Chapter 21 3. Liu Houtong and Fu Dongju

Liu Houtong (also written as Liu Houtong) mentioned above is one of the important figures who facilitated Fu Zuoyi's road to the people's camp. Liu Houtong (1882-1961), a native of Yuncheng, Shanxi, a veteran of the Revolution of 1911, participated in the Xingzhong Association in Hubei Wubei Academy in 1903. In January 1912, he led the anti-Qing armed uprising in Qinzhou (today's water) in Gansu. Minister of Military Affairs and Chief Recruitment Envoy, Chief Coach of Shanxi Student Army and Principal of Sergeant Academy.He also taught at Baoding Military Academy in his early years. Fu Zuoyi himself and several of his closest colleagues such as Chief of Staff Li Shijie, Commander of the 35th Army Lu Yinglin, and Governor of Hebei Province Chu Xichun were all his students.When Liu Houtong was brigade commander in the Jin army, Fu Zuoyi served as platoon commander and company commander under his subordinates.When Fu Zuoyi served as the Tianjin Garrison Commander in 1928, he had retired from the military and lived in the French Concession in Tianjin.Fu Zuoyi often went to Liu Houtong's home for advice. Since then, Liu Houtong has become one of Fu Zuoyi's most respected teachers and close friends.The reason why Fu Zuoyi was able to serve as the Tianjin garrison commander when the Feng army retreated, later served as the chairman of Suiyuan Province, and then left Yan Xishan to join Chiang Kai-shek was inseparable from Liu Houtong's counseling.In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japan, when Chiang Kai-shek sang "to fight against the outside world, we must first settle down at home", he openly sang against him, saying that "when fighting against the outside world, we will settle down at home", and wrote to Chiang Kai-shek many times.During the War of Resistance Against Japan, Fu Zuoyi equipped Liu Houtong with an underground radio station and some personnel, so that Liu Houtong kept in close contact with him and gave him many useful suggestions.After Fu Zuoyi became the commander-in-chief of the "Suppression General" in North China, he specially gave Liu Houtong the position of lieutenant general and general counselor, so that Liu Houtong could come to his headquarters for talks at any time.

Liu Houtong is upright, clear-headed and resourceful. He is a think tank figure who can have an important influence on Fu Zuoyi.His daughter Liu Hangsheng was a member of the "Minqing" and was carrying out revolutionary activities in various colleges and universities in Tianjin at that time.Knowing the special relationship between Liu Houtong and Fu Zuoyi, the Urban Engineering Department of the North China Bureau deliberately assigned Liu Hangsheng to work for his father, and persuaded his father to inspire Fu Zuoyi and mobilize Fu Zuoyi to hold a peaceful uprising.Liu Houtong agreed with his daughter's opinion, so he went to Beiping several times from Tianjin, where he lived at the time, to have secret talks with Fu Zuoyi.Under the arrangement of our North China Urban Industry Department, Cui Yueli, the Secretary-General of the Underground Party Education Committee in Beiping, talked with Liu Houtong many times to understand Fu Zuoyi's attitude and help Liu Houtong in his work.Another underground party member, Du Renzhi, was a fellow of Fu Zuoyi's hometown. He was the head of the Political Department of North China University at the time. His younger brother, Du Jingzhi, was Fu Zuoyi's military doctor. Quite a lot of work.Liu Houtong lived in Fu Zuoyi's home from Tianjin to Beiping in October 1948, and had a great influence on Fu Zuoyi until the liberation of Beiping (Liu Houtong wrote a diary every day for 83 days in Beiping, titled "A Brief History of Peace in the Old Capital" , is a precious historical material that records the process of Fu Zuoyi's peace talks).Because Liu Houtong traveled in many ways for peace during this period, he was so tired and anxious that he lost sight in his left eye, so he was honored as "Peaceful Old Man" by the people at that time.

Now, Fu Zuoyi has basically made up his mind to go to the people's camp, so he sent Wang Kejun to explain the truth to Liu Houtong, hoping that Liu Houtong can come up with specific opinions.Liu Houtong believed that in order to avoid the disaster of war in the ancient capital, measures should be taken as soon as possible, and the uprising telegram should be issued to peacefully resolve the Beiping issue together with the PLA.However, Wang Kejun believed that it was not safe to do so. It would not only cause Fu Zuoyi to go to war with the KMT’s direct lineage troops, and fail to achieve the goal of protecting Beiping. 10 times the number.Therefore, after repeated discussions, Liu Houtong and Wang Kejun decided to suggest to Fu Zuoyi to send a telegram to Mao Zedong through the underground Communist Party organization in Beiping, and drafted a telegram for Fu Zuoyi.The full text of the telegram follows:

A lesson from Mr. Mao Zedong: In order to protect the historical sites in Peiping, and for the safety of the lives and properties of the people of Peiping, I am willing to start peace talks with your party and your army.I hope to send Mr. Nan Hanchen (Note: Nan Hanchen is an old comrade of the Communist Party of China who has been working secretly on the united front for a long time. He has been engaged in liaison work with Fu Zuoyi and in the army many times in the past, and he is very familiar with Fu Zuoyi) to come peace negotiation.I can still control 500,000 troops and 200 aircraft.In the past, I fantasized about saving the country with Chiang Kai-shek as the leader, but now I realize the fallacy of this idea.

From now on, I will decide to follow Chairman Mao, the Communist Party, and follow the path of the people. This telegram was approved by Fu Zuoyi, and was sent out on November 17 by our underground party's secret radio station in Peking. It was none other than Fu Zuoyi's biological daughter Fu Dongju (currently named Fu Dong) who handled this important operation. It turned out that the eldest daughter of the commander-in-chief of the "Suppression General" in Peking had already been an underground member of the Communist Party of China.Fu Dongju was originally a reporter for Tianjin "Ta Kung Pao" and engaged in underground work in Tianjin. He was led by Wang Hanbin, the head of the Peking Academic Committee of our underground party who was working at "Ping Ming Daily" in Beiping at that time.

In order to help my underground party do a good job with Fu Zuoyi, under the unified arrangement of the Urban Industry Department of my North China Bureau, Wang Hanbin specially transferred Fu Dongju and her boyfriend Zhou Yizhi (also an underground member of the CCP) to work in Beiping.Since then, this Communist Party member has lived and worked by her father's side for a long time.From time to time, she exchanged views with Fu Zuoyi on the current situation, understood Fu Zuoyi's thoughts, and worked with him in a way that Fu Zuoyi could accept.If there is no chance, she will choose some newspaper articles or progressive books and put them in Fu Zuoyi's study for his reference.At this time, Fu Dongju clearly told her father that she should consider making peace with the Communist Party, and her friends could make contact through it.

One day, when father and daughter (Fu Zuoyi's wife was in Chongqing at this time) were having dinner together, Fu Zuoyi suddenly asked Fu Dongju, "Dongju, are you a member of the Communist Party?" At this time, it was inconvenient for Fu Dongju to disclose her identity directly, so she replied: "No. I don't think I am qualified enough." After a while, Fu Zuoyi said again: "Are you in contact with the Communist Party or the military command? You have to be careful. There are a lot of tricks to sell dog meat. If you encounter a fake Communist Party, you will be in trouble."

Fu Dongju told her father: "You are talking too mysteriously. I am not a child, so easy to be fooled? They are all my classmates. They are the real Communist Party, not the military commander." At this time, Fu Zuoyi said what was in his heart: "Are they sent by Mao Zedong or Nie Rongzhen?" Fu Dongju really didn't know about this question, and she couldn't talk nonsense, so she could only answer: "They didn't say anything about it, and I didn't ask about it. I'll tell you tomorrow when I figure it out." The next day, Fu Dongju asked She Diqing, secretary of the Peking Underground Party Committee, and She asked her to answer "it was sent by Mao Zedong."

When Fu Dongju told Fu Zuoyi the answer "it was sent by Mao Zedong", Fu Zuoyi also told Fu Dongju clearly: "That's good, let's think about the peace talks." After Fu Zuoyi studied with Wang Kejun, Liu Hou and others , Only then did the above telegram come into being.That telegram was handed over by Fu Dongju to Wang Hanbin, and then sent by the underground party's radio station. From then on, Fu Zuoyi officially started the process of peace talks with the Chinese Communist Party. Just when Fu Zuoyi had plans to seek peace, all aspects seemed to be promoting his plan.

The main driving force should be that under the ingenious command of Mao Zedong and the Central Military Commission, Fu Zuoyi's long snake formation in North China was cut into several sections. Our Northeast Field Army and North China Military Region troops successfully carried out strategic encirclement and campaign divisions across North China. As a result, Fu Zuoyi and his subordinates were unable to fight, defend, or escape. They were in an extremely passive situation. Apart from being annihilated, the only way to resolve the situation was peacefully. In the city of Beiping, when our liberation army had formed a siege around Beiping, the patriotic democratic movement led and launched by our underground party organization centered on the student movement and flourished even more.

Students from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Yenching University, Fu Jen Catholic University and other colleges and universities, as well as middle school students, chanted slogans such as "oppose civil war" and "strive for peace" and held demonstrations many times in the cold wind, demanding that the Kuomintang North China The authorities accepted the will of the people and quickly achieved peace. People from all walks of life also voiced their voices for "peacefully resolving the Peking issue" and "preserving the thousand-year-old cultural relics and historic sites in Peiping, so as to prevent the lives of millions of people from dying".In front of the Beiping City Hall, there are petitioners every day.Even the councils of five provinces and two cities in North China represented the interests of the upper-middle class under the general trend and submitted a proposal to Fu Zuoyi to "stop the war and strive for peace." However, Fu Zuoyi's telegram to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China did not receive a quick reply.There are two reasons for this: First, Fu Zuoyi believed that he had studied Mao Zedong's "On the Coalition Government" and believed that since the Chinese Communist Party advocated the establishment of a coalition government, he could participate in the coalition government as a representative of the five North China provinces.Influenced by Liu Houtong, he advocated that according to the method of the Revolution of 1911, he would first send a telegram to the whole country to achieve peace in North China, and then promote national peace and organize a coalition government.But he forgot that he himself was still the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang’s North China “Suppression General” and a member of the Kuomintang’s Central Committee. It was of course unrealistic for him to participate in the coalition government as a representative of a party other than the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. .More importantly, under the circumstances at the time, it was simply impossible to achieve national peace with a single power connection in the way of the 1911 Revolution.What's more, if Fu Zuoyi can't fully accept our party's basic policy, and still hold on to the old concept that he has formed over the years, where there is an army, there is strength, and where there is strength, there is power. It is also impossible to truly cooperate with our party on various issues of how to build a new China. Second, although Fu Zuoyi expressed his desire for peace, Fu Zuoyi's own direct line troops have basically been wiped out at this time. At that time, the troops in the Pingjin area were basically Chiang Kai-shek's direct line troops. According to Fu Zuoyi's words, Fu Zuoyi has no idea what to do with the hundreds of thousands of Chiang Kai-shek's troops, and our party's determination is to completely eliminate these hundreds of thousands of troops.Fu Zuoyi's peaceful solution has no foundation until he has come up with a solution to the big problem of how to solve the hundreds of thousands of troops.Therefore, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China did not immediately give Fu Zuoyi a specific answer in the name of the Central Committee. On the one hand, it maintained contact with Fu Zuoyi. On the one hand, they will surround Beiping, Tianjin and other strongholds, and consider solving the problems of the entire North China.