Under the recommendation of Chiang Kai-shek's secretary-general Yang Yongtai (楊永泰), who was unaware of Mo's communist activities, Mo Xiong (莫雄) steadily excelled in Chiang Kai-shek's regime, eventually becoming an important member within Chiang Kai-shek's general headquarters in the early 1930s. In January 1934, Chiang Kai-shek named him as the administrator and commander-in-chief of the Fourth Special District in northern Jiangxi. Mo used his position to plant more than a dozen communist agents within Chiang's general headquarters, including Liu Yafo (劉亞佛),the communist who first introduced to the Communist Party of China, Xiang Yunian (項與年) his communist handler, whom he hired as his secretary, and Lu Zhiying (盧志英), the communist agent who was the acting head of the spy ring, which was directly under the command of Zhou Enlai.