Thread by @simonbchen

Tales of Lt. Gen. Guo Rugui, one of most astonishing traitors in Chinese military history.
(1) After his death from a car accident (“accident”) in 1997, his classmates from the 5th Graduating Class of the Huangpu Military Academy wrote letters of condolences for him. Except /1

(1 cont’d) all those letters were blank pieces of paper.
To signify that net sum-total of his life accomplishment was nothing—zero—blank, because he’d so deeply betrayed his own Army and everyone who helped and trusted him, from the ordinary soldier to Chiang Kai-shek himself. /2

2) Lt. Gen. Guo Rugui grew up under a scholarly father. In tumultuous warlord-era China, he considered 3x options: i) attend medical school at Tongji University in Shanghai; ii) study engineering to “build, build, build”; iii) become a military officer to “save the country”. /3

(2 cont’d) Of course, as with life course of many people, he fell under influence of a single key older friend, who told him that studying medicine was boring, “build build build” was pointless when country was in shambles.
He had to go to Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy. /4

3) When you’re in trouble, hide in another country.
Young Guo Rugui fell into suspicion of superiors as soon as he secretly joined Chinese Communist Party as young cadet-officer in communists’ arch-nemesis, Chiang Kai-shek’s National Revolutionary Army, in 1928. By 1930-31, /5

(3 cont’d) he realized that it was only a matter of time before he would be arrested for his secret political activities.
Thus, in 1931, like many of his colleagues in National Revolutionary Army at that time, he went to study at the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) Academy.
Hide. /6

4) How did Guo Rugui’s career catapult in the heart of Nationalist Army despite being a communist sleeper agent?
Because he was a strategic genius.
As a mid-level staff officer at Chiang Kai-shek’s Military Affairs Commission, he saw what happened at Nanking in 1937—not only /7

(4 cont’d) was Nanking Massacre a humanitarian disaster, it also wiped out masses of surrendered Nationalist Army soldiers. Guo Rugui recognized the need for the Nationalist Army to not attempt last-stand urban combat again.
When Imperial Japanese Army came for Wuhan in 1938, /8

(4 cont’d) he (left) audaciously proposed to his boss, General Chen Cheng (right), that Chinese Nationalist Army ought to stage all-out defense of Wuhan in outskirt areas to wear down IJA, then withdraw to conserve strength at last critical moment.
It worked. Guo was lauded. /9

5. “Trust your 6th sense.”
Decades post-war, both Taiwanese and Chinese commentators can at least agree on something—that Lt. Gen. Guo Rugui was most egregious security breach within heart of Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China regime in its history. /10

6. “Trust your people on the ground, over people in the backroom manipulating maps.”
Some modern Taiwanese pundits argue Lt. Gen. Guo Rugui’s treachery was the single factor that threw Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China regime into miserable defeat. /11

7. “How convenient.”
Chiang Kai-shek had planned on making Sichuan a site of glorious last stand, if not enduring redoubt of resistance, against communists in China proper. Unfortunately for him, Lt. Gen. Guo Rugui’s treachery threw a wrench into that. /12

8. “Denied and rejected.”
After defecting, Guo Rugui became instructor at the People’s Liberation Army school in Nanking. His application to re-join communist party was repeatedly rejected with excuse that his original 1928 membership was unverified. /13

9. Worse was yet to come.
While working as instructor at communist Nanjing Military Academy, in 1957 Guo Rugui was denounced—ironically, given his whole story—as Nationalist spy and right-wing sympathizer, and was thrown into jail. His old handlers ultimately bailed him out. /14

10. How did Guo Rugui survive Cultural Revolution?
Although it was well-known he was among most senior Nationalist Army officers to defect to communists, and thus was slated for persecution, Red Guard stopped hounding him once they realized his daughter was also a Red Guard. /15

11) Censored
As former Nationalist insider, Guo Rugui made critical contributions to academic study of Second Sino-Japanese War in communist China. Inevitably, as his works detailed how little communists had contributed, they were initially censored. /16

12) He's no longer on Earth, but his book is available on Amazon.com
Guo Rugui, former Lieutenant General of Republic of China Army, died in Beijing on October 23, 1997, at age 90, from complications following a car accident.
You can order his memoir on Amazon. /end