This Week in China’s History: Big Tiger's Assassination Squad

July 8, 1949

Listen to the audio version narrated by Kaiser above!

Tigers have long been a source of fear and fascination in China. And, for much of its history, they were a regular, if rarely seen, denizen of its mountains and forests. Tigers frequented Jiangxi into at least the 1950s, when their habitat was decimated by the policies of the Great Leap Forward, so the idea that a tiger was hunting in the mountains east of Lake Boyang in the summer of 1949 was not surprising. This tiger, though, was not the “king of beasts” (so marked by the wáng 王 — “king” — that tigers feature on their foreheads) but rather a local neighborhood chief. His name was Li, but everyone knew him by his nickname: Big Tiger.

On July 8, 1949, Big Tiger was leading a group of 11 men through Dayuan Village. Despite their violent intentions, they were not heavily armed. As historian Brian J. Demare describes them in his book Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman, “the men making their way through Dayuan carried no guns. Instead almost all of them brought little more than spears.” Big Tiger held a sword.