From the Anti-Japanese War to the War of Liberation, the struggle on the intelligence front was equally thrilling. In comparison, our party's intelligence work is superior, but the Kuomintang also has many powerful spies. Shen Zhiyue is the most mysterious one, and he was also lurking next to Chairman Mao.
Shen Zhiyue, originally from Xianju County, Zhejiang Province, was born in 1913. There is very little biographical information about him. The earliest record is that Shen Zhiyue entered the eighth phase of Nanjing Central Military Academy in 1930, and was admitted to Fudan University in 1933. Shen Zhiyue had read progressive books and several classmates he knew well were Communists. Influenced by them, Shen Zhiyue actively participated in the labor movement.
After being recommended by his classmates, Shen Zhiyue joined the Pudong Coal Company as a worker. Because of his progressive thinking and his background at Fudan University, his superiors paid more attention to him. Shen Zhiyue is also quite capable and has recruited a group of outstanding workers into the organization. Later, he took the lead in the strike and was arrested and imprisoned by the Kuomintang.
After Shen Zhiyue
was arrested, Shen Zhiyue claimed that a certain KMT official was his relative and was spared the pain of his flesh and blood, and Dai Li personally came to visit him in prison. Dai Li did not believe that a certain Kuomintang official was related to Shen Zhiyue, but felt that this young man was smart and mature, and he was a promising talent.
Dai Li had several long talks with Shen Zhiyue, and finally convinced him to serve for the military command . So Shen Zhiyue was immediately released and secretly joined the Kuomintang. According to Dai Li's instructions, Shen Zhiyue continued to actively participate in the workers' movement after returning, winning trust and being responsible for passing on information.
In the spring of 1937, after the second cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was reached, the contest on the hidden front did not stop. The Kuomintang authorities sent a group of undercover agents to Yan'an. Dai Li had been observing Shen Zhiyue for several years and believed that he was thoughtful, mature and capable of undertaking the task, and arranged for him to go to Yan'an to collect intelligence.
Shen Zhiyue had been involved in the labor movement in Shanghai for several years. He was familiar with Marxism-Leninism and had been in a Kuomintang prison cell. He was still a college student at Fudan University. Therefore, he proposed through the organization that he hoped to study at Yan'an Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, which was quickly approved.
In Yan'an, Shen Zhiyue went by the pseudonym Shen Hui and entered the second phase of Anti-University . He attracts attention wherever he goes, has excellent grades, is smart and capable, and is highly appreciated by school officials. However, Yan'an knew very well that among these students from all over the world, there must be some Kuomintang agents mixed in, so the screening and investigation work was relatively strict.
Occasionally, anti-Japanese university cadres would suddenly stop during lectures, point to the seats in the back and shout: "Look, that spy sent by the Kuomintang!" The students were startled and turned to look. If any student behind was startled and looked frightened, his name would be written down by the student staff and secretly investigated. Shen Zhiyue has also experienced this kind of situation, but he has always remained calm and composed.
had the opportunity to get in touch with central cadres at the National Anti-Japanese University. Kang Sheng, then minister of the Ministry of Social Affairs, felt that Shen Zhiyue was outstanding. He once praised him in front of the Chief of Education, Luo Ruiqing, and asked everyone not to be prejudiced against the progressive young people from the Kuomintang-controlled areas, but to help and cultivate them. Not long after, Shen Zhiyue officially joined the Communist Party.
After graduating from the Anti-Japanese University, Shen Zhiyue was appointed as a secretary of the central government and secretly carried out his latent mission. He came into contact with Chairman Mao naturally.
Yan'an has great trust in Shen Zhiyue, and Shen Zhiyue is also extremely alert and hides it perfectly. According to the secret contact method Mao Renfeng had agreed with him, one day, he was walking near the cave dwelling and found a folded cigarette pack paper under an elm tree, with two lines of code written on it, asking him to go to an ancestral hall in Ganquan County to meet the contact person tomorrow. He thought twice and did not go.
After some time, the Security Office of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region received clues from the masses that there was a monk acting suspiciously in the temple under Pagoda Mountain in Yan'an. The Security Department immediately captured the monk. After interrogation, it was found that he was indeed a Kuomintang military reunification agent who had been lurking in Yan'an for two years.
The Security Department followed the example and arrested several more spies.One of them confessed that the military commander also arranged for a senior spy to sneak into Yan'an, and the confidentiality level was very high. Yan'an carried out a large-scale investigation, but found nothing. Shen Zhiyue acted very carefully, but he was transferred by Chairman Mao after less than a year of lurking in the Yan'an Agency, which is said to have aroused suspicion.
In 1939, Chairman Mao once took a walk near a cave dwelling, accompanied by Shen Zhiyue and followed by guards. Chairman Mao wanted to smoke, but when he touched his pocket, he found that he had forgotten the cigarettes. Just as the guard was about to go back to get them, Shen Zhiyue took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed one to Chairman Mao.
Not long after this little incident happened, Chairman Mao sent Shen Zhiyue to Bai District, Zhejiang, and asked him to assist the work of the New Fourth Army. There is a view that Chairman Mao became suspicious of Shen Zhiyue, because Shen Zhiyue never smoked, but he carried famous brand cigarettes.
But this is just a rumor. Some people don't smoke, but it makes sense to carry cigarettes with them out of the need for interpersonal communication. Talking about matters, Shen Zhiyue handed Chairman Mao a cigarette, which showed that he was attentive and knew what was going on, so he would not necessarily be suspected. Shen Zhiyue recalled in his later years that not only was he not suspected in Yan'an, but he was also highly trusted, so he was transferred to work in the New Fourth Army.
Some historians believe that when Shen Zhiyue was lurking in the New Fourth Army, he passed on a lot of important information to Dai Li, including the movements of the New Fourth Army on the eve of the "Southern Anhui Incident." Originally, Shen Zhiyue was well hidden, but when the identity of one of the agents he recommended was revealed, he felt something was wrong. He immediately ran to Chongqing and was appointed as the first section chief of the Military Command Bureau, using the name "Li Guodong."
It was not until 1943, when the military command established the Southeast Special Reconnaissance Station and Shen Zhiyue became the station director, that Yan'an learned that Shen Hui and Li Guodong were the same person, senior spies of the Kuomintang. After the liberation of the country, Shen Zhiyue went to Taiwan and served as "Director of the Investigation Bureau" and other positions. In 1990, Shen Zhiyue returned to the mainland for medical treatment. His former classmate Zhang Aiping specially found a famous doctor to treat him.
General Zhang Aiping said in his comments about Shen Zhiyue, "Wise and brave, one thing and two masters, no harm to either side." Therefore, there is another theory that Shen Zhiyue is a double agent, playing both sides. After Shen Zhiyue passed away in 1994, the truth became impossible to know.
