The history of modern China is a chapter full of pain and suffering, that period of fire, most people lived in hardship, not only suffering from war, but also food and clothing became a luxury.
However, under these difficulties, there are still people who ignore the people's livelihood and suffering, and take the people's fat and people's ointment into their own pockets. Among them, the four families of Jiang, Song, Kong and Chen can be called the most typical representatives.
Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Meiling's Wealth Mystery Chiang Kai-shek's death in 1975 left the world lamenting the absurdity of his life, however, what was even more surprising was that his widow Soong Meiling took with her a large amount of luggage when she went to the United States, including priceless jade jewelry.
Officials claim that the luggage is just daily necessities and clothing, but this argument is clearly unconvincing. So, how did the Chiang Kai-sheeks amass so much wealth?
Are they on the right track? Let's explore this mystery together.
Although the number of assets of Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Meiling has always been disputed, and there is no authoritative information to confirm, some clues are still revealed in the investigation literature of the ** period.
In 1935, Cai Yuanpei organized public welfare activities in Shanghai and published an investigation report, showing that the Chiang Kai-shek couple had quite a lot of wealth. Among them, Chiang Kai-shek's real estate and real estate are worth about 1.3 million yuan, and other real estate is worth about 10 million yuan; The total value of Song Meiling's real estate and movable assets is about 35 million yuan.
In addition, Song Ziwen and Kong Xiangxi's assets are also considerable, 35 million yuan and 18 million yuan respectively. According to the report, the personal assets of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife alone amounted to 46.3 million yuan.
However, this is only publicly available assets, excluding some of their private collections and luxury goods. From this report, it can be seen that Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were already one of the couples with great wealth in the country at that time.
The wealth of the Chiang Kai-shek couple was remarkable in the society of the time. According to the data of the secret investigation of the Japanese secret service in 1939, Chiang Kai-shek's personal deposits have reached 66.39 million yuan, and Soong Meiling's deposits have reached 30.94 million yuan, totaling nearly 10,000 yuan in assets.
If converted into dollars, it is about 11.86 million. This figure is particularly remarkable in the thirties of the last century, when domestic prices were generally very low. For example, in the bustling Nanjing, rice is about 4 cents per catty, beef is a little more expensive, 3 cents per catty, and pork belly is 2 cents and 3 cents per catty.
If all the savings of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were used to buy supplies, they could hoard hundreds of thousands of catties of rice and tens of thousands of catties of meat. However, Chiang Kai-shek does not seem to have used the money for the idea of improving people's livelihood.
Although Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Meiling held a feast, in fact, Chiang Kai-shek did not think of donating part of his savings to the soldiers on the front, but also wanted to draw out as much money as possible from the already short ** income and put it into his own account.
In 1939, the national ** financial revenue was very tight, in order to maintain the normal operation of the ** department, Chiang Kai-shek decided to mortgage tung oil to borrow 25 million US dollars from overseas banks.
However, by this time, the personal assets of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife had reached tens of millions of dollars. However, Chiang Kai-shek was always reluctant to pay out of his own pocket to solve the emergency, and even later overseas banks allocated funds, and Chiang Kai-shek took some of them.
Jiang Song and his wife claimed that their desires were endless, and this was even more common for such people with power. Their wealth does not appear in a vacuum, and every fortune has its own **.
For example, the national ** launched"National bonds"is one of the ways they collect money. Originally, the income generated by the national bond was unknown, but this seemingly fair rule is actually only for the people at the bottom.
The people of the four major families have various channels to obtain first-hand information after the issuance of the national bonds, and then adjust according to these news, and finally collect wealth in a grand manner.
In order to fill their pockets as much as possible, they will even exchange the lives of front-line fighters. For example, the original 1,700 young air force "generous deaths" were all because Song Meiling embezzled a large amount of military spending from the Chinese Air Force.
In 1934, Song Meiling was appointed secretary general of the National Aviation Committee and undertook the task of forming the Chinese Air Force. This was an unprecedented mission at that time, and Song Meiling was also known as the "mother of the Chinese Air Force".
Surprisingly, however, Song Meiling did not focus on the mission of saving the country, but instead treated the task as a business transaction. As early as the early 30s, Chiang Kai-shek began to promote the nationwide campaign of donating money to buy planes, and when Soong Meiling took over the formation of the Air Force, Chiang Kai-shek was already nearly 50 years old.
In order to celebrate Chiang Kai-shek's birthday, the regimes in various regions began to call on the people to make "voluntary donations" to buy airplanes. Even Du Yuesheng participated in it and took the initiative to assist Chiang Kai-shek in issuing "air coupons".
For a time, donations from all over the country poured in like a tide.
As the secretary general of the National Aviation Committee, Song Meiling originally had the funds to purchase more than 1,300 aircraft, but she listened to the words that "the aircraft is updated too quickly, it is better to save the funds and buy them after the outbreak of the war", so she did not buy them immediately.
As a result, after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the number of China's air force aircraft was only 305, a decrease of more than 1,000. She deposited the donation money from the people of the whole country into the bank, which was in charge of Kong Lingwei, the second lady of Kong, and the daily interest was transferred to Song Meiling's private account.
If this batch of aircraft can be successfully improved, China's air power will be greatly enhanced.
The core idea of the original text is: the quality of the aircraft purchased by Song Meiling has shrunk, and there is ** behavior. The new copy can be:"The number of planes purchased by Song Meiling has not only shrunk seriously, but the quality has also been greatly reduced.
Kong Lingwei, who was in charge of negotiations with American aircraft manufacturers, actually lowered the price of the original $100,000 per aircraft to $80,000 per aircraft, although it was much cheaper, but the performance of the aircraft also shrank.
The original 1,000-horsepower engine shrank to only 800 horsepower, and the difference in the price of each aircraft was privately swallowed by Kong Lingwei. When the Anti-Japanese War broke out, Song Meiling wanted to buy more planes as originally planned, but found that the external port had been blocked by the Japanese invaders, and in the face of the enemy's air attack, ** almost immediately lost air supremacy, and the only more than 300 planes were also lost in the battle. "
Chiang Kai-shek and his wife and Kong Lingwei were known for their excessive accumulation of wealth, which was widely discussed not only at home but also heard of abroad. In 2003, the New York Times gave a detailed account of Soong Meiling's life, highlighting the theft of American money by the Chiang Kai-shek couple.
At the end of the article, the New York Times quoted Truman as saying of the Chiang Kai-sheks: "They are thieves, everybody is a thief, and they stole nearly 750 million dollars from the billion dollars we gave to Chiang **." ”
Although the living conditions of the people in the liberated areas are not well-off, and sometimes even food and clothing are a problem, they are full of energy, full of enthusiasm, and full of expectations for the future. This is because they are convinced that *** is their "reassurance", and under the leadership of the party, they will definitely be able to usher in a better tomorrow.
Unlike Chiang Kai-shek, ** never turned the masses out, he liked the masses and was willing to blend in with them. During the difficult period of the Anti-Japanese War, ** often ate and lived with the masses and listened to their voices.
As the supreme commander, ** and *** and others have always insisted on leading by example and adhering to the principle of not taking a stitch from the masses, which is in stark contrast to Chiang Kai-shek's behavior of using his position to accumulate money.
** When dealing with the party's finances, always put the needs of front-line soldiers first, ensuring that they have enough armaments to deal with enemy attacks. Even after the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's economic situation has improved, but in difficult times, ** has always maintained a high degree of self-discipline and took the initiative to reduce the monthly salary to 4048 yuan, until his death, this salary did not change.
You may feel that a salary of $400 may not cover your daily expenses. In China, everyone knows that *** has a big addiction to smoking. In order to save money, he even replaced the high-end cigarettes such as "Zhonghua" and "Panda" with the more accessible "Luojiashan" cigarettes.
However, even if this is the case, it takes more than a hundred dollars per month for cigarette money. Coupled with some daily tobacco, alcohol, tea and subsidies for her daughter's living expenses, etc., ** will be overdrawn almost every month.
However, surprisingly, the bills that were later made public showed that ** never underpaid the party dues once, nor did he owe a penny to the public. Why is that? Actually, the reason is very simple.
At that time, ** also knew that he was making ends meet every month, so he used his talent to make money to make up for it. His writing was so good that he often wrote for newspapers, relying on his manuscript fees to cover the overdrafts.
Known for his frugality. The kettle, watch, and other items he uses are resolutely not replaced unless they can no longer be used. The same goes for his smoking habits, with half-burned cigarette butts often in his pockets.
If he hasn't finished smoking a cigarette, he will snuff it out and put it in his pocket and take it out when he wants to. Once, when the British Prime Minister was visiting China, ** got dressed and prepared to go out for reception, but when he turned around, the staff found a large patch on the back of his pants.
Someone asked him if he needed a new pair of pants, and he just smiled and replied, "It's okay, who's going to notice the back of me?" ”
**Lead by example, lead our party staff to uphold the way of integrity, and have the people in their hearts. On the contrary, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were greedy for money and turned a blind eye to the plight of the people at the bottom, which led to corruption in the Kuomintang army and their inability to win the trust and support of the people.
This is the root of their failure.