Yan Wuwen (first from right) with Fu Zuoyi (third from right) at Xibaipo with Zhou Enlai (third from left) in February 1949
Yan Wuwen was praised by Luo Qingchang, the former head of the investigation department of the CPC Central Committee, as an elite Chinese Communist agent. He long lurked around Fu Zuoyi, a senior Kuomintang general, and the CCP made a great contribution to the civil war between the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party. After the establishment of the CCP, his identity continued to be kept secret until it was completely declassified in 1993, 30 years after his death.
He was praised by Luo Qingchang, the former head of the CCP’s Central Investigation Department, as an elite CCP agent. Before the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, he lurked beside Fu Zuoyi, a senior general in the Nationalist government, and was instrumental in winning the Communist Party’s civil war. After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, his identity continued to be kept secret until it was completely declassified in 1993.
Searching for his father’s identity
The mystery of the identity of his father, Yan Youwen, has been a pain in the hearts of the Yan children since the 1950s.
First, the eldest daughter Yan Enlan reached the age of joining the regiment. Her high school told her, “Your family’s political history is complicated” and she was not eligible to join the Communist Youth League.
On the resume, the children filled in the origin column as “Ge Gan” (revolutionary cadres) – the same way the children of generals who joined the National Army and defected to the Communist Party did. Yan Youwen was Fu Zuoyi’s secretary, and in 1955, he went with Fu Zuoyi to the Ministry of Water Resources as deputy director of the Bureau of Agricultural Water Resources (later merged into the Ministry of Agriculture), and joined the Communist Party in 1958.
However, whenever the children of the Yan family join the league, join the party, and promote the cadre, the organization department repeatedly sent people to investigate, but found that Yan and Wen’s identity is simply confused. His identity as a “Kuomintang insurgent” could not be found in the corresponding files of the United Front Work Department and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and the United Front Work Department said he was not a “target of the United Front Work, but a Communist”, but in the files of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China, they could not find out what revolutionary work he had done before the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party. However, in the files of the Organization Department of the CPC, it was not possible to find any revolutionary work he had done before the establishment of the CPC.
On September 25, 1962, Yan’s life trajectory ended at the age of 48, when he took up the post of director of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Food and Oil Bureau. Before he died, he left a message to his wife: “If you need anything, look for the organization.”
At that time, the Yan family’s oldest child was 24 years old, and the youngest six daughters were only 8 years old. The children’s memory of their father had stopped, and the search for historical truth had just begun. This search is 30 years.
Lurking around Fu Zuoyi
If Wang Yu had not appeared, Yan’s life might have been different.
One day after New Year’s Eve in 1946, Yan Wuwen was working as usual in the office of Fu Zuoyi’s commanding officer when Xue Qilu, secretary of the machine room, brought a man. This person said to Yan Wuwen to look for his brother working in Suiyuan, said his brother told him that he could entrust “Yan Wuwen sir” to forward letters. Yan Weiwen looked up and down at the man in front of him and replied, “I don’t remember such a thing,” and then continued to look down at the newspaper and ignore him.
The man who wanted to “find his brother” was Wang Yu, who was sent by the Security Office of the Shaanxi-Ganjiang-Ningxia Border Region. His mission on this trip was to find Yan Wuwen. He went to great lengths to find out that Yan was Fu’s confidential secretary, and tried to disguise himself as a businessman to draw in Xue Qilu in order to get close to Yan.
This time, although the joint did not succeed, but finally succeeded in meeting Yan and Wen. Yan is now Fu Zuoyi’s red man, as the Nationalist 12th War Zone Deputy Director of the Political Department, the rank of Colonel (later promoted to Major General), and also the 12th War Zone organ “Kampf Daily” President.
A few days later, Wang Yu appeared at Yan’s home again.
Yan’s mother took the man who was “looking for his brother” and brought two boxes of cakes directly to his door into the house. When Yan’s mother turned around and left the house, Wang Yu immediately asked Yan three questions in a row: “Is your name Yan Youwen? Are you from Ronghe, Shanxi? Are you a graduate of Shanxi University?”
Yan some doubts, then nodded cautiously said yes. Wang Yu stood up and went straight to the point: “Comrade Yan Wuwen, I am from Yan’an. The Party Central Committee sent me to find you.” After hearing this, Yan Yuwen took an emotional step forward, shook Wang Yu’s hand and said, “I’ve been waiting for this day for years!”
It turns out that Yan is “lurking” in the Fu Zuoyi troops of the underground party members. As early as 1938 during the Communist Party cooperation, the Chinese Communist Party special agent Pan Jiwen in Fu Zuoyi’s troops to assist in the political work, on the “aim” on the outstanding talent, deeply appreciated by Fu Zuoyi’s private secretary Yan Youwen, and secretly develop it into an underground party member.
However, a year later, Fu Zuoyi’s attitude has changed, the Communist Party’s political cadres were “sent out”. The matter was so urgent that the Chinese Communist Party organization could not make proper arrangements in time, and Yan Yuowen lost contact with the Chinese Communist Party organization from then on.
Soon after the restoration of relations with the organization, Yan was thrust into the limelight of the civil war.
An open letter to Mao Zedong
In 1946, Fu Zuoyi’s men came into direct conflict with the PLA.
On August 15, 1945, when Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, Fu Zuoyi was the commander of the 12th War Zone and chairman of Suiyuan Province. Following Chiang Kai-shek’s orders, he ordered his ministries in Shaanba to advance to Sui East: in early September 1946, he captured Zhuozishan, on the 17th he captured Jining, and on the 19th he captured Fengzhen, pointing his spear at Zhangjiakou, the largest city occupied by Chinese Communist troops in North China.
Fu Zuoyi asked Yan and Wen to write an open letter to Mao Zedong, this hot potato can be Yan and Wen difficult bad: if only a manuscript, hand to hand that is done. But this telegram is cursing the Communist Party, cursing their own organization, cursing their own leader. Not to write it, and is his own part of the job, can not refuse. Yan found Wang Yu and asked for advice on what to do.
After Wang Yu and Yan Yuwen were connected, they established a top secret one-line connection with Yan. On the other hand, Wang Yu, in his capacity as a businessman, solicited Xue Qilu to travel between Guisui and Baotou, holding the documents of the machine room of the 12th Kuomintang war zone command. The place of their contact was in a cloth store owned by Yan Wuwen, which was unknown even to Yan’s wife.
Soon after, Zhou Enlai instructed, “Be scolded harshly, to be able to arouse the righteous indignation of the military and people in the liberated areas, to be able to cause Fu Zuoyi to be arrogant and arrogant.”
On September 20, Fu Zuoyi’s troop organ, Kampuchea Daily, published an “open telegram to Mao Zedong,” which was reprinted in full the next day in the national government’s Nanjing Central Daily, with the large-print headline: Fu Zuoyi telegram advises Mao Zedong Xi to accept the lesson to lay down his arms and join the government to promote constitutionalism.
Yan also wrote this Fu Zuoyi to Mao Zedong’s “diatribe” in a spirited, sharp words, between the lines to the utmost ridicule, ridicule, sarcasm. After the article was published, it had an impact on both sides as the CPC Central Committee had hoped. Mao Zedong asked the Yan’an “Liberation Daily” to reproduce the article in full, saying that “the strange article can be appreciated”.
With Fu Zuoyi “common progress and retreat”
However, all this, Yan Yuwen’s wife Ding Yanqiu did not know anything. Yan and Wen back home is a man of few words. Ding Yanqiu is usually more with the neighbors, take care of the children to school, take care of household chores.
At the end of December 1948, Ding Yanqiu became seriously ill and her life was in danger, Yan Youwen had not come home for many days. The family was in a mess. Soon, Yan and Wen hurried back home once, he visited his wife after making medical arrangements, said to his eldest daughter: “Uncle Fu needs me over there, you have to share some of the burden of the family, help the adults take care of their mother.” The daughter, who was only 11 years old, looked at her father’s distant back with tearful eyes, not knowing what to do. As they grew up, they learned that those were the critical days when the PLA occupied Beiping.
On December 14, the PLA completed its siege of Beiping, just ten days before the PLA suddenly adjusted its strategy, with the main force of the Northeast Field Army entering the border in three ways ahead of schedule, encircling the national army in Tangshan, Tanggu and Tianjin and blocking Fu Zuoyi’s retreat by sea. Then the North China Field Army suddenly appeared in the area west of Zhangjiakou, also cut off the road of Fu Zuoyi’s western escape.
During the siege, Fu Zuoyi’s representatives went out of the city to conduct secret negotiations with the PLA, while on the other hand, Chiang Kai-shek’s envoys also flew to Beiping in turn, ordering him to retreat south. Fu Zuoyi’s concerns were many and he was torn between war and peace. Especially after learning that he was among the 43 important war criminals announced by the Communists on the 25th, led by Chiang Kai-shek, his emotions were extremely unstable.
Yan also lived with Fu Zuoyi for more than 20 days, during which he returned home only once. That time, is also to see Fu Zuoyi’s daughter Fu Dongju came, think a moment can not out of what happened, before rushing home to see his wife.
Yan and Wen guessed from intuition that Fu Dongju is a member of the Chinese Communist Party underground. One day, Fu Dongju left from Fu Zuoyi, Yan Youwen found a secret agent following. He said to Fu Dongju, “I’ll take your car, I have to go to do something. But when the car drove to one of the gates of Beijing, Yan Wuwen said it was here, and the car stopped in the city gate hole. Fu Dongju was wondering who she could go to in the city gate. Yan Wuwen got out of the car and met the Kuomintang agent’s car. He reprimanded: Miss Fu sir’s car, you also dare to follow?
At this time, Fu Dongju’s car has been driving away, and the agents even if you want to change course to catch up, in the city gate hole can not turn around. At that time Fu Dongju felt something, is Yan Wuwen is also the underground party?
Yan Youwen’s “underground” identity has not been declassified for so many years after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, which has caused many misunderstandings for him.
He did not disclose his identity until his death
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, the identities of many underground members were declassified and “returned to the team”. But according to the organization’s arrangement, Yan’s true identity was not disclosed. Those who know Yan’s history, except for his single-line contact Wang Yu, are a few senior leaders of the central government departments.
According to the statistics of the Pingjin Battle Memorial Hall, there were 3,000 people in the underground party in Beiping at that time, and more than 5,000 people in the periphery. And before the war in Pingjin began, the underground party members had formed a huge dark river that penetrated every corner of Fu Zuoyi’s group, including Fu Zuoyi’s daughter Fu Dongju.
There are also some underground party members have more than once noticed Yan Wuwen, but Yan Wuwen strictly adhere to the discipline set by the superiors, any other underground party organizations of the Chinese Communist Party sent a signal, he did not see all. He only had a single line of contact with Wang Yu, whose superior was Luo Qingchang, who reported directly to Li Kenong, who then passed directly to Zhou Enlai.
Although Yan’s contact with the CCP was extremely secret, it was not as if no one knew about Yan’s past. When he attended Shanxi University, Yan was a left-leaning progressive youth. After arriving at Fu Zuoyi’s unit, an underground member who was in Fu’s unit at the time was a very good friend of Yan. After years of no communication, he later saw the open letter written by Yan Yewen for Fu Zuoyi, convinced that Yan has changed his political stance, and since then no more contact with the Yan family.
In addition, during this period, a number of local underground party members tried to establish secret contact with Yan was rejected, and further deepened the misunderstanding of these people who know Yan’s past.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, Yan’s identity was not made public, which inadvertently became a corroboration of the misconceptions about him in the early years.
Even as late as 1997, a publicly broadcast television series about the PLA’s occupation of Beiping still featured Yan in an antagonistic role.
But Yan never defended himself. Until his death in 1962, he did not reveal a single word.
Zhou Enlai, the founder and leader of the Chinese Communist Party’s intelligence business, once asked his agents to “not say anything if they are suffering, not to scream if they are angry; to take into account the overall situation, and to do their duty. Yan Youwen’s life is a true reflection of these 16 words.
When Luo Qingchang said that Yan Wuwen was the “elite” of this line, he meant that Yan Wuwen was one of the few senior Chinese Communist Party intelligence officers who could accomplish his mission with excellence and cover up well with “white skin and red heart”, never missing a beat and never arousing suspicion. His intelligence could influence the strategic decisions of the CPC Central Committee.
At this point, Yan Wuwen’s identity was finally revealed to the world.
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