In June 1990, Zhang Xueliang felt the breath of free growth of plants in the summer sun, couldn't help but take a deep breath of fresh air, held Zhao Yidi's hand tightly beside him, and walked out.
He had just endured fifty years of captivity, and now he was finally free.
After 54 years in prison, how is Zhang Xueliang's life? It turned out that he did not live a difficult life because of the loss of freedom, but lived a fairly comfortable life. He and his wife, Zhao Yidi, often travel and do not need to worry about living expenses.
Not only do they eat delicacies from the mountains and seas, but many of them are also transported by air. Food alone costs nearly 10,000 yuan per month, which is unbearable for ordinary families. In addition, they are avid smokers and must have brand-name cigarettes every day.
A box of cigarettes is enough to maintain an ordinary family for a month. In 1995, they moved to the United States and rented a suite at the Hilton Hotel for four years.
Zhang Xueliang has many bank cards in his name, hundreds of millions of dollars in deposits, and his collection of celebrity calligraphy and paintings, rare ancient books and other valuable books. The ** of all this wealth can be traced back to his father Zhang Zuolin.
As the "King of the Northeast", Zhang Zuolin has a good management and many industries, leaving a rich legacy. Therefore, Zhang Xueliang's legacy is unimaginably rich.
In 1875, Zhang Zuolin was born into a poor peasant family. As a young man, he joined the army and participated in the Sino-Japanese War. However, after the war, he returned to his hometown and, together with a few friends, founded a peasant self-defense organization called the "Insurance Team".
Despite being called self-defense organizations, insurance teams are essentially no different from ordinary bandits, who also rob, kill and set fires, and charge villagers so-called "insurance premiums", or protection money.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty had a deep headache with the many insurance teams in the northeast, and it was always difficult to eliminate them, so they came up with a strategy of recruiting security. The Qing Dynasty took a fancy to Zhang Zuolin's talent and extended an olive branch to him.
After careful consideration, Zhang Zuolin thought that it was better to be a soldier than a bandit, so he put forward a condition to the Qing Dynasty: he could accept Zhao'an, but he must be guaranteed to be promoted and make a fortune.
In desperation, the Qing Dynasty had no choice but to agree to Zhang Zuolin's conditions.
With his outstanding military talents, Zhang Zuolin was promoted step by step from the patrol battalion of the Xinmin Mansion, and finally became the leader of the Feng army and ruled the three northeastern provinces. The speed at which he climbed up was amazing.
With the accumulation of power and wealth, he often withheld part of his property in the process of suppressing bandits, and together with the bonuses of the imperial court, it constituted the original accumulation of his fortune.
Zhang Zuolin is good at collecting money. He acquired dozens of acres of land in Montenegro County, hired farmers to cultivate them or rent them out for rent. He also set up checkpoints in Xinmin County, collected taxes and fees, and achieved no capital and ten thousand profits.
He also took advantage of the seasonal difference to buy grain, sell it at a low price, and thus make a good profit. With every amount of money he saves, he invests in more land and real estate, or takes a stake in a business to advance his business.
At the time of Zhang Zuolin's death, he owned about 200,000 hectares of land in the three northeastern provinces, and was the real "largest landowner in the northeast". In Shenyang alone, he owns more than a dozen buildings and 409 bungalows, all of which are wealth that ordinary people cannot buy in a few lifetimes.
Zhang Zuolin was a business magnate who invested in only three kinds of shops, including an oil mill, a pawn shop and a grain store, and later invested in more than a dozen coal mines, as well as a stake in many enterprises such as ironworks, steamship companies, cloth shops and textile companies, and his business names spread throughout the northeast.
Zhang Zuolin relied on his business wisdom and vision to achieve the rapid accumulation of wealth, and his personal wealth is 50 million according to incomplete statistics, although it is a figure on the surface, but it is enough to dominate the whole world.
However, as Zhang Zuolin's son, Zhang Xueliang did not live the luxurious life that people imagined. On the contrary, Zhang Xueliang lived with his mother Zhao Chungui when he was a child, and his life was not rich.
At that time, Zhang Zuolin worked hard for the Qing Dynasty, going out early and returning late every day, focusing only on the stability of the country and society, and neglecting the family. When he had money, he bought a house in the county seat, married his wife Sanfang, and in the end he didn't even return to his original home.
Zhao Chungui missed her husband who had not returned for a long time, and in order to find him, she took her youngest son to the city to find Zhang Zuolin. When entering the city, Zhao Chungui was frightened when he saw the heads hanging in the city.
finally comforted her son, and after finding Zhang Zuolin, Zhang Zuolin was cold and blamed her mother and son, which made her angry and fell ill and died. After Zhao Chungui died, Zhang Xueliang, who was only 11 years old, was taken up by Zhang Zuolin to raise, out of guilt, Zhang Zuolin loved Zhang Xueliang very much, hoping to make up for the regrets in his heart.
In 1919, Zhang Xueliang performed well in the lecture hall and had outstanding military talents, Zhang Zuolin appreciated it very much and valued Zhang Xueliang even more. A year later, Zhang Xueliang joined Zhang Zuolin's Feng army, was quickly promoted to brigade commander, and became the youngest major general in the same year.
At the age of twenty-three, he became the commander of the Eastern Route Army and showed his military talent in the First Zhifeng War. His father, Zhang Zuolin, saw his talent, and although he had other sons, he had already regarded Zhang Xueliang as a ** person and began to train him to become the next leader of the Feng army.
Originally, Zhang Zuolin planned to spend time slowly cultivating him, so that he could take over the army when he was strong enough. However, fate did not go as planned. Zhang Zuolin, who was in the prime of life, unfortunately passed away.
In 1928, Japan promised him power and wealth as long as he defected to Japan and helped them invade China. But his conscience did not allow him to betray the country, so he resolutely rejected the Japanese proposal.
The Japanese military was outraged by this, and when they learned that he was going to take a train from Beijing back to Northeast China, passing through the Huanggutun railway station, they prepared to bomb him in advance, which eventually caused him to be seriously injured.
Zhang Zuolin fell into a coma after being injured, and his subordinates immediately took action, on the one hand, they quickly sent him back to the Marshal's Mansion and arranged for top doctors to rescue him, and at the same time, they informed Zhang Xueliang of the unfortunate news through a secret order.
When Zhang Xueliang learned of his father's illness, he was extremely anxious, he was worried about his father's safety, and he was also afraid that the political situation would be turbulent due to the leakage of news, so he galloped to the marshal's mansion.
However, by the time he arrived, his father had sadly passed away. Facing his father's body, Zhang Xueliang's heart was full of grief. According to his father's instructions before his death, Zhang Xueliang was asked to return to Shenyang as soon as possible, stabilize the situation, not let the Japanese take advantage of the opportunity, and must always put the interests of the country first.
Zhang Xueliang succeeded Zhang Zuolin in the Feng army and a large inheritance, all thanks to his excellent secrecy and instructions from his dying father. It is rumored that Zhang Xueliang's residential belongings were looted by the Japanese, and the value was as high as 2500 million yuan, which includes most of the accumulation of Zhang Zuolin when he was alive.
Therefore, it can be seen that Zhang Zuolin's wealth is quite rich. As Zhang Zuolin's heir, Zhang Xueliang inherited this huge wealth after his father's death and became the new "King of the Northeast", with the richest wealth in the entire Northeast.