Yang Hu, a Kuomintang general who once abandoned the dark and turned to the light, his life was full of twists and turns and regrets. In his early years, he followed Chiang Kai-shek to firmly oppose the Communists, but later he repented and chose to stand on the united front and live a peaceful life.
However, in his later years, for some reason, he re-embarked on the road of **, and finally ended up with a bad reputation for his late childhood. His fate is deeply regrettable.
According to historical data, his real surname was Hu, and his father made a living by burning bricks and tiles, and was known as Hu Potter. Yang Hu was born in the cold winter, and because his family was poor, he has always been called the third son.
His birth made the economic situation of the Hu pottery family even more difficult. When he was two years old, his mother died of illness, and Hu Potter took on the burden of raising three children on his own. During the day, he had to burn bricks and tiles, and at night he had to take care of his young third son, and his life was very difficult.
For the sake of the family's livelihood, he reluctantly sold his third son to Yang Yunlong and his wife in the same village, and changed his name to Yang Deshun. There are two theories as to why his name was later changed to Yang Hu: one is that Mr. Sun Yat-sen thought he was a brave general, so he changed his name to Yang Hu; The other is that after he made a fortune, in order to commemorate his father's fertility and the Yang family's nurturing grace, he changed the pronunciation of Hu and Hu to Yang Hu.
In order to train Yang Hu, Yang Yunlong sent him to a private school to study. However, as he grew older, Yang Yunlong's income became less and less, and he could not continue to provide for Yang Hu's schooling. So, 12-year-old Yang Hu went to work as an apprentice in a pharmacy.
Although he was only an apprentice, his monthly income was still not enough to support his family. In that troubled era, only by joining the army could you get a stable life. So, 17-year-old Yang Hu decided to become a soldier.
In the late Qing Dynasty, in order to cultivate more military talents, the Lecture Hall and the Qing Army Martial Arts School were established. Living in a poor family, Yang Hu has seen many people dying of poverty and hunger.
In order to change the status quo, he chose to go to the lecture martial arts hall and the Qing army martial arts academy to study. During his studies, he actively participated in anti-Qing activities, blaming the Qing ** for the dark life he had experienced in the past.
After graduating, he followed Sun Yat-sen to participate in revolutionary activities and participated in the planning of the Second Revolution in 1913. However, the revolution was unsuccessful, and Yang Hu was wanted by reactionary forces.
In order to escape capture, he traveled to Japan to follow Sun Yat-sen and became a big fan of him. In 1915, after Yuan Shikai was restored and proclaimed emperor, Yang Hu launched an uprising in Shanghai on the orders of Sun Yat-sen, and launched an attack on land in the name of the commander-in-chief of the ** navy.
On June 16, 1922, Chen Jiongming launched the "Yangcheng Mutiny" with the intention of murdering Sun Yat-sen. After Sun Yat-sen received the secret report, he boarded the ** in time and was spared.
At that time, among the senior generals who defended Sun Yat-sen, Yang Hu was one of them. During the Northern Expedition, Sun Yat-sen ordered Yang Hu to serve as the commander of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and was later promoted to army commander.
Although Yang Hu was a general of the First Army, he always maintained a humble attitude, took the lead, was deeply respected and loved by the soldiers, and was a capable general by Sun Yat-sen's side.
After Sun Yat-sen's death, Yang Hu and Chiang Kai-shek, who had a heavy army, became brothers, because both were early revolutionaries, and coupled with this relationship, Yang Hu became one of the elders of the Kuomintang.
Out of righteousness and dependence on Chiang Kai-shek, Yang Hu not only did not admonish him when he aimed the butcher's knife at the Communists, but also actively helped him win over forces and exterminate the Communists.
He colluded with the Shanghai Youth Gang, Du Yuesheng and others, gathered a large number of hooligans and thugs, and indiscriminately attacked the progressive masses and communists. On March 21, 1927, the third armed uprising of Shanghai workers led by the CCP was victorious and took control of Shanghai.
Five days later, Chiang Kai-shek led the Northern Expeditionary Army into the city of Shanghai without a single soldier and officially took over Shanghai. On the one hand, Chiang Kai-shek gave the pennant of "common struggle" to the Shanghai workers' pickets and rewarded them for clearing obstacles for themselves; On the one hand, he plotted how to disarm the workers in Shanghai, because he feared that one day he would end up in the same fate.
On April 1, under the instruction of Chiang Kai-shek, Yang Hu, who served as the director of the Special Service Division of the General Headquarters of the National Revolutionary Army, secretly contacted Du Yuesheng, Zhang Xiaolin and others of the National Revolutionary Army to discuss a specific coup plan in Longhua.
Because Yang Hu had participated in the Green Gang in his early years, but his rank in the Green Gang was very low, even as the head of the Special Service Division of the General Headquarters, he was still ridiculed when he went in and out of the tavern.
It is precisely because of this reason that on the eve of the coup d'état, Chiang Kai-shek, in order to control the gang more effectively, instructed Yang Hu to "climb incense".
In order to improve their seniority and status, some members of the Youth Gang will worship a respected old incense master as **, and become the same brother as the original incense master. Late one night at the end of March 1927, Yang Hu and Chen Qun of the Kuomintang Committee sneaked into the house of ** Rong with Chiang Kai-shek's secret order.
He discussed with **Rong, Du Yuesheng, and Zhang Xiaolin that he wanted to worship the highest "Tong" character in the Youth Gang. After his status was improved, Yang Hu's status in the Shanghai Youth Gang also rose and he was quite prestigious.
Late at night on April 11, after receiving Yang Hu's order, **Rong and others led a large number of hooligan thugs to launch an attack on the workers' pickets stationed in the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions.
The workers' pickets had ** in their hands, and at first they resisted, but the Green Gang hooligans did not even break the door of the union. Then Chiang Kai-shek's troops arrived, claiming to mediate between the two sides and disarm the ** of the Green Gang hooligans first.
The workers' pickets believed their rhetoric and left the trade unions open to the troops, only to be unsuspecting and the workers were forcibly disarmed by Chiang Kai-shek's troops.
The workers' pickets without ** were soon wounded by the army, although they also resisted, but they were invincible with two fists and four hands, and the enemy was outnumbered, and finally failed. In this operation, the workers' pickets injured as many as hundreds.
Yang Hu and Chen Qun colluded and arrested and killed a large number of Communists in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and other surrounding cities on many occasions. According to incomplete statistics, as many as 300 communists and progressive workers were killed by Yang Hu's order, more than 500 people, and more than 5,000 people are missing, most of whom were secretly killed.
Among the more than 300 people who were shot, some were shot in the street, and their bloody appearance frightened many nearby people; Some were ordered to be beheaded; Some were ** into sacks and secretly sank into the Huangpu River in the dead of night, and even the corpses could not be found.
Chen Yannian, the eldest son of Chen Duxiu, who is famous in history, was also arrested and killed because of Yang Hu. Yang Hu and Chen Qun betrayed the revolution for personal gain and became minions of the reactionary forces.
They were brutal executioners, and Shanghai became bloody and terrified at their hands. Yang Hu and Chen Qun are as frightening as a nightmare to the people of Shanghai.
During the counter-coup d'état, Yang Hu's hands were stained with the blood of the communists and the revolutionary masses. Ambitious people can't always support each other for long, like Yang Hu and Chiang Kai-shek.
From 1927 to 1937, Yang Hu held various positions in Shanghai, he was the emperor of Shanghai, held great power, and was also the general leader of the first society.
Warlords and leaders of the three sects and nine streams in various places all found opportunities to befriend Yang Hu, had close contacts with him, and respectfully called him the eldest brother. However, the high-ranking and powerful Yang Hu was carried away by the forces in front of him, and he even had the idea of fighting with Chiang Kai-shek and replacing him.
In May 1936, Yang Hu spent a huge amount of money to build a palace-like villa on the edge of the West Lake in Hangzhou, named "Qingshan Baiju". The villa is magnificent, and it is no different from the emperor's palace.
However, Chiang Kai-shek had already set out to establish the Chiang dynasty in the world, attempting to rule and emulate the feudal emperors. How could he tolerate an arrogant and ambitious person like Yang Hu and call himself a brother and sister, and still want to replace him?
As a result, Chiang Kai-shek began to clean up the Green Gang and take back the power in Yang Hu's hands little by little. Yang Hu not only did not sit on the throne, but also lost his original military power, which exacerbated the dissatisfaction and contradictions between the two, causing them to part ways.
However, after the outbreak of the all-out Anti-Japanese War, Yang Hu was the commander of the Songhu garrison, and he fully supported the "August 13" Anti-Japanese War in Shanghai. However, Chiang Kai-shek always adhered to the principle of "settling the interior before attacking the outside world" and allowed the Japanese invaders to occupy a large area of China's land.
As a result, the two disagreed, and Yang Hu decided to find a different way, and instead of continuing to follow Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists, he went elsewhere to find a way. After the fall of Shanghai, the Kuomintang moved the capital to Chongqing, and he secretly contacted prominent people in Chongqing to confront Chiang Kai-shek, and also contacted the Communists, hoping that they would turn their guns on the invaders.
It was also at this time that he had the privilege of getting acquainted with ***, who worked in Chongqing, to understand the ideas and propositions of the Communist Party, and had many conversations. When talking about the "April 12" coup, Yang Hu felt guilty in his heart and kept confessing to ***.
** Tell Yang Hu with a tolerant attitude: "As long as you are truly repentant, the Communist Party will not blame the past, and the Communist Party will treat the senior Kuomintang generals who are truly repentant." ”
Yang Hu was deeply impressed by his personality charm and magnanimity, and he stood on the united front with the Communists. When the Kuomintang agents captured many prominent people and ordered them to be executed on the spot, ** ordered the Shanghai underground party to do everything in its power to protect and rescue these democrats.
Wu Kejian was a veteran intelligence expert of the Communist Party, and the intelligence system he built provided a lot of enemy intelligence for the liberation war, but he did not have enough military strength to rescue these people.
So, he thought of winning over important people in the enemy's camp and making them available to our party. Although Yang Hu was cut by Chiang Kai-shek, he served as a member of the supervisory committee in Shanghai and had a certain status.
So, Wu Ke insisted on visiting Yang Hu's house and personally explained the importance of the matter to him. After learning the ins and outs of the matter, Yang Hu asked his subordinate Yan Jinwen to come forward to arrange the matter.
In the end, with the help of Yang Hu, Zhang Lan, Luo Longji and other democrats were able to escape Chiang Kai-shek's murder. After the Liberation War, the Kuomintang was defeated and retreated, the Chiang dynasty was crumbling, and when Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan, he originally planned to take Yang Hu with him, but Yang Hu refused to go to Taiwan to live.
Chiang Kai-shek was angry at Yang Hu's act of collaborating with the enemy and betraying the party, and posted wanted notices everywhere. **After learning about it, he instructed the Shanghai underground party to do its best to protect Yang Hu's safety and sent him to Beiping.
**and*** remembered Yang Hu's contribution to the War of Resistance and Liberation, and invited him to participate in the founding ceremony. Although the country's leaders have treated Yang Hu favorably, he is still not satisfied.
As a veteran Kuomintang soldier, Yang Hu still has backward concepts and hedonistic thoughts, and may think that the national leaders are polite to him, so he has the idea of longwangshu.
Once desires are not satisfied, a rebellious mentality may occur. When he was in Shanghai, Yang Hu was the number one and the boss of the Green Gang, and he was touted by everyone. But after the founding of New China, he became an idler, unable to enjoy the respect and praise of everyone, and lost his heart.
Yang Hu once made a name for himself in the party and the people, but because of his personal desires, he went down the wrong path. He repeatedly proposed to *** to serve as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, but because he had been a member of our party and the masses, he did not agree to it, considering that it would lose the support of the people.
However, Yang Hu was resentful of **, listened to **'s propaganda, spread rumors, and even tried to subvert our party's political power. Fortunately, the public security department discovered his behavior in time and put him under surveillance.
His plot was eventually uncovered and he was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by the Beijing Municipal People's Court. This tells us that desire can be both good and harmful, and that we must keep a clear head in order to avoid going down the wrong path.