At the end of 1948, mainland China was at the time when the country and the world changed hands and the world changed hands. Chiang Kai-shek put the strategy of retreating to Taiwan on the agenda. He secretly ordered the " Central Bank " gold in the Shanghai vault to secretly transport the gold in Taiwan. From December 1948 to May 1949, millions of taels of gold were continuously transported from the mainland to Taiwan. How much gold did the Kuomintang government transport away? How did these Taiwan gold, silver dollars and foreign exchange be used? How many gold stocks are there in mainland China after 1949? There are many different opinions and are a mystery to many people.
December 1, 1948 was the most unforgettable day for Fan Yuanjian, a crew member of the Kuomintang customs anti-smuggling ship "Star", who was a member of the Kuomintang's customs anti-smuggling ship. At 2 p.m., he and other crew members were told that no one was allowed to leave the ship due to the highest secret mission. Immediately afterwards, a series of abnormal things happened one after another. At 12 o'clock in the evening, the "Starfish" did not sail according to the previous route, but turned left at the Yangtze River Estuary in the reverse direction and drove to the " Far East No. 1 metropolis" Shanghai Bund Bank of China Terminal.
Then, something even more strange happened. Teams of porters dressed like ordinary people appeared on the small road on the north side of the Huamao Hotel (also known as " Sassoon Building ", the current Heping Hotel), escorted by the military and police with live ammunition, they carefully carried boxes of mysterious goods onto the "Starfish", and then the ship sailed into the vast night.
The next day, "-word Linxi Daily " published an explosive news, saying that the gold of China's treasury was being quietly transported away in the most primitive way. Is this news report true or false? Is the items transported by the porter really the treasury gold? For a long time, whether Chiang Kai-shek "stealed" or "smuggled" a large amount of gold and silver dollars to Taiwan has been an unsolved mystery.
Back then, Chiang Kai-shek's "general account" and then Lieutenant General Director of the Finance Department of the Joint Logistics Headquarters of the Kuomintang Army was an important figure who personally experienced the mainland's golden transportation platform. His son Wu Xingyong discovered the top-secret "military record" left by his father many years after his death. After in-depth research and investigation, he fully disclosed to the author for the first time that the Kuomintang-Republic negotiations broke down and the regime was about to collapse. Under Chiang Kai-shek's behind-the-scenes command, the National Government secretly moved huge treasury gold, silver dollars and US dollars from Shanghai to Taiwan in batches, thinking that it would prepare for it to start a new job and wait for the opportunity to "counterattack the mainland."
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In August 1948, it was only 12 spring and autumn since the Kuomintang regime reached its peak of prosperity in the mainland in 1936. On the battlefield between the two sides of the Huaihe River, the National Army is repeating the scene of the decisive battle in the Northeast where the army was defeated and the generals were lost, and the people and land were lost. " The thoroughfare of five provinces " Xuzhou lost, and the gateway to Jiangnan was already opened.
A government on the verge of bankruptcy, the primary symbol of this is: prices soar and the economy collapses in an all-out manner. In the out-of-control and chaos of "turning the road, prices will double", many wealthy people in Shanghai have begun to plan to escape from the mainland. The regime was about to collapse, and Li Zongren, Vice President of the Guangxi clique, forced the palace internally and took advantage of the situation to demand that Chiang Kai-shek "get out of power."
On October 9, Chiang Kai-shek, who was attacked from both sides, secretly summoned Yu Hongjun, the president of the "central bank" to talk about the first time that gold is transported by "changing the location of deposits". On November 22, Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary: "Please choose a simple environment, narrow the scope, fundamental transformation, and start a new job without any effort. If you fail in the current situation, you will not be interested." (Original "Cheng Kai-shek's Diary" collected by the Hoover Institute of Stanford University in the United States) It is obvious that Chiang has begun to consider giving up the mainland at this time. The simple environment he refers to is Taiwan.
However, at this time, the Kuomintang army was still controlling the area south of the Yangtze River. Considering starting a new business "does not mean that there is no hope for the mainland battlefield." However, Chiang was "afraid of the loss of Beijing and Shanghai", so he was anxious to transport the original gold and silver dollars in Shanghai to Taiwan, which had not yet been affected by the war. The remaining small amount of gold and silver would be scattered in Chengdu, Guangzhou and other places, specifically for military and political organs to pay and military expenses.
file shows that at the beginning of the victory of Anti-Japanese War , the only gold left in the treasury of the National Government was less than 30,000 taels. Later, 495,000 taels of the treasury of the Wang Puppet Regime were confiscated, and the issuance of " gold coupon " received 1.84 million taels from the people. In addition, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the United States owed China 400 million US dollars in construction costs for military airports, and the National Government bought more than 6 million taels of gold with US$220 million. Subtracting expenses, by the end of 1948, the total amount of gold in the treasury was still more than 4 million taels (now worth approximately US$9.85 billion).
At the end of November 1948, a secret telegram was sent to Yu Hongjun's office, requiring him to transport half of the treasury gold to Taiwan within a week.
Why did Chiang Kai-shek, the first advocate, and his Kuomintang authorities choose Taiwan as their habitat? In fact, this is closely related to Chiang Kai-shek's aide and Zhang Qiyun, known as " Chen Bulei Second".
Zhang Qiyun (1900-1985), a geographer and historian, from Yin County, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.
In 1943, Zhang Qiyun was invited to visit the United States and engaged in research and lectures at Harvard University. As a fellow villager of Chiang Kai-shek, he was a pure scholar before entering his shogunate. During the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Qiyun returned to China and became the dean of the School of Literature of Zhejiang University. He came to Chiang Kai-shek with the introduction of his fellow villager Chen Bulei. Outside the academic field, Zhang Qiyun was once Chiang Kai-shek's "will accept everything he says". After
" three major battles ", as a retreat place, the Kuomintang only has the Southwest and Taiwan to choose.
How Zhang Qiyun made suggestions to Chiang Kai-shek at that time is unknown now, but Zhang Qiyun is a famous geographer and a scholar specializing in "national strategy". He also led a team to inspect after the "liberation" of Taiwan. Therefore, as the "monetary expert" around Chiang Kai-shek at this time, his suggestions were undoubtedly of course very important.
Zhang Qiyun was the advocate of the "East Retreatment" of the Kuomintang at that time around the direction of retreat. He believes that the retreat west is inappropriate, and explains the advantages of withdrawing from Taiwan from the east: first of all, the Taiwan Strait is wide and the sea is high, and only it can temporarily prevent the Chinese Communist army without the advantages of the sea and the air force from pursuing victory.
Secondly, as a "rejuvenation base for anti-communist and saving the country", Taiwan has advantages that other regions in the mainland cannot match.
Zhang Qiyun pointed out in his proposal that Taiwan has been blocked from the mainland for a long time, and the CCP’s organization and personnel activities are less. After the 1947 “2.28” incident, there is less interference. Even if there is a slight turmoil in the future, Taiwan will be surrounded by the sea and are closed. Railways and highways in the country are well connected, and rural areas have been developed. The authorities are very likely to suppress unstable factors and stabilize the society.
Therefore, if the Kuomintang moves the Party, government, military, financial and cultural centers to Taiwan and brings more funds and talents, it will surely build a stable and strong Taiwan base, and can "counterattack the mainland" at the appropriate time. This proposal is the only option. While planning the Golden Taiwan, in December 1948, Jiang Yi sent a telegram, in an unquestionable tone, and Chen Cheng, a direct confidant in the recovery department, took over as the chairman of the "Taiwan Province". At the same time, Jiang Ching-kuo , was also appointed as the chairman of the "Taiwan Provincial Party Committee", and a large number of mainland heavy industrial equipment began to be transported to Taiwan one after another, which was a signal of crossing the sea to move to Taiwan.
For Chiang, the gold of the treasury is his only capital to build in Taiwan and start a new business, and he must be cautious, but at this time he can only rely on his relatives and confidants: his eldest son Chiang Ching-kuo is responsible for communicating and escorting the army, his brother-in-law Song Ziwen is responsible for dispatching the transport ships of the General Administration of Customs, and Yu Hongjun's responsibility is to coordinate official documents between the "central bank" and the treasury.
Yu Zhixin's secret staff member He Shanyuan recalled that during the period when he was ordered to plan the secret transportation of gold, Yu Hongjun "whoever wrote, copied, sealed and sealed official documents, was allowed to be handled in a small room behind the presidential office." Almost all contacts with the outside world were cut off, "and indirect negotiations on martial law, shipping, etc. outside, Yan Zuo, deputy director of the Issuance Bureau, was responsible for all actions, and all actions were kept extremely confidential." (He Shanyuan: "A Supplementary Notes on Mr. Yu's Words and Deeds in Life")
On the evening of departure, "the military implemented special martial law and cut off traffic, so no one outside knew about this matter at that time."
"Starfish" and other items loaded 2.6 million taels of gold and 4 million silver dollars as planned. On December 4, 1948, they successfully arrived in Keelung .
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Surprisingly, on December 1, British journalist George Vain was staying in a room on the side of the Bank of China Hotel at the Huamao Hotel. After midnight, he looked east and could still see the "Starfish" on the shore under the dim street lights; he looked west and could see the side door of Bank of China (now No. 74 Dianchi Road) and the intersection of Yuanmingyuan Road. The porters either picked one box or two people picked two boxes, and walked from Dianchi Road to the beach. A 500-ton customs anti-smuggling ship docked on the Huangpu River. As a journalist, he determined with his professional intuition that these small and heavy burdens must be precious gold, so he immediately sent the following telegram to London and the world in the Chinachem Hotel: "...All China's gold is being transported away in the traditional way - coolie."
The day after George Wain sent the telegram, British newspapers published this news, and Reuters also released the following news: "The Kuomintang government and the Central Bank smuggled gold." Hong Kong's "Hua Shang Daily" and other newspapers also reprinted this news. After the
news was reported, the "golden round coupon" that had depreciated by 500 times in just half a year was issued, but now it is even more "depreciated like an avalanche", completely out of control.
In August 1948, the National Government carried out currency reform , issued gold yuan coupons, and forced the exchange of private gold, silver and foreign currencies. After that, the price fell and the gold yuan coupons declining all the way, causing public grievances to continue to ferment. The government was forced to announce that the Bank of China had a profit of 100 times the price of pure gold, which was far lower than the black market, and allowed Shanghai citizens to exchange 1,000 yuan gold yuan coupon (the daily price was raised) for gold yuan coupons, but the price was limited to 1,000 taels per day, so they could buy first. So, thousands of citizens went to the bank to queue up.
At the moment when citizens were waiting for gold exchange, Chiang Kai-shek transported all the huge amount of treasury gold that was originally used for the issuance of gold coupons in the south. The anxiety of the people suddenly turned into desperate madness: On December 24, 1948, the people who were waiting to exchange gold lost control of their emotions. In order to squeeze into the bank, they fought for 7 deaths, collided, and trampled, resulting in 7 deaths and 50 injuries, which was a "gold run tragedy." After
, the authorities immediately announced that they would stop exchanging gold coupons for gold, which completely blocked the people's life. On August 19, when the gold dollar coupon was just issued, the redemption rate was 200 yuan for pure gold 1 tael alloy coupons and 4 yuan per dollar per dollar. 1 silver dollar could be exchanged for 2 yuan gold dollar coupons; by January 1949, it had become 1,000:1; on April 23, when the People's Liberation Army attacked Nanjing, 10 million gold dollar coupons could not be exchanged for 1 silver dollar; by June, after the liberation of Shanghai, the value of 1 silver dollar was more than 500 million gold dollar coupons.
However, Chiang Kai-shek seemed to have no time to care about these. The military expenditure was huge and the situation was getting worse. Political enemies such as Li Zongren were pressing to step down step by step, prompting him to speed up the delivery of gold every second. Because Jiang knew deeply that it would never be possible to continue to control the treasury after stepping down.
So, on January 1, 1949, 600,000 taels of gold left from Shanghai, of which 500,000 taels of secret transportation were transported to the Taiwan Strait.
At this time, in the Huaihai Battle , the Kuomintang army was completely defeated, and internal and external difficulties were in trouble. Chiang Kai-shek knew that it was a foregone conclusion. To this end, he had to formulate a legal pass in advance in order to continue to transport the treasury gold after leaving the field. His approach is to allocate the remaining treasury gold in the name of military expenditure.
However, the financial community has different opinions on this. Finance Minister Xu Kan is a tactful opponent. He is worried that this move will lead to an extremely empty treasury and induce a run-off trend, with unimaginable consequences.
So, Chiang Kai-shek sent Chiang Ching-kuo to Shanghai to contact Yu Hongjun, communicated with the military to implement transportation capacity and security guarantees, and put pressure on those who oppose the financial community. The two sides finally reached a compromise: to draw up a "draft agreement" to "advance" half of the military expenditure from the treasury.
htmlOn January 11, Wu Songqing received an order to apply for a draft agreement to convert gold into military expenditure. This is the key to the fact that Jiang can still transport gold from the treasury after stepping down. htmlOn January 16, Chiang Kai-shek personally met with Yu Hongjun and Bank of China General Manager Xi Demao . "My father met with Mr. II and instructed the central and Chinese banks to handle foreign exchange intent, which was to preserve a glimmer of hope for the country."("Diary of Chiang Ching-kuo")At 6 a.m. on January 20, the Navy's "Haiping", "Meipeng", "Kunlun", "Emei" and other ships , carrying 900,000 taels of gold, 30 million silver dollars and 70 million US dollars, had 500 boxes of silver dollars not loaded, so there were only 18 hours left before Chiang Kai-shek left the field.
Before this Chiang Kai-shek has specially appointed his guard chief Shi Zude as the guard commander, and arrived at Xiamen to fight for the gold transportation. By early February, the task of transporting gold had been roughly completed. This point is also confirmed by the "Character of the Chinese Kuomintang" compiled by the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing: "Up to this day, the central bank will transport most of the gold and silver to Taiwan and Xiamen. Only 200,000 taels of gold were left in Shanghai. ”
However, on January 10 (100,000 taels of gold) and on the 20th, the two batches of gold were not directly transported to Taiwan, but were transported to the underground vault of the Bank of China on the beautiful Gulangyu in Xiamen at that time (currently located at No. 30 Huangyan Road, Gulangyu).
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What puzzled future generations were that The two batches of gold to Gulangyu, Xiamen, were not included in the gold revenue and expenditure accounts of Taiwan's "Central Bank" at all. Taiwan's "Ministry of National Defense" archives also lacked military budget and expenditure information for 1949.
From this draft agreement, the "Central Bank" legitimately transferred the gold from the treasury and stored it in Wu Songqing's personal account - Wu Cheng Jiang's "white gloves". "My father must be very clear about which troops gold is used, and he cannot leave a record. "Wu Xingyong studied his father's manuscript and inferred that some of the missing files should have been intentionally destroyed, and the other part may not have been recorded at all.
Taiwan archives data show that on January 27, 1949, the "Central Bank" delivered 1,317 boxes of files and delivered the "Taiping Wheel" from Shanghai to Keelung Port, Taiwan. It sank on the way outside Zhoushan, Zhejiang. Five central bank staff and thousands of boxes of central bank files all sank with the ship. The golden grass agreement is likely to be among them.
However, after checking the documents, Wu Xingyong believed that those who sank with the "Taiping Wheel" should It is not the most important central bank account book, so more complete files are likely to be included in the "central bank" files in Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu or Taipei. Of course, it is not ruled out that it is lost or intentionally destroyed during the war.
Chiang Kai-shek's "Daxi Archives" show that the gold allocated to Wu Songqing was divided into 6 batches, totaling 700,000 taels. But the total amount of gold transported to Gulangyu is nearly 1 million taels.
Ding Wenjing, general manager of Changtian Communications, Taiwan Want Want China Times Media Group, who has been pursuing the "golden secret file" for many years, said that in addition to Xiamen's top-secret wartime vault, he later turned against the Communist Party. The first national army warship " Chongqing ", contains 280,000 taels of gold, perhaps the batch of missing gold.
"Chongqing" was later sank by the Kuomintang's bomber in Huludao Military Port. Ding Wenjing learned from a veteran "Chongqing" in Shanghai who did not want to be named that in April 1951, the People's Liberation Army salvaged the remains of the "Chongqing" and retrieved more than 100,000 taels of gold and more than 300,000 silver dollars. Where did the gold, silver and foreign exchange stored in the underground vault of the Bank of China in Gulangyu Island?
Since the gold shipped to Xiamen was put into storage in the name of "military expenses", it was directly controlled by Chiang Kai-shek to support the need to fight the People's Liberation Army in 1949. Nearly one million taels of gold and 30 million silver dollars were shipped directly to Gulangyu as military expenses, while 100 million taels of silver ingots may be shipped directly to Taiwan.
In July 1949, gold in Xiamen continued to be shipped to Taiwan. In Guangzhou's diary on July 14, Wu Songqing wrote: "...I get the phone today, and the deposited gold in Xiamen can be transported as planned. After this matter is done, one thing can be saved. ”
Since gold transportation mostly uses aircraft from Xiamen to Taipei, there were many eyewitnesses from the Air Force back then. In 2004, a man named Liu Cuncai, who lived in Missouri, USA, and a person named Yang Rongzhi who participated in the gold air transport to Taiwan that year stood up and spoke.
Yang Rongzhi was a flight officer who graduated from the fifth phase of the Air Force Aviation School in 1936. Although many years have passed, he still remembers it very clearly.He said that the gold was packed in boxes, and boxes were very heavy and had to be lifted and carried onto the plane. Yang Shi was the captain of the 20th brigade of the Air Transport Team. He said: "It was the spring of 1949. The situation in the mainland was very critical. The 20th Brigade was ordered to carry personnel and materials. The transport aircraft traveled to and from mainland China and Taiwan many times before completing the task."
Liu Cuncai also indirectly participated in the task of transporting gold. In 1949, Liu Cuncai arrived in Taiwan as an exiled student to assist in the defense of Hsinchu ; after arriving in Taiwan, he served as a sergeant in the combat room of the 11th Squadron, responsible for registering the time and content of the flight mission. He pointed out that at that time, the two air force transport brigades of the "National Army" had nearly 100 air transport capabilities. The transport planes set off and all had airplanes and were full of personnel and materials when they returned to Taiwan. The so-called "materials" are actually gold and silver dollars, but the registration book says it is "materials". The pilot who returned from the mission revealed that the ones carrying back were gold and silver dollars. Due to the urgent situation, the pilot also saw that the silver dollars that were not in time to ship were spilled all over the ground... The 20th brigade was therefore called the "Golden Team". After Jiang left the wing, Yu Hongjun also resigned. Liu Gongyun, who took over as the president of the "Central Bank", believed that "as Chiang Kai-shek stepped down, it is not appropriate to continue to order the transfer of treasury deposits." Therefore, he ignored the secret gold fortunes that the Jiang father and son repeatedly urged to handle.
htmlOn January 28, Yu Hongjun, who continued to plan the golden fortune in Shanghai as the executive director of the Central Bank, sent a secret telegram to Chiang Kai-shek "please ask Brother Guo to urge him to do it." The person who urged him to do this was Liu Gongyun. At this time, it was 18 days since Chiang ordered all the gold from the treasury.Until February 3, Yu Hongjun called Chiang Ching-kuo again and said that "the deposit of gold and silver in Shanghai has been negotiated with President Liu Xunyun, and the affairs here are generally ready." It can be seen that Yu Hongjun finally convinced Liu Gongyun.
At this time, the Air Force Commander-in-Chief Zhou Zhirou, the Navy Commander-in-Chief Gui Yongqing, and the Joint Logistics Headquarters Commander-in-Chief Guo Chan were ordered to arrive in Shanghai together on January 30, and together with Wu Songqing, he met Liu Gongyun, and cooperated with Yu Hongjun's strong persuasion. Liu Gongyun finally wavered and agreed to hand over the remaining gold and silver dollars in the treasury.
htmlOn February 6, Nanjing Ming Forbidden City Airport and Shanghai Jiangwan Airport , which belongs to the Air Force Transport Brigade, received an emergency mobilization order simultaneously. At night, transport fleets of the two places took off at the same time, carrying 554,000 taels of gold straight to Taipei Songshan Airport.At this point, the Nanjing treasury has been cleared, while the Shanghai treasury has only left 200,000 taels. Taiwan already had 600 of the total gold in the treasury at that time, with a total of 3.04 million taels.
Just settled Liu Gongyun, on February 8, Chiang Kai-shek heard that Li Zongren was trying to control the "central bank", and immediately sent his attendant secretary Zhou Hongtao to Shanghai. Zhou Hongtao found out that at this time, most of the "central bank" deposits had already been transported to Xiamen Taiwan as scheduled, and "there were only 200,000 taels of deposit in Shanghai", and Chiang Kai-shek was relieved.
When Li Zongren discovered that the treasury gold was emptied, it was February 17, nearly a month after he took office as president. Li Zongren immediately ordered Liu to attack Yun and no longer transport the deposited gold to other places. Liu Gongyun did not reply.
Li wrote to Chen Cheng, demanding the gold to be shipped back and mobilized the Guangxi legislators to put pressure on it. Chen replied in reply that "this matter is subject to the jurisdiction of the central bank, please contact the central bank to coordinate." Li looked for the "central bank" again, and Liu Gongyun replied, "The gold is now in storage and should not be transported out."
Li Zongren's order can only enter file cabinet in the end.
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Li Zongren was unable to transport the gold back to the mainland. Until the morning of April 23, 1949, the sound of cannons could be heard everywhere in the suburbs of Nanjing, and the "acting president" left sadly on the "Chasing Cloud" special plane.
When Li left, the streets of Shanghai were already in war. The "Commander-in-Chief of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou Guard" Tang Enbo , who is responsible for guarding Shanghai, not only leads a 300,000 army to support half of the rivers and mountains, but also has a secret mission: transport out the remaining 200,000 taels of gold in Shanghai inventory and 60,000 of the 220,000 Shanghai defenders.
In mid-May, Jiang sent Tang five handwritten letters in a row, which clearly stated, "In addition to the necessary amount to maintain finance in Shanghai, 20,000 taels of gold and 1 million silver dollars will be left."
In addition to the handwritten letter, Jiang sent Yu Hongjun from Hong Kong to Shanghai to secretly meet Tang Enbo.Subsequently, Tang personally left a note asking the central bank to "except for the temporary storage of 5,000 taels of gold and 300,000 silver dollars, the rest should be kept in designated safe places." The so-called safe place refers to Taiwan.
At this time, the People's Liberation Army has set up a formation outside Shanghai city, and leftists in the financial industry, led by Huang Yanpei's son and central bank auditor Huang Jingwu , are also trying their best to prevent the gold from being transported away. Huang Yi became a non-party member of the Shanghai Bureau of the Communist Party of China in February 1949. According to the arrangements of the CCP’s underground party, Huang monitored the Kuomintang’s secret gold transportation operations, while mobilizing all sectors of Shanghai to stop the foreign transportation of gold and silver, and secretly mobilized some bank employees to take boycott actions.
Because Huang Jingwu called for the stopping of the Golden Movement Platform, he instigated the well-equipped tax police group under the Ministry of Finance of the National Government to "abandon the dark and turn to the light when conditions permit". Finally, on the morning of May 12, he was arrested by the secret agent, commanded by Mao Sen, the then director of the Shanghai Police Bureau, in the office of the 404 of the "Central Bank", and was secretly buried alive in the detention center of the Ministry of National Defense Secretariat in No. 192, Chezhan Road, Nanshi City (later changed to No. 152).
Time is tight and the ships are limited, so Tang decided to use trustworthy military ships and China Merchants Ships. In addition to the "Hanmin Wheel" of China Merchants Corporation, the gold transport ships mobilized by
Tang also have military ships "Meipeng" and "Zhongji Ship", which are loaded with gold and are loaded with soldiers and relatives. After two days and two nights, the shipment was finally completed, and sporadic PLA vanguards appeared in Shanghai. The "Han Min Wheel" left the port until late at dusk on May 19. Before he arrived at , Wusongkou , he was hit by a shell. Fortunately, the shell fell into the water next to the ship and exploded. The "Han Min Wheel" was forced to stop driving. At dawn the next day, the two warships, escorted by .
What a temptation in the chaotic world of war. Will anyone be moved and take risks? Jiang Weihan, the husband of
m Ropezu, was a colonel of the Secret Service at that time, and was responsible for secretly escorting gold to Taiwan. Before leaving, he got married to rice and boarded the "Hanmin Wheel". Mi Shengzu recalled that the boss of the ship actually proposed to Jiang Weihan to privately divide gold: "Mr. Jiang, there are many small islands from Shanghai to Taiwan. We will turn this rudder a little. How about everyone going to this island to be the owner of Treasure Island?" He only saw the public identity of Jiang's investment promotion staff.
Jiang Weihan quickly organized secret armed escort personnel on the ship, "a total of twelve", in groups of four, and took shifts to strictly guard the vault until the port.
The same coveting also occurred in August 1949. Meng Zhaonian, who was working in the Xiamen Customs Administration at the time, also witnessed a bloody incident, and the cause was that he felt greedy.
Meng Zhaonian took the "Xilin Wheel" of China Merchants Group to retreat to Taiwan. The ship was moored at the dock for a long time and was ready to leave at any time. There were thousands of people on the ship. Suddenly one day, the officer leading the troops asked all crew members and soldiers to gather on the deck urgently. Meng Zhaonian saw a soldier being handcuffed and pointed at a gun. The captain asked sternly: "A gold brick is missing in the vault. Is it your hand or foot?" The soldier admitted and, according to the captain's request, repeated the action process of how to steal from the vault in public. Afterwards, gunfire sounded and soldiers were shot publicly, killing one to warn a hundred.
blood stained the deck, and Meng Zhaonian only realized that the ship he was on contained a large amount of gold transferred from Gulangyu.
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1949, the sound of cannons in the War of Liberation shocked this century-old city. On May 28, the house in the alley opened the window and heard the clear sound of drums and horns. A pair of young soldiers walked through the alley, holding bright red flags. The army led by the Communist Party of China occupied Shanghai, and this "Eastern Paris" officially entered the red era.
Just the day before the liberation of Shanghai, the transport team leader Zhang Zhenguo led the team to lead the soldiers to take 8 trucks and boxes of RMB, heading straight to the Bank of China on Bund , and sent it into the most beautiful first vault in the Far East, which is "as big as three basketball courts", and the golden round coupon era was declared over.According to local chronicles in Shanghai at that time, after the National Government left, the gold in all banks in Shanghai was only 6,180 taels, less than 1% of the original gold reserves of the national treasury. Where did Chen Cheng, the first batch of 2.6 million taels of gold transportation platform listed on
, went after the first batch of 2.6 million taels of gold on
? The largest was on June 15, 1949. Chen Cheng, on June 1, instructed by Chiang Kai-shek, allocated 800,000 taels of gold and 10 million US dollars of foreign exchange from the "central bank" as import trade funds, issued and circulated the first batch of New Taiwan Dollar that had no linkage with the gold dollar bonds (this is the reserve for the initial issuance of 200 million in NTD), and exchanged old NTD at 1:40,000. At the same time, it also ordered that the circulation of gold coupons be stopped in Taiwan.
But at first, the Taiwanese people were half-believing and half-doubting about the large amount of gold being shipped. In order to prove that the government has sufficient gold issuance preparations, Chen Chengwen opened a gold savings deposit from Yizhong Bank on Hengyang Road, Taiwan, that is, the New Taiwan Dollar can be exchanged for gold.
During his more than a year of office, Chen Cheng also carried out drastic reforms to Taiwan, implemented 375 rent reduction, currency reform, entry control, martial law, training the army, and implementing planned education, and achieved the "Kinmen Guningtou Victory", which not only saved the last place of the Kuomintang, but also had a profound impact on Taiwanese society.
"Cheng Kai-shek's Diary" proofreader Pan Bangzheng further believes that the benign interaction between the winning of credibility and the stability of the people has also laid the foundation for Taiwan's economic stability for more than ten years since then.
In addition to being a reserve for issuing the New Taiwan Dollar, this batch of gold is also the fulcrum of the difficult years when the National Government first arrived in Taiwan. According to Ding Wenjing's research, almost all of the expenditures of the "government" in the early days of coming to Taiwan depended on gold: military salaries, economic plans every four years, and support and development of private enterprises.
At that time, a private 1, the lowest military rank in Taiwan, received only NT$7 per month; a civil servant was only NT$10 per day. The other side of living a difficult life is that the nearly one million taels of gold in the Gulangyu vault was only 125,000 taels left after 9 months. This made Chiang deeply stressed, and Wu Songqing was also worried in his diary, "What should I do if I finish my old job?"
Therefore, when Chiang Kai-shek "re-action and viewing things" in Taiwan and waved and smiled at the people, he was actually feeling bitter: the imminent cross-strait war and the supplies of the 600,000 troops were quickly swallowing the gold in Taiwan. In his memoir, Zhou Hongtao said that "the largest amount of money consumed is military expenditure, and an average of 180,000 taels are required to be allocated per month." By June 1950, Taiwan had only three months of gold stock left.
Korean War broke out at this time, and the United States turned to support the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan. The Seventh Fleet joined the task of assisting Taiwan defense. Subsequently, it resumed 15 years of economic assistance to Taiwan, with a total amount of aid reaching US$1.5 billion. Taiwan's financial dilemma was finally lifted, and it also ushered in an economic takeoff with strong financial support.
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should be admitted that Yu Hongjun's role is crucial in the process of smuggling gold and silver dollars to Taiwan. On June 2, 1960, Yan Jiagan, who assisted Chen Cheng in presided over the "currency reform" and issued New Taiwan dollars to stabilize finance, took over gold and silver dollars and accepted an interview with a reporter from Taiwan's " Self-Reliance Evening News " said in an interview with "In the years we came to Taiwan, we have not encountered much financial difficulties, and it is all Mr. Yu's contribution to the country."
Because Yu Hongjun was able to continue his rule after the Kuomintang was resigned from Taiwan, he was appointed as the "Minister of Finance" and the President of the Central Bank by Chiang Kai-shek, and chairman of Taiwan Transport, Farmers' Bank and Bank of Taiwan. In 1953, he became the "Provincial Chairman" of Taiwan. In May 1954, he was nominated as the "President". During his tenure as the "Premier of the Executive Yuan", Yu was impeached by the "Premier of the Executive Yuan" for friction with the " Supervision Office " on improving the treatment of military, public and educational personnel. Under this situation, on January 16, 1958, Chiang Kai-shek personally invited more than 200 members of the Central Standing Committee of the Kuomintang, members of the Central Committee and the Kuomintang’s “Supervisory Committee” to deliver a speech saying, “Director Yu is the head of state administrative department, how can he be investigated in such a situation?” “We hope you remember what I said. If there are similar problems in the future, you must use your power with caution.
At the end of 1948, mainland China was at the time when the country and the world changed hands and the world changed hands. Chiang Kai-shek put the strategy of retreating to Taiwan on the agenda. He secretly ordered the " Central Bank " gold in the Shanghai vault to secretly transport the gold in Taiwan. From December 1948 to May 1949, millions of taels of gold were continuously transported from the mainland to Taiwan. How much gold did the Kuomintang government transport away? How did these Taiwan gold, silver dollars and foreign exchange be used? How many gold stocks are there in mainland China after 1949? There are many different opinions and are a mystery to many people.
December 1, 1948 was the most unforgettable day for Fan Yuanjian, a crew member of the Kuomintang customs anti-smuggling ship "Star", who was a member of the Kuomintang's customs anti-smuggling ship. At 2 p.m., he and other crew members were told that no one was allowed to leave the ship due to the highest secret mission. Immediately afterwards, a series of abnormal things happened one after another. At 12 o'clock in the evening, the "Starfish" did not sail according to the previous route, but turned left at the Yangtze River Estuary in the reverse direction and drove to the " Far East No. 1 metropolis" Shanghai Bund Bank of China Terminal.
Then, something even more strange happened. Teams of porters dressed like ordinary people appeared on the small road on the north side of the Huamao Hotel (also known as " Sassoon Building ", the current Heping Hotel), escorted by the military and police with live ammunition, they carefully carried boxes of mysterious goods onto the "Starfish", and then the ship sailed into the vast night.
The next day, "-word Linxi Daily " published an explosive news, saying that the gold of China's treasury was being quietly transported away in the most primitive way. Is this news report true or false? Is the items transported by the porter really the treasury gold? For a long time, whether Chiang Kai-shek "stealed" or "smuggled" a large amount of gold and silver dollars to Taiwan has been an unsolved mystery.
Back then, Chiang Kai-shek's "general account" and then Lieutenant General Director of the Finance Department of the Joint Logistics Headquarters of the Kuomintang Army was an important figure who personally experienced the mainland's golden transportation platform. His son Wu Xingyong discovered the top-secret "military record" left by his father many years after his death. After in-depth research and investigation, he fully disclosed to the author for the first time that the Kuomintang-Republic negotiations broke down and the regime was about to collapse. Under Chiang Kai-shek's behind-the-scenes command, the National Government secretly moved huge treasury gold, silver dollars and US dollars from Shanghai to Taiwan in batches, thinking that it would prepare for it to start a new job and wait for the opportunity to "counterattack the mainland."
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In August 1948, it was only 12 spring and autumn since the Kuomintang regime reached its peak of prosperity in the mainland in 1936. On the battlefield between the two sides of the Huaihe River, the National Army is repeating the scene of the decisive battle in the Northeast where the army was defeated and the generals were lost, and the people and land were lost. " The thoroughfare of five provinces " Xuzhou lost, and the gateway to Jiangnan was already opened.
A government on the verge of bankruptcy, the primary symbol of this is: prices soar and the economy collapses in an all-out manner. In the out-of-control and chaos of "turning the road, prices will double", many wealthy people in Shanghai have begun to plan to escape from the mainland. The regime was about to collapse, and Li Zongren, Vice President of the Guangxi clique, forced the palace internally and took advantage of the situation to demand that Chiang Kai-shek "get out of power."
On October 9, Chiang Kai-shek, who was attacked from both sides, secretly summoned Yu Hongjun, the president of the "central bank" to talk about the first time that gold is transported by "changing the location of deposits". On November 22, Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary: "Please choose a simple environment, narrow the scope, fundamental transformation, and start a new job without any effort. If you fail in the current situation, you will not be interested." (Original "Cheng Kai-shek's Diary" collected by the Hoover Institute of Stanford University in the United States) It is obvious that Chiang has begun to consider giving up the mainland at this time. The simple environment he refers to is Taiwan.
However, at this time, the Kuomintang army was still controlling the area south of the Yangtze River. Considering starting a new business "does not mean that there is no hope for the mainland battlefield." However, Chiang was "afraid of the loss of Beijing and Shanghai", so he was anxious to transport the original gold and silver dollars in Shanghai to Taiwan, which had not yet been affected by the war. The remaining small amount of gold and silver would be scattered in Chengdu, Guangzhou and other places, specifically for military and political organs to pay and military expenses.
file shows that at the beginning of the victory of Anti-Japanese War , the only gold left in the treasury of the National Government was less than 30,000 taels. Later, 495,000 taels of the treasury of the Wang Puppet Regime were confiscated, and the issuance of " gold coupon " received 1.84 million taels from the people. In addition, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the United States owed China 400 million US dollars in construction costs for military airports, and the National Government bought more than 6 million taels of gold with US$220 million. Subtracting expenses, by the end of 1948, the total amount of gold in the treasury was still more than 4 million taels (now worth approximately US$9.85 billion).
At the end of November 1948, a secret telegram was sent to Yu Hongjun's office, requiring him to transport half of the treasury gold to Taiwan within a week.
Why did Chiang Kai-shek, the first advocate, and his Kuomintang authorities choose Taiwan as their habitat? In fact, this is closely related to Chiang Kai-shek's aide and Zhang Qiyun, known as " Chen Bulei Second".
Zhang Qiyun (1900-1985), a geographer and historian, from Yin County, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.
In 1943, Zhang Qiyun was invited to visit the United States and engaged in research and lectures at Harvard University. As a fellow villager of Chiang Kai-shek, he was a pure scholar before entering his shogunate. During the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Qiyun returned to China and became the dean of the School of Literature of Zhejiang University. He came to Chiang Kai-shek with the introduction of his fellow villager Chen Bulei. Outside the academic field, Zhang Qiyun was once Chiang Kai-shek's "will accept everything he says". After
" three major battles ", as a retreat place, the Kuomintang only has the Southwest and Taiwan to choose.
How Zhang Qiyun made suggestions to Chiang Kai-shek at that time is unknown now, but Zhang Qiyun is a famous geographer and a scholar specializing in "national strategy". He also led a team to inspect after the "liberation" of Taiwan. Therefore, as the "monetary expert" around Chiang Kai-shek at this time, his suggestions were undoubtedly of course very important.
Zhang Qiyun was the advocate of the "East Retreatment" of the Kuomintang at that time around the direction of retreat. He believes that the retreat west is inappropriate, and explains the advantages of withdrawing from Taiwan from the east: first of all, the Taiwan Strait is wide and the sea is high, and only it can temporarily prevent the Chinese Communist army without the advantages of the sea and the air force from pursuing victory.
Secondly, as a "rejuvenation base for anti-communist and saving the country", Taiwan has advantages that other regions in the mainland cannot match.
Zhang Qiyun pointed out in his proposal that Taiwan has been blocked from the mainland for a long time, and the CCP’s organization and personnel activities are less. After the 1947 “2.28” incident, there is less interference. Even if there is a slight turmoil in the future, Taiwan will be surrounded by the sea and are closed. Railways and highways in the country are well connected, and rural areas have been developed. The authorities are very likely to suppress unstable factors and stabilize the society.
Therefore, if the Kuomintang moves the Party, government, military, financial and cultural centers to Taiwan and brings more funds and talents, it will surely build a stable and strong Taiwan base, and can "counterattack the mainland" at the appropriate time. This proposal is the only option. While planning the Golden Taiwan, in December 1948, Jiang Yi sent a telegram, in an unquestionable tone, and Chen Cheng, a direct confidant in the recovery department, took over as the chairman of the "Taiwan Province". At the same time, Jiang Ching-kuo , was also appointed as the chairman of the "Taiwan Provincial Party Committee", and a large number of mainland heavy industrial equipment began to be transported to Taiwan one after another, which was a signal of crossing the sea to move to Taiwan.
For Chiang, the gold of the treasury is his only capital to build in Taiwan and start a new business, and he must be cautious, but at this time he can only rely on his relatives and confidants: his eldest son Chiang Ching-kuo is responsible for communicating and escorting the army, his brother-in-law Song Ziwen is responsible for dispatching the transport ships of the General Administration of Customs, and Yu Hongjun's responsibility is to coordinate official documents between the "central bank" and the treasury.
Yu Zhixin's secret staff member He Shanyuan recalled that during the period when he was ordered to plan the secret transportation of gold, Yu Hongjun "whoever wrote, copied, sealed and sealed official documents, was allowed to be handled in a small room behind the presidential office." Almost all contacts with the outside world were cut off, "and indirect negotiations on martial law, shipping, etc. outside, Yan Zuo, deputy director of the Issuance Bureau, was responsible for all actions, and all actions were kept extremely confidential." (He Shanyuan: "A Supplementary Notes on Mr. Yu's Words and Deeds in Life")
On the evening of departure, "the military implemented special martial law and cut off traffic, so no one outside knew about this matter at that time."
"Starfish" and other items loaded 2.6 million taels of gold and 4 million silver dollars as planned. On December 4, 1948, they successfully arrived in Keelung .
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Surprisingly, on December 1, British journalist George Vain was staying in a room on the side of the Bank of China Hotel at the Huamao Hotel. After midnight, he looked east and could still see the "Starfish" on the shore under the dim street lights; he looked west and could see the side door of Bank of China (now No. 74 Dianchi Road) and the intersection of Yuanmingyuan Road. The porters either picked one box or two people picked two boxes, and walked from Dianchi Road to the beach. A 500-ton customs anti-smuggling ship docked on the Huangpu River. As a journalist, he determined with his professional intuition that these small and heavy burdens must be precious gold, so he immediately sent the following telegram to London and the world in the Chinachem Hotel: "...All China's gold is being transported away in the traditional way - coolie."
The day after George Wain sent the telegram, British newspapers published this news, and Reuters also released the following news: "The Kuomintang government and the Central Bank smuggled gold." Hong Kong's "Hua Shang Daily" and other newspapers also reprinted this news. After the
news was reported, the "golden round coupon" that had depreciated by 500 times in just half a year was issued, but now it is even more "depreciated like an avalanche", completely out of control.
In August 1948, the National Government carried out currency reform , issued gold yuan coupons, and forced the exchange of private gold, silver and foreign currencies. After that, the price fell and the gold yuan coupons declining all the way, causing public grievances to continue to ferment. The government was forced to announce that the Bank of China had a profit of 100 times the price of pure gold, which was far lower than the black market, and allowed Shanghai citizens to exchange 1,000 yuan gold yuan coupon (the daily price was raised) for gold yuan coupons, but the price was limited to 1,000 taels per day, so they could buy first. So, thousands of citizens went to the bank to queue up.
At the moment when citizens were waiting for gold exchange, Chiang Kai-shek transported all the huge amount of treasury gold that was originally used for the issuance of gold coupons in the south. The anxiety of the people suddenly turned into desperate madness: On December 24, 1948, the people who were waiting to exchange gold lost control of their emotions. In order to squeeze into the bank, they fought for 7 deaths, collided, and trampled, resulting in 7 deaths and 50 injuries, which was a "gold run tragedy." After
, the authorities immediately announced that they would stop exchanging gold coupons for gold, which completely blocked the people's life. On August 19, when the gold dollar coupon was just issued, the redemption rate was 200 yuan for pure gold 1 tael alloy coupons and 4 yuan per dollar per dollar. 1 silver dollar could be exchanged for 2 yuan gold dollar coupons; by January 1949, it had become 1,000:1; on April 23, when the People's Liberation Army attacked Nanjing, 10 million gold dollar coupons could not be exchanged for 1 silver dollar; by June, after the liberation of Shanghai, the value of 1 silver dollar was more than 500 million gold dollar coupons.
However, Chiang Kai-shek seemed to have no time to care about these. The military expenditure was huge and the situation was getting worse. Political enemies such as Li Zongren were pressing to step down step by step, prompting him to speed up the delivery of gold every second. Because Jiang knew deeply that it would never be possible to continue to control the treasury after stepping down.
So, on January 1, 1949, 600,000 taels of gold left from Shanghai, of which 500,000 taels of secret transportation were transported to the Taiwan Strait.
At this time, in the Huaihai Battle , the Kuomintang army was completely defeated, and internal and external difficulties were in trouble. Chiang Kai-shek knew that it was a foregone conclusion. To this end, he had to formulate a legal pass in advance in order to continue to transport the treasury gold after leaving the field. His approach is to allocate the remaining treasury gold in the name of military expenditure.
However, the financial community has different opinions on this. Finance Minister Xu Kan is a tactful opponent. He is worried that this move will lead to an extremely empty treasury and induce a run-off trend, with unimaginable consequences.
So, Chiang Kai-shek sent Chiang Ching-kuo to Shanghai to contact Yu Hongjun, communicated with the military to implement transportation capacity and security guarantees, and put pressure on those who oppose the financial community. The two sides finally reached a compromise: to draw up a "draft agreement" to "advance" half of the military expenditure from the treasury.
htmlOn January 11, Wu Songqing received an order to apply for a draft agreement to convert gold into military expenditure. This is the key to the fact that Jiang can still transport gold from the treasury after stepping down. htmlOn January 16, Chiang Kai-shek personally met with Yu Hongjun and Bank of China General Manager Xi Demao . "My father met with Mr. II and instructed the central and Chinese banks to handle foreign exchange intent, which was to preserve a glimmer of hope for the country."("Diary of Chiang Ching-kuo")At 6 a.m. on January 20, the Navy's "Haiping", "Meipeng", "Kunlun", "Emei" and other ships , carrying 900,000 taels of gold, 30 million silver dollars and 70 million US dollars, had 500 boxes of silver dollars not loaded, so there were only 18 hours left before Chiang Kai-shek left the field.
Before this Chiang Kai-shek has specially appointed his guard chief Shi Zude as the guard commander, and arrived at Xiamen to fight for the gold transportation. By early February, the task of transporting gold had been roughly completed. This point is also confirmed by the "Character of the Chinese Kuomintang" compiled by the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing: "Up to this day, the central bank will transport most of the gold and silver to Taiwan and Xiamen. Only 200,000 taels of gold were left in Shanghai. ”
However, on January 10 (100,000 taels of gold) and on the 20th, the two batches of gold were not directly transported to Taiwan, but were transported to the underground vault of the Bank of China on the beautiful Gulangyu in Xiamen at that time (currently located at No. 30 Huangyan Road, Gulangyu).
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What puzzled future generations were that The two batches of gold to Gulangyu, Xiamen, were not included in the gold revenue and expenditure accounts of Taiwan's "Central Bank" at all. Taiwan's "Ministry of National Defense" archives also lacked military budget and expenditure information for 1949.
From this draft agreement, the "Central Bank" legitimately transferred the gold from the treasury and stored it in Wu Songqing's personal account - Wu Cheng Jiang's "white gloves". "My father must be very clear about which troops gold is used, and he cannot leave a record. "Wu Xingyong studied his father's manuscript and inferred that some of the missing files should have been intentionally destroyed, and the other part may not have been recorded at all.
Taiwan archives data show that on January 27, 1949, the "Central Bank" delivered 1,317 boxes of files and delivered the "Taiping Wheel" from Shanghai to Keelung Port, Taiwan. It sank on the way outside Zhoushan, Zhejiang. Five central bank staff and thousands of boxes of central bank files all sank with the ship. The golden grass agreement is likely to be among them.
However, after checking the documents, Wu Xingyong believed that those who sank with the "Taiping Wheel" should It is not the most important central bank account book, so more complete files are likely to be included in the "central bank" files in Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu or Taipei. Of course, it is not ruled out that it is lost or intentionally destroyed during the war.
Chiang Kai-shek's "Daxi Archives" show that the gold allocated to Wu Songqing was divided into 6 batches, totaling 700,000 taels. But the total amount of gold transported to Gulangyu is nearly 1 million taels.
Ding Wenjing, general manager of Changtian Communications, Taiwan Want Want China Times Media Group, who has been pursuing the "golden secret file" for many years, said that in addition to Xiamen's top-secret wartime vault, he later turned against the Communist Party. The first national army warship " Chongqing ", contains 280,000 taels of gold, perhaps the batch of missing gold.
"Chongqing" was later sank by the Kuomintang's bomber in Huludao Military Port. Ding Wenjing learned from a veteran "Chongqing" in Shanghai who did not want to be named that in April 1951, the People's Liberation Army salvaged the remains of the "Chongqing" and retrieved more than 100,000 taels of gold and more than 300,000 silver dollars. Where did the gold, silver and foreign exchange stored in the underground vault of the Bank of China in Gulangyu Island?
Since the gold shipped to Xiamen was put into storage in the name of "military expenses", it was directly controlled by Chiang Kai-shek to support the need to fight the People's Liberation Army in 1949. Nearly one million taels of gold and 30 million silver dollars were shipped directly to Gulangyu as military expenses, while 100 million taels of silver ingots may be shipped directly to Taiwan.
In July 1949, gold in Xiamen continued to be shipped to Taiwan. In Guangzhou's diary on July 14, Wu Songqing wrote: "...I get the phone today, and the deposited gold in Xiamen can be transported as planned. After this matter is done, one thing can be saved. ”
Since gold transportation mostly uses aircraft from Xiamen to Taipei, there were many eyewitnesses from the Air Force back then. In 2004, a man named Liu Cuncai, who lived in Missouri, USA, and a person named Yang Rongzhi who participated in the gold air transport to Taiwan that year stood up and spoke.
Yang Rongzhi was a flight officer who graduated from the fifth phase of the Air Force Aviation School in 1936. Although many years have passed, he still remembers it very clearly.He said that the gold was packed in boxes, and boxes were very heavy and had to be lifted and carried onto the plane. Yang Shi was the captain of the 20th brigade of the Air Transport Team. He said: "It was the spring of 1949. The situation in the mainland was very critical. The 20th Brigade was ordered to carry personnel and materials. The transport aircraft traveled to and from mainland China and Taiwan many times before completing the task."
Liu Cuncai also indirectly participated in the task of transporting gold. In 1949, Liu Cuncai arrived in Taiwan as an exiled student to assist in the defense of Hsinchu ; after arriving in Taiwan, he served as a sergeant in the combat room of the 11th Squadron, responsible for registering the time and content of the flight mission. He pointed out that at that time, the two air force transport brigades of the "National Army" had nearly 100 air transport capabilities. The transport planes set off and all had airplanes and were full of personnel and materials when they returned to Taiwan. The so-called "materials" are actually gold and silver dollars, but the registration book says it is "materials". The pilot who returned from the mission revealed that the ones carrying back were gold and silver dollars. Due to the urgent situation, the pilot also saw that the silver dollars that were not in time to ship were spilled all over the ground... The 20th brigade was therefore called the "Golden Team". After Jiang left the wing, Yu Hongjun also resigned. Liu Gongyun, who took over as the president of the "Central Bank", believed that "as Chiang Kai-shek stepped down, it is not appropriate to continue to order the transfer of treasury deposits." Therefore, he ignored the secret gold fortunes that the Jiang father and son repeatedly urged to handle.
htmlOn January 28, Yu Hongjun, who continued to plan the golden fortune in Shanghai as the executive director of the Central Bank, sent a secret telegram to Chiang Kai-shek "please ask Brother Guo to urge him to do it." The person who urged him to do this was Liu Gongyun. At this time, it was 18 days since Chiang ordered all the gold from the treasury.Until February 3, Yu Hongjun called Chiang Ching-kuo again and said that "the deposit of gold and silver in Shanghai has been negotiated with President Liu Xunyun, and the affairs here are generally ready." It can be seen that Yu Hongjun finally convinced Liu Gongyun.
At this time, the Air Force Commander-in-Chief Zhou Zhirou, the Navy Commander-in-Chief Gui Yongqing, and the Joint Logistics Headquarters Commander-in-Chief Guo Chan were ordered to arrive in Shanghai together on January 30, and together with Wu Songqing, he met Liu Gongyun, and cooperated with Yu Hongjun's strong persuasion. Liu Gongyun finally wavered and agreed to hand over the remaining gold and silver dollars in the treasury.
htmlOn February 6, Nanjing Ming Forbidden City Airport and Shanghai Jiangwan Airport , which belongs to the Air Force Transport Brigade, received an emergency mobilization order simultaneously. At night, transport fleets of the two places took off at the same time, carrying 554,000 taels of gold straight to Taipei Songshan Airport.At this point, the Nanjing treasury has been cleared, while the Shanghai treasury has only left 200,000 taels. Taiwan already had 600 of the total gold in the treasury at that time, with a total of 3.04 million taels.
Just settled Liu Gongyun, on February 8, Chiang Kai-shek heard that Li Zongren was trying to control the "central bank", and immediately sent his attendant secretary Zhou Hongtao to Shanghai. Zhou Hongtao found out that at this time, most of the "central bank" deposits had already been transported to Xiamen Taiwan as scheduled, and "there were only 200,000 taels of deposit in Shanghai", and Chiang Kai-shek was relieved.
When Li Zongren discovered that the treasury gold was emptied, it was February 17, nearly a month after he took office as president. Li Zongren immediately ordered Liu to attack Yun and no longer transport the deposited gold to other places. Liu Gongyun did not reply.
Li wrote to Chen Cheng, demanding the gold to be shipped back and mobilized the Guangxi legislators to put pressure on it. Chen replied in reply that "this matter is subject to the jurisdiction of the central bank, please contact the central bank to coordinate." Li looked for the "central bank" again, and Liu Gongyun replied, "The gold is now in storage and should not be transported out."
Li Zongren's order can only enter file cabinet in the end.
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Li Zongren was unable to transport the gold back to the mainland. Until the morning of April 23, 1949, the sound of cannons could be heard everywhere in the suburbs of Nanjing, and the "acting president" left sadly on the "Chasing Cloud" special plane.
When Li left, the streets of Shanghai were already in war. The "Commander-in-Chief of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou Guard" Tang Enbo , who is responsible for guarding Shanghai, not only leads a 300,000 army to support half of the rivers and mountains, but also has a secret mission: transport out the remaining 200,000 taels of gold in Shanghai inventory and 60,000 of the 220,000 Shanghai defenders.
In mid-May, Jiang sent Tang five handwritten letters in a row, which clearly stated, "In addition to the necessary amount to maintain finance in Shanghai, 20,000 taels of gold and 1 million silver dollars will be left."
In addition to the handwritten letter, Jiang sent Yu Hongjun from Hong Kong to Shanghai to secretly meet Tang Enbo.Subsequently, Tang personally left a note asking the central bank to "except for the temporary storage of 5,000 taels of gold and 300,000 silver dollars, the rest should be kept in designated safe places." The so-called safe place refers to Taiwan.
At this time, the People's Liberation Army has set up a formation outside Shanghai city, and leftists in the financial industry, led by Huang Yanpei's son and central bank auditor Huang Jingwu , are also trying their best to prevent the gold from being transported away. Huang Yi became a non-party member of the Shanghai Bureau of the Communist Party of China in February 1949. According to the arrangements of the CCP’s underground party, Huang monitored the Kuomintang’s secret gold transportation operations, while mobilizing all sectors of Shanghai to stop the foreign transportation of gold and silver, and secretly mobilized some bank employees to take boycott actions.
Because Huang Jingwu called for the stopping of the Golden Movement Platform, he instigated the well-equipped tax police group under the Ministry of Finance of the National Government to "abandon the dark and turn to the light when conditions permit". Finally, on the morning of May 12, he was arrested by the secret agent, commanded by Mao Sen, the then director of the Shanghai Police Bureau, in the office of the 404 of the "Central Bank", and was secretly buried alive in the detention center of the Ministry of National Defense Secretariat in No. 192, Chezhan Road, Nanshi City (later changed to No. 152).
Time is tight and the ships are limited, so Tang decided to use trustworthy military ships and China Merchants Ships. In addition to the "Hanmin Wheel" of China Merchants Corporation, the gold transport ships mobilized by
Tang also have military ships "Meipeng" and "Zhongji Ship", which are loaded with gold and are loaded with soldiers and relatives. After two days and two nights, the shipment was finally completed, and sporadic PLA vanguards appeared in Shanghai. The "Han Min Wheel" left the port until late at dusk on May 19. Before he arrived at , Wusongkou , he was hit by a shell. Fortunately, the shell fell into the water next to the ship and exploded. The "Han Min Wheel" was forced to stop driving. At dawn the next day, the two warships, escorted by .
What a temptation in the chaotic world of war. Will anyone be moved and take risks? Jiang Weihan, the husband of
m Ropezu, was a colonel of the Secret Service at that time, and was responsible for secretly escorting gold to Taiwan. Before leaving, he got married to rice and boarded the "Hanmin Wheel". Mi Shengzu recalled that the boss of the ship actually proposed to Jiang Weihan to privately divide gold: "Mr. Jiang, there are many small islands from Shanghai to Taiwan. We will turn this rudder a little. How about everyone going to this island to be the owner of Treasure Island?" He only saw the public identity of Jiang's investment promotion staff.
Jiang Weihan quickly organized secret armed escort personnel on the ship, "a total of twelve", in groups of four, and took shifts to strictly guard the vault until the port.
The same coveting also occurred in August 1949. Meng Zhaonian, who was working in the Xiamen Customs Administration at the time, also witnessed a bloody incident, and the cause was that he felt greedy.
Meng Zhaonian took the "Xilin Wheel" of China Merchants Group to retreat to Taiwan. The ship was moored at the dock for a long time and was ready to leave at any time. There were thousands of people on the ship. Suddenly one day, the officer leading the troops asked all crew members and soldiers to gather on the deck urgently. Meng Zhaonian saw a soldier being handcuffed and pointed at a gun. The captain asked sternly: "A gold brick is missing in the vault. Is it your hand or foot?" The soldier admitted and, according to the captain's request, repeated the action process of how to steal from the vault in public. Afterwards, gunfire sounded and soldiers were shot publicly, killing one to warn a hundred.
blood stained the deck, and Meng Zhaonian only realized that the ship he was on contained a large amount of gold transferred from Gulangyu.
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1949, the sound of cannons in the War of Liberation shocked this century-old city. On May 28, the house in the alley opened the window and heard the clear sound of drums and horns. A pair of young soldiers walked through the alley, holding bright red flags. The army led by the Communist Party of China occupied Shanghai, and this "Eastern Paris" officially entered the red era.
Just the day before the liberation of Shanghai, the transport team leader Zhang Zhenguo led the team to lead the soldiers to take 8 trucks and boxes of RMB, heading straight to the Bank of China on Bund , and sent it into the most beautiful first vault in the Far East, which is "as big as three basketball courts", and the golden round coupon era was declared over.According to local chronicles in Shanghai at that time, after the National Government left, the gold in all banks in Shanghai was only 6,180 taels, less than 1% of the original gold reserves of the national treasury. Where did Chen Cheng, the first batch of 2.6 million taels of gold transportation platform listed on
, went after the first batch of 2.6 million taels of gold on
? The largest was on June 15, 1949. Chen Cheng, on June 1, instructed by Chiang Kai-shek, allocated 800,000 taels of gold and 10 million US dollars of foreign exchange from the "central bank" as import trade funds, issued and circulated the first batch of New Taiwan Dollar that had no linkage with the gold dollar bonds (this is the reserve for the initial issuance of 200 million in NTD), and exchanged old NTD at 1:40,000. At the same time, it also ordered that the circulation of gold coupons be stopped in Taiwan.
But at first, the Taiwanese people were half-believing and half-doubting about the large amount of gold being shipped. In order to prove that the government has sufficient gold issuance preparations, Chen Chengwen opened a gold savings deposit from Yizhong Bank on Hengyang Road, Taiwan, that is, the New Taiwan Dollar can be exchanged for gold.
During his more than a year of office, Chen Cheng also carried out drastic reforms to Taiwan, implemented 375 rent reduction, currency reform, entry control, martial law, training the army, and implementing planned education, and achieved the "Kinmen Guningtou Victory", which not only saved the last place of the Kuomintang, but also had a profound impact on Taiwanese society.
"Cheng Kai-shek's Diary" proofreader Pan Bangzheng further believes that the benign interaction between the winning of credibility and the stability of the people has also laid the foundation for Taiwan's economic stability for more than ten years since then.
In addition to being a reserve for issuing the New Taiwan Dollar, this batch of gold is also the fulcrum of the difficult years when the National Government first arrived in Taiwan. According to Ding Wenjing's research, almost all of the expenditures of the "government" in the early days of coming to Taiwan depended on gold: military salaries, economic plans every four years, and support and development of private enterprises.
At that time, a private 1, the lowest military rank in Taiwan, received only NT$7 per month; a civil servant was only NT$10 per day. The other side of living a difficult life is that the nearly one million taels of gold in the Gulangyu vault was only 125,000 taels left after 9 months. This made Chiang deeply stressed, and Wu Songqing was also worried in his diary, "What should I do if I finish my old job?"
Therefore, when Chiang Kai-shek "re-action and viewing things" in Taiwan and waved and smiled at the people, he was actually feeling bitter: the imminent cross-strait war and the supplies of the 600,000 troops were quickly swallowing the gold in Taiwan. In his memoir, Zhou Hongtao said that "the largest amount of money consumed is military expenditure, and an average of 180,000 taels are required to be allocated per month." By June 1950, Taiwan had only three months of gold stock left.
Korean War broke out at this time, and the United States turned to support the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan. The Seventh Fleet joined the task of assisting Taiwan defense. Subsequently, it resumed 15 years of economic assistance to Taiwan, with a total amount of aid reaching US$1.5 billion. Taiwan's financial dilemma was finally lifted, and it also ushered in an economic takeoff with strong financial support.
7
should be admitted that Yu Hongjun's role is crucial in the process of smuggling gold and silver dollars to Taiwan. On June 2, 1960, Yan Jiagan, who assisted Chen Cheng in presided over the "currency reform" and issued New Taiwan dollars to stabilize finance, took over gold and silver dollars and accepted an interview with a reporter from Taiwan's " Self-Reliance Evening News " said in an interview with "In the years we came to Taiwan, we have not encountered much financial difficulties, and it is all Mr. Yu's contribution to the country."
Because Yu Hongjun was able to continue his rule after the Kuomintang was resigned from Taiwan, he was appointed as the "Minister of Finance" and the President of the Central Bank by Chiang Kai-shek, and chairman of Taiwan Transport, Farmers' Bank and Bank of Taiwan. In 1953, he became the "Provincial Chairman" of Taiwan. In May 1954, he was nominated as the "President". During his tenure as the "Premier of the Executive Yuan", Yu was impeached by the "Premier of the Executive Yuan" for friction with the " Supervision Office " on improving the treatment of military, public and educational personnel. Under this situation, on January 16, 1958, Chiang Kai-shek personally invited more than 200 members of the Central Standing Committee of the Kuomintang, members of the Central Committee and the Kuomintang’s “Supervisory Committee” to deliver a speech saying, “Director Yu is the head of state administrative department, how can he be investigated in such a situation?” “We hope you remember what I said. If there are similar problems in the future, you must use your power with caution."
was impeached and Yu Xinling suffered serious trauma, so he resigned from the position of "President" and served as the president of the Central Bank. On June 1, 1960, he died of illness in Taipei at the age of 62.
. Regarding the total amount of gold shipped out in Shanghai, in 1958, Yu Hongjun said in response to the inquiry in the Legislative Yuan: "The inventory of gold was transported to Taiwan, and because of the extraordinary circumstances, he was ordered to make an emergency retreat, resulting in incomplete accounts, and all the former accounting cashiers and other personnel failed to come to Taiwan, resulting in the inability to clean up the withdrawal accounts..." Later, in response to rumors that there was a gold shortage in the outside world, the Taipei District Court investigated the files with the "Central Bank". Afterwards, in March 1953, the "Supervision Institute" and once in the "Audit Department" in more than three years in 1956, "the relevant case files were investigated and The account book vouchers were lost because of incomplete account statements.
Wu Xingyong introduced that the gold that was ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to be transported away was about 4.8 million taels of gold, plus silver rounds , foreign exchange, etc., and the total value was about 7 million taels of gold.
So, where are these golds that have experienced vicissitudes used? For example, in terms of all millions of taels of gold, in 1949, the military and political expenses used in the mainland were 1.55 million taels (of which 249,000 were transported back to Taiwan). The remaining 3.25 million taels were used in Taiwan in 1949 and 1950, of which the military expenses were 1.1 million taels, the government expenses were 900,000 taels, and the rest were reserves for NTDs. There were still about 1.08 million taels of gold stored in the Wenyuan "Treasury" on Xinwu Road, Xindian, New Taipei City.
In June 1950, Chiang Kai-shek ordered all the gold transported from all over the mainland to Taiwan and concentrated in the treasury of the Military Control Commission to be paid back to the "treasury". Previously, the batch of gold transported from the secret treasury of Gulangyu has been wandering outside the "treasury" and became Chiang's de facto "small treasury".
With the abolition of the "small treasury", the mainland transported Taiwan gold that successfully helped Taiwan through difficult years finally withdrew from the historical stage. In May 2008, four "legislators" of the Kuomintang, accompanied by Yang Jinlong, the vice president of the "central bank", went to Wenyuan to visit the "treasury" and found that the total amount of 13.61 million taels of gold in stock at that time was quietly placed on neatly equipped glass cabinets. All quantities and gold content were clearly marked, of which 1.08 million taels of gold from the mainland have been since June 1950 After entering the warehouse, it was not used again.
A Jiazi passed, Chiang Kai-shek left, and took away millions of gold and the last little confidence and patience of the 40 million people at that time. Those gold flowed along the Yangtze River to the other side of the strait, which is also the descendants of Yan and Huang. The smoke of history has faded, and peace and development have become a global trend. The vicissitudes of history are somewhat sad. Whether in Taiwan or in the mainland, these golds cannot be cut off. What cannot be cut off is the welfare of the Chinese nation accumulated by gold and silver. To this day, cross-strait relations have been constantly developing, and the shallow straits are destined to be just a short period of nostalgia in the long river of history.
(excerpted from "Historist Tea House" 2014, Vol. 2)
anecdote Things 2:
One-character flat shoulder king
Zhang Xun was preparing to restore the throne, and he told his wife that his wife did not agree. After the restoration was successful, Zhang Xun was appointed as prince. His wife scolded him for not having any conscience and said, "The Republic of China has treated you well. You are even taking the blame for the world. Even if you don't think about yourself, you should also consider your descendants! Although you are named Prince Zhongyong, I'm afraid you will be named One-character flat shoulder king in the future. "Zhang Xun asked what to say. His wife said loudly: "You will definitely not be able to save your head in the future. If you cut off your head with one knife, will your neck be flat with your shoulders? "
God and Dog
Gu Hongming was born in Nanyang and studied in the West. He only started to systematically learn Chinese traditional culture after returning to China in his twenties, so he often wrote Chinese characters incorrectly. Once when he talked about "Yan Zi Spring and Autumn", he wrote "Yan" as "Yan". After a classmate pointed it out, he was very embarrassed and corrected it while talking to himself: "Chinese Chinese characters are really annoying. 'Yan' and 'Yan' just change the part of the character "官" and the meaning of the character is different. There is no such naughty thing in English. "A good student pointed out that there are also English, such as "god" that turns on it and becomes "dog". After hearing this, Gu Hongming shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands, and smiled it.
