The Chinese public has come out in force to pay tribute to Communist Party undercover agents who perished during the 1940s civil war, inspired by a television drama that gained a passionate following and sparked an outpouring of praise.
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The fervour centres on Silent Honour, the mainland’s first television series to chronicle the Communist Party’s espionage activities in Taiwan in the war’s final months when one of the party’s major intelligence operations was systematically crushed by the Kuomintang, which had fled to the island after losing the civil war.
In Beijing, people have laid flowers on the tombs and statues of intelligence agents Chen Baocang, Nie Xi, Wu Shi and Zhu Feng – Silent Honour’s main characters – at the Unknown Heroes Memorial Square in Beijing’s Xi Shan National Forest Park.
A park employee told Beijing Daily of “a sudden surge” of visitors to the square in recent days, despite it not being Ching Ming, China’s grave-sweeping festival.
Hundreds of flowers were laid on Wu’s tomb. An underground party member, Wu was a KMT lieutenant general delegated to Taiwan in 1949 to serve as deputy chief of staff of the island’s Ministry of National Defence.
Beijing resident Harry Wang, 35, visited the square on Thursday and said many people had left thank-you notes to Wu, whom he called an “unsung hero”.