How did Du Yuesheng fall?

Chiang Kai-shek once said: If Dai Li were here, the Kuomintang would not have retreated to Taiwan! It can be seen how powerful Dai Li is, and Dai Li is the key point in Du Yuesheng's transformation from black to white. However, due to Dai Li's accidental death, Du Yuesheng's legendary life also began to decline.

The turning point of decline

According to the memories of Du Yuesheng’s eldest daughter Du Meiru, on March 17, 1946, Uncle Dai (Dai Li) died in a plane crash. When my father heard the news, he, who had always been calm, suddenly became confused and felt very abnormal. At that time, we lived on the 7th floor. My father frowned, walked around the room several times with his head lowered, and kept muttering two words: It's over, it's over

We were all a little panicked and didn't know what to do. Well, I had to keep staring at my father. Suddenly, my father came to the window, opened the window and was about to jump down. We were so frightened that we rushed up and hugged our father.

After that, my father rarely spoke and stayed in the house silently for 3 months before slowly recovering.

After my father passed away in Hong Kong in 1951, when my family was sorting out his belongings, a notebook caught my attention. When I opened the notebook, I found that there were less than 10 pages of my father's handwriting in it. Most of them were about trivial matters related to business matters, but the last page said: "Yunong (Dai Li's handwriting) has passed away, and I have lost a close friend." , I don't know where I am, I don't know where I'm going, my future is unclear, and there seems to be no hope of promotion. The time of writing was March 20, 1946.

It can be seen that due to Dai Li's death, Du Yuesheng already felt that his future was bleak. Judging from the series of "bumpy encounters" that happened later, his worries were so prescient.

The ups and downs of the decline

In 1945, after Japan surrendered, Du Yuesheng believed that he had made so many sacrifices for Chiang Kai-shek, and if he was rewarded based on his merits, he should be able to make a profit. The official position of the mayor of Shanghai is at least a deputy mayor. The key point is that Dai Li, Chiang Kai-shek's confidant and important minister, is his close friend. Therefore, Du Yuesheng is full of hope for his future of "eliminating the black and white".

As a result, when Dai Li returned to Shanghai at the end of August 1945 after his accident, the mayor and deputy mayor of Shanghai were already appointed by Qian Dajun and Wu Shaoshu respectively. Originally, the authorities planned to welcome him, and the archway once erected at the North Railway Station was also demolished. At the same time, not only did no important officials come to greet him, but slogans such as "Du Yuesheng is the representative of the underworld" and "Down with Du Yuesheng" were posted at the train station. In order to avoid embarrassment, Du Yuesheng had to temporarily get off at Shanghai West Railway Station.

In 1946, Du Yuesheng was successfully elected as the "popularly elected" Shanghai Senate Speaker promoted by Chiang Kai-shek. However, before Du Yuesheng had time to be happy, a message from Chiang Kai-shek came, hoping that Pan Gongzhan (a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek) would be the speaker. Du Yuesheng felt that he could not offend Chiang Kai-shek, so he could only offer to resign as speaker. Then, in the second round of "popular election" for the speaker, Pan Gongzhan was successfully elected.

Therefore, Du Yuesheng, who regarded himself as a first-class person with ability but no temper, actually said angrily: "I am just a chamber pot of Chiang Kai-shek. I can use it if I want to use it. If I don't want to use it, I can stuff it under the bed because it smells bad." . ?

In 1948, in order to suppress Du Yuesheng and other Shanghai forces, Chiang Ching-kuo arrested Du Yuesheng's son Du Weiping on the pretext that he did not fully implement national policies and sentenced him to 6 months in prison.

Therefore, Du Yuesheng criticized the Nationalist Government at that time: "There was no justice in Shanghai during the fall, and there was no justice in Shanghai after the victory." ?

At the beginning of 1949, Du Yuesheng planned to go to France to spend his remaining years, and asked Chiang Kai-shek to help him apply for passports for his family. However, Chiang Kai-shek proposed: "A passport can be obtained, but a handling fee of US$150,000 must be paid first." ?(Liu Jixing's "Big Shots of the Republic of China")

Therefore, Du Yuesheng was filled with grief and anger, and helplessly sighed: "It turns out that the most ruthless person in the world is not my surname Du, but his surname Chiang Kai-shek (Chiang Kai-shek)." ?

The sadness of decline

According to Du Meiru's recollection, on May 27, 1949, his father and his family took the Dutch ship "Haiyan" and left Wusongkou in Shanghai.

Along the way, my father often stood at the stern of the boat, silently looking in the direction of Shanghai without saying a word. A few days later, we arrived in Hong Kong and settled down temporarily.

During this period, my father planned to take his whole family and more than 140 loyal men from Hong Kong to France. However, the formalities before going to France required at least US$150,000, and his father only had US$100,000 on hand at the time. , gave up reluctantly.

Later, my father lived in seclusion in Hong Kong. Soon, Chiang Kai-shek, who retreated to Taiwan, invited his father to come many times, but his father refused.

Perhaps because of this incident, my father’s last wish before his death was to be buried next to his parents’ tomb in Gaoqiao, Shanghai. As a result, Chiang Kai-shek threatened his father's inheritance of 100,000 US dollars stored in Song Zian (Song Ziwen's younger brother) and forced his family to bury his father at the foot of Dajianshan in Xizhi Town, Taipei County, Taiwan (now Xizhi District, New Taipei City).

The accident of defeat

In fact, for Du Yuesheng, who believed that "people need to live by two things, courage and wisdom" during his lifetime, since 1921, he met Dai Li, a con man who came to the casino. , they believe that the other party can achieve a great career. At that time, Du Yuesheng was already the right-hand man of Huang Jinrong, the leader of the Shanghai Youth Gang, and was responsible for helping him look after the casino. Therefore, he used Huang Jinrong's name to recommend Dai Li to Chiang Kai-shek, the then principal of the Whampoa Military Academy, and gave Dai Li 1,000 yuan to facilitate his admission to the Whampoa Military Academy.

Sure enough, Dai Li later became a close confidant and important minister around Chiang Kai-shek. After that, the two had frequent contacts and had a close relationship. Later, as the current situation changed, Dai Li naturally became the key point in Du Yuesheng's transformation from black to white.

However, even if Du Yuesheng had the ability to understand people and the wisdom of planning, he could not have expected that Dai Li would have an accident, which in turn caused his own plans to have accidents.

If you put aside Dai Li, the key figure who may change Du Yuesheng's life, in fact, for him, it can be said that success is a concession and failure is a concession. ?At the beginning, he once said: ?If the Japanese use the concession to attack the Chinese, I, Du Yuesheng, will destroy the entire concession within two hours! ?Think about how domineering such a bold statement is. However, after the Anti-Japanese War, with the resumption of the concession, Shanghai gangsters have lost their unique development soil. Both their own strength and influence have plummeted. For Chiang Kai-shek, Du Yuesheng no longer has much use. value. Therefore, Du Yuesheng had no status in Chiang Kai-shek's mind. Therefore, facing the general environment after the victory of the war, how could we not fail?