The famous godfather of the Kuomintang military reunification, Dai Li, was an all-powerful figure. Who would have thought that he accomplished nothing in his early years and did not make a name for himself in Shanghai. He joined an underworld gang and became a complete gangster.

Just like the attitude of many people today towards the unemployed gangsters wandering the streets around them, people around Dai Li looked down on him at that time and thought he was a loser.

So, how did he later counterattack from a street gangster to become the military commander of the Kuomintang?

Dai Li was born in 1897, and his original name was Dai Chunfeng. He is a native of Baoan Township, Jiangshan County, Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Before he was hired by Chiang Kai-shek, he failed to do anything. When he was young, he lived in Shanghai and was homeless, so he had to sleep in the living room of his cousin's house. He was often disliked by his cousin's sister-in-law.

Dai Li joined the Youth Gang in his early years and had an acquaintance with Du Yuesheng for eight times, but he was still a gangster after all.

Dai Li later went to Huangpu Military Academy. After failing the first interview, he decided to change his name to Dai Li. Along with the change of name, his habits also changed a lot.

He no longer gambled, was no longer outgoing and lively, and began to be introverted, calm and thoughtful. This man named Dai Li is no longer the Dai Chunfeng before.

Later, he finally entered the Whampoa Military Academy. However, his admission to the Whampoa Military Academy did not change his fate, because when he was in school, Chiang Kai-shek had already incorporated all the trainees from the previous batches into the army. , and went to the Northern Expedition with the formation.

The frontline soldiers fought bloody battles and made great achievements, but Dai Li and other late-stage students could only do military boxing and goose-stepping in school every day, and their daily life was boring. Later, Dai Li returned to Shanghai without officially graduating.

Dai Li still struggled a lot after returning to Shanghai. Although he still accomplished nothing, the various aspects of the world he had seen over the years enabled him to develop the skills to understand human nature and people's hearts, which paved the way for his future career as the king of agents. The first resource was accumulated. The character developed in his early years in Shanghai was perfect for assisting Chiang Kai-shek in his later years.

One thing Chiang Kai-shek has always liked to do is to try his best to put his students into high-level positions. Chiang Kai-shek admired Hu Zongnan very much, and he was also one of Chiang Kai-shek's most proud students.

Before the National Army’s Northern Expedition in 1926, he was only a colonel and brigade commander, but five years later, he had been promoted to major general commander of the First Division.

Chiang Kai-shek was concerned about three areas: the army, secret service and finance. These three areas were also his lifeblood. Within these three areas, each area is divided into three people to look after it. These three areas stand on a tripartite basis to check and balance each other to prevent one company from becoming dominant.

When Xu Enzeng set up a secret service agency, Chiang Kai-shek also asked Hu Zongnan to set up an investigation office in order to check and balance. At that time, Dai Li happened to be idle in Shanghai and had nothing to do, so Hu Zongnan easily pulled Dai Li, the little brother, to the investigation department. So Dai Li entered the intelligence circle in this way.

Shortly after Dai Li joined the Investigation Division, rumors spread everywhere that he wanted to assassinate Chiang Kai-shek. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek also happened to be relatively insecure. So Chiang Kai-shek asked his men to select some trustworthy people from the investigation office to serve as his own bodyguards.

Dai Li seized this opportunity and joined Chiang Kai-shek's bodyguard as he wished. In this way, Dai Li successfully ran under Chiang Kai-shek's nose. Dai Li has been very diligent since he became a security guard. He found a few people to hang around with him all day long to find out all kinds of information.

Often taking advantage of Chiang Kai-shek's car or passing by, he would put information into Chiang Kai-shek's hands. I don’t know what important information Dai Li gave Chiang Kai-shek at that time. After reporting the news several times, Chiang Kai-shek actually completely remembered this middle-aged man with a horse face. Chiang Kai-shek later continued to arrange Dai Li to do various new tasks.

Later, he no longer had to work in the security class. He directly rented an office in a certain place, and he and several of his people concentrated on helping Chiang Kai-shek collect intelligence.

Dai Li, who became Chiang Kai-shek's security guard and small intelligence agent, found his own direction in life - to follow the leader. He knows his life creed - loyalty. This creed would later become the key to his successful counterattack.

Since the 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek has become more and more optimistic about the German fascists. He hopes that he will have an efficient and loyal organization to support him.

At that time, one of his subordinates saw Chiang Kai-shek's needs, so after graduating from Huangpu, he went to Japan. After studying fascist organizations in Japan, he returned to China to contact those who went to Europe and Germany from Huangpu. Those who studied in Italy worked together to establish the Fuxing Society, a famous organization in modern history.

When the Fuxing Society was first established, Chiang Kai-shek’s requirements for the Fuxing Society were intelligence and action. Dai Li was later assigned to the Fuxing Club and became the chief of the secret service department. This assignment didn't seem like much at the time, but it was quite crucial to Dai Li's life.

The Fuxing Society was basically made up of people from Huangpu. The core members were all well-known figures at the time, such as He Zhonghan and others, who were known as the Thirteen Taibao of the Fuxing Society. But Dai Li had relatively low qualifications at that time, so his ranking was relatively low.

The Fuxing Society was a national unit at that time and had established state funding, that is, the government allocated funds to the Fuxing Society, and the Fuxing Society allocated funds to Dai Li. Now Dai Li began to quickly enter the state and recruit troops.

And at that time, not only did the Fuxing Society allocate money to agents, but Dai Li and others also discovered new ways to make money. They went to the dock to check for opium. After finding it, they wholesaled it to Du Yuesheng, and then Du Yuesheng retailed it and gave Dai Li part of the money.

The Fuxing Society was not only Chiang Kai-shek’s political killer organization, but also a deep-rooted intelligence agency at the time. Dai Li's cruelty, mystery, thoughtfulness and all the characteristics of a spy were also cultivated in the Fuxing Society. Dai Li is known as Chiang Kai-shek's sword, and this sharp "sword" was sharpened during his time in the Fuxing Society.

The Xi'an Incident broke out in 1936. The Xi'an Incident was both an opportunity and a challenge for Dai Li, because Chiang Kai-shek had always put Dai Li and his boss He Zhonghan in charge of northwest affairs and looked after Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, but in the end they were completely fooled by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng. They were in the Fuxing Society. The alliance with the Chinese Communist Party was completed under his nose, and the people in the Fuxing Society knew nothing about it.

Before the Xi'an Incident, Song Ziwen advised Chiang Kai-shek not to run to Shaanxi alone, but Chiang Kai-shek was very confident because the information reported to him by the Fuxing Society was that Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng were at odds, and no changes were found in Zhang Xueliang. . Unexpectedly, Chiang Kai-shek was captured alive by Zhang Xueliang as soon as he arrived there.

In my opinion, the Xi'an Incident was originally a dead end for Dai Li, because it was his own work mistakes that caused Chiang Kai-shek to fall into the pit. If Chiang Kai-shek comes back, he will definitely be dead. If Chiang Kai-shek is killed, he will lose his backer and can only turn back to the old gangster.

At this time Dai Li made a bold decision. He wanted to follow Soong Meiling to Xi'an for negotiations.

The negotiation in Xi'an is not a big problem for Soong Meiling because she has a good relationship with Zhang Xueliang, but Dai Li is seeking death when he goes to Xi'an. The Northeastern Army disliked the people of the Fuxing Society the most, and they would probably kidnap Dai Li and kill him. Therefore, no one from the Fuxing Society except Dai Li dared to come. He Zhonghan also knew that going at this time would be courting death, so he stayed in Nanjing.

Dai Li’s behavior was stupid at the time, but it was this behavior that brought Dai Li to the pinnacle of his life. No one expected that the Xi'an Incident could be resolved smoothly. Although Dai Li was disgraced in this incident and even had his shoes taken off by Chiang Kai-shek to slap him in the face, he showed his loyalty, so Chiang Kai-shek beat him and forgave him. .

Although Dai Li successfully passed the test, He Zhonghan, who had much higher achievements than Dai Li, lost power since then, and Chiang Kai-shek no longer trusted He Zhonghan. Later, He Zhonghan's men also submitted to Dai Li, and most of the backbone of the Fuxing Society became Dai Li's people. After the Xi'an Incident, because Chiang Kai-shek agreed to our party's request to disband the Fuxing Society during his arrest, the Fuxing Society was disbanded after Chiang Kai-shek returned to Nanjing.

After the Fuxing Society was disbanded, the first branch of the Fuxing Society became independent and became the "Zhongtong". The second department was chaired by Dai Li and named the Statistics Bureau of the Military Commission. From then on, the Military Control Bureau was officially established. In this way, Dai Li, the former Shanghai gangster, became Boss Dai, the director of the Military Command Bureau, and began the most glorious eight years of his life.

There is no doubt that the key to Dai Li’s rise is two people, one is Hu Zongnan and the other is Chiang Kai-shek. His rise seems less legendary than we imagined.

Some people say that Dai Li’s counterattack was purely accidental and relied on good luck. Without the promotion of his good brothers Hu Zongnan and Chiang Kai-shek, he would have accomplished nothing. But in fact, it was no accident that Hu Zongnan and Chiang Kai-shek would help him.

Dai Li has deep friendship and simple feelings for his old friends, and he will never forget his friendship with the poor, no matter how his status changes in the future. This is true for Du Yuesheng, and it is also true for Hu Zongnan. A person must be loyal. If Hu Zongnan had a bad impression of him, would Hu Zongnan still take advantage of him when he was helpless?

Dai Li was loyal to Chiang Kai-shek and was good at figuring out Chiang Kai-shek's thoughts, which made Chiang Kai-shek trust him very much. If he was not loyal enough, like He Zhonghan, would Chiang Kai-shek still promote him? What's more, Dai Li later became outstanding in his spy abilities. Why didn't Chiang Kai-shek use him?

He can not let the opportunity pass when it comes and seize it firmly.

When he needed to be loyal, he did not fear death or act cunning.

When he made a mistake, he stood up and took the initiative to bear the consequences.

I think this is the key factor in his ultimate success.