On1949 65438+127 October, the Taiping ship of China United Shipping Company was overloaded (2093 tons) and sailed at night. It collided with a ship Jianyuan carrying 2,700 tons of coal and timber and sank in the waters near Zhoushan Islands, killing 932 people on board.
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Taiping Wheel is a luxury cargo ship of China United Shipping Company, with a displacement of 2489 gross tons. It is operated by Cai Tianduo (father of Cai Kangyong, a freelance writer and media person in Taiwan Province Province) in Shanghai [1]. In the late civil war, a large number of refugees fled Chinese mainland. These people traded gold bars for shipping space, or relied on connections to squeeze into the Taiping wheel, which was already full. It was originally expected to leave at 4 pm, because a batch of silver dollars from the central bank was delayed until 6 o'clock. 1949 65438+127 (the day before Lunar New Year's Eve), Taiping Ferry carried the "last passengers", with a total of nearly 1000 people (508 passengers with tickets, crew 124 people, and about 300 people without tickets).
On the way from Shanghai to Keelung, we sailed at night in peace. In order to escape the curfew, it didn't turn on the navigation light. At 23: 45 p.m., it collided with a "Jianyuan" [2] carrying 2,700 tons of coal and timber near Baijie Mountain in Zhoushan Islands (30 25' north latitude and 0/22 east longitude), and the "Jianyuan" immediately sank with 72 people on board. The Taiping wheel sank in 15 minutes. At this time, almost everyone on board was screaming. The drowning person froze to death or drowned because of the cold at that time. More than 900 people were killed on board, and 38 people (6 crew members) were rescued by Australian warships. Most of the dead were famous wealthy businessmen, including the father of musician Wu Bochao and criminal expert Li Changyu. There are many jewels, Buddha statues and wooden boxes floating on the boat, which surprised the fishermen nearby. Shanghai court awarded compensation to China United Shipping Company. However, due to the war and displacement at that time, Shanghai was liberated soon, and the amount of compensation was astronomical. The insurance of Taiping Wheel is underwritten by Shanghai Huatai Insurance Company, which declared bankruptcy immediately after the accident, so China United Shipping Company must be responsible for its own profits and losses. China United Shipping Company finally ended its operation, and its other two ships were chained in Kaohsiung Port, and finally all rusted. The matter fell through. Cai Kangyong recalled that his father was persecuted by his creditors at that time, which made him a lawyer who tended to be "sympathetic to his employer".
195 1 year, a monument to the victims of the Taiping wheel was erected near the sea patrol team of Keelung Port East 16 wharf, inscribed by Yu Youren. In April, 2004, the Ministry of Ethnic Affairs of Democratic Progressive Party cooperated with Phoenix Satellite TV to produce the documentary Finding the Taiping Wheel.