The cash machine fell, the silver dollars were spilled, and the people looted at a painful price
On May 24, 1949, an unexpected incident occurred in the mountains of Fenghuang County, Hunan. A Kuomintang cash transport machine crashed with a ** sound, and black smoke filled the air.
Curious villagers nearby went one after another and found silver dollars scattered on the ground. However, this seemingly lucky discovery hides the shadow of disaster. The villagers paid a terrible price for the money they had scavenged.
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On May 24, 1949, the villagers of Weixin Township, Fenghuang County, Hunan Province, were working hard in the fields when suddenly, the roar of airplanes was heard in the sky. The villagers thought it was a Japanese plane bombing and instinctively hid.
However, the plane was not the expected threat, but made an emergency landing in the nearby mountains, accompanied by a loud ** sound, and the valley was on fire. When the wreckage cooled down, nearby villagers went to check it out with curiosity.
Before they could get closer, a foul smell mixed with the smell of burnt corpses and burning gasoline came to their nostrils, and it was clear that none of the people on board were spared. Brave villagers donned masks and armed with sticks rummaged through the wreckage of the plane, hoping to find something of value.
Suddenly, someone shouted in surprise, and the villagers gathered to hear the voice. It turned out to be some wooden boxes engraved with the words "**Bank", and some round objects around them, although they had been burned to black.
In the astonishment of the villagers, a silver dollar appeared in front of them, and the eyes of the villagers, who were plagued by poverty, suddenly lit up, and they began to snatch them frantically regardless of their personal image.
They stuffed their money bags full of silver dollars, and some even took off their clothes and pants to hold money, until they could no longer hold them, and then reluctantly left. The news quickly spread throughout the township, attracting all the nearby villagers to bring baskets and pockets, and the whole family went up the mountain to collect money.
They searched the whole mountain, and at night it was full of people with torches looking for money. After the villagers got this sudden wealth, they were worried about being held accountable, so they began to hide the money.
Some people ran away with money overnight, and some even dug up their ancestral graves to hide the money. Among this group of villagers, those who have picked up thousands of silver dollars have come and gone, and there are also those who have picked up dozens of silver dollars.
Of course, there are also some people who don't pick up a penny.
When Wu Youfeng, the village chief of Weixin Village, hurried to the mountain, the scene on the ground was already a mess, and the silver dollar was almost picked up. Many people are still stranded in the mountains, and many more are coming.
Desperate, Wu Youfeng immediately began a frantic search, hoping to find some silver dollars that had not yet been discovered. After finding a few silver dollars, he found another one in the grass.
Just as he was about to bend down to pick it up, another villager stepped forward. People have the idea of greedy for money, and birds die for food, not to mention that there are very few silver dollars left on the mountain, so for this silver dollar, the two had a fierce dispute and even a big fight.
As a result, Wu Youfeng was not only beaten to the point of embarrassment, but even the silver dollar he found before was robbed, so he could only leave in frustration. When he returned to the village and saw that every villager's face was filled with the joy of getting rich, but he had nothing, Wu Youfeng's heart became more and more unbalanced.
In line with the principle of "I'm not happy, and everyone is not happy", he decided to expose this matter.
It turned out that this huge amount of money once gave the people a headache, but Wu Youfeng's report brought them hope. When Wu Songqing, the director of the Finance Department, learned about it, he immediately contacted Cheng Qian, chairman of Hunan Province, and asked him to assist in recovering the silver dollar.
After Cheng Qian learned of the incident, he immediately took action, blocked the scene and assigned Yu Zikun, the captain of the Phoenix County County Defense Brigade, to investigate. Yu Zikun hired nearby villagers to help find silver dollars at a salary of 5 yuan per person per day.
After a week of hard work, they found more than 10,000 silver dollars, which means that the remaining 90,000 may have been snatched by the villagers. After Cheng Qian learned of this situation, he once again ordered Yu Zikun to make every effort to recover the lost money.
He promised that those who voluntarily surrendered would be exempt from punishment, while those who refused to cooperate would face military justice.
After receiving the order from his superiors, Yu Zikun began to collect silver dollars from the villagers, but the villagers had already hidden the money, and in the face of the people who came to collect it, they claimed that they had not picked it up. Although Yu Zikun ordered a search of the villagers' homes, not a penny could be found.
Even later, as soon as the money was mentioned, the villagers began to drive people out. At this time, Yu Zikun was very anxious, and if he couldn't complete the task, he might also be implicated. Therefore, he decided to take a tough approach.
Yu Zikun was originally born as a gangster and had many means, but now with Cheng Qian's support, he is even more unscrupulous. So he ordered the villagers to be arrested and tortured one by one until they handed over the silver dollars.
If there is any resistance, it will be dealt with in accordance with the law. In this way, the villagers did not have the money to cover up, so they handed it over again under Yu Zikun's coercion and inducement.
Yu Zikun was not satisfied, and after the villagers handed it in, he forced each family to pay an additional 80 silver yuan. After all, no one knows how much money each person receives, and if they are less responsible, they can take advantage of the opportunity.
But the villagers were unwilling to pay, so Yu Zikun tortured him. In order to raise the money, the villagers had to sell their belongings, and some even chose to flee. According to statistics, Yu Zikun plundered a total of more than 70,000 silver dollars, and the remaining 30,000 are missing.
However, the People's Liberation Army had already crossed the Yangtze River, and the Chiang dynasty could not protect itself, so Yu Zikun intended to delay time and keep the money for himself. Therefore, in the face of the urging of the people, Yu Zikun always shirked until Lao Chiang retreated to Taiwan, and the money disappeared without a trace, and it was very likely to fall into his private pocket.
Thinking that the matter was over, the villagers finally breathed a sigh of relief, but they did not expect another catastrophe to follow. Soon after the defeat of the Kuomintang, the village began to be inhabited by various bandits and bullies.
Knowing that Yu Zikun only recovered 70,000 yuan, and 30,000 yuan was missing, they speculated that the money was still in the hands of the villagers. As a result, they began to plunder the village, and many people were ruined as a result.
It was not until the arrival of the People's Liberation Army that the villagers were able to live peacefully. It is worth mentioning that there were also a few villagers who escaped in the darkness of night and successfully avoided the disaster.
However, most of the villagers still suffered heavy losses in this incident and hated the Kuomintang to the core. They began to wonder where the money was going and why it had fallen so suddenly.
There has been speculation about the use of the money, some say it was an asset that Chiang Kai-shek was preparing to transfer to Taiwan, others believe that it was a military salary sent to the front, but there is no definite evidence.
It wasn't until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that Mr. Deng Xiaobo, a person who had worked in the National Finance Bureau, uncovered the truth. It turned out that the money transport machine was flying from Guangzhou to Chongqing and Lanzhou.
Despite the fact that the main force had been lost and the defeat of the Kuomintang seemed inevitable, Chiang Kai-shek was still unwilling to accept this reality. In order to win the support of the warlords and bandits in the southwest and northwest, he transferred the 100,000 silver dollars from the ** bank and ordered the transport plane to send it to Chongqing, Lanzhou and other places to show his "sincerity".
What Lao Jiang didn't expect was that the transport plane loaded with silver dollars mysteriously disappeared. After learning the news, Lao Jiang was extremely angry and ordered Mao Renfeng, director of the Secret Bureau, to conduct a thorough investigation of the matter, but there was no result.
Originally, I thought it was shot down and captured by the PLA, but soon after I received news that the plane had crashed in the Hunan area and was snatched by local villagers. Afterwards, the Kuomintang conducted an internal investigation and found that the officer who was originally escorting the silver dollar knew that the Kuomintang was gone, so he wanted to leave a way back for himself.
When he saw so much money, he became greedy. After the plane took off, he threatened the pilot with a gun, and a confrontation ensued. In the chaos, the bullet accidentally hit the plane's fuel tank and ignited it instantly, causing the plane to lose control and crash into the mountains in flames.
Whether it was the escort officers who embezzled it without permission, or the people who took the opportunity to rob the silver dollars, or Yu Zikun who filled his own pockets, they all revealed the corruption within the Kuomintang and the fact that Lao Chiang had lost popular support.
Throughout the ages, only those who win the hearts of the people can win the world. Soon after Chiang failed and fled to Taiwan, the People's Liberation Army, with the strong support of the people, successively liberated the southwest and northwest, and finally liberated the whole of China.
The silver dollar incident clearly tells us that pie does not fall from the sky, and only down-to-earth and hard work is the real way to success.