- Foreword
On August 30, 1956, in the Beijing Intermediate People’s Court, a fraudster was explaining his criminal facts over the years.
This fraudster is named Li Wanming . Although he is only 29 years old and only has a primary school education, if we really talk about it, he can even be regarded as the "grandfather" level figure in the history of political fraud in New China.
Concealed his life experience, lied about his academic qualifications, forged certificates, carved official seals privately, and defrauded his official position... In just 7 years, Li Wanming relied on his deception and clumsy tricks to rise from section member, section chief to deputy director, and finally to deputy director. He also sneaked into the central government and became a senior official.
Such a ridiculous story seems incredible today.
But it is ridiculous to say that the scam that Li Wanming spent several years carefully weaving will be exposed one day due to bragging, and he himself has instantly changed from a "big hero" in the spotlight to a fraud that everyone is shouting about. commit.
What is the story behind this?
In this issue, let’s talk about this extremely absurd “first case of political fraud in New China.”
- [Identity exposed due to bragging]
The revelation of this huge political fraud case begins with a banquet in January 1955.
In January 1955, not long after New Year's Day, Zhang Desheng, political commissar of the Shaanxi Military Region, came to the home of his old comrade Liang Dezhu for a banquet as scheduled.
Zhang Desheng and Liang Dezhu are brothers who have experienced life and death together on the battlefield. They both say that revolutionary friendship is the deepest. Even in the peaceful years after the founding of New China, during major festivals, these old comrades would often get together to chat, eat and talk. past.
What is different this time is that a few days ago, Zhang Desheng heard from Liang Dezhu that a mysterious "great hero" was coming to the party.
In Liang Dezhu's words, this "great hero" is not a simple man. He has participated in hundreds of battles, large and small, and is a veritable fighting hero. He is now a high-ranking official in the central government.
And the "great hero" Liang Dezhu mentioned was Li Wanming.
After listening to Liang Dezhu's remarks, Zhang Desheng felt awe in his heart, and he couldn't wait to meet this revolutionary warrior whom he had never met before.
On this day, before Zhang Desheng arrived in the living room, he heard the sound of talking from inside. The young man sitting at the main seat in the living room is Li Wanming. Zhang Desheng quickly walked into the banquet, and after some pleasantries, he joined in the conversation.
Everything was normal at first, and everyone respectfully toasted to this young and powerful "hero". However, after three drinks, Zhang Desheng noticed something was wrong.
It turned out that Li Wanming bragged to everyone at the banquet, saying how he killed enemies on the battlefield when he was in the Second Field, how he risked his life to save his comrades, and how he finally won the medal of "People's Meritorious Service" and the "Revolution" Military Disability Certificate".
Li Wanming described every incident very vividly, and the guests present were very moved and applauded him one after another.
But what Li Wanming never expected was that his move would actually be a trick in front of Guan Gong and throw himself into a trap, because Zhang Desheng used to be the director of the second field. Zhang Desheng had no impression of the deeds mentioned by Li Wanming at all, and he did not remember that he had such a legendary veteran with great military exploits by his side when he was in the second field.
This made Zhang Desheng start to doubt Li Wanming’s true identity: he seemed to be a fake!
In order not to alert the enemy, Zhang Desheng did not expose Li Wanming directly at the wine table, but privately asked his subordinates to investigate Li Wanming's origins. This investigation did not matter, Zhang Desheng discovered that the heroic deeds Li Wanming boasted at the banquet were groundless, and no one could prove it to him.
Looking at the evidence in his hand, Zhang De was shaking with anger. It is really shameful that someone dares to falsify the revolutionary record!
As everyone knows, Li Wanming's history of fraud goes far beyond pretending to be a revolutionary hero. It began as early as his childhood.
- [Bold boy with bad behavior]
Li Wanming was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province in 1927. He is the eldest son in the family. In addition to him, he also has a twin brother named Li Wanyu.
Li Wanming's father is a businessman who sells wine and local products. He only cares about making money on weekdays, and does not teach him through words and deeds to establish a good sense of integrity for him. The upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked. This sentence is perfect to describe Li Wanming's growth experience.
When Li Wanming was a child, he watched with his own eyes how his father added water to the wine when doing business, and how he passed off some fake and shoddy products. In my father’s words, these are the “ways” of doing business.
What surprised him even more was that even though his father repeatedly used fraud, the customers who came to buy never saw anything wrong. Moreover, his business was getting better and better, and he soon stood out among his peers and became a well-known local businessman.
These actions of his father led Li Wanming to believe from a young age that only by cheating and cheating can he gain benefits, while honest and responsible people can only suffer the consequences of being dumb. So, starting from elementary school, Li Wanming began to use his "little cleverness".
When he was in elementary school, Li Wanming not only imitated his parents' handwriting and secretly signed papers on many occasions, but also stole the teacher's test papers in order to get high marks. After being discovered by the teacher, Li Wanming acted confidently and showed no regrets.
The teachers realized that the child in front of them had evil intentions. Finally, in order to prevent this bad behavior from affecting more students, after discussion, the school decided to expel Li Wanming.
Regarding the fact that Li Wanming was ordered to drop out of school for violating school discipline, his father did not feel anything wrong. Instead, he advised his son that "he is a useless scholar" and it would be better to take this opportunity to drop out of school early and start a business.
Therefore, after Li Wanming dropped out of school, his father asked him to follow him in business and learn the "ways" of doing business.
The time came to early 1944, when the county bank was recruiting servants. Since his younger brother Li Wanyu only had a primary school education and was not as smart as Li Wanming, he was not sure of passing the exam. So his father arranged for Li Wanming to take the exam for his younger brother. After he finally passed, his younger brother Li Wanyu went to work in a bank and successfully became a public employee.
The success of this adventurous substitute examination was like opening the door to a new world for Li Wanming, which made him even more unstoppable in starting his deception career in the future...
- 【Sneak into the central government and become a high-ranking official】
Although Li Wanming is playful by nature, he also has very high political ambitions. He knows that although his father's family property can ensure that he will have enough food and clothing in the future, it cannot provide him with a broader political stage. So in January 1945, the bold Li Wanming decided to leave his hometown and actively signed up to join the Kuomintang's Youth Army.
At that time, most of those who chose to join the army were children from farm families who could not afford to eat or go to school. Therefore, among the many illiterate recruits who joined the army at the same time, Li Wanming, who had attended elementary school, became a clerk in the army.
But just a few days after becoming a clerk, Li Wanming's deceitful intentions started to stir up again. Since most of his comrades were uneducated and did not even know their own names, Li Wanming often took advantage of his position to pretend to be others to receive military pay and retirement pay.
But at this time, his modus operandi was not very skillful, and he was noticed by his superiors after he pretended to claim it many times. After the incident was exposed, Li Wanming was imprisoned in the Kuomintang's army prison in Shenyang for reflection. After staying in prison for three months, Li Wanming was released because of the shortage of people on the battlefield and was ordered to report to the Nanjing Army Hospital immediately.
After staying in Nanjing for several years, it coincided with the liberation of Nanjing in 1949. Li Wanming lost his job and became a homeless man.
At this time, he suddenly wanted to start his "old business". He not only concealed his history of joining the national army, but also forged his student ID, falsely claiming that he was a student of Nanjing Central University, and later succeeded Admitted to the Second Field Military and Political University of the People's Liberation Army.
In October of the same year, Li Wanming graduated from Erye Military and Political University. He thought that the school would assign him a comfortable position after graduation, but what he did not expect was that the place assigned to him was poor and remote.
Li Wanming was very angry. If he reported according to the school's assigned location, when would he be able to survive? In this way, wouldn't all my hard-working calculations for so many years have been in vain!
In order to get a better job, Li Wanming once again forged a letter of introduction for himself in an official tone, and engraved the official seal privately, and finally got his wish and got into the Changzhou Municipal Government as a clerk.
At this time, Li Wanming's mind was already full of: becoming an official! Be an official! Be a high official!
Soon after, Li Wanming felt that the position of the clerk was too low and his development was slow. The so-called fortune comes from danger, so he once again forged letters and official seals and went to the Southern Jiangsu Office to ask for resettlement.
In the forged letter, Li Wanming not only falsely claimed that he was the "Party Member Education Section Chief" of Erye Military and Political University, but also claimed that he had participated in the Huaihai Battle and was injured and disabled, resulting in inconvenience in movement. He hoped to be assigned an easy job at the Southern Jiangsu Office A little bit of position.
As a result, when handing over documents for verification, Li Wanming was found out because he lacked a letter of introduction from a party member and was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of three years.
In prison, Li Wanming not only had no intention of repenting, but was constantly wondering where he had made a flaw, and secretly swore in his heart that he must be careful next time he forges documents and never be as hasty as this time.
After Li Wanming stayed in prison for several months, his fate took another turn for the better. In 1951, Li Wanming was allowed to be released from prison early due to serious illness and was sent back to his hometown of Shaanxi.
We have no way of investigating whether Li Wanming is really seriously ill, but what we do know is that as soon as he was released from prison, Li Wanming launched his more crazy plan.
On the way back, Li Wanming repeated his old tricks. First, he privately carved the official seal of Erye Military and Political University, and then wrote an official letter of introduction to the Shaanxi Provincial Government. In the letter, he once again falsely claimed that he was from Erye Military and Political University. The "Deputy Chief of Military and Political Affairs" requested to be assigned a job in Shaanxi because he became disabled on the battlefield.
But this time, Li Wanming's fraud process was extremely smooth, and he was finally assigned to the Ankang Civil Affairs Department as he wished, where he became a true party member and received the medal of "People's Meritorious Officer" and the "Revolutionary Soldier Disability Certificate " .
Seeing this, many readers may have doubts:
Since Li Wanming's letter of introduction and certificate are all fake, why was it not discovered this time?
It turns out that this time Li Wanming learned the lesson from the last failure. Not only did he forge a letter of introduction to party members, but even the resume references were filled in by senior leaders such as Chen Geng and Luo Ronghuan. In this way, the grassroots The leader cannot verify it.
Not only that, in order to look more like him, he also started wearing a military uniform and using crutches when he took office, making him look like a disabled senior officer. Such a brain circuit is really amazing.
When things have developed to this point, according to ordinary people's logic, if you can climb to such a high position, you will have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of your life, but Li Wanming is still not satisfied and becomes even more daring.
While he was studying in the civil affairs department, Li Wanming unexpectedly got a place to study at Northwest Agricultural College, but he knew that once he entered the school, his identity might be exposed.
What can we do?
Li Wanming thought about it, and in order to find an excuse, he decided to forge the "military transfer order" from Erye Military and Political University again, claiming that "Li Wanming was appointed chief of staff of a certain regiment in the army and rushed to the Central and South Bureau to report."
That's it, in 1952. In February, Li Wanming got rid of the opportunity to study at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry College and officially joined the Central and South Bureau.
On the way to the Central and South Bureau, Li Wanming took the opportunity to add money to himself in the file.
joined successively: In 1936, he joined the Communist Red Army. He served successively as company commander, battalion commander of the 359th Brigade, and chief of staff of the Chinese Volunteer Army. He was awarded the title of "Combat Hero" and "Model Communist Party Member" for his outstanding performance on the battlefield... ...an extraordinary experience.
In this way, relying on this forged "resume", Li Wanming successfully got into the work of the Agriculture and Forestry Department of the Central-South Military and Political Commission. Later, due to his outstanding performance at work, he was promoted to the secretary-director of the Central-South Agricultural Science Institute.
In April of the same year, Li Wanming was ordered to visit the Soviet Union as one of the outstanding representatives of the Chinese peasant delegation. In order to avoid communication obstacles, the organization specially assigned Li Wanming with a beautiful interpreter to accompany him.
During the visit, Li Wanming devoted all his energy to this beautiful translator. He was focused and eloquent, and he kept telling the beautiful translator all his "great achievements" in the past.
Not only that, Li Wanming has had a stuttering problem since he was a child, but when this problem came out of his mouth, he was unfortunately poisoned by the U.S. military's poison gas on the battlefield to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea. Later, due to lack of timely treatment, the root cause of the disease fell.
In this way, stuttering has become a bonus for witnessing his heroic deeds.
At that time, the female translator was just a college student who had just graduated from school. She had never seen such a powerful "fighting hero". Under Li Wanming's boast, the simple female translator was quickly impressed by him and regarded him. Generate admiration. He even agreed to Li Wanming's request for marriage and soon joined hands with him in getting married.
In 1953, the Central South Region announced another restructuring, and Li Wanming relied on his versatile character to be finally elected to the central government and became a division-level cadre.
- [He deserves to be arrested and imprisoned]
It stands to reason that now that his love career has had a double harvest, it is time for Li Wanming to stop.
But he had no choice but to live a prosperous life in Beijing. His just salary as a department-level cadre was not enough, so Li Wanming once again started to think wrong.
At the end of 1954, Li Wanming forged an urgent telegram, saying that the commander of a certain military region wanted him to rush to Lanzhou for a meeting. After hearing this, his department did not dare to slack off at all and quickly arranged an air ticket for him.
Suddenly, Li Wanming suddenly thought of going to Xi'an to show off first, because he had worked in Xi'an before and there were many old friends and colleagues there, so he wanted to take this opportunity to brag about his current status.
So in January 1955, Li Wanming flew to Xi'an by plane.
It was in Xi'an that the first scene took place. Li Wanming met Zhang Desheng at the banquet, and after a few glasses of wine, he began to tout his "heroic deeds" over the years.
But unexpectedly, Li Wanming's lies were eventually exposed by Zhang Desheng, and he was arrested and imprisoned a few days later.
The fraud case involving Li Wanming caused a huge sensation at the time. It was hard for everyone to imagine that there could be such a bold person. The central government attached great importance to this case and spent more than a year investigating the ins and outs of Li Wanming's fraud. After a final review,
found that Li Wanming’s deception over the years was mostly motivated by the vanity of wanting to defraud honors and get something for nothing. He did not defraud public funds, nor did he use his power to make profits for others. However, considering the serious negative impact of the case, on August 30, 1956, the Beijing Intermediate Court made the final judgment:
Li Wanming was sentenced to 15 years in prison and deprived of his political rights for 5 years.
With the sound of the judge’s hammer, this once brilliant “hero” who attracted everyone’s attention fell from the altar and became a fraudster that everyone wanted to beat. At this point, this so-called "first case of political fraud in New China" came to an end.
- [Conclusion]
It stands to reason that in just a few years, Zhang Wanming relied on his deception methods to rise from section member, section chief to deputy director, and even finally sneaked into the central government to become a senior official and married a He should be content with a beautiful translator as his wife.
But his "greed" is more than that.
The funny thing is that Li Wanming had exhausted all his institutions in his life, but never expected that he would be ruined not because of other people's pursuit, but because of his extreme vanity and greed, and finally ended his official career by throwing himself into a trap. Full stop, it is extremely absurd and ridiculous.
In the end, his money, his official position, and his beautiful translator wife all left him.
Therefore, in the author's opinion, the reason why he ended up like this is because he brought it upon himself and deserved it!
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-