Generals' decisive battles are not only on the battlefield

Author: Huang Jiren
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The bell of an era, foretelling their rebirth; a hidden history, depicting the war of souls. The past of Gong, where defeated generals still spoke of courage; the experiences of war criminals, amidst the unresolved turmoil of the Kuomintang-CCP conflict. Outside Deshengmen in Beijing, there once stood a temple called Gonglin, which was converted into a prison during the late Qing Dynasty. At the prison's main gate, within the guard line, stood a stone tablet engraved with 13 lines of inscriptions, recording the construction of the prison. In the fourth year of the Republic of China, under the rule of Duan Qirui of the Northern Warlord Government, the prison was finally completed. This was the famous No. 2 Model Prison. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Gonglin came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security and was known as the Beijing War Criminal Management Office. Gonglin was a large courtyard covering nearly 100 acres, enclosed by a high wall over ten feet tall. Beyond the main gate lay a square, where an original gallows once stood, now marked by deep pits for wooden stakes. Yes, this second model prison built by the Northern Warlords was reused by the People's Government. What secrets were hidden in the alleys beneath the octagonal tower? This is a best-selling, ( means "" in Chinese, which is a genre of non-fiction literature) book with a special theme that has made a stir both in China and abroad. With the assistance of the Ministry of Public Security, the renowned writer Huang Jiren, through face-to-face interviews with a group of special individuals (high-ranking Nationalist generals captured during the civil war, heads of intelligence agencies, and other senior political officials) and the collection of a vast number of historical archives, for the first time presented the true and complete picture of the mysterious Ministry of Public Security's Gonglin War Criminals' Prison to the world. The military defeat of the Nationalists did not equate to their political surrender, as revealed by the book's title. Following the capture and transformation of former Nationalist war criminal Qiu Xingxiang, the book vividly and specifically describes the inner workings of the transformation of a group of high-ranking Nationalist generals—Du Yuming, Song Xilian, Huang Wei, Kang Ze, Wen Qiang, and others—through this fiercer, more complex, and longer-lasting battle than the military battlefield. The book follows the capture and transformation of former Nationalist war criminal Qiu Xingxiang, vividly and specifically describing the inner workings of the transformation of a group of personalities as diverse as Du Yuming, Song Xilian, Huang Wei, Kang Ze, Wen Qiang, and others through this fiercer, more complex, and longer-lasting battle than the military battlefield.