In the cold early hours of December 1937, a train from Changsha stopped at Wuchang Station. On the platform, the welcoming team of Wuhan Xingying and Hubei Province lined up neatly, and the leader was Dai Li, the leader of the military command. Different from the usual grim face, Dai Li, wearing a navy blue tunic, with a smile on his face, led the crowd to greet an important person warmly.
This high-profile figure was Yang Hucheng, a famous general of the Shaanxi Army, a general who returned to China after an inspection in Europe. Previously, after the Xi'an Incident, Yang Hucheng resigned from the post of commander-in-chief of the 17th Army and chairman of Shaanxi Province. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he called Song Ziwen many times, expressing his willingness to lead the troops to resist Japan, but was politely refused. However, near the end of the Battle of Songhu, Song Ziwen suddenly invited him to return to China. His friends were worried that it was a trap and dissuaded him from returning to China, but Yang Hucheng insisted on returning to Hong Kong and prepared to go to Xi'an to organize an anti-Japanese war.
However, a series of tricks lead him into a trap. Chiang Kai-shek feared that he would return directly to Xi'an, so he tricked him from Hong Kong to Changsha through Soong Ziwen and Dai Li, and then to Wuhan and Nanchang, and pressed him step by step. Dai Li arranged for Yang Hucheng to live in the garden house of Jiangxi Provincial Chairman Xiong Shihui, falsely claiming that Chiang Kai-shek would soon summon him. However, Dai Li left without showing up, leaving behind more than 20 plainclothes agents. A few days later, a military police company was sent to put Yang Hucheng under house arrest and began a 12-year career under house arrest.
Yang Hucheng has repeatedly stated that he only wants to be an ordinary soldier, but he is trapped in a cage set up by Chiang Kai-shek. In 1938, he was transferred to Baiheguan in Xifeng County, Guizhou Province, where he was later inspected by Dai Li, who was not considered safe enough and was again moved to the "Xuantian Cave", more than 10 miles from the county seat, where he was placed under house arrest with only one exit.
Yang Hucheng felt deeply helpless about his fate: "I am returning to China today, and I only want to be a soldier and go to the front line to kill the enemy, but people don't let me go to the front line." Even if I am allowed to sacrifice, I have a clear conscience, and I hope that he Jiang will fight to the end. However, his wish to resist the war could not be realized. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Yang Hucheng and his family were secretly transferred to Chongqing and imprisoned in the Dregs Cave Detention Center of the "Sino-US Special Technical Cooperation Institute" of the Geyueshan Military Command. Even during the peace talks, Chiang Kai-shek refused to release Yang Hucheng.
On September 6, 1949, Yang Hucheng's family was secretly killed at the Dai Gong Temple in Chongqing, and a generation of famous generals died on the eve of liberation.