Shanghai Gangsters: The Big Eight Mob

Before the rise of notorious gangster kingpins like Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong, there was the Big Eight Mob 八股党 and a crooked cop named Shen Xingshan. Dan Stein delves into the tale:

In February 1909, the International Opium Commission, an initiative proposed by US President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, was held in Shanghai. A response to the global proliferation of narcotics, the meeting led to the 1912 Hague Opium Convention, the first international drug control treaty. Countries around the world committed to curtailing legal opium exports and further restricting its use, including in Shanghai’s foreign concessions. 

Like Prohibition though, the drug’s allure wasn’t stemmed so easily. With legal channels to obtain opium closing, Shanghai’s criminal underworld was happy to pick up the slack.

Notorious Shanghai gangsters like Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong later rose to prominence. However, in the 1910s and early ’20s, control of the opium racket, and the power that came with it, was concentrated in the hands of another group: The Big Eight Mob. 

Known as the ‘Bagudang’ (八股党) in Chinese, a crooked cop stood at its helm, the Chief of Chinese Detectives in the British-American International Settlement’s Shanghai Municipal Police. His name was Shen Xingshan.

Along with Shen, other Big Eight members of note included Su Jiashan, the International Settlement’s most successful opium merchant; Jiang Ganting, warlord chief of staff; Dai Buxiang, manager of Tibet Road’s Zhonghua Hotel; Yang Zaitian, former salt smuggler; and Ji Yunqing, Green Gang elder.

In addition to Ji, all of these individuals besides Jiang were members of the Green Gang. Rooted in 18th century boatmen’s guilds, as the Red Gang triads’ power declined in the 1910s, the Green Gang became the main gangster umbrella organization in the Yangtze River Delta and in Shanghai. It was a loose organizational framework though, with many sub-groups, but the Big Eight Mob was at the forefront.

Left: Lu Yongxiang and He Fenglin; Right: Lu’s sprawling mansion, now a multiple family dwelling.

Led by Shen, the Big Eight worked closely on opium smuggling with the Shanghai-Zhejiang warlord Lu Yongxiang and his Defense Minister He Fenglin. Smuggling operations were done in concert with the China River Police and ironically enough, the Anti-Smuggling Squad, along with the Settlement’s opium merchants. These merchants, known as ‘hongs,’ were largely from the Cantonese city of Chaozhou. Collectively, the unholy alliance between gangsters, police, warlords, and hongs is referred to by Dr. Brian Martin as ‘The Syndicate.’

A myriad of inter- Syndicate connections served the Big Eight well. Shen’s deep police ties as SMP Chief of Chinese Detectives helped the hongs operate without pesky police interference. And key member Jiang Ganting was chief of staff to He Fenglin, creating a direct warlord contact line to He and his boss Lu. In addition to ensuring the safe transport and delivery of illicit opium shipments, the Big Eight ran a ‘protection’ racket, where opium dens had to pay them a regular fee to operate. All involved in the Syndicate were able to earn dizzying profits.

The peak of the Big Eight’s power corresponded with Lu Yongxiang’s reign from 1919 to 1924. During this time, another Green Gang offshoot, based just south of Avenue Edward VII (today’s Yanan East Rd), was itching to get a larger piece of the illicit opium earnings. This group, led by ‘Pockmark’ Huang and his ascendant deputy ‘Big Eared’ Du, was located in the French Concession. Like Shen, Huang was also a corrupt cop, running double duty as the French Concession Chief of Chinese Detectives and gangster organization leader. This may have been an intentional strategy on the colonial authorities’ part, outsourcing control of the local population.

Largely blocked out by the powerful Big Eight, and with most big opium hongs located in the International Settlement, the French Concession Green Gang began scheming how to turn the tables on their rival. Du even created his own ‘Small Eight Mob’ to counter Shen’s group. After chipping away for a few years, Huang and Du’s big moment finally came.

In October 1924, Lu Yongxiang was defeated in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang War. With his fall from grace, The Syndicate’s opium monopoly began to unravel. Perhaps emboldened by Lu’s defeat, and much to Shen’s chagrin, his British SMP colleagues began aggressively targeting the International Settlement’s opium merchants. 

Large scale raids were carried out against the hongs in early 1925, including on huge storage hubs at 51 Guangdong Rd. and 562 Fuzhou Rd. The SMP’s authority only extended as far as the International Settlement’s borders though, and despite the Hague Opium Convention, no such campaign against illegal opium was happening in Shanghai’s French-controlled area. As a result, there was a mass exodus of hongs to the French Concession. Huang and Du welcomed them with open arms. 

Reading the writing on the wall, Shen made an agreement with Huang to cede some of his group’s opium control. By then though, The Big Eight’s days as a major player were already numbered.

There was no ‘Red Wedding’ or ‘Hongmenyan,’ where Big Eight members were taken out by their French Concession rivals. In fact, a number of prominent Big Eight members decided to join them, including their leader Shen.

Shen and opium merchant extraordinaire Su Jiashan played a role in setting up the successor to The Syndicate, Du and Huang’s Sanxin Company. Shen was on the board, but no longer had the power he once possessed.

As mentioned previously, Su Jiashan was the biggest hong in the International Settlement before the 1925 crackdown. Once Chiang Kai-shek took Shanghai in 1927, Chiang had no qualms with giving Su a role in the new administration. Specifically, Su was appointed one of the main officials in Chiang’s anti-opium commission. How things change. 

After Du consolidated power, and ultimately overtook Huang as the most powerful gangster in Shanghai, he became ‘blood brothers’ with Su, frequently seeking out his advice. When Su was on his deathbed, his dying wish was to secure a job for his son at the prestigious China Commercial Savings Bank on the Bund. Du made it happen.

Jiang Ganting, despite losing his benefactors He and Lu after their 1924 defeat, also worked with Chiang, who appointed him to a prominent position in the China Mutual Progress Association.

Dai Buxiang continued racketeering in the larger Green Gang organization, which he’d done since his halcyon smuggling days partnering with the Japanese mob, in both Yokohama and Formosa. His son Dai Guoding later worked at the nightclub Ciro’s, opened by the Jewish real estate magnate Sir Victor Sassoon, publishing a Ciro’s pictorial magazine.

In the 1930s, when Du sought to invest money in a more respectable venture, he asked for Dai’s help. Du had his eyes on the Da Da Shipping Company, but despite amassing shares, wasn’t able to fully seize control. Dai then assisted Du in forcibly ‘seizing’ Da Da’s docks at Shiliupu, crippling the company’s ability to load and unload ships. With this menacing signal, the board ultimately acceded to Du’s majority control.

Shiliupu then (left) and the refurbished modern version (right), known as the Cool Docks

After stints as a salt smuggler and one of the Big Eight’s leaders, Yang Zaitian also looked to diversify his holdings. Several years before Du’s Da Da ploy, Yang co-founded Datong Renji Steam Navigation, serving shipping routes to his native northern Jiangsu Province. 

While initially competitors, with Du and Yang’s shared Green Gang ties, they ultimately settled on a duopoly, raking in ample profits on trade between Shanghai and the Subei region. With his financial gains, Yang purchased himself a villa on 26 Edinburgh Rd., a thoroughfare which today is aptly named after his hometown province: Jiangsu.

Finally, there was the senior Green Gang elder Ji Yunqing. One of the main leaders of the Big Eight, he stayed active after the power shift to Du and the French Concession mobsters, and later drew closer to the Japanese. After Japan’s full-on invasion in 1937, Ji’s acolytes became key members of the infamous Chinese secret police, headquartered at 76 Jessfield Road (now Wanhangdu Rd.). 

Around this time, Ji also became the godfather to one of Shanghai’s most notorious female gangsters, She Aizhen. In 1939, Ji’s bodyguard and 76 Jessfield henchman, Wu Sibao, saved him from an assassination attempt. As a reward, Ji ‘encouraged’ She to get to know Wu better, and not long after they married. Unfortunately, Wu was poisoned to death a couple of years later, and Ji ultimately couldn’t escape another assassin’s bullet, this time sent by Chiang’s spychief Dai Li.

From left: She Aizhen, Hu Lancheng, and Eileen Chang

After Japan’s 1945 defeat, She was imprisoned for her ties to the collaborationist government, but was released on the eve of the CCP’s 1949 victory. She fled to Hong Kong and ultimately Japan. Once there, she re-connected with an old flame, Hu Lancheng, ex-husband of Eileen Chang, one of China’s most famous 20th Century writers. They married, spending the rest of their days together until the early 1980s.

Today, Shen Xingshan and the Big Eight Mob are not as well remembered as ‘Big Eared’ Du and ‘Pockmark’ Huang. However, through opium trade dominance, cooperation with the warlords, and later its members’ roles working with Chiang, Du, and the Japanese, the Big Eight’s early prominence in Shanghai’s underworld is undeniable, playing a crucal role in the Green Gang’s meteoric rise.

REFERENCES

Martin, Brian G. The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919-1937. (University of California Press, 1996)

Field, Andrew David. Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919-1954. (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2010)

Wakeman Jr., Frederic. Policing Shanghai: 1927-1937. (University of California Press, 1996)

The Shanghai Opium Commission
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1959-01-01_1_page006.html

民国荒唐的禁烟：禁烟委员是贩卖烟土的杜月笙
https://lishi.7139.com/5125/06/336.html

苏嘉善是杜月笙朋友，临去世有一事相托，杜大亨说：一定给你办到
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1673503567474668018&wfr=spider&for=pc

收服沈杏山，智擒严老九，杜月笙的江湖已全面起程
https://www.sohu.com/a/366403809_120384239

旧上海第一杀手，杀死汉奸季云卿，最终因为一个女人而送命
https://new.qq.com/omn/20211202/20211202A0700X00.html

佘爱珍：14岁未婚先孕，24岁愤怒离婚，54岁被张爱玲的最爱求婚
https://www.163.com/dy/article/HFAEN90F05529UNM.html