Wang Zongfang (; – 18 September 1983) and Wang Zongwei (; – 18 September 1983), commonly called Er Wang (; ) were a pair of Chinese brothers, robbers, and serial killers who committed a series of robberies across northeastern, central, and eastern China.
Following a botched hospital robbery that killed four people, the Wang brothers fled their hometown and spent seven months travelling southwards through China as bandits. They killed five people along the way in three more shootings in Hengyang and Wuhan before being surrounded in an extensive six-day encirclement within a large forest near Fuzhou, Jiangxi. The Wang brothers were killed in a shootout with military and police forces after killing a member of the search team.
The Wang brothers were the first criminals in modern-day China to be assigned a bounty by the Ministry of Public Security, a system previously abolished since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Due to their crimes taking places in several different provinces, the brothers achieved national infamy during a time when reports on criminal cases were largely limited to local coverage.
The "Er Wang case" ("二王事件"/"二王案") or "Er Wang mass murder case" ("二王特大杀人案") was considered a major driving force behind the start of the Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign, and as part of the widespread campaign for their capture, military and police were aided by civilian tip-offs. In reports on their deaths, American media commonly compared the Wang brothers to Wild West outlaws.
Background Wang Zongfang and Wang Zongwei were natives of Shenyang, Liaoning. They were the two middle children of Wang Chunfang and Wang Jialin, having an older sister and a younger brother. Their parents worked as middle school teachers for the Northeastern Machinery Manufacturing Plant (the present-day ). According to their mother, all four of the Wang children were raised mainly by their maternal grandmother. During the Cultural Revolution, when Wang Zongfang and Wang Zongwei were still children, infighting factions of Red Guards fought on the grounds of the manufacturing plant, with the brothers witnessing the violent clashes between loyalists and rebels, who both made use of guns, knives, and land mines. Their parents speculated that the boys picked up "bad habits" from this time, particularly the resistance against government authorities.追捕“二王” (2015); 北京纪实-档案, BTV 纪实
Wang Zongfang Wang Zongfang, the older brother, was noted as a pickpocket since elementary school, attending education until junior high school. He taught himself how to pick locks and was arrested twice for burglary in 1974 and 1975. He married in 1979 and the same year, only three days after the wedding, Wang Zongfang was caught stealing supplies while working as a pharmacist at Liaoshen Health Centre in Shenyang's Dadong district as part of his militia service. He fled from the authorities, after which his mother left her workplace without notice to find her son. It was later discovered that she sheltered him at a relative's house, for which she was criminally prosecuted. Wang Zongfang served a three-year laojiao sentence for theft and was released by early 1983, now unemployed.
Wang Zongwei Wang Zongwei, the younger brother, entered service with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in December 1976. He had previously graduated only basic schooling, but was noted for his athleticism, particularly basketball. Before his enlistment, at age 19, he and his brother had broken into a duty room of Dabei Prison and stolen three pistols in March 1976, with an investigation ending without conclusion in June. He was trained as a sharpshooter in the PLA Air Force and stationed in Inner Mongolia for three years, serving as a squad leader. He regularly stole ammunition without notice during this time, having written his brother in June 1978 that he already obtained 100 boxes of 7.62 mm caliber. When Wang Zongwei was demobilised in January 1980, he was able to sneak five hand grenades into his bags. In August 1980, he was hired as a quality control clerk at the Northeastern Machinery Manufacturing Plant, assigned to the No. 6 iron workshop of the No. 724 Factory in Tiexi district. Although his work was unremarkable, filing in poorly written run-on sentence reports with numerous spelling errors, Wang Zongwei was well-liked for his charming and polite personality, being named as a "Socialist Spiritual Civilization Model" in a majority vote by fellow factory workers and party cadres in January 1983. He was easily recognised by others, standing 183 cm tall.
No. 463 Shenyang Hospital shooting On 12 February 1983, Wang Zongwei and Wang Zongfang entered the No. 463 PLA Air Force Hospital of Shenyang Military Region (the since 2016) in Wanquan subdistrict. Wang Zongfang had suggested the military hospital as a target based on his previous experience of working at and stealing from a government-run pharmacy, due to comparably low security for decently valued items. The Wang brothers were planning to steal from the building's cafeteria, as the majority of staff were attending a movie screening at a separate clubhouse for Chinese New Year's Eve at noon. At about 12:40, Wang Zongfang entered the grounds first, pushing along a Wuyang bike, with Wang Zongwei, dressed in an Air Force uniform and mask, following a few metres behind. A soldier, Wu Yongchun, who had left the screening to get something from his barracks, took notice of the unauthorized entries and told his superior Zhou Huamin about the suspicious men. After hearing that someone broke into the canteen, Wu and Zhou went looking for the intruders, finding Wang Zongwei, now dressed in undersized civilian clothes, loitering outside the clubhouse. While Zhou checked Wang Zongwei's only identification, his factory pass, Wu staked out the military grounds in his jeep, soon discovering Wang Zongfang, riding in circles on his bike and wearing his brother's uniform, complete with a fake collar insignia. Wu quickly wrestled Wang Zongfang to the ground and after finding stolen cigarettes and a pair of pliers on him, the suspected thief was carried into the hospital by PLA officer Liu Fushan and cook Wang. While the cook left to check on the canteen, Wu, along with five other staff members, detained Wang Zongfang in an inpatient room. Meanwhile, Zhou separately questioned Wang Zongwei alone in a surgical theatre across the hall.
After tearing off the fake insignia from Wang Zongfang's disguise, unlocking of his suitcase revealed that the brothers stole around 1,000 yuan, another three cartons of Fenghuang brand cigarettes, and thirty plastic packets of glutamate, having used an awl and a second pair of pliers to break into the cafeteria's staff-only area. The cook Wang confirmed that the former items were missing from the inventory and were worth 2,000 yuan. Wu Yongchun and recruit Bi Jibing then put Wang Zongfang in an armlock for a closer search by Liu Fushan. At this point, the detainee began shaking violently and screaming loudly to alert his brother in the other room. Wang Zongwei used a concealed Type 54 pistol to kill Zhou Huamin in the surgical theatre with two gunshots and then shot Lu Wencheng, who had come to check the noise, in the hall. Most of those inside the doctor's office, who were initially distracted by Wang Zongfang's apparent seizure, barricaded the door and ducked for cover, while Liu armed himself with a metal infusion stand. Upon entry, Wang Zongwei fatally shot Liu as the latter rushed at him, as well as Sun Weijin, an unarmed doctor who was dialling for security. Wu and Bi kept their restrainment of Wang Zongfang to keep him between themselves and Wang Zongwei, but Bi was shot after letting go in an attempt to grab a weapon. Wu continued to restrain the captive, managing to kick Wang Zongwei back a few times before he was shot at close range, falling to the ground. A second shot was fired at Wu by the gunman at the instruction of Wang Zongfang, who said "This kid is the worst, shoot him again" ("这小子最坏，再给他一枪"). The Wang brothers fled, leaving behind four dead and three seriously injured. 13 gunshots had been fired in total.东北“二王”覆灭记 (2014); 河北卫视
The brothers rode their bike back to the house of their parents, where they had attended reunion dinner with their grandmother, as well as Wang Zongwei's fiancée and four-year-old daughter just hours earlier. Their parents initially believed that the pair had been involved in a simple fight and were not directly told of the specifics of their crime. Wang Zongfang stated it "didn't matter anymore" and there was "no use saying anything now". According to their father, he realised that something bad had happened from seeing the gun and hearing Wang Zongwei wonder aloud about the future of his daughter with the comment "it doesn't matter if I die". The Wang brothers stayed for around five minutes, leaving at about 14:50, grabbing the mailing address of some overseas relatives. While their father gave the brothers his wrist watch and their mother offered them money, Wang Zongwei's fiancée only told them "You screwed me over" ("你们坑了我")."东北二王" (2007); p. 77, Sanlian Lifeweek
Wu Yongchun, although shot through both cheeks and the neck, was able to walk outside, holding his hat to the neck wound to hem the bleeding. He alerted his colleagues by shouting "Catch the thief, catch the murderer!" ("快抓贼呀！快抓凶手呀!"). At 13:10, the Dadong branch of the Shenyang Public Security Bureau was alerted. The director, the political commissar, and the captain of the criminal investigation team arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes later, followed by armed response officers at 13:35. By 14:10, the Shenyang Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Liaoning Provincial Public Security Department also took part in the investigation, with municipal authorities questioning locals about potential sightings of the perpetrators as they fled the scene. A kitchen worker, Su Guirong, told police that she saw the gunman handing over a card before the shooting, which was eventually found in the hands of one of the injured, Li Zuozhou. Though all the injured were unconscious, Su confirmed the find through the ID's picture. Wang Zongwei was quickly identified as the main perpetrator from his pass, as well as a shoulder bag with tools he had left behind. His brother Wang Zongfang was determined to be the accomplice minutes after the finding. The gun used was also identified as having been stolen six years earlier with two others, with the description of two suspicious individuals seen at the time (one short and one tall man) matching the Wang brothers. Public security was dispatched to Shenyang's train stations and major roadways at 15:30. It was ultimately found that the Wang brothers had boarded the No. 47 Train to Guangzhou, with a stop-over in Beijing, at , only thirty minutes before police gave the order. Shortly after midnight on 13 February, a nationwide warrant was placed on the Wang brothers for murder and robbery, who were now the 13th ongoing criminal case directly processed by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). Since the Wang family had relatives in British Hong Kong and the United States, it was believed that the brothers might try to cross onto foreign territory once in Guangdong, possibly to leave the continent altogether.
For their efforts to apprehend the Wang brothers, the four fatalities were recognised as revolutionary martyrs by the Shenyang Military Region Air Force. Survivors Wu Yongchun and Lu Wencheng were given second-class and third-class merit awards respectively. The dead were buried in the .
Manhunt