Sun Liren's cemetery is desolate, and the coffin is still open-air before it is buried in the ground.
Located in Dakeng Dongshan Cemetery, Beitun District, Taichung City, Taiwan Province, there are many tombstones and unique features. One of the most striking cemeteries is a black-painted coffin that has been cemented over the ground but not buried underground.
It turned out that this was Sun Liren's coffin, and he chose to stop the coffin for burial instead of burying it. So, why did Sun Liren make such a decision?
Sun Liren, born on November 25, 1900 in Shucheng, Anhui Province, came from a family of Juren in the late Qing Dynasty.
Sun Liren graduated from Tsinghua University in 1923, went to the United States to study, and received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Purdue University in 1924.
In 1932, Sun Liren began to serve as the head of the Special Branch Corps of the Taxation Police Corps of the Ministry of Finance, and after six years of training, his corps was assessed in the Battle of Songhu in 1937.
Before preparing for the war, he equipped the corps with new ** and supplies, and replaced the mules and horses with new iron hooves and saddles. On the battlefield, however, the new equipment did not bring much effect.
Sun Liren's 4th Regiment did not perform well in the Battle of Songhu, with more than half of the company commanders wounded and about three-fifths of the platoon commanders killed or wounded. Despite his training, Chiang Kai-shek believed that he was "not good at war."
In addition, Sun Liren had disagreements with the Kuomintang ** Du Yuming, which led to an open rupture. The contradictions between them stemmed from the appointment of the post of commander of the Changchun garrison, as well as the views on military tactics and the head of their country.
These incidents caused Sun Liren and Du Yuming to fall out of harmony, and even reached the point of sharp confrontation.
Sun Liren, a famous general in the Whampoa department, was dissatisfied with the contradiction between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek, and asked Stilwell to return to China on his behalf. Although he thought very highly of himself in front of the Whampoa generals, he was extremely weak in the face of Chiang Kai-shek and remained silent.
In his later years, because of the mutiny, it was not only related to his own personality, but also closely related to the lack of staff ability. He was dissatisfied with Chiang Ching-kuo's political work system and spy rule, and secretly resisted it.
In 1954, he was transferred to the "Chief of Staff of the ** Government", and was later deposed by the Chiang family and his son, and was placed under house arrest in Taichung City.
Sun Liren was placed under house arrest for 33 years, during which time he and his wife, Zhang Meiying, gave birth to four children, and lived in great poverty until he regained his freedom in 1988. However, even after regaining his freedom, Sun Liren was still approached by the sworn enemy of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, hoping that he would expose Chiang Kai-shek's brutality, but he refused one by one.
In 1990, Sun Liren died of illness at home at the age of 90, but unfortunately, his 90th birthday did not usher in, but became his death day.
Sun Liren has special arrangements for his posthumous affairs, and he left his last words, hoping to "not bury the mainland, and the coffin will not enter the ground". After his death, his coffin was placed in the Dakeng Dongshan Cemetery in Beitun District, Taichung City, Taiwan Province, where there was a black coffin that was fixed to the surface of the earth, but was not buried in the earth, but was waiting to be buried.
Despite this, the surrounding environment is very desolate. Although Sun Liren has left us, his last words and his coffin make us full of admiration and nostalgia for him.
*The heroic feats of the Anti-Japanese War years: the search record of the soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army.