谷开来的下毒前夜与灰暗半生：从北大插足上位，到“围剿”薄熙来长子 20260424【新闻大写】

On August 9, 2012, Courtroom No. 1 of the Hefei Intermediate Court

More than 140 people were seated in the adjacent gallery

All recording devices of British consulate officials were confiscated before entry

Those sitting in the very front row of the courtroom, upright and expressionless

were officially selected deputies to the People's Congress, CPPCC members, and public representatives

Rather than calling this a courtroom

it was more like a political theater

For a full seven hours, all eyes were fixed on the defendant's seat

The female protagonist wore a loose white shirt

paired with an oversized black suit

Long-term high-dose antidepressants had made her face somewhat swollen

If you didn't keep reminding yourself

you simply couldn't connect this dull, numb expression

and the woman whose hands trembled violently on the railing

with that woman from over a decade ago who debated fiercely in a U.S. federal court

and was dubbed by Western media as "China's Jacqueline," a Peking University talent

China's top international lawyer, Gu Kailai

Facing a charge of intentional homicide that could mean death if convicted

this woman who once mastered four or five Western legal systems

and personally built a hidden overseas asset empire worth hundreds of millions

made almost no substantive legal defense

In her final statement, she lowered her head deeply

and softly spoke into the microphone

the words that were later replayed repeatedly

This case has weighed on me like a huge stone for over half a year

Looking back, it was truly a nightmare

The official final version of the case was clean and even tear-jerking

A mentally broken mother

who, in a moment of agitation, killed someone to protect her only son from being blackmailed by a foreign intermediary

It sounds quite plausible

But the version shown on television was never the complete story

Too many powerful figures were involved, and too much was covered up

The media accounts left behind all tell different stories

To explain it clearly, I have no other choice

but to painstakingly dig through the materials

Before recording this episode

our team reviewed all the in-depth investigations over the years

from beginning to end

and then cross-checked the trial records from Jinan (Bo Xilai), Hefei (Gu Kailai), and Chengdu (Wang Lijun)

by laying them out side by side

so no one can accuse me of rumor-mongering

From now on, the source list for every episode will be in the description

Feel free to check it out if you're interested

This case is too deep to cover in one episode

so today we'll first make sense of what's on the surface

Stealing my light is one thing

but you even dare to eavesdrop on my bed

This ad is sponsored by the program News Capitalized

Zhang Gousheng reminds you: listen to anything but bed-talk

Cherish life and stay away from bed-listening

Refuse bed-listening starting from you and me

On November 15, 1958, in Beijing

Gu Kailai was born with a red golden spoon in her mouth

Her father Gu Jingsheng was a founding major general

a core organizer of the December 9th Movement

After the founding of the PRC, he entered the Fifth Academy of the Ministry of National Defense as political commissar

which was the base of Qian Xuesen's team

Her mother Fan Chengxiu, from Shanxi, joined the Party at 14 in the Taihang Mountains

Among five daughters, Gu Kailai was the youngest

nicknamed Xiaoli

Before the age of 8, Xiaoli lived

the top-tier compound life of that era in China

But every big figure has to go through that hurdle

In 1966, everything turned dark as the Cultural Revolution broke out

Gu Jingsheng, due to his work

had connections with several colleagues later labeled as a traitor group

and was swiftly and ruthlessly overthrown in the General Political Department

He was expelled from the Party and thrown into prison before he could even pack his belongings

and remained imprisoned for 12 years

Her mother Fan Chengxiu was soon implicated as well

The five privileged daughters became outcasts overnight

Four older sisters were sent to the countryside

only the youngest, Xiaoli, remained in Beijing

In later official narratives and Gu Kailai's own memoirs

this experience was packaged as a rags-to-riches story

of a Beijing compound girl changing her fate through personal struggle

She worked as a textile factory shift worker

a construction laborer carrying cement

and a pork seller behind a food shop counter

But in those years when Beethoven and Mozart were burned as "poisonous weeds"

and the whole country listened only to eight model operas

this "black element" worker who chopped pork by day

what do you think she did after work

She secretly apprenticed to learn the pipa

and even reached a level good enough for solo performances

She managed to find professional teachers who hadn't been purged

and locate music scores not burned by the Red Guards

It seems the Gu family's political stock was suspended on the surface

but the invisible board of this class never stopped operating

Those old comrades from Gu Jingsheng's military system who were still safe

had been quietly weaving a protection network

regularly sending grain and meat coupons

steadily supporting the youngest daughter of the Gu family

September 1976

Mao passed away and the nation went into mourning

At the national level, a top-tier documentary

of great political significance was to be produced to commemorate the supreme leader

The Beijing Film Orchestra urgently summoned a top pipa player

to perform "Sai Shang Qu" for the spirit of the supreme leader to express desolation

and then play "Spring River Flower Moon Night" to evoke solemn depth

What a coincidence, after layers of selection

among countless revolutionary musicians and cultural backbones in all of Beijing

the name somehow landed precisely on an 18-year-old girl, Gu Kailai

The energy behind the Gu family was truly something

In October 1977, the thunder of the restored college entrance exam sounded

5.7 million youths delayed for 10 years by the Cultural Revolution rushed madly toward the narrow bridge

In the end, 270,000 were admitted, an admission rate below 5%

Gu Kailai also entered Peking University's Law Department

Right there in Yanyuan, that Law Department girl who had just turned 20

the youngest Gu daughter with a somewhat cold temperament

and that tall, handsome 29-year-old from the History Department

the Bo family son who had just shed his label and returned to campus

entered each other's sight

As for how she and Bo Xilai got together

Gu Kailai later wrote a romantic drama script for the media

She said it was in 1984

when she went to Jin County in Dalian to inspect the local economy

and on a desolate beach

she happened to meet Bo Xilai, then the county party secretary

Secretary Bo was crouching on the beach with a worried face, planning economic development with farmers

living in a dirty little room that could never be swept clean

and serving her small apples from a broken cardboard box

The talented Peking University woman was deeply moved

and secretly swore in her heart

I must marry this poor secretary who cares for the world and remains spotless

Unfortunately, after Bo Xilai fell from power

two top investigative reporters from The New York Times

Edward Wong and David Barboza

found Bo Xilai's first wife, Li Danyu

This old lady, who had endured inside the red walls for 30 years

finally mustered the courage, in her own words

to tell what happened back then

The real thread of their relationship was this

In 1978, Bo Xilai entered Peking University's History Department

and Gu Kailai entered Peking University's Law Department

They were in the same year, and in tiny Yanyuan, they saw each other all the time

So where did this 1984 beach encounter come from

The fatal part is that the two families were also related by marriage

Li Danyu's biological brother Li Xiaoxue

married Gu Kailai's third sister Gu Dan

So Bo Xilai was the brother-in-law of Gu Kailai's third brother-in-law

When they were flirting by Weiming Lake

the two families had already become tangled together

Why did Gu Kailai later

try so hard to cover up how this relationship began

Because she had to wash away her extremely disgraceful role in this relationship

When she entered this marriage, Bo Xilai was a married man

And this first wife, Li Danyu

was definitely not some powerless woman who could be casually dismissed

Li Danyu was the beloved daughter of Li Xuefeng

former first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and first secretary of the North China Bureau

and at the time she was still an active military doctor at PLA 301 Hospital

Destroying a military marriage was a serious crime that could land you in prison

When Bo Xilai first met Li Danyu

he was still wearing the label of a black-gang child

working as an oil-stained mechanic at a hardware repair plant under the Second Light Industry Bureau

The two married in 1976, and the next year they had a son

named Bo Wangzhi

At that time, Bo Yibo had not yet been rehabilitated

and the Bo family was still in a political ice age

while the Li family was at its peak

Under the political conditions of the time

this marriage absolutely counted as Li Danyu marrying down

After the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee in 1978, the situation reversed dramatically

Bo Yibo was fully rehabilitated and quickly returned to the absolute center of power

becoming vice premier of the State Council

In an extremely short time, the Bo family's political capital instantly went from a limit-down ST junk stock

to a monstrous stock violently pulled up through consecutive one-word limit-ups

Bo Xilai also took advantage of the momentum, threw down his wrench, and entered Peking University

And it was precisely at this moment when the family's political status

had completely turned around

that Bo Xilai simply and neatly turned around and got together with the young, beautiful

shrewd and capable Gu Kailai, whose own father had also returned to high position

On June 20, 1981, the very day Bo Wangzhi had just turned four

Bo Xilai suddenly laid his cards on the table with Li Danyu and demanded a divorce

Li Danyu later recalled

that Bo Xilai wailed, cried, rolled on the floor, and told her in utter grief

that he no longer had feelings for her

This divorce tug-of-war inside the red walls was extremely brutal

Li Danyu could not swallow this insult and fought for four full years

She even went to the compound of the All-China Women's Federation and cursed Bo Xilai as a modern Chen Shimei

In the end, it was old man Bo Yibo himself who stepped in

and only under forced intervention from the highest levels of both families' power was the divorce completed

After the divorce, Li Danyu took her son to the police station

and changed the elder son's name from Bo Wangzhi to Li Wangzhi

Using the most primitive and resolute Chinese method of stripping away the father's surname

she declared a complete physical severing from the man who had betrayed her

But Li Danyu may not have realized

that the boy she left behind, named Li Wangzhi

would become, over the next 30 years

a poisonous thorn Gu Kailai could never pull from her heart

Li Wangzhi was the firstborn son of Bo Xilai's formally married first wife

In the invisible family genealogy of the red-walled compound, his position was written on the first line

The legitimate eldest son was naturally supposed to rank ahead of the second son, Bo Guagua

During holidays, who offers the first toast; at the old man's memorial, who supports the coffin

and how the family's old connections would be divided in the future

whenever the legitimate eldest son was present, Guagua had to move half a step back

If you look at the trial transcript from Bo Xilai's public trial in Jinan, there are two pieces of testimony

Bo Xilai personally admitted in court

that Gu Kailai did everything she could to tell me things that made me feel Bo Guagua was capable and Bo Wangzhi was not