cared about the health of the state's assets, but because it was a conspiracy. After the Kuomintang rightists organized a "Xishan Conference", they found that there was no market and no one responded, so they secretly returned to Guangzhou to muddy the water in Guangzhou, making it easy to fish in troubled waters and make trouble. In fact, the rightists in Guangzhou are very strong, which may be the confidence of the "Xishan Conference faction" to dare to fight back. At that time, Guangzhou Mayor Sun Ke, Guangzhou Municipal Standing Committee Member Wu Chaoshu (father is Sun Yat-sen's loyal comrade-in-arms and diplomatic expert Wu Tingfang), and Guangzhou Public Security Bureau Director Wu Tiecheng were all rightists and supporters of the "Xishan Conference".Moreover, the fanatical organization of the right wing of the Kuomintang - the "Sun Wen Doctrine Society" is also in Guangzhou, and Ouyang Ge is the backbone of the "Sun Wen Doctrine Society". The rightists are actively opposed to Sun Yat-sen's three major policies, so they have been deliberately trying to split the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. After careful planning and careful research, they decided to make a fuss about Chiang Kai-shek and kill people with a knife.Because Chiang Kai-shek holds military power, has a high political status, and has differences with the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, he has the strength and willingness to deal with Wang Jingwei, the Soviet Advisory Group and the Communist Party. So the rightists began to work step by step, leading Chiang Kai-shek into the trap step by step. The first step is to distribute leaflets and create rumors.Spread rumors that Wang Jingwei, the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union want to deal with Chiang Kai-shek, and widen the suspicion between Chiang Kai-shek and the other party. The second step is to take the opportunity to set up a bureau.Created the illusion that the Communist Party and Soviet advisers had joined forces with Wang Jingwei to coerce Chiang Kai-shek to go abroad, and lured Chiang Kai-shek to use force.To this end, they carefully took two moves.First, Li Zhilong, a Communist, was promoted to the position of Acting Director of the Shanghai Navy Bureau, and the Communists were made to assume the responsibility for dispatching warships. Then, rightist spy Ouyang Zhong was arranged to deliberately confuse Li Zhilong’s normal dispatch of warships to aid, which resulted in the “factual fact” that the Communist Party sent warships to Huangpu. ". After the "Zhongshan Ship Incident", in order to restore his image, Chiang Kai-shek directed and staged a performance show by himself - asked for punishment, and even retired to Humen for a time, expressing his determination to leave Guangdong. Unfortunately, he was "deeply sympathized and firmly persuaded to stay" by all parties So I returned to Guangzhou with "difficulty" in early April.The whole set of performances has a reasonable plot, natural movements, and good emotions. It seems that Principal Jiang is also a person who is capable of walking the red carpet. After watching President Jiang's performance, let's analyze the losers of the "Zhongshan Ship Incident". There are many losers, let's look at Wang Jingwei first. Chiang Kai-shek acted extremely quickly in the "Zhongshan Ship Incident", and did not notify Wang Jingwei, Chairman of the National Government and Chairman of the Central Military Commission at all. Although Wang Jingwei was extremely indignant at Chiang Kai-shek's unorganized and undisciplined behavior, the incident had already caused conflicts between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and the Sino-Soviet conflict, and it was a done deal. Therefore, Wang Jingwei resigned on the grounds that he was responsible for the leadership of this incident, and went to France. Wang Jingwei handed over the power a little too quickly, right?Yes, everyone thought it was too fast. I don't know what Wang Jingwei thought at the time.But one thing is certain, Wang Jingwei is not a person who loves power. He resigned to avoid intra-party struggles and ensure the unity of the Kuomintang. The No. 1 man Wang Jingwei left, and the No. 2 man Chiang Kai-shek was able to inherit the real power of the party, government and army, but he failed to sit in the chair of the National Government Chairman. Because Wang Jingwei had a lot of opinions on Chiang Kai-shek, he helped Tan Yankai to be the acting chairman of the National Government.Although Lao Tan has worked in the warlord business for a long time and his fighting ability is average, he has always lost battles in the brutal struggle with his younger brother Zhao Hengxi and received a harsh practical education. He maintained a high degree of agreement with Sun Yat-sen on major issues of right and wrong, such as pacifying the rebellion of business groups and the Northern Expedition. He was considered a long-tested "old revolution", and it was reasonable for him to take over as chairman. The biggest loser is none other than the Communist Party. Chiang Kai-shek admitted his mistake on the surface after the "Zhongshan Ship Incident", and later gradually invited the Communist Party members back.All this shows that he seems to be still advancing under the great banner of "Uniting Russia, the Communist Party, and Supporting Farmers and Workers".But this is not the case, this is just an "image project", because Chiang Kai-shek currently does not have enough strength to split with the Communist Party, so he has to make false claims. Chiang Kai-shek's first army currently only has Liu Zhi, the second division, in Guangzhou, and the rest of the main force is far away in Chaoshan.And the troops of Li Jishen, Tan Yankai, and Zhu Peide are all close at hand, so if they really want to fight, they may not win.More importantly, the First Army was deeply influenced by revolutionary ideas, and Chiang Kai-shek himself had always advocated revolution. If he could not grasp the legal principles, the army's thinking would definitely fall into chaos. In addition, as analyzed above, after Chiang Kai-shek’s trip to the Soviet Union, he never really trusted the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. His struggle for leadership with the pro-Soviet and pro-Communist Kuomintang leftists was inevitable and inevitable. The warship incident, Chiang Kai-shek will create another incident sooner or later. This is not a wild guess. Chiang Kai-shek, who gained the real power of the party, government and military, quickly used the "Zhongshan ship incident" to create a "party affairs case" to continue to weaken the Communist Party's strength. At the Second Plenary Session of the Second Central Committee of the Kuomintang in May 1926, Chiang Kai-shek passed a series of policies that were not conducive to the Communist Party. The list of members is handed over to the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang for preservation... This is "sorting out the party affairs case".The status of the Communist Party within the Kuomintang has since been inferior. The Kuomintang rightists behind the "Zhongshan ship incident" did not end well. In this turmoil, Wang Jingwei, the Communist Party, Soviet advisers, and the leftists of the Kuomintang were all hit to varying degrees. Even Chiang Kai-shek's personal image was tainted, but the rightists were safe. Seeing this, the truth of the "Zhongshan Ship Incident" is not far away. The rightists who were hiding behind the scenes were picked out.Chiang Kai-shek quickly punished Ouyang Ge, Ouyang Zhong and others, removed Wu Chaoshu, the leading figure of the rightists in Guangzhou, and Wu Tiecheng, director of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, from all positions, and dissolved the rightist organization "Sun Wenism Society", and he also crowned the "Xishan Conference School" In the name of an illegal organization, its members are expelled from the party. As for another tycoon of the right, Sun Ke, Chiang Kai-shek could not move him yet, because he had to sell Sun Yat-sen's face. It has to be said that the fate of Li Zhilong, the key figure in this case, was extremely tragic. Li Zhilong does have his problems.Without Chiang Kai-shek's warrant or official document, this man hastily transferred the warship to Huangpu.He should and must check with Chiang Kai-shek beforehand. If he did, all misunderstandings would be wiped out, but he didn't. Therefore, Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao believed that Li Zhilong "has done more than fail", suspected that he was suspected of betraying the party, and expelled him from the party. When Li Zhilong was very distressed about being expelled from the party, Chiang Kai-shek did not forget him, and sent several Whampoa classmates to look for this Whampoa hero, hoping that he would find his way back and return to himself. Before the "April 12 coup", Chiang Kai-shek also sent a telegram to Li Zhilong, telling him to go to Nanjing immediately. However, Li Zhilong was on the cusp of being suspected by his comrades, so how dare he do such a tricky thing?He not only rejected Chiang Kai-shek's solicitation, but also wrote an article called "The Truth of the March 20 Counter-Revolutionary Coup", and completely joined the team against Chiang. Two years later, Li Zhilong returned to Guangzhou to plan the uprising of "Zhongshan" and other ships, but was arrested in failure.However, Principal Jiang treated Li Zhilong pretty well. He ordered the relevant personnel to escort Li Zhilong to Nanjing, and he wanted to do Li Zhilong's ideological work himself.But it was too late, Li Zhilong was shot and executed by Ouyang Ge's friend Chen Ce the day after he was arrested. A promising star just fell, his death was like a drop of water disappearing in a river, like snowflakes melting into ice, everything was so silent. Based on the fact that there was no stronger force than Chiang Kai-shek to support at that time (Feng Yuxiang was already dead at this time, more on this later), at the suggestion of the Bubnov inspection team, the Soviet government, based on the principles of pragmatism and the supremacy of interests, changed He changed his attitude and made a compromise with Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang with a strong personality. Ji Shanjia was transferred back to the Soviet Union, and the future Soviet marshals Galen and Borodin returned to China, and the Northern Expedition began to be put on the agenda again. After Chen Duxiu defended on behalf of the Communist Party, he did not delve into the matter. Later, Chiang Kai-shek declared that the matter had nothing to do with the Communist Party. The KMT, the Communist Party, and the Soviet Union continued to cooperate.In this process, Chiang Kai-shek achieved dictatorial status, and Wang Jingwei could never fight against Chiang Kai-shek again.