In 1926, Fengcian warlord Zhang Zuolin and "Dog Meat General" Zhang Zongchang shot and killed well-known journalists Shao Piaoping and Lin Baishui on the charge of "tongchi". Their deaths were only a hundred days apart. A certain newspaper then reported that " "We met by chance within a hundred days" to express our condolences, and the response was intense.
Lin Baishui's original name was Lin Xie. Because his published articles were all signed "Baishui", people forgot his name and called him "Lin Baishui" instead. Lin was born in Houguan, Fujian (today's Fuzhou). He was very talented when he was young. He successively founded "Hangzhou Vernacular Newspaper", "China Vernacular Newspaper", "Social Daily News", etc., all of which were very popular.
Lin Baishui has a famous saying, saying: "Journalists should speak human words and not lies; they should tell the truth and not lies." This is also the motto of his life career. In November 1904, it was during the Russo-Japanese War, but the Qing court still celebrated the 70th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi. In anger, Lin Baishui wrote a couplet, which was widely recited for a time:
"I am lucky to be in Xiyuan today, lucky to be in the Summer Palace tomorrow, and lucky to be in Yuanmingyuan again someday. The four hundred trillion bone marrow has dried up, leaving only How can a person be so lucky?
If you lose Ryukyu at 50, you will lose the Taiwan Strait at 60, and you will lose the three eastern provinces at 70, your territory of 50,000 miles will be narrowed, and if you live a long life, you will have no borders!”
The couplet can be said to be spicy in every word and bloody in every sentence, and people at that time were amazed by it. During the Zhili-Fengtian War, the powerful President Xu Shichang was torn between Zhili and Fengcheng. Lin Baishui wrote a poem to satirize: "The war front has reached Changxindian, and the disaster will end in Shuizhu Village." ". Not long after, Xu Shichang was forced to resign, and Lin Baishui's poem was passed down as a prophecy.
Lin Baishui's articles have always been famous for their sharpness and satire. Although readers are happy to read them, they may not be the ones being ridiculed. As the saying goes, "If you often walk by the river, your shoes won't get wet." Finally, Zhang Zongchang was offended and the Qing family's life was lost. Zhang Zongchang hates journalists very much, but he pays great attention to public opinion. It is said that when Zhang Zongchang led his troops to be stationed in Nanjing in the summer of 1925, one day he had a chat with Zhang Xueliang and Lu Xiaojia, the son of the former Zhejiang governor Lu Yongxiang. From time to time, a guard came in with a business card and reported that a reporter named Wang was here. After seeing it, Zhang Zongchang frowned and made a "cut" gesture. After a while, the guard came in and reported: "The reporter has been shot." Lu was shocked after hearing this: "Why did you kill this reporter?" Zhang replied: "I saw that there were more than a dozen titles listed on the reporter's business card. Even if he is a liar, he might as well be killed."
The murder of the unknown reporter has yet to be verified, but it is absolutely true that Zhang Zongchang was good at killing Lin Baishui. Lin Baishui was killed because he published a satirical article "The Luck of Bureaucrats" in Social Daily, which said: "Dogs have their own luck, pigs have their own luck, and supervisors also have their own luck. Just be lucky." Before you arrive, I'm not afraid that you have a great background and will not be able to get what you want. A certain monarch is called the "kidney sac" of a certain warlord because he is tied under the trousers of a certain warlord all day long, following every step and never leaving his crown. The burden on the kidney sac hangs between the legs all day long. This gentleman is enthusiastic about being an official and enthusiastic about scrapping the land, so he is well-known. But this time, he can neither get the advantages and disadvantages, nor can he get the advantages and disadvantages of the supervising department? What a coincidence. We have to talk about it.” The protagonist of this article is Pan Fu, the general counselor of Zhang Zongchang’s governor’s office, because Pan Fu’s word “Xinhang” sounds similar to the word “kidney sac”, and the general counselor was originally a think tank, but now he has become a think tank. It has become a "kidney capsule that stays with everyone" (i.e. testicles), which is said to be "tired and tired." In addition, Zhang Zongchang's troops were nicknamed "General Long Legs" because of their extremely fast march. Now, "long legs and kidney sac" complement each other, which is unavoidable. After the article was published in the newspaper, when people mentioned Pan Fu, they did not say "Xinhang" but jokingly called him "Kidney Sac". Pan Fu was so humiliated and humiliated that his teeth cracked with hatred and his murderous intention suddenly aroused.
The second half of Lin’s article related to Zhang Zongchang’s gambling. Now Mr. “Kidney Sac” found the clue, and then went to Zhang Zongchang with the newspaper and added fuel and vinegar to slander him, intending to take advantage of Zhang’s hand. Kill Lin Baishui. After hearing this, Zhang Zongchang slapped the case and shouted angrily: "I will kill him!" Pan was afraid that he was not resolute enough, and also slandered that the "Social Daily" run by Lin was to promote communism, and if he did not get rid of it, there would be disaster in the future. Zhang Zongchang, like Zhang Zuolin, hated communism. He once called its rule "beating people with wooden sticks", while comparing communism to "beating people with iron sticks", the phrase "kidney sac" touches the point. .
After hearing this, Zhang Zongchang immediately ordered the arrest of Lin Baishui.
That night, Lin Baishui had just returned home from the Navy Club banquet and was composing an editorial on the cigarette couch. Suddenly he heard a banging on the door outside. After opening the door, he saw two plainclothes men. When he was stunned, the plainclothes asked: "Are you Lin Baishui?" Lin Shang Not knowing that disaster was imminent, he asked, "What's going on?" The plainclothes man said, "Commander, please talk to us. Come with us!"
Lin Baishui was often detained by the police when making reports. His family was used to it, but they heard this tonight. Only when the word "commander" came to the word did he realize that the situation was serious. Liu Yifen, a contemporary, stated in "Supplements to the Political History of the Republic of China" that after Lin Baishui was arrested, Li Luge, a fellow villager, was Zhang Zongchang's gambling table friend. He was entrusted by the Lin family to go to Zhang Zongchang to intercede. As soon as Zhang Zongchang saw Li, he asked: "You came here late at night, but for Lin Baishui?" Li said: "Yes, I wonder why he offended the commander?" Zhang said: "I don't have any grudge against him, but I heard that he If you propagate communism, I will kill him." Li asked: "How does the commander know?" Zhang said: "If he runs "Social Daily", what is it if he is not a communist?" Li said: "If that's the case? , I also wanted to kill him. But this time it was really unjust. He used the word 'society' in his registration to show that he meant to serve the society and had nothing to do with communism," Zhang said. : "What you said is not bad. You can let him go." So Li Luce asked Zhang Zongchang to give the order, and Zhang said, "You write the letter and I will seal it."
Li Luce was overjoyed, thinking that Lin Baishui had been spared. Unexpectedly, after Zhang Zongchang's handwriting arrived at the military police headquarters, Lin Baishui was shot. It turned out that after Pan Fu learned that Li Luce had gone to see Zhang Zongchang, he knew that he had come to plead for Lin Baishui, so he hurriedly called the military police commander Wang Qi and urged him to solve the problem immediately. As a result, Lin Baishui died. Before he was killed, Lin Baishui, who knew he was in danger, wrote his will in the early morning: "I am about to die at the moment. I can't talk about my family affairs at the moment, so I have to listen to it! My beloved daughter should study hard. In the future, you must be particularly cautious when choosing a son-in-law; You can tell Lu Er to go home and take care of you. Xiao Lin and Bao Yu will live in peace. Please ask friends E Sun, Huai Sheng, Lu Ge and Qiu Yue to help me in my life. God should bless my family. "A generation of newspapermen died just like that.
Literary prisons have existed since ancient times, but in the Beiyang period when the press was relatively free, two famous journalists were shot dead for no reason within a hundred days, which shows the ferocity of the warlords. In the first year of the Republic of China, Dai Jitao vented his anger in the Civil Rights Newspaper because he opposed the humiliating loan, saying: "Xiong Xiling is traitorous, kill him! Tang Shaoyi fools the people, kill him! Yuan Shikai is tyrannical, kill him! Zhang Binglin and Ah Quan, kill him!"
In a simple sixteen words, there are actually four words for "kill", which can be described as murderous. Dai Jitao was later arrested by the concession authorities for "advocating murder and arbitrary slander." But surprisingly, Tang Shaoyi, the prime minister at the time and a scolded person, personally interceded for him on the grounds that "freedom of speech is guaranteed by the law." , and President Yuan Shikai, who was scolded, neither said a word nor pursued any further investigation. As everyone knows, the Republic of China has only been more than ten years old, and the warlords have degenerated into local bullies. It can be said that each generation is worse than the last.