Blue Shirts Society

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For other uses, see Blueshirts.

The Blue Shirts Society (藍衣社 in Chinese, hereinafter referred to as the BSS) also known as Society of Practice of Three Principles of People (三民主義力行社 in Chinese, hereinafter referred to SPTPP in short ), Spirit Encouragement Society (勵志社 in Chinese) and China Reconstruction Society (中華復興社 in Chinese，hereinafter referred to as CRS in short), was a secret clique in the Kuomintang (KMT). Under the direction of Chiang Kai-shek it sought to lead the KMT and China into the way of Fascism and was a secret police or para-military force.

Although its early stage and most important members came from Whampoa Military Academy, and part of it did constitute the Whampoa Clique of the KMT, its influence had extended from military to politics, economy and social life of 1930s China as well. The rise and fall of Blue Shirt Society was rapid, but obscure, and seldom mentioned again by either the KMT or the Communist Party of China after the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the following KMT domination in Taiwan.

1 Birth
2 Rise and Achievements
3 Fall
4 Legacy
5 Reference

[edit] Birth

After the Northern Expedition, Chiang and the KMT took over most territories of China. But it was far away from the republic envisioned by Sun Yat-sen. In some degree the social crisis was deepened instead of disappearing. Firstly, the tension between Japan and China increased day by day, for Japan's ambition for China was never sated with the conquest of Manchuria. Secondly with the split of the first KMT-CPC alliance which contributed to the downfall of warlords, the KMT and the CPC (Communist Party of China) turned against each other. CPC had developed its power base both in cities and the countryside, which was a great threat to KMT’s governance. Finally, the KMT itself was divided into several cliques, resulting in power struggles among Chiang, Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei. The courage and passion shown in the Northern Expedition went away. Chinese people and some KMT members were disappointed to find out that, although they had brought down old warlords, the KMT's power structure resembled that of the defeated warlords. China was still scourged by corruption, poverty, and civil wars from time to time. Chiang, the savior they once regarded, did little to quell such discontent and concentrated in the power struggle.

As the base of Chiang's rule, some Whampoa graduates felt it was time to take action. This feeling was especially strong in those who studied in Japan and developed intense hatred of the Japanese for its encroachments upon China. In July 1931, Teng Jie (滕傑 in Chinese) and Xiao Zanyu (蕭贊育 in Chinese), were sent back to China by Whampoa Homecoming in Japan to report the threat of Japan and forthcoming war to KMT leaders.

When Teng and Xiao arrived in China, they were upset to find the KMT, the party used to be progressive and energetic, was gravitating toward decadence. After careful thinking, Teng designed a blueprint to reform KMT, in which he suggested only a great and powerful leader could save China and KMT. The leader could rule by all means, in a benevolent dictator way. Chiang was the sound candidate and only hope in Teng’s plan. Teng decided to dedicate all his life to this grand plan. In the following months, Teng traveled around Nanjing, which was the capital of KMT government at that time, seeking supports from his Whampoa schoolfellows.

It was lucky for Teng to get acquainted with Zeng Kuoqing (曾擴情 in Chinese), who was among the first graduates of Whampoa, and later was appointed to be in charge of Whampoa Alumni Association. Zeng showed great enthusiasm and passion for Teng's plan and spared no effort to support it. However, because the KMT banned the freedom to organize political parties, Teng and Zeng had to do this job all in secrecy. Zeng used his influence and personal relations among Whampoa graduates to organize a periodic party to discuss Teng’s plan and enforcement. Of course, they also needed to enroll new members.

After several months of hard work, they found sympathizers who became the member of this group. Among them were all Whampoa graduates, most prominent figures were He Zhonghan (賀衷寒 in Chinese), who was regarded as The Three Most Outstanding among Whampoa graduates (the other two were CPC members Jiang Xianyun (蔣先雲 in Chinese) and Chen Geng (陳賡 in Chinese), the patriarch of Sun Yat-sen Theory Research Group at that time; Hu Zongnan (胡宗南 in Chinese)，the rising young general of Chiang’s army; Deng Wenyi (鄧文儀 in Chinese)，another patriarch of Sun Yat-sen Theory Research Group and secretary of Chiang; Feng Ti (丰悌 in Chinese), Commissar of 1st Division of KMT army. Except for these young elites of KMT, there was one person unknown to public, but later became prominent and notorious as the Beria of China, his name was Dai Li (戴笠 in Chinese).

In September 1931, in the third meeting of this group, they decided to set up an organizationto reform KMT and fight against Japan. Under the direction of He, this group was named as Society of the Practice of Three Principles of People (三民主義力行社 in Chinese, hereinafter referred to SPTPP in short). Teng was elected as General Secretary. The party also issued guidance on establishment, discipline and organization of this group, and confirmed its main missions were as follows:

1. using secret measures to fight against the Japanese, CPC, other cliques of KMT and to ensure the Whampoa clique domination of KMT and China;

2. using the public image of Whampoa Alumni Association to enroll new members and to set up a formal, well-organized and highly disciplined group.

The funds were mainly raised by Deng, for whom could make use of his charge of KMT propaganda tool- Party Book Shop. Furthermore, to avoid being arrested under the KMT's ban on political organizations, members decided to keep secrets from Chiang temporarily, although they had regarded Chiang as spiritual mentor and leader of their group from the very beginning.

Before long, Kang Ze (康澤 in Chinese) joined the group. He published a newspaper China Daily with the permission of Chiang, which became mouthpiece of SPTPP.

In December 1931, under great pressure from opponents both inside and outside of the KMT, Chiang had to resign. In his hometown in Zhejiang, Chiang began to show great interest on Mussolini's fascism. Deng then let Chiang know the existence of their group. Chiang summoned He, Teng and Kang to meet with him. In this secret meeting, Chiang did not blame them for their secret action, and instead expressed his support. Moreover, he announced his will to be their group's mentor and leader, and he preferred a more formal and disciplined organization as those in Italy and Germany. Thus they decided to draft specific rules and articles to guide the party as soon as possible.

With the support from Chiang, these young and ambitious talents moved quickly. In writing articles of association, Teng designed a hierarchial organization style, the top was Chiang, and the base was the elites of Whampoa graduates. New member can only be accepted with two recommendation and approval from Chiang himself. Members were not allowed to resign unless the party itself faced dissolution. If there was any violation of discipline, members would receive severe punishment and even execution.

In 1932 Chiang regained power thanks for the power struggle between his opponents. He speeded the reform of SPTPP. In a secret meeting of February, Gui Yongqing (桂永清 in Chinese)， a member of SPTPP, recommended Liu Jianqun (劉健羣 in Chinese) to Chiang. Liu, He Yingqin’s (何應欽 in Chinese) secretary at that time, later contributed much to the group.

Liu was greatly influenced by the book The Truth of Fascism written by a famous liberalism Italian leader, which made him the earliest one who was most enthusiasm of fascism in China. He wrote a pamphlet called Some Opinions On The Reform of KMT. In this pamphlet, Liu proposed reform of KMT be enforced by way of group consisting of elites, which should be established and organized as Mussolini’s MVSN or Blackshirts. Members wore blue shirts to pledge their allegiance and distinguished them from others. The leader should encourage members by his sublime and super spirit. Under the direction of leader, all members should live in a simple and highly disciplined way as dervish. All cadres should be treated equally as ordinary members, whose incomes, lives should be under strict supervision. Any violation should be severely punished. Only by these measures could this group lead the people. In return, the people should entrust their properties, families to country and supreme leader. People had great responsibilities varying from military service to absolute obedience of the order inclusive of surveillance of their neighborhood. In order to bring up this obedience, everyone's life should be divided into several stages, among which he should joined the child group of BSS, when he reached youth and qualified, he became formal member of this group. Thus, China would turn into a militarized society by a three level organization of Leader-BSS-People.

Chiang did meet with Liu and appreciated his theory, this meeting did make great contribution to evolution of SPTPP into BSS. In Mar 1932, on the cover of another existing club called Spirit Encouragement Society (勵志社 in Chinese)，the SPTPP walked out of shadow and officially announced its establishment. Although Liu’s proposal of members wearing blue shirts and society named after that was not accepted, SPTPP was known as BSS from then on. In this ceremony, Teng was elected as General Secretary, with He, Kang as Standing Secretariat. BSS consisted of six divisions, which were secretariat, organization, propaganda, military, special agency and logistics. The era of secret society in China reached its peak, and BSS began its infiltration of Chinese political and even everyday life.

[edit] Rise and Achievements

Chiang was busy carrying out his Suppression against CPC’s Red Army in countryside. With Chiang’s permission, BSS took over the defense job of capital, and most of the prominent Whampoa graduates who now got promotion as commanders became BSS members. Besides increasing influence in the army, BSS took over police and securities in major cities. Furthermore, it developed members in youth leagues of KMT too, which had great influence in labor unions, publishing houses and school. The force of BSS had extended to every block of major cities in China. A new structure of power had emerged, BSS as the core of Whampoa Clique, coexisted and competed with the other two cliques which had longer history and were much well- known, the CC Clique led by Chen Lifu (陈立夫 in Chinese) and Chen Guofu (陈果夫 in Chinese)，whose orbit was in party issues; the Politics Research Group (政学系 in Chinese) led by Yang Yongtai (杨永泰 in Chinese) and Zhang Qun (张群 in Chinese), whose orbit was daily KMT government running.

Liu’s pamphlet was accepted as the guidance of BSS, and part of it was revised to be Regulation of Life Discipline. In accordance with this regulation, BSS members should be paid low wage, and part of it should be donated to BSS. Gambling and opium were banned. Anti-corruption and no mistress were strictly abided by. The practice of BSS members was quite distinct from other corrupted KMT bureaucrats.

After BSS’s Organization Construction and Spirit Construction, now it was time for Action Construction. In June 1932, an anti-graft campaign was launched under the direction of BSS member, Deng Wenyi was mastermind. He led the special force mainly composed of BSS members crack down on corrupted police of Wuhan. After several arrest and execution, police force did improve their working style greatly. Then Deng waged war against organized crimes such as prostitutes, opium and gambling. After 3 months hard work, the mess was cleaned up and later won Chiang’s appraise. Chiang would like this effort to be promoted around the country. Chiang later did launched a campaign in Nanjing to purify the capital, although it ended with less significant success.

At the same time, during the Suppression against CPC BSS played an active role too. Zeng Kuoqing used his status of Whampoa Alumni Association, wrote a letter to Xu Jishen (许继慎 in Chinese), who was commander of Zhang Guotao’s 4th Red Army and used to be a whampoa graduate too, asking Xu to defect to KMT’ s camp. Xu didn’t reply. But when Zhang got this letter, which raised his suspicion and he decide to carry out purge. Thousands of commanders and soldiers were tortured and executed, which greatly weakened CPC’s resistance to KMT force. This Conspiracy Theory Plot was just a warm-up show of BSS. In Oct 1932, Hu Zongnan led his army mainly consisting of BSS members waging a cruel and decisive battle against Xu Xiangqian in Hekou Anhui. In contrast to other KMT armies, this army was fearless and picked, and with more advanced weapon and strong support from other armies also led by BSS members such as Yu Jishi (俞济时 in Chinese) and Huang Jie (黄杰 in Chinese), Xu’s failure was unavoidable. After casualties more than 10,000, Zhang and Xu led their army for retreat. Hu and his troop kept tracking closely. When Zhang and his army reached Sichuan and set up another base. Hu remained in Gansu nearby, which began his era as King of Northwestern China.

With more and more power and influence, the disagreements between leaders of BSS mounted. Chiang, as he only regarded BSS as a tool for his dictatorship, he would not allow BSS to be more powerful and influential than himself, so he used his usual tricks to manipulate these protégés. As a young man with high ethics and ideal, Teng couldn’t accept this fact. He preferred institution to supreme leader. The conflict between him and Chiang was frequent. Then Teng’s sack was destined. In 1933, Chiang chose He Zhonghan to succeed Teng as General Secretary of BSS.

In 1933 Hitler was appointed as chancellor of Germany. Fascism became populous around the world. BSS found itself more spaces for prosperity. As a more ambitious and skilled politician, He won the power struggle with Liu Jianqun, who was regarded as Chinese Strasser for his power of instigation in the training of new members. Then He decided to set up a hugh propaganda net, which was in charge by Kang Ze, who was regarded as Goebbels of BSS. And the special agency under the direction of Dai Li, who was regarded as Himmler and his deputy Zheng Jiemin (郑介民 in Chinese) was evolved into a network infiltrating every corner of China. The most important work of He was to extend BSS’s influence to Northern China, which was under the direct threat of Japan at that time. In 1933 Japanese army invaded Rehe. KMT armies mainly consisting of BSS members fought against them along the Great Wall, although they suffered casualties more than 65,000, BSS promoted its prominence. And He made one of the most important decision to change BSS from an elite group into an anti-Japanese mass movement. He decided to send Liu to set up Northern China division of BSS, which was called China Reconstruction Society (中华复兴社 in Chinese，hereinafter referred to as CRS in short). Most of the members would work in the universities and student groups to enroll new members and carry out campaign against Japanese. In the summer of this year, CRS had divisions in 24 provinces of China with more than 40,000 members. With CRS controlled the political training system of KMT, new bloods were never ending. With thousands of members, political instructors and different organizations, BSS had set up a huge kingdom under the direction of He.

Besides the achievement of setting up of CRS, the other blueprint of He was the Second Stage Revolution. First to ensure the reunification of China. BSS used its influence in Northern and Southwestern China, to persuade local warlords pledging allegiance to Chiang. And the reform of KMT armies was carried out by those BSS members such as Gui Yongqing who studied in Germany to train new armies, and establishment of air force and armored force. Along with the war against corruption, opium and poorness, the reconstruction of rural areas was undergoing, road built and bank loan provided for peasants. The most significant part of this movement was Kang Ze’s New Jiangxi Style and Special Detachment (别动队 in Chinese，hereinafter referred to as SD in short).

In 1933 during the 5th Suppression against CPC, in order to maintain the law and order of territory used to be CPC’s base, Chiang decided to set up a paramilitary force as SS of Nazi. Kang was appointed to lead this SD, which was the only direct military group of BSS. SD was a copycat of SS at first. Its members came from trainees of KMT officers. It was organized like SS and even dressed in uniforms assembling SS. But soon SD had more power than its mentor, in that it was a monster of integration of military, politics, police, military police and secret policy power. In its peak it had 24,000 members and regular troops of three divisions. SD mobilized those peasants who lived near Soviet Territory occupied by CPC in Jiangxi and Northern Anhui to categorized into groups and confined them into places with limited access. Every family in this group who would prove itself to be good citizens should have the guarantee from other four families, and promised not to collaborate with CPC, accommodate any suspect, provide any support for CPC. Once there were any violation such as no report of CPC action, the whole family would be executed, and the other four families as guarantors as well. SD set up hundreds of concentration camps around Shangrao, Jiangxi, tortured and executed residents and CPC captives. Under this cruelty and great deterrence, the network did work quite well. Few and few peasants support CPC. Kang and his SD also crack down on the merchants who used to smuggle materials for CPC with cruel measures, and peasants grouped were organized to build road to blockade the Soviet Territory. With the shortage of supply, and the heavy attack from KMT army, CPC suffered great loss and had to launch Long March for retreat.

At the same time, Kang and SD started the New Jiangxi Style. They provided compulsory education and free medical treatment for peasants. With the effective anti-corruption campaign, they provided loan, seeds and pesticide for peasants too. When Mao Zedong led Red Army processed with Long March, spring ploughing, trade and bazaar began to flourish again in the territory used to be occupied by them. But the other side of story was full of blood and tear. SD spared no effort to terminate CPC members and supporters. They had made countless massacres in CPC occupied territories. The ethnic cleansings of today is with more mercy compared to SD’s crimes. The extreme case was in Mount Dabie, which used to be base of 4th Red Army of CPC in Northern Anhui. More than half of million were massacred and more were forced to die in tramp, poverty. By SD and New Jiangxi Style, Kang reached peak of his career, and earned him enough capital to challenge He as the only leader of BSS.

Xiao Zuolin(肖作霖 in Chinese), one of the BSS members of early stage, drafted a plan of Whole New Culture Movement and proposed set up an organization called Chinese Culture Academy to increase BSS’s influence in culture. Xiao got Deng Wenyi’s support and began to carry out his plan. By taking over several newspaper and journals, and by enrolling in universities ,this academy did succeed in the fields used to be reigned by CC Clique. Above of all, its scheme of a new culture movement was adopted by Chiang.

In Feb 19th 1934, Chiang announced the start of New Life Movement in a meeting in Nanchang, in which he planned to reconstruct the moral system of Chinese and welcome a renaissance, and reconstruct Chinese national pride as a result. In March, Chiang issued guidance consisting in 95 rules of New Life Movement, which was a mixture of Chinese traditions and western standards. It was a vast propaganda movement, war mobilization and maneuver China had never experienced before. But with its too ambitious plan and too rigid dogmatism, and causing too much inconvenience to everyday lives of people, this movement was destined to fail like prohibition. Nearly three years later in 1936, Chiang had to accept the fact his favorite movement had failed. Although this movement had no happy ending, BSS showed its influence again. It took over the movement very soon. Deng, Kang and Jiang Xiaoxian (蒋孝先 in Chinese), Chiang’s nephew and bodyguard, also BSS member were appointed as General Secretariats for this movement, and the limitation and supervision of life style was enforced by BSS. By controlling mouthpieces of KMT, BSS expressed its advocacy of fascism and fascists openly in its publications.

[edit] Fall

As a professional politician, unlike Teng, He never covered his ambition for power. He used his relations to foster a Hunan Clique in BSS, which raised the suspicion of Chiang, who was concerned about the power abuse of BSS which might threaten his governance one day. So Chiang decided to take action and let his protégés know it was still Chiang not anyone else was the paramount leader of BSS. In 1934 Chiang used the excuse of corruption and malfunction of BSS after its quick expansion to dismiss He as General Secretary of BSS. Liu Jianqun was appointed to succeed He. With the grown-up of Kang and SD , and the Southwestern Clique behind him; and the Zhejiang Clique led by Hu Zongnan and Dai Li, BSS faced the same fate of old KMT.

At the same time, with the ongoing of New Culture Movement, BSS infiltrated its influence to culture areas in Shanghai and other major cities, which used to be CC Clique’s power base. Though it was cultural conflict on the cover, there were bloody struggles for power in fact. Chen Brots were greatly irritated, but they were still waiting for a good chance to fight back.

In June 1934, the Nanchang Airport ,which was built by the donations from Chinese all over the world for training KMT air force, was burned down. The Aviation Commissioner, Xu Peigen (徐培根 in Chinese) ,who was BSS member ,was primary suspect. Deng was sent to investigate this case. He made his conclusion that this fire was accidentally caused by a cigarette dropped by a soldier. But Chen Lifu and Yang Yongtai denounced that Xu was the mastermind to cover up evidence for his corruption, and Deng was colluded to cover Xu up. With the suggestion from Yang, Xu was kept in custody, Deng was sack with all his titles. The Chinese Culture Academy was banned. Dai Li was recommended by Yang to investigate this case. Dai saved no time in taking over Deng’s investigation agency and integrated into his own special agency, which was evolved into Military Statistical Bureau, the later notorious secret police of KMT. Of course, Dai left BSS to set up his own kingdom.

Taking advantage of this heavy blow of BSS, the Politics Research Clique began to consummate the Administrative Office System, which was to add a new level of administration office between the provincial level and county level although the two level system was followed in China for more than one thousand years. With the appearance of new offices, Politics Research Clique was able to control the county level which it used to be absent. Many bureaucrats who used to be loyalty to CC Clique and BSS defected to Politics Research Clique. Politics Research Clique began to take over the promotion of Categorizing and Guaranteeing Group System, and then security force, police and militia step by step.

Liu was replaced by Feng Ti in the excuse of health problem and was sent to Northern China to work with Zeng Kuoqing for BSS work there. In 1935, two chief editors of pro-Japanese newspaper were assassinated. The Japanese troops in Northern China thought these actions were taken by BSS. They argued that it was violation of Tanggu Accord signed between China and Japan which was to keep status quo of Northern China. Under the name of Yoshijiro Umezu (梅津美治郎 ),who was commander of Japanese troops in Northern China at that time, Japanese spy agency under the direction of Kenji Doihara (土肥原贤二 ) provided Investigation on BSS as appendix of a memo sent to He Yingqing, who was commander of Northern Chinese troops at that time. He agreed with all issues proposed by Japanese in this memo, which later was called He-Umezu Accord. According to this accord, all force having relation with BSS inclusive of military police, regular force such as 2nd Division and 25th Division should evacuated from Beijing and out of Hebei province. BSS had to retreat from Beijing in humiliation.

With Feng Ti took over the civilian military training for KMT, he used this opportunity to enroll new members for BSS. Hu Zongnan, Dai Li and other former BSS members also strengthened their grip of power by enrolling members for their own force. The pyramid of BSS had been set up again. On the top were hundreds of whampoa graduates. below were more than 30,000 members of mid and low level officers, university teachers and public servants. And then more than 200,000 members of CRS. On the bottom were hundred thousands of boy scouts. With organization in such a huge and quick expansion, corruption and inefficiency plagued BSS divisions all over the country. Furthermore in 1935, there was a serious leakage event in the headquarter of BSS, and BSS was involved in the assassination of Wang Jingwei, under heavy pressure, Feng Ti was sacked. And Liu Jianquan, Zheng Jiemin succeeded him by turn.

In 1936 Deng Wenyi became the General Secretary of BSS.Dec 1936, the Xi'an Incident took place in a chaotic world. After Chiang was arrested and kept custody by General Zhang Xueliang’s army, there were disagreements between KMT leaders on whether to solve this incident by peace talk or by military action. In the meeting held by BSS, He Zhonghan, Deng expressed their determination of military action and called for mobilization of BSS members around the country. 176 young generals issued a statement to denounce Zhang Xueliang and announce war on his army. Under the direction of He, more than 2000 officers of BSS members held a meeting of pledging their allegiance to Chiang and mobilizing military action against general Zhang. Gui Yongqing led an army of more than 12,000 with heavy armor across Yangtze River as avant-courier. But this reckless action received cold shoulder from Chen brots and other KMT leaders, even He Yingqing, who was in charge of KMT military didn’t agree with BSS’s movement and gave them no support army.

Chiang’s wife Soong May-ling came to Xian for peace talk. With the efforts from CPC delegation led by Zhou Enlai, who would like to set up an alliance with KMT against Japanese, Chiang was released several weeks later. After his release, Chiang took revenge for his protégés’ reckless action and out of control which might wreak havoc on his governance and even have killed him in Xian Incident. Deng was sacked all titles again and was replaced by Kang Ze.He was out of favor of Chiang and had to travel around Europe. In March 1937, Chiang issued his order all activities of BSS should be temporarily suspended.

With the Chinese-Japanese general war breaking out on July 7th 1937, Japanese troops conquered vast lands of China quickly. Before Nanjing fell to Japanese occupation, Kang led the retreat of BSS from its headquarter. In 1938 BSS held its first and the last national congress in Wuhan. In this congress members of BSS, SPTPP were permitted to transferred to be members of KMT automatically, members of CRS could be transferred to the Youth League of Three Principles of the People (三民主义青年团 in Chinese, hereinafter referred to YLTPP in short ). Most of the 500,000 members of BSS and CRS didn’t transfer to KMT, they chose YLTPP instead, which was the basis of another new rising force in KMT and the reason of Hu Zongnan kept the position of Director of YLTPP all along, and Kang only acted as his agent. But the biggest winner was Dai Li, his new spy agency Military Statistical Bureau was set up, and he took over all the agents of BSS, CRS and SD, which made him almost more powerful than Himmler. He kept his control over this secret empire until his death in air crash in 1946, but only on condition that Chiang never doubt about Dai’s loyalty, otherwise he would have been purged as his BSS fellows without any mercy.

This was the end of BSS. But Kang still wanted to keep it alive under the cover of YLTPP. In the following 7 years he endeavored to enhance YLTPP members from 400,000 to more than 1.5 million. Kang used the SD style to organize YLTPP and turned it into a group much more efficient and disciplined than KMT, which raised Chiang’s suspicion again. Moreover, when Chiang sent his son Chiang Ching-kuo who came back from Soviet Union and learned lots of CP political organization and propaganda skills, to take over the YLTPP. Kang was reluctant and insensible to resist junior Chiang’s effort. Kang’s fallen was destined. In 1945 Kang was sent to Europe for review. During the Chinese Civil War, many members of YLTPP were killed and captured in the battle against CPC armies. When the failure of KMT was a matter of fact, some of them fled to Taiwan, those who left behind were purged after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Some of them were executed, some thrown in jail, some were discriminated ,but few were lucky enough to survive the following Cultural Revolution. Only those prominent figures such as Kang who were best examples of CPC’s clemency and successful modification of war criminals did survive rounds of purge.

[edit] Legacy

The following were some of the most prominent and earliest members of BSS.

Teng was later appointed as mayor of Nanjing temporarily. He went to Taiwan with KMT troops and later retired from the position of chairman of Central Trust Bureau of KMT.

He lived in idleness for quite while and then was appointed as director of Labor Bureau. When KMT retreated to Taiwan, he was Minister of Communication and Policy Counsellor, but never gained great power as before.

Liu's wife was an agent working for Kenji Doihara, and later brought many confidential documents with her on defecting to the Japanese. Liu had to be a fugitive to escape from the hunting of his former colleague Dai Li. Liu became a monk and spent years in Guizhou before Chiang found him by chance. Chiang showed his mercy by asking Liu back to politics. Liu was once vice-speaker of the KMT Congress. When he went to Taiwan, Liu lived in poverty and unknown to outside world. Befoe his death in 1960's, Liu's last contribution was providing valuable details for an article on the BSS written by an American professor.

After several times rise and fall, Deng showed little interest in politics. He arrived in Taiwan and retired as Director of Political Work Bureau.

Feng Ti was appointed as commander of guard for Changsha, but was executed in 1938 as scapegoat for a big fire set by KMT force to resist the invasion of Japanese army which killed thousands of civilians.

Kang was sent to the battlefront after his return from Europe and was POW. Although KMT propaganda departments pictured him as a martyr, Kang lived well in custody and confessed to CPC.In 1963 he was released in CPC amnesty and died 4 years later.

Hu’s troops were annihilated by CPC armies. When he retreated to Taiwan, he was impeached by 46 members of Control Yuan for his incompetence in military command. Although Hu was released with no charge, he was appointed a defense commander for a little island and never returned to the central stage of political stage. After his retirement, Hu died in peace in 1962.

Zeng was a POW in the civil war, and later released by the CPC. He died in 1983.

Gui later became commander of the KMT navy, then went to Taiwan and died during his term as Chief of Staff of KMT army in 1954.

Dai Li became head of secret police and espionage of the KMT, and died in an air crash in 1946. Zheng succeeded Dai in leading the secret police for the KMT. He died in 1959 in Taiwan.