In 1949, a large transport aircraft loaded with 50 boxes of silver dollars totaling 100,000 ocean , flew from Guangzhou Baiyun Airport to Zhijiang Airport in Huaihua County, Hunan.
The plane suddenly crashed into the mountains while passing over Weixin Township in Fenghuang County. The silver coins scattered everywhere were snatched up by local people.
After receiving this "pie from the sky", many people began to plan how to live a better life. Some planned to build a house and marry a wife, and some planned to go to the county town to enjoy life.
But what makes the people in several surrounding towns and villages feel incredible is that instead of living a better life, these people who suddenly became rich have suffered a catastrophe because of it.
Pictures come from the Internet
After more than a month, these villages changed from a prosperous population to sparsely populated, and the courtyards were dilapidated, desolate and desolate.
Even if there are still people living in individual courtyards, they are all elderly, frail, sick and disabled people, or have family members waiting to be buried. Most of the other people in the village are missing.
It stands to reason that having money is a good thing, so why did these villagers who suddenly got rich not only fail to live a better life, but suddenly fled in all directions?
Why did they suffer such disaster?
Wealth Falling from the Sky
Although the war was raging in 1949, some villages that were not affected by the war still maintained their usual calm.
Hunan Dashan
Weixin Township, Fenghuang County, Hunan is located in the mountains. The several villages in the township have always been relatively peaceful. Except for the occasional plane passing by the sky, they rarely see anything related to the war in the outside world.
But one day in May 1949, the tranquility of the villagers was suddenly broken. What they did not expect was that what broke their peaceful lives would be something that most of them often saw but few of them really came into contact with at that time - —A plane, and it was a crashed plane.
With a loud noise that morning, a large transport plane crashed into the mountainside under the surprised eyes of several villagers.
Plane crash
When the plane crashed in the mountains, faced with the raging fire on the fuselage, the villagers did not dare to approach it at first, but their "desire to explore" about the unexpectedly crashed plane kept watching the excitement. There was huge tension in the hearts of the villagers.
As the fire gradually decreased, a few brave villagers who kept as close to the plane as possible finally discovered that there were indeed many treasures scattered around the plane.
And this treasure is not some strange items that the villagers rarely see, but real boxes and boxes of silver coins.
Suddenly, the eyes of all the people present shone with light. In front of them was a large amount of silver coins, and everyone rushed forward to grab it.
Silver Dollars
Everyone first grabbed a lot of silver coins that were still a little hot due to the fire and quickly put them into their pockets.
Soon all the pockets on everyone's body were filled, and then some people took off their backpacks and continued to crazily put money into them. People who didn't have backpacks lifted up the hem of their coats and pocketed silver dollars in front of their bodies, and some even Some people simply took off their clothes and used them as cloth bags.
Not only that, after some people filled their bodies, they hurried home and called their whole family to bring as many containers as possible to put the money together. Some people even hurried to call their relatives and friends from the surrounding villages to collect money together. .
Silver Dollar
In less than a day, the news of the silver dollar falling from the sky spread like wildfire in eight villages across ten miles. More and more villagers from the villages came one after another to join the gold mining team in full swing.
At night, it was too dark to search, so most of the villagers went home one after another and planned to come back the next day.
However, a few unsatisfied villagers held torches and searched and excavated the site all night long. Although they might only find a few oceans overnight, they felt it was very worthwhile.
The people in this area were looking for money day and night, which quickly alarmed the township chief.
Ou Wenwen, the head of Weixin Township, is a well-known local gangster. Although he is a local official officially appointed by the county magistrate, he is actually a bandit recruited by the Kuomintang.
The picture comes from the Internet
Such a bandit mayor would naturally not allow this huge amount of property to fall into the hands of the local people.
After hearing the news about the huge sum of money falling from the sky, Ou Wenwen immediately led people to rush there. However, when he arrived, a considerable part of the money had already been taken away by local people, and there were still many people digging and searching at the scene.
He could have used the armed forces at his disposal to go door to door in the village and snatch back the money that the people had received.
But in that case, the money would be collected in the name of the government, which would inevitably alarm the county magistrate. By then, he might not be able to receive the money at all.
The picture comes from the Internet
At this time, Ou Wenwen just wanted to make a small fortune for himself first, and steal as much as he could secretly take away from the crash site in the name of protecting the scene.
So Ou Wenwen ordered the dozen people he brought to stand near the plane with guns in hand, and no one was allowed to approach.
In the surrounding mud, puddles, and under the scattered plane wreckage, Ou Wenwen's people searched everywhere with backpacks and found a total of more than 10,000 oceans.
After Ou Wenwen and others occupied the crash site, Wu Youfeng, the head of the neighboring township, also received the news. He was also a bandit. He thought this was a great opportunity to make a fortune, so he immediately led his people there.
The picture comes from the Internet
Seeing that Ou Wenwen had arrived first, Wu Youfeng was unwilling to give up. In order to get a share of the pie, he negotiated with Ou Wenwen: "Old Ou, everyone who meets you has a share. You don't want this money. "Take it all for yourself?"
Ou Wenzhang didn't want the money on his territory to be divided by others, so he said impatiently: "This is our Weixin Township matter. What does it have to do with you? Do you think you can't steal it?"
The two of them refused to give in to each other, and the men on both sides were at war with each other. They almost started a fight. In the end, Wu Youfeng considered that he was not on his own territory and would not be able to take advantage in the event of a fight. So he left angrily.
The picture comes from the Internet
But after leaving, Wu Youfeng couldn't balance his heart for a long time. What he couldn't get, others couldn't even imagine, so he directly sent someone to tell the county magistrate Chen Quzhen.
After Chen Quzhen heard the news, she stood up from her chair in anger and said angrily: "What a European article, you didn't report the crash and wanted to embezzle the money. It's really lawless."
Chen Quzhen He immediately picked up the pistol on the table and rushed to the crash site with more than a hundred people. Sure enough, he saw Ou Wenwen leading twenty or thirty people there to dig for money.
Ou Wenzhang's men saw someone coming and hurriedly stepped forward to stop him, but were kicked to the ground by Chen Quzhen.
Chen Quzhen
Ou Wenwen hurriedly stepped forward and saw that it was the county magistrate who had come in person. He immediately flattered and smiled. Before Ou Wenwen could say greetings, Chen Quzhen said sternly: "I will settle the score with you in the future, and let you do it now." The people were evacuated, and the county government took over the place."
Chen Quzhen ordered his subordinate Yu Zikun to lead a house-to-house search in nearby villages.
Disasters brought about by wealth
At that time, people in the village were planning with their families how to use the money to get married, build houses, or even buy some official job.
The sudden sound of the door being kicked open instantly broke their dream. The burly men who rushed in were not dressed as soldiers or bandits, but the long guns and short guns in their hands were indeed real ones. .
Pictures come from the Internet
Every time the thugs enter a house's yard, they will scream: "We know that your family has taken the money, hand it over quickly, or you will go to jail!"
The timid villagers just hid it obediently All the money was handed over, and the more daring ones said confidently that they had not taken any money. They waited until the thugs found the jingling money bags from the beams, the cellar, under the stove, and under the bed before they knelt on the ground. Begging for mercy.
There are so many people taking money, and it is impossible for the thugs to really arrest them all and send them to jail. Those who are found with money will often be beaten severely.
The picture comes from the Internet
In addition, some people bury the money in the soil overnight in advance or send it to relatives' homes. If they are not found, they will also be beaten severely and asked where they hid the money.
The most innocent people are those honest people who did not participate in the robbery. They originally thought that they had a clear conscience and the thugs could not do anything to them.
However, after the thugs broke into the house, they searched the house inside and out without saying a word, and took away all the money they found. Even if the money was accumulated by them over the years, none of it was spared. Confiscated.
The picture comes from the Internet
That afternoon, there were more than 200 people searching Da Yang in various villages near the crash site. Although they were nominally on behalf of the government to recover the lost money, their words and deeds made the villagers feel that , these people seem more like a group of bandits.
In fact, the Kuomintang government and the Kuomintang army at that time had entered the stage of banditry.
Because the Kuomintang army suffered consecutive defeats on the battlefield, the veterans were quickly consumed, and the new recruits lacked combat experience and collapsed. The Kuomintang, which had lost popular support, found it difficult to recruit new recruits from among the people. Therefore, it became the Kuomintang's self-rescue by recruiting scattered armed forces from all over the country. method.
At that time, the bandits who were entrenched in various places had certain combat capabilities and were familiar with the local conditions. Therefore, these gangs became the targets of Chiang Kai-shek to win more and more attention.
Chiang Kai-shek
And this amount of money that accidentally fell into the ocean with the plane was the activity funds that Chiang Kai-shek specially allocated from the Central Financial Office to the Kuomintang troops in the southwest region in order to win over the bandits in the southwest region.
In order to recover the money, Yu Zikun searched house to house for several days before finding more than 50,000 silver dollars from each village. In order to collect 100,000 silver dollars to send a message to the superiors, he simply let out a message and asked everyone Each family had to hand over one hundred oceans, otherwise someone in the family would be sent to jail.
The hooligan policy formulated by Yu Zikun suddenly exploded in all the towns and villages, and the entire Weixin Township was in a state of uproar.
Some villagers have never seen a hundred oceans in their lives, but now they are suddenly asked to take out so much money for no reason. It is simply hateful and ridiculous.
Silver dollars
In just two or three days, many villagers left for other places at night. Some villagers even used all their savings and even sold their property to collect the money and paid it, and they have been homeless ever since. wandering life.
There are also some people who have neither savings nor property that can be sold, but do not want to escape to other places, so they are taken away by thugs and imprisoned. They are not freed until the local liberation.
The Origin of the Huge Money
In fact, after Chen Quzhen received the news and took control of the crash site, the then Hunan Provincial Chairman Cheng Qian also sent a telegram to Chen Quzhen, asking him to recover the lost property as soon as possible.
The reason why Cheng Qian put pressure on Chen Quzhen was because he received an investigation order from Chiang Kai-shek.
Cheng Qian
In the past, the loss of one hundred thousand silver dollars was not a big deal to Chiang Kai-shek. Among the corrupt Kuomintang officials, the private property amassed by any middle-level official would probably reach this amount.
But in 1949 when the Kuomintang regime was in danger, these 100,000 silver dollars meant to Chiang Kai-shek that tens of thousands of bandits could not be bribed by him.
The Finance Department, which was already in dire straits, could no longer allocate money from other places to make up for the shortfall, so the money made Chiang Kai-shek feel distressed.
He immediately ordered Mao Renfeng from the Security Bureau to send people to the scene to investigate carefully. The Security Bureau hired professionals to inspect the wreckage of the plane.
The picture comes from the Internet
This is an American transport aircraft . The pilots of Chennault 's flight group performed the transportation mission. No signs of malfunction were found on the aircraft, but the agents found that a person on the plane had been shot in the head.
The person who was shot was an official from the Central Financial Services Administration. There were eight people on the plane at the time. In addition to this official, there were two of his family members, three escorting soldiers and two American pilots.
According to people from the Security Bureau, the reason why the plane suddenly crashed was probably because the three soldiers became greedy after seeing the huge amount of money on the plane and wanted to hijack the plane.
The three people encountered resistance during a standoff with Finance Department officials, so they shot and killed the officials. However, the bullet fired from the gun hit the engine of the plane, causing the plane to lose control and crash.
The picture comes from the Internet
Although the matter was of great importance, Chiang Kai-shek, who was unable to protect himself, did not continue to pay attention to the matter. He only asked Hunan Provincial Chairman Cheng Qian to supervise the matter and recover the silver coins.
Chen Quzhen's subordinate Yu Zikun finally plundered more than 80,000 silver dollars from several villages. Chen Quzhen was very satisfied, but did not hand over the money.
He knew that the Kuomintang regime was gone, so even though Cheng Qian sent multiple telegrams urging Chen Quzhen to hand over the recovered silver coins, he always found excuses. After a few months, the matter was settled and the plane crashed. Several villages near the location continued to be dilapidated for some time.
pictures come from the Internet
