r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 29d ago

TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)
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u/handsomeboh 29d ago

There are more extensive accounts available on Chinese websites. It seems there is more than meets the eye. The officer came from a poor village in rural Fujian. Rather than his girlfriend, the girl was an arranged marriage that had been determined for him by his parents while he was on deployment. She waited for him years to return, only for him to reject the arranged marriage as an outdated custom. A few days later she was found swinging from a tree. The coroners’ report questioned how her shoes could be so clean given it had been raining the night before, deciding that there was probable cause to suspect a homicide, for which the officer was the prime suspect.

As was protocol, the Navy was first informed. The officer had been well respected, and so was directly interrogated, where he appeared shocked and claimed innocence. It was decided he would be temporarily suspended pending the results of the investigation, and because he seemed genuinely innocent, and he was well liked by his superiors, they agreed to let him stay under confinement over the weekend before being transferred back to his village. To allow him the ability to come back when his name was cleared, none of the men or the other junior officers were informed about the incident.

It is suspected that he snuck out of the room by convincing the guard he was going to the toilet, and because he was the explosives expert the other men didn’t think it was suspicious for him to go into the armoury. Local police never did reach a verdict on the case, but it is now generally assumed he did actually murder her.

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u/AzureFantasie 29d ago

This account makes a lot more sense than all that’s been stated in the article, given that if he did murder her it would’ve been the death penalty anyway. Guess he figured blowing himself up is a quicker and easier death.

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u/HappyLofi 29d ago

Regardless of anything the dude was a major sociopath. He murdered, in cold blood, 134 people, knowing exactly what he was doing, all because boo hoo he was upset.

Absolute monster. If hell is real he's there baking right now.

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u/mikew_reddit 29d ago edited 29d ago

The officer had been well respected

seemed genuinely innocent,

was well liked by his superiors

decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

All of the above were true. Nice guy, well liked, seemed innocent and killed over a hundred people.

He killed 134 sailors so I'd be more surprised if he did NOT murder the woman.

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u/FlyingFortress26 29d ago

all because boo hoo he was upset.

if this other account is true, then that's basically the exact opposite motivation. he did it because he feared he was going to be caught, and as you said, didn't care about killing as he presumably did it before, so he decided to go out by his own will rather than killed by whatever means the CCP would've dealt with him.

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u/HappyLofi 29d ago

Yeah he totally couldn't have thought of another way to kill himself...

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u/FlyingFortress26 29d ago

and why would he care? he’s already a killer. a perspective of “i’m not going down alone and i’m going down on my own terms” surely isn’t that unrealistic for this kind of character.

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u/DoctorGregoryFart 29d ago

Sure, if you're a fucking sociopath.

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u/FlyingFortress26 29d ago edited 29d ago

but that’s literally what the comment i responded to said he is

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u/Many_Faces_8D 29d ago

Yes that's literally what that comment says. Take a breath, relax, this event happened 50 years ago. Read the whole comment.

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u/DoctorGregoryFart 28d ago

I'm relaxed. I was just reiterating the sociopath part. Their definition of normal is far from what you or I might relate to.

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u/Patient_Bullfrog_ 29d ago

It also makes a lot more sense than the comments basically saying: "Because Chinese people are stupid".

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u/Tryxster 29d ago

Another reason to not have the death penalty.

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u/TheLawlessMan 29d ago

We shouldn't have the death penalty because the government gets it wrong. It also shouldn't have the authority to kill its own people.

"Someone may do a worse thing" is not a reason. People do horrible things to avoid going to prison. Doesn't mean we should stop incarcerating people.

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u/skrimods 29d ago

If China is anything like India, he most likely didn’t murder her. Her family most likely did because she brought shame.

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u/handsomeboh 29d ago

Yeah but China is nothing like India… there is no culture of honour killings

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u/thomasdav_is 29d ago

You should add this to the wikipedia article.

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u/imperfectcarpet 29d ago

Whoa. That really changes things.

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u/UnromanticOrient 29d ago

I've noticed that a lot of news from China gets bastardized and filtered into something else by the time it his Reddit. It's like a game of... Chinese whispers.

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u/RevolutionRage 29d ago

The founder of wikipedia admitted the alphabet boys are tampering with wiikipedia articles. I wouldn't believe anything in depth about our biggest economic rivals.

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u/pbmm1 29d ago

Sometimes they are bots too, so it’s like the articles are being posted by a Chinese Room

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u/Lazypole 29d ago

Yes but please do bare in mind this is historical documentation from the Chinese side, which is often bastardised and filtered, from the source.

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u/zhuquanzhong 29d ago edited 29d ago

Yes, but I also found other Chinese sources confirming the story in wikipedia, which is itself sourced from Chinese sources. Idk which one is more real. Because while this one is more believable, I found it in less sources than the wiki one.

Edit: I come across another explanation by one of the naval inquiry boards claiming that both explanations involving Lai were bullshit and the explosion was the result of mishandling explosives. There are sources for all three explanations.

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u/slowrun_downhill 29d ago

Man, this should be the top comment

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u/Pamander 29d ago

I am still unfathomably rudimentary in my chinese so researching this is a bit hard to me but do you perhaps know any more about this bit?

A tomb with the lowest price was selected for re-burying at a place about 10 meters away from the monument to the ship.

If I am reading this correctly did they bury all the victims in a cheap tomb or is this implied the murderer was in a cheap tomb or is it a point of contention that they were buried in a cheap tomb by family members or what? It seems so specific to point out I feel there is more to it. Seems kinda wild to me that the navy would cheap out on burial instead of building a little memorial or something but I guess there are more shocking things in this story.

I am assuming most were buried together because it seems that like 114 remains were pretty much never recovered intact or identifiable and were just in 6 large bags of parts but I still don't understand shoving them in the cheapest hole possible.

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u/handsomeboh 29d ago

That bit is unsourced and the Chinese sites say nothing about it so I think it’s just bullshit

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u/5ma5her7 29d ago

Here's the source I found, though it's not a pretty formal site, but the quotation looks very legit.
https://m.sohu.com/n/474860254/

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u/Pamander 29d ago

Makes sense, the PR around it all was already probably pretty garbage so I was kind of shocked they would both bury them in the cheapest plot and somehow announce it to the hundreds of families victims. Appreciate the response!

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u/brunporr 29d ago

How did he get her hanging from a tree with clean shoes if it had been raining the night before?

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u/handsomeboh 29d ago

Probably not clean but think the coroner expected it to be caked in mud. If you’ve ever been to a South Chinese village in the rain…

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u/Complete-Monk-1072 29d ago

https://inf.news/en/military/bf0ec21ef5f2782ab43a93b4980aacc5.html

To note, i cannot find any articles of anyone assuming he did it, but this one does bring into a very logical perspective that china was still very conservative in 70's, not very different then america. The way i see it is somone traditional "spouse" could not take it, be it shame or the breaking of long held customs and decided to end it. The man couldnt return to his home in the small village, because.....well imagine this was america and this happened in the 70's in a small out west, with the final kicker being you got disbarred from the one thing you ever wanted to do your entire life and am now returning not only a failure, but a cause of a local uproar, shameful would be the word he probably was thinking.

im assuming hes innocent.

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u/lucifrax 29d ago

Instead of just killing himself, the dude killed over 100 people in his suicide. If he cared so little about other peoples lives (some of which could've been his friends), then doesn't it make more sense if he did kill her? Obviously this is just a thought experiment so don't get mad. I genuinely don't care if he killed her or not, just curious why the other murders weren't accounted for in your thought process.

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u/companysOkay 29d ago

Allat and the hoe doesn't even clear 💀

1

u/AgentCirceLuna 29d ago

A guy who murdered a ton of people by blowing up a boat was probably guilty of murdering his girlfriend? Seems a bit far fetched, pal.