One day in 1990, an 80-year-old man in Taiwan dragged his luggage to a residence called "Rongmin Home". Before entering the new home, the old man turned his head to look at the empty back, and the old man sighed and then shook his head and stepped into the "House of The Honorable People".
The old man, named He Zhongjun, was a retired Taiwanese military officer. Before coming to the new residence, He Zhongjun originally had a happy and happy family, but everything became fragmented after his wife's ex-husband returned.
He Zhongjun had no choice but to quit in order to fulfill his wife Zhang Jiaqi and Zhang Liyi, who had been "killed" for spying on a secret mission in the mainland, and now resurrected.
Zhang Liyi
Unlike the lonely He Zhongjun, in April 1991, Zhang Liyi and Zhang Jiaqi married again in the United States after 26 years of separation, 35 years after their first marriage.
Their poignant love story has always been sung by the world, but an old man named He Zhongjun is silent in the "House of Rongmin", and it is Zhang Liyi who "rose after death" who caused all this.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > the proud son of heaven of the national army</h1>
Zhang Liyi, born in 1929, is a native of Nanjing. When Nanjing fell, his father was brutally murdered by the Japanese army in the Nanjing Massacre. He and his mother escaped the disaster and fled to Chongqing for temporary residence. Although he did not have a father, Zhang Liyi studied diligently and successfully entered the Sichuan Guanxian Air Force Kindergarten School after graduating from primary school in 1943. Later, the school moved to the Donggang area of Taiwan Province, and he also moved with the school, after which he was promoted to the Gangshan Air Force Officer School as his studies progressed.
In 1951, after graduating with excellent results, Zhang Liyi was selected by the CIA, because at that time, in order to spy on the intelligence of our mainland, the United States urgently needed a group of capable pilots to help them pilot aircraft to spy on intelligence.
Zhang Liyi was greeted by CIA agents
After two years of intensive training, Zhang Liyi returned to Taiwan in November 1953, and was immediately assigned by the US military to join the First Wing of the Taiwan Air Force as a pilot and began to carry out the mission of spying on the mainland's intelligence. However, with the rapid development and growth of the Mainland People's Liberation Army Air Force, the superiority of air supremacy that the Kuomintang Air Force had occupied earlier has undergone fundamental changes.
The fact that there is no longer an advantage in the air superiority means that the danger factor has increased geometrically, so Zhang Liyi was terrified when he received the reconnaissance task to the mainland, and if he could return safely, Zhang Liyi would be very happy when he got off the plane.
Zhang Liyi first encountered danger in 1958, when he flew an airplane over Fujian, and as a result, he encountered a PLA fighter in the air, and in the face of the menacing fighters of our army, Zhang Liyi did not have any heart for war, dropped the fuel tank and accelerated to flee the scene, and it was difficult to get rid of the pursuit of the PLA fighter and fly back to the base.
Even so, as a pilot trained by the US military and the proud son of the Nationalist Air Force, Zhang Liyi was still extremely appreciated by the US military, especially in 1956, when the White House discovered the news that China was preparing to develop an atomic bomb, which caused extreme panic in the US government.
At that time, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower gave the intelligence bureau a dead order to do everything possible to find out the progress of China's nuclear program. However, at that time, the United States and China were in a state of hostility, once the American pilot was shot down over China, it was bound to cause a huge diplomatic incident, in order to avoid such an incident, the CIA remembered Taiwan, the United States immediately signed a secret agreement with the Taiwan authorities, this agreement stipulates: the United States is responsible for flight training, Taiwan provides well-trained pilots, and must be commanded by the United States.
After the agreement was reached, on February 1, 1961, the taiwan special flight U-2 squadron was established, and later because the flying squadron emblem was a black cat, the flying squadron was named "Black Cat Squadron". The establishment of the Black Cat Squadron is a special secret, and it is said that only the Father and Son of the Chiang Family and the Commander of the Air Force know about it, and the information photos taken by this squadron are not accessible to Taiwan, even Chiang Kai-shek.
Jiang Chingguo and the pilot of the Black Cat Squadron were grouped together
Zhang Liyi, the trump card in the Taiwan Military Air Force, is naturally also in the Black Cat Squadron. The U-2 was a single-engine, single-seat reconnaissance aircraft deployed to the U.S. Air Force in the mid-1950s, with a length of 19.2 meters and a wingspan of a staggering 31.4 meters.
As an aircraft dedicated to reconnaissance, the aircraft has excellent performance, with a maximum speed of 805 km / h, a range of 10,300 km, and the practical ceiling of the aircraft is as high as 21,300 meters.
According to the estimates of the US military, China's scientific and technological level at that time, U-2 at this altitude to carry out flight missions is very safe, China does not have a fighter can fly to this height, nor can a anti-aircraft gun can hit this height, so with the advantage of altitude, the black cat squadron unscrupulously reconnaissance of our country, the performance of photography missions.
Zhang Liyi (2nd from right) poses with the black cat team members
Since the U-2 is a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, the fully automatic high-definition camera equipped with the aircraft can clearly capture a newspaper-sized piece of content on the ground at an altitude of tens of thousands of meters. Despite the open peeping of the US military, china successfully tested the first atomic bomb on October 16, 1964. This test explosion made the United States more anxious, and in order to steal more information about China's nuclear weapons more carefully, they ordered the black cat squadron to make more voyages.
At this time, the air force major with rich flight experience was once again sent to China to spy on secrets, and in order to fully understand China's secrets, Zhang Liyi flew the 3512 U-2 deep inland on January 10, 1965, and went to Baotou, Inner Mongolia, to collect relevant information on the relevant nuclear facilities set up here by China.
When he received this order, Zhang Liyi was very nervous and somewhat resistant, because since September 29, 1962, three U-2 reconnaissance aircraft of the Black Panther Squadron had been shot down by our anti-aircraft fire.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > was stabbed down by a "bamboo pole" of the People's Liberation Army</h1>
Zhang Liyi piloted the No. 3512 U-2 from north China into Shanxi airspace, and then turned to Baotou, because the plane he piloted was equipped with a new early warning radar and an additional electronic jamming device, so the mood was more relaxed than when he first received the order.
But Zhang Liyi did not expect that the People's Liberation Army had already arranged a surface-to-air missile battalion in Sarazi, east of Baotou, which was equipped with four SAM-2 anti-aircraft missiles specially designed to deal with U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, and these missiles were also equipped with electronic equipment that could make the U-2 early warning radar fail.
U-2 reconnaissance aircraft
Just as Zhang Liyi's reconnaissance plane flew 34 kilometers away from the PLA missile battalion, with the order of Wang Lin, commander of the missile air defense battalion, three missiles roared into the air one after another and directly approached Zhang Liyi's U-2. The plane then began to disintegrate, completely disappearing from the ground surveillance radar screen, at 21:17.
For the PLA, the process is very easy and exciting, missiles are launched, the target hits, the target disappears ... For Zhang Liyi, it was like a long journey to hell, in fact, before this, zhang Liyi's cockpit radar early warning system indicator flashed and then failed, just when Zhang Liyi was still hesitating whether to open the electronic countermeasure system, he suddenly felt a strong vibration of the plane, turned his head to look out, a dazzling red light outside the cabin flashed suddenly, at this time Zhang Liyi's mind was only two words left: "Missile!" ”
Just after a moment of blankness in his brain, Zhang Liyi did not hesitate to press the aircraft's catapult device, and in an instant Zhang Liyi ejected from a height of 20,000 meters in the cockpit, tumbling and falling like a free fall, and he also fainted in the violent tumbling. Fortunately, just as he was still a few kilometers away from the ground, the parachute opened automatically.
Zhang Liyi's consciousness also slowly recovered in a huge tugging, and when he woke up, he found that he was still alive, and soon he landed on a snowy ground. Because it was night, the surrounding was very silent, and in a short time, he fell from the cabin with a constant temperature of 20 degrees to the snow of more than minus 20 degrees, and the huge temperature difference made him feel like he had entered a huge ice cave.
Hungry and cold, he could only cling to his parachute, hoping that those who had captured him would soon appear. But after waiting all night, no one came to arrest him, and the next morning Zhang Liyi woke up to look at it, and he found that there was a yurt village not far from him.
Zhang Liyi, who was as excited as a lost man in the sea to see the mainland, stumbled to the yurt village with his feet that were so cold that he did not listen to the call. Zhang Liyi walked to a yurt that was smoking from cooking, but because the temperature difference in the yurt was too large, the heat wave suddenly made him dizzy, so he slumped on the ground by the fire.
Coincidentally, the owner of this yurt is named Dong Jizhao, who happens to be the captain of this yurt brigade, and he was very busy last night, and he has been taking the militia to the grassland to catch the US-Chiang kai-shek agents who fell from the plane and never returned.
Dong Jizhao's wife had just gotten up at this time, thinking of preparing breakfast for her husband to welcome his triumph, but she did not expect that a person suddenly broke into the house. Thinking that she was a robber, she quickly grabbed a kitchen knife and was about to cut it at Zhang Liyi, but when she approached, she found that the person had lost his strength.
yurt
Thinking of her husband who had not returned all night and was busy catching spies, and then looking at this stranger who suddenly broke in, Dong Jizhao's wife probably knew what the situation was. In order to stabilize Zhang Liyi, she first handed a sheepskin jacket to Zhang Liyi, who was trembling, and said: "People who are frostbitten cannot roast fire!" You cover it up with this first. ”
Saying that, she immediately stepped out of the yurt and summoned a few remaining militiamen outside, who first briefly bandaged Zhang Liyi's wounds, and then took him to the commune on a donkey cart, and Zhang Liyi was captured.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="43" > different treatment on both sides of the strait</h1>
After arriving at the brigade, Zhang Liyi, who was hungry and anxious, ate egg noodles on the brigade's fire. At this time, however, the Donggang family on the other side of the strait was in turmoil, and Xu Huansheng, commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Taiwan Air Force, personally went to Zhang Liyi's home and informed Zhang Liyi's wife, Zhang Jiaqi: "Major Zhang Liyi was unfortunately martyred during a reconnaissance mission to fly directly to the mainland last night! ”
After hearing this news, Zhang Jiaqi felt five thunderbolts and fainted at once. Zhang Jiaqi was born in 1934, her ancestral home is in Nanjing, she met Zhang Liyi, who had just graduated from the Taiwan Air Force Officer School when she was in junior high school, because both were fellow countrymen, so the two people in other places came together, and the two married in 1956, with two men and a daughter.
Wedding photo of Zhang Liyi and Zhang Jiaqi
As the wife of a pilot of the Nationalist Army, she naturally knew that Zhang Liyi would die in the mission one day, and now that her worries had come true, Zhang Jiaqi could not accept this fact for a while. Zhang Liyi, on the other hand, was treated as an unexpected prisoner, and he was often "demonized on the mainland" by instructors during the training of the Taiwan army and the US army, so he was even prepared to be shot after being captured.
But to Zhang Liyi's surprise, the first person to arrive after he was captured was not the fierce and vicious intelligence personnel, but the medical personnel, who saw that he was injured, so they arranged for the PLA to use a jeep to send Zhang Liyi to the PLA Hospital in Hohhot for some treatment.
In the days that followed, Zhang Liyi's inner prejudice against the Communist Party slowly melted. Soon after, because of the sudden fall from a high altitude at that time, the sudden change in strong air pressure caused his two eyeballs to be congested for a long time, and his feet were also frostbitten by severe cold, so Zhang Liyi was at risk of blindness and limb infection at this time, plus the spine could cause paralysis due to serious contusion due to impact.
Zhang Liyi (right) and Ye Changdi
After learning about it, the relevant departments of our country attached great importance to it, and in order to save Zhang Liyi, they did not hesitate to use a special plane to take him to a hospital in Beijing for rescue. Finally, after careful treatment by hospital experts, Zhang Liyi was snatched back from the side of the god of death.
In the hospital, Zhang Liyi was placed in a separate suite of wards, where a PLA officer lived with him, and four soldiers in civilian clothes guarded the door.
These people never talked about politics with Zhang Liyi, and his existence was only known to a few leaders. Zhang Liyi's belongings were also sent, including the watch he left in the yurt. Originally, this was a pair of watches, and the other piece was worn by him as a love keepsake on the wrist of his wife Zhang Jiaqi.
Zhang Liyi is at the Beijing Air Force General Hospital
In Taiwan, the Kuomintang authorities designated Zhang Liyi as a "martyr" without any investigation and invited his tablet to the "Shrine of the Faithful Martyrs." In order to commemorate the "hero", they also built a "crown tomb" for Zhang Liyi in the Bitan Air Force Cemetery in Xindian.
As a family member of the martyr, Zhang Jiaqi's work has also been advantageously transferred. On the mainland side, Zhang Liyi was released in 1970, after his release, he chose to return to his hometown in Nanjing, where he was reunited with his relatives in the mainland, and later Zhang Liyi went to the countryside to live for a period of time, and then transferred to the Nanjing Steel Jacket Factory as a worker.
In March 1981, Zhang Liyi was transferred to Nanjing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, during which he was also rated as an engineer.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="55" > the nationalist army that crossed the river and demolished the bridge</h1>
On August 25, 1982, cross-strait relations began to change, and in order to show goodwill, the people's daily specially reported that Zhang Liyi and another downed U-2 pilot, Ye Changdi, were still alive, and at the same time informed the Taiwan side that "Ye and Zhang are allowed to return to Taiwan Province."
For the announcement of this news, the Taiwan side first felt shocked, the second felt that there was no light on the face, and for Zhang Liyi's wife, the heart is also full of mixed feelings, it turned out that after Zhang Liyi's "death", the family burden was pressed on Zhang Jiaqi, she took care of the three young children and the parents tormented by the disease, in order to support the family, she held several positions, so she was very tired, it can be said that she was exhausted.
So eight years after Zhang Liyi's "death", after being matched by others, Zhang Jiaqi married a loyal and honest He Zhongjun who retired from the army and worked in the administrative organs of Taiwan Province at that time. However, before getting married, Zhang Jiaqi and He Zhongjun agreed in advance: if Zhang Liyi is still alive and returns one day, then she will remarry Zhang Liyi. The kind-hearted He Zhongjun agreed.
Zhang Liyi and Zhang Jiaqi
On November 10, 1982, Zhang and Ye entered Hong Kong, waiting for instructions from the Taiwan side to issue a taiwan entry permit, and at that time, many captains of Taiwan's "China Airlines" were classmates and colleagues of Zhang and Ye, who also went to visit the two on the occasion of flying to Hong Kong.
And Zhang Jiaqi also could not resist, despite the discouragement and danger, flew to Hong Kong to meet her husband who had been "killed" for 17 years. When the husband and wife met, Zhang Jiaqi learned that her husband had not re-established a family during his time on the mainland, and he felt even more guilty when he thought that he had become an adult wife.
Just when Zhang Liyi was anxiously hoping to quickly return to Taiwan, the Taiwan authorities turned a deaf ear to the two and refused to set foot in Taiwan. Just when they were in a dilemma of nowhere to go, the CIA, which had trained them, could not bear it, personally sent someone to Hong Kong and took them to the United States without going through any formalities for them.
In the United States, Zhang Liyi and Ye Changdi received extraordinary treatment, first when they were trained in the United States, the "CIA director" personally picked up, and then gave the two people a green light, and then applied for a U.S. green card, and gave the two $300,000 compensation and resettlement fund.
The two settled in the United States. But even so, Taiwan still forbade the two to set foot in Taiwan, and the biggest obstacle was Chiang Ching-kuo, so it was not until Chiang Ching-kuo's death in 1990 that Zhang Liyi and Ye Changdi's expectations of returning to Taiwan began to appear.
Zhang Liyi (2nd from right)
Under the media rendering and the voice of the Taiwanese people. In 1990, Zhang Liyi and Ye Changdi were approved to return to Taiwan.
In the face of Zhang Liyi's return, He Zhongjun, who accompanied Zhang Jiaqi and helped Zhang Liyi raise children for many years, chose to fulfill his promises of that year, voluntarily quit at the age of nearly 80, and moved into the "Rongmin Home" alone but for life. Zhang Jiaqi died in 2003, while Zhang Liyi died in June 2019, and it is unknown when He Zhongjun died, and no one cares.