The Shocking Secret Case

The Astonishing Secret Case is a full-length work of historical fiction based on real events. Through interviews with people involved and a literary retelling grounded in the history of the time, the author recounts a little-known episode from the past. At the end of 1943, while Chiang Kai-shek was attending the Cairo Conference, a secret group of young Kuomintang officers known as the Young Officers’ Corps, led by Major General Wang Fengqi, aide-de-camp and chief of operations for Chen Cheng, commander of the China Expeditionary Force in Burma, prepared to launch a military coup against Chiang. Their goal was to overthrow the dictatorship of the corrupt clique headed by Chiang Kai-shek and He Yingqin. But Dai Li, head of the Military Statistics Bureau, uncovered their plans. Upon learning of the plot, Chiang immediately ordered the arrest of more than 600 officers suspected of taking part and the execution of sixteen young officers. He ordered the news tightly suppressed, turning the failed coup into an “astonishing secret case.” After the coup collapsed, Dai Li personally interrogated those involved in the most serious and dangerous political case the Kuomintang had faced since its founding. The Young Officers’ Corps’ leading figures, including Wang Fengqi, were imprisoned at the Xifeng concentration camp and the Chongqing prison at Zhazi Cave, part of the Sino-American Cooperation Organization. During their imprisonment, Wang and the others met New Fourth Army commander Ye Ting and patriotic Kuomintang general Huang Xiansheng. They were also influenced and guided by Communist Party members Luo Shiwen, Che Yaoxian, Song Qiyun, Han Zidong, and others, bringing about a fundamental change in their thinking. In 1947, Chen Cheng, who had secretly supported the Young Officers’ Corps, took advantage of a banquet Chiang Kai-shek held to celebrate the capture of Yan’an and obtained a signed order from him to release Wang Fengqi and the others. Chen ordered them to support the civil war Chiang had launched. But after their release, Wang and the others instead joined the revolutionary cause, making important contributions to the victory of the War of Liberation.