The Struggles of an Ordinary Man (China 1900-2000) (II)

By Weihua Liu

“The Struggles of an Ordinary Man (Volume Two)- The Turbulent History of China Through a Farmer’s Eyes from 1900 to 2000” is the true record of one hundred years of modern history in rural areas of the Eastern Shandong Peninsula from the 1900 to 2000, including the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Anti-Japanese War (1938-1945), China’s War of Liberation (1945-1949), the development of China after liberation (1950-1957), the Great Leap Forward Movement (1958-1959), the Three-year Disaster (1960-1962), the Socialist Education Movement (1964-1965), the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and the reform and opening up of China (1978-2000).
This work, with the spirit of unvarnished realism and true-life style, illustrates the actual life and inner mind of an ordinary man in rural areas, and through his eyes to see the significant changes of China during the past one hundred years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329598751

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The Struggles of an Ordinary Man (China 1900-2000) (II)

The Struggles of an Ordinary Man

The Turbulent History of China Through a Farmer’s Eyes from 1900 to 2000

(Volume Two)

Liu Weihua

2016

Edition:

First edition

Copyright © 2016 By Liu Weihua

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-329-59875-1

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Book Design: Liu Wei-hua  Cover Design: Liu Wei-hua, Jiang Hua-qing

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About the Book

The Struggles of an Ordinary Man - The Turbulent History of China Through a Farmer’s Eyes from 1900 to 2000 is the true record of one hundred years of modern history in rural areas of the Eastern Shandong Peninsula from the 1900 to 2000, including the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Anti-Japanese War (1938-1945), China’s War of Liberation (1945-1949), the development of China after liberation (1950-1957), the Great Leap Forward Movement (1958-1959), the Three-year Disaster (1960-1962), the Socialist Education Movement (1964-1965), the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the reform and opening up of China (1978-2000).

This work, with the spirit of unvarnished realism and true-life style, illustrates the actual life and inner mind of an ordinary man in rural areas and through his eyes to see the significant changes of China during the past one hundred years. This book restores the true-life stories of the ordinary rural man with a fair view, which might be a little different from the propaganda of the media and government in those days.

Chapter Eight

A Willing Ox to Serve the People

1971 -1979 in Tuan-wang Commune of Laiyang County

It was 9 AM after Yu Wan-long, the director of the Laiyang Organization Department, had finished his talk with me on January 5, 1971. Yu Wan-long said, In order to strengthen the work of Tuan-wang Commune, you are assigned to be the commissary in charge of publicity. We hope you will prove worthy of the Party’s trust.

My heart sank when Yu said this, unhappy, but surprising. I was the third highest-ranking official of Zhong-jing Commune, but I would be at the bottom of leaders in Tuan-wang and I would not be a member of the Standing Committee of the Tuan-wang Party Commune Committee. I felt it a bit frustrating after this talk. Why? I had a strong oppugn in mind, but habitually, I kept quiet. Walking out Yu’s office, I rode my bicycle to Zhong-jing. I had just been relegated. There were only two possible reasons. First, I had not supported the working team headed by Lin Feng-wu, who had wanted to overthrow thirty-five people as hidden evildoers in Guang-shan Village. He had reported me to the Laiyang County Revolutionary Committee. Later, during the study sessions of One Strike and Three Antis, the head had criticized me without naming me, because of my conservative manner.

Recollecting the days since I began to work, I had experienced many movements, including going down to the countryside and having even dragged manure carts in 1958, suffering the most difficult living conditions and the hardship in the Five-four Youth State Farm in 1960 and 1961, experiencing the violent storms during the Great Cultural Revolution and carrying heavy salt with a wooden wheelbarrow in the May Seventh Cadre School. Many things had been unfair in the world, but I had withstood all tests, and my willpower had been strengthened. I had not made any major error and I had never given up and retreated in the hardest times. During my past work, people regarded me as a person who is not an overachiever. The director of the Laiyang Armed Forces Department, Hao Qiao-yun, used to say when the Great Cultural Revolution just began, Liu is a real revolutionist and he does not have any wild ambitions. I had been truly devoted to the country, not to the high rank of an official. I wanted to be a man of noble nature during the long hard period, to help the masses and the country, not a man in contradiction to his conscience. I would be satisfied if the people thought of me as a kindhearted person, who was trying to help them. Anyway, the Party still wants to use me to work for it, I thought, It is still a good sign. I did not mind being only the commissary in charge of publicity and not a member of the Standing Committee. I had courage again and went immediately to Tuan-wang to report for duty.

Tuan-wang was a large commune with forty-two villages within it and more than 35,000 people. The total area was about forty-seven square kilometers, which were mainly hilly regions. The natural conditions were harsh because of poor farming lands. There were two main mountain ridges. The Wan-jia Mountain Ridge was located five kilometers west of Tuan-wang Town and the surface soil was only ten centimeters with flat stones under the soil layer. Villagers said, The land is like flagstone in dry weather and it is like wetted baby buttocks on raining days. The yield of grain per mu here was very low. There was a rural saying, Wan-jia Mountain Ridge, Wan-jia Mountain Ridge, the amount of wheat crop per mu can only make one piece of round flat cake. The other mountain hillocks were located five kilometers north of Tuan-wang Town, where the land favored wet weather. The only township enterprise was the Tuan-wang Repair Plant. Since the first few years of the Great Cultural Revolution, this commune became very chaotic and barely served as a foundation for the people. (Appendix: Laiyang Party Congresses and Laiyang County Peoples’ Congresses)

The second week after I had reported for duty at Tuan-Wang, the commune assigned me to stay in Niu-bei-cheng-zhuang Village with Chen Pin, a young man from Qingdao, who had just graduated from school and had just been assigned to be the accountant of the Commune Food Station. Party Commune Secretary Yu told me, I have heard from the Party Commune Secretary of Zhong-jing that you have great abilities to resolve chaos in villages.

Niu-bei-cheng-zhuang Village was notorious for its chaos in Laiyang County. It was a village long considered a tough nut to crack. Laiyang County once sent two working teams to stay in this village, but both of them were driven out by villagers. This village had two firmly opposing Red Guard factions since the Great Cultural Revolution. Two Party members, Dong and Zhang, had been controlling the factions, giving the village a foul atmosphere. Both factions wanted to seize power. They cast aspersions on each other, held a tight grip on historic problems and found every way to conquer or destroy people on the opposing side. At first, we were too worried to stay in the village at night. We rode by bicycles along the zigzag mountain paths for nearly twenty kilometers to the village in the early morning and came back to the commune late at night. After several meetings, observing and understanding the situation, I decided to first criticize both factions. It was just throwing a stone to clear the road so that I could find a way to deal with the problems, based on their reactions. Just as expected, they all thought that I supported the opposite faction. On that night, five people from one faction jumped over a wall into the courtyard of the commune to create a disturbance. I called out the Party Commune Secretary, the military delegate, and other cadres, who were sleeping at the commune. Each of us talked with one of the agitators. After educating and admonishing them and also criticizing their action for an hour, they left peacefully. A few days later, while we were holding a meeting for all Party Village Secretaries, the head of that Red Guard faction came to the commune to create a disturbance again. Some Party Village Secretaries argued with him in the courtyard. One Party Village Secretary could not control his anger and struck him. This shocked the guy. He went back and never took the lead in coming for disturbances again.

How to solve the chaos in this village was a hard task for me. There were a lot of knotty problems. I first held meetings for key members of both factions, educating them, as well as having heart-to-heart talks personally with each of them. Meanwhile, I had frank discussion with key Party members and focused on forming the leading body relying on key Party members. After one month, I formed the leading body with the core of the old Party Village Secretary. Chen Pin and I worked hard to eliminate cliquism and unite the people as well as to promote agricultural production. After two months, the two factions stopped fighting each other. The Party Village Secretary led the leading body to promote agricultural production and other works, instead of criticizing each other. A new hope was born in this village after nearly five years of chaos.

In March 1971, Laiyang County called the second study sessions for One strike and Three Antis. Party Commune Secretary Yu assigned me to be the head of the study session of Tuan-wang Commune. I led more than sixty people to Laiyang County. All participants brought their own quilts and slept on straw on the ground at night. Our platoon stayed in a classroom of Laiyang First Senior High School. This study session was harder than the first one. The main problem was that the people of Tuan-wang Commune had serious factional issues, not only the masses, but also the leaders, cadres and Party members. Before I went to Laiyang County, the Party Commune Secretary had a secret talk with me revealing his partisan views. He talked a lot of circumstances and mentioned some names. He even wanted me to seize this opportunity to bring them down.

Leaders should not be obsessed by factionalism, I thought. Leaders should not favor one and discriminate against the other. However, I did not mention my thoughts out loud. Experience and lessons learned from many years of brutal movements made people hesitant to open up their minds. Remaining silent could protect oneself in all mass movements and I laid down a principle for myself. I acted in accordance with the policies of the Party and Chairman Mao’s thoughts. Before starting a movement, I became somewhat of a hothead to help launch the movement with the greatest ambitions and made a good beginning. After the movement had been launched, I calmed down and threw some cold water on my head, thought carefully about the psychological resilience of the masses, studied carefully the alpha and omega of the affairs, got to the essence of things, found out whether or not it corresponded to reality and found out whether or not it conformed to an objective law, then made a decision without deviations. I had followed this principal and had not made errors during the past movements, including the Great Cultural Revolution.

Although I was facing many severe problems in the second study session, I had confidence that I would do a good job in leading this session. Moreover, I had gained some experiences after the first study session of Zhong-jing Commune. I would be especially careful to observe policies and tactics. The first stage of the study session was to organize participants to study and raise and straighten out their thinking. The main problems of each participant had been exposed after the first stage. Most of the participants in my platoon had already understood that I solved their problems from a perspective that concerned them. Many platoon leaders applied pressure on participants while key members extruded them. They also worked on individual accounts to find out financial problems. Even if someone did not have a problem, they would calculate out some. For life style problems, they exposed key targets by way of shaking a mountain in order to shake a tiger. For those targets, some platoon leaders used torture. Some communes were persecuting people throughout the night. There were people who died. Almost all platoons arranged key members to stand guard at night. In my platoon, all participants were kept at ease. Everything was in perfect order. All participants slept in two classrooms for men and women at night, I slept near the door. I did not arrange people to stand guard at night. A few key targets confessed only based on facts of their own initiative. I got rid of all views of factionalism and tried hard to let them confess willingly and clearly. What I liked most was that they admitted their mistakes, made genuine self-criticisms and tried to correct them.

In my platoon, participants from the SMCO were main targets. They indeed had some problems, which had been uncovered during the Great Cultural Revolution. The director of the SMCO Tuan-wang Branch had a life style problem. He had been relieved of his duties in order to engage in self-examination and discover his errors. In accordance with the seriousness of the case, the person, who had committed the act of adultery, should be given the punishment of disciplinary action within the Party and be removed from his position, but he still could remain in employment and remain in the Party. He had indeed performed well since the study session began, sincerely accepting criticism and education. Chairman Mao said, a man is bound to make mistakes. He recognizes them and is able to change them and he remains a good Comrade! I announced to my platoon. He has a great attitude to admit and correct his mistakes during the study session and has been subjected to administrative demotion. He does not have to be dismissed from Party membership. In the last stage of the study session, there were only five days left to finish it. My village urgently called me and asked me to go back immediately, for my mother was serious ill. Seeing that the problems had been solved in my platoons, I went back home. As soon as I left, the director went to a cornfield in the west of the Laiyang Bus Station to meet the woman involved in the adultery offense. Some people followed him and caught the two of them in the field. Although both of them did nothing, except exchanging a few words, he was given the punishment of being expelled from the Party and his employment. Another case was a couple in my platoon. When the Great Cultural Revolution just began, their house was sealed up for seven days for the reason of economic questions. I felt that the financial issues were just hearsay. When the study session was going to end, I was able to clear up their problems. The study sessions finished after more than fifty days. All participants in my platoon thought I really cared. They were grateful for my help. They regarded me as their real friend, who helped them overcome mistakes, but not deliberately create troubles for them. Some of them built close friendships with me that lasted for more than thirty years. In these study sessions, the leading body of the One Strike and Three Antis was reassured of our platoon. We had successfully done our job without any contingent event. When we left, the leading body notified me that there would be a third study session and asked me to come again.

On March 30, 1971, the CPC Central Committee formally dismissed Wang Xiao-yu from his post as head of the Shandong Revolutionary Committee Party Core Team and sent him down to the Xi’an Farm in Panjin, Liaoning Province. This was good news for people who had ever joined the 2.14 Red Guard Coalition. Soon afterwards, in April, the Laiyang Revolutionary Committee Party Core Team was revoked and then the Party Core Teams of all communes and villages were revoked. Meanwhile, the Party Committees of counties, communes and villages were formed. The Party Committees became the main leading body to replace the Revolutionary Committees.

In May 1971, Duan Yu-ting was transferred to be the Party Commune Secretary of Tuan-wang Party Commune Committee. I was still the commissary in charge of publicity. Duan Yu-ting was an old revolutionist, who had joined the revolution in 1943 when he was in a guerilla unit. He had a high educational background. He was tall and stalwart, always standing straight as an arrow. Having some gray hair in his fifties, he did not look old, but elegant. He was always polite and appeared venerable and imposing. He used to be the director of the Administration Office of Laiyang County and the director of Laiyang Party School. We used to know each other very well. Now we had the chance to work in the same commune. He felt he had a capable assistant and I felt I could learn more things from him, which could benefit me both in work and life.

Tuan-wang Party Commune Committee decided to comprehensively rectify Party organizations at the grassroots levels and formed a special leading body headed by me to be in charge of the work. I was again being used as a soldier in Chinese chess in the opponent’s territory. I could advance, but not retreat and had to act somewhat as a general. We focused on eliminating factionalism and enhancing the Party spirit, dealing with units that had serious and longstanding problems. To speak out against the political movements would be labeled immediately as a bad element, but there was no need to spell it out. We understood each other with natural empathy that we would follow, what we thought to be good for the country and people, instead of falling back into political struggle movements. Duan Yu-ting put forward a slogan of Solidarity and Prosperity, according to the name of Tuan (solidarity) and Wang (prosperous). After many large meetings and small conferences, this slogan struck deep in the hearts of everyone of Tuan-wang Commune. We began to hold study sessions for all Party members. The first session for ten days was held in Dong-tuan-wang Village. We gathered all Party members of this village in a classroom of Tuan-wang Senior High School. We studied Quotations from Chairman Mao, works of Chairman Mao, CPC Central Committee documents and the Constitution of the CPC. We held meetings of fighting selfishness and repudiating revisionism. During the final stage of the study session, we got at the root of the problems, found out answers to these problems and removed misunderstandings and contradictions through one-to-one discussions. During our most concentrated study period, we asked people to send food to the classroom. After the improvements and rectifications, the Party Village Committee of Dong-tuan-wang Village strengthened its working capabilities and the factionalism vanished. This village formed a strong leading body and united all commune members to quickly turn it into an advanced village. We held study sessions in other villages one by one. We conducted the work in a meticulous and concentrated way instead of doing it as a mere formality. The situations of many villages were becoming more prosperous.

Laiyang County held the third study sessions for One strike and Three Antis in August 1971. The Party Commune Committee assigned me to head the study session of our commune. This time, all participants came from the educational front. Our platoon stayed in the conference hall of the Laiyang Teachers College. Except those, who had to stay for work in their schools, more than sixty teachers from Tuan-wang Commune participated in this session. I was more at ease in the third study session; everything ran smoothly according to schedule. We found out a few key targets in this session. A female teacher, who used to be my primary school teacher, seemed to be under a lot of pressure. I thought it might be because she was born into a landlord family. Curiously, no matter what painstaking ideological work we had done, she still seemed stressed. And she did not seem to wish to open her mind to me. Is there anything that she finds hard to disclose? I asked myself and I went to talk with our company commander. One night, the company commander found her and had a talk with her. She confessed that she had an affair with a colleague when she was young. The company commander explained the policy of the study session and told her, You take the initiative in admitting your problem and sincerely repent. We will keep it a secret and we will not punish you.

The lifestyle problem of a physics teacher from Laiyang Fifth Senior High School had set off a fierce reaction among all participants. Red Guards had used torture to extort a confession from him in 1967. He had admitted to raping girl students, but he had denied any involvement later. During the study session, in order to know more about his problems, we sent people to find those girls, who were now in Yantai, Qingdao and rural areas, but the girls they found refuted the facts. Without witnesses, we could not pronounce a crime. We finally found one witness. I thought if we could not unravel the facts of the crime, I would be considered incompetent, and if I let this bad case get away, it would incur great indignation. During the study session, he would admit to the crime today and deny it the next. Until the end of the study session, his crime could not be solved. We had to bring his case back to our commune and continue to investigate it. After the study session, Tuan-wang Commune assigned Li Xiu-chun, who was on the staff of the SMCO Tuan-wang Branch, and another person to continue the investigation into the circumstances of the physics teacher. They worked hard to get to the bottom of the case. Finally, the physics teacher formally confessed to his crime in the face of the facts. He was justly punished.

Chun-xiang had to participate in the third study session of Zhong-jing Commune. She had been just transferred to this commune. Huo Bing-fang, the Party Commune Secretary of Zhong-jing had come to me one day in July 1971 after visiting Chun-xiang personally. He wanted to transfer her to Zhong-jing to be a coach to train tractor drivers. They just bought their first caterpillar tractor, but no one knew how to drive it. I said to him, From the perspective of the ideological and political work, Chun-xiang shall show more devotion to people’s interests, if the Party Commune Committee wants her. She will contribute to the Party and the people. When Chun-xiang discussed this with me, I said to her, They want you and have shown clearly, they look up to you. You shall not disappoint them. On a very hot day, Chun-xiang went to Laiyang County to go through the formalities with our third child in her arms. She took a photo in a photo studio with the baby as a memento of her transferring to a new post. This was the first photo taken of the baby since she was born. My mother-in-law came with Chun-xiang to Zhong-jing to look after the baby. The commune assigned a villager’s house in Zhong-jing Town for Chun-xiang to live. The girl was already nineteen months old and everyone said that she was the most pretty and clever girl. Chun-xiang had tried to stop breastfeeding her, but the girl could always find a way out to defend her rights of having a mother’s milk. She had become the one who had longest breastfeeding among our children. Because the sessions did not allow participants to bring children, Chun-xiang could not participate in the first and second sessions for having to nurse our third child. In order to participate in this session, Chun-xiang sent the girl to her grandmother in Xi-nan-yan Village. The girl had no alternative but to understand that Mother would leave her for a while and would not feed her with mother’s milk.

During the study session, Chun-xiang really could not think out any problems in her past work. However, leaders claimed that everyone must think out some problem. Her platoon leader reminded her that in the first and second study sessions, some participants, who were from the SMCO branches, had found out a problem. The SMCO branches had often sold some wasted packing boxes to the internal staff with cheaper prices. The official selling price of one wasted packing box was RMB 0.5 yuan, but the selling price to the internal staff was only RMB 0.3 yuan. Chun-xiang used to buy a few wasted packing boxes with the internal price. This was a problem! After calculating, she restituted RMB 3 yuan.

After the nearly fifty-day session had finished, Chun-xiang and I went back to our home and stayed for one day. Our third child had learned to eat food instead of having mother’s milk. This girl was an innate optimist, as long as she was well fed. She had seldom cried since she had been born. She always smiled when she saw other people. She was loved by her brother, sister and people in the village.

*                 *                 *

On September 13, 1971, Laiyang County was holding a regular meeting for three level cadres, which included cadres of departments in Laiyang County, communes and villages. Dong Ting-jian, the Party Village Secretary of Li-jia-bai-miao Village, asked for a leave of absence, for his daughter was celebrating her one-hundredth day after birth. He had this girl at fifty-five years of age; it was an emotional feeling of joy. Duan Yu-ting did not approve of his request. Dong had a serious quarrel with Duan and said, I have never seen a cadre worse than you. You are impersonal! I was right there and told him, If we were fighting in the front line in the war years, could you go back home even if your wife was giving birth to a child? Let alone are you allowed to go home to celebrate the one-hundredth day after birth? As a senior Party member, he had been a model of keeping the Party’s discipline and loyalty to the Party’s causes. He was submissive after my words.

After the meeting, the Party Commune Committee set the new aim to promote work in all areas by drawing upon experiences gained at key points and to bring along the less advanced villages to catch up with the advanced ones. I was assigned to the most backward area - Bei-yan area, which was called Tuan-wang’s Siberia and included five mountain villages: Xi (west), Dong (east) and Qian (front) three Bei-yan villages, Xi-liu-quan Village and Tai-ping Mountain Village.

All cadres were required to share the comforts and hardships of the masses, eating and sleeping at villagers’ homes and working with villagers together. Each of us paid each family 0.05 yuan for a breakfast and 0.2 yuan for a lunch or a dinner. I brought Fang Shi-xu, the secretary of the League Branch, to stay in Xi-bei-yan Village. Living conditions were rather tough in backward villages. Our main foods were sweet potatoes and corn cakes and our main dishes were pickles and green Chinese onions. Only very few families, whose members worked in the cities or worked as cadres and earned salaries, were able to cook noodles or wheat steamed breads for us. One day, when we were assigned to eat at a family’s home, the lady of the house prepared two dishes of cooked vegetables, two dishes of uncooked vegetables and wheat steamed breads. This was the best food we ever had in this village.

Compared with the hard life, the work was harder while the villages were still in disorder. We began our work by stabilizing the situations of this area. We first held some meetings for all people, cadres and Party members, mainly educating them by positive measures or examples. We visited each family and talked with some individuals one after another to dispel instabilities. Meanwhile, we cracked down on bad elements. Xi-liu-quan Village caught a local ruffian and rogue. He did not engage in honest work, but only in speculation and profiteering. He had fooled around with a woman in another village. He had made a very bad impression on the masses. One night, we held a meeting to criticize him for all people of the five villages. Later, we found out some main problems in each village and criticized them within the village. After the meetings, those punishments had acted as deterrents to others; evildoers restrained themselves. Erroneous practices were gradually eliminated and the situation of agriculture production turned for the better. Two months later, Fang Shi-xu was transferred to be an officer of the Laiyang Organization Department. Before he went, we had a close conversation. I said, Now that the Party put you into an important position, you should respect the trust of the Party organization. I also suggested him, You are an introvert. This is your drawback if you work in the commune. You are suited for work in an office. I gave him ten kilograms of food coupons and sent him off. I transferred Li Xiu-chun, the staff of the SMCO Tuan-wang Branch, to be my assistant after Fang Shi-xu had left. He was a veteran soldier and a Communist. He had good skills to articulate programs and directions and had political experience. He was not afraid of enduring hardship either. He was a capable assistant to work with in such a backward area. We moved to Qian-bei-yan Village as soon as Li came. The weak leading body of this village was the major problem. We first assessed secretly all cadres and found out that Li Tong-xiu, the head of the third Production Team, was a good cadre. He was the eldest son in his family, which had a total of four sons. His father had passed away before he got married at the age of twenty and had cared for his brothers. When his brothers had grown up, he had built houses for them and helped them get married one by one. Although they had set up their own family, they still listened to their eldest brother in important matters. The people admired him for managing the affairs of the family methodically. After he had become the head of the third Production Team, this team had become the best production team in this village. After privately assessing him, I sponsored him to become a Party member. Soon afterwards, he was elected to be the Party Village Secretary. With him at the core, the leading body became very strong and led the village to become better and better.

When autumn sowing began, we moved to Xi-liu-quan Village, which was the best among these five villages. I decided to hold an on-the-spot meeting of autumn sowing for all cadres of these five villages after the land had been cultivated. I chose several skilled operators of rakes, which had seeding drills on them. There were several sowing techniques, which were difficult to master in rural areas; one was a drilling technique, another one was planting sweet potatoes. I first explained the sowing standards and asked them to begin work. Some villagers whispered to each other that they had not seen an example of the sowing standards and wondered how they could master it. A sixty-year-old villager, who was a skilled peasant, said to me, Liu, come pitch in with the work! Let us show them the sowing technique. He wanted to do a good job with me in front of everyone. I did not feel nervous and said to him, All right! Uncle, do you walk in front of the rake? Or I? You walk in the front! He said. I held the rake and went in the front. He came to have a look at my seeding drill and said, It is good! He and another villager followed me. The three of us finished sowing wheat for the land in a short time. Liu has done a good job, the Party village secretaries would acclaim. It is a high standard of sowing. You all just need to follow this standard, I said to them. Laughing and talking, a typical comment could be heard, You have just really showed us. We used to think that a cadre like you did not know how to do farm work.

After building strong leading bodies and uniting the masses to focus on agricultural production, the autumn harvest, sowing and planting made gratifying achievements. But I was unable to relax. Many small matters in villages were petty but very important. Just one week after the on-the-spot meeting of autumn sowing, the director of Laiyang Civil Court, Sun, suddenly came to me personally to deal with a case in Xi-liu-quan Village. It was a knotty problem about the inheritance of an estate.

An old woman had enjoyed the treatment of a martyr’s family after her first son had become a war casualty in the 1950s. The village fed her. The Party Village Committee even assigned one person to carry water for her every day. A barefoot doctor came to see her every day, when she was getting old and became sick. Unfortunately, her second son did not accept his family obligations and he had never cared about her, only sending her a greeting at the Spring Festival. Even when she was sick, he still never came to see her. One day she was very ill and the village sent her to the commune hospital. The Party Village Secretary tried to persuade her second son to look after her at the hospital, but he replied bluntly, I do not want to feed her when she is alive and I will not bury her when she dies. After she came back from the hospital, the village assigned one person to look after her until she passed away. The Party Village Committee held a funeral for her and the Party Village Secretary asked her second son to attend the funeral. He reluctantly agreed and afterwards wanted to inherit her property. The Party Village Committee and the people did not approve of the inheritance. I also did not approve of it when the Party Village Secretary asked me. Her second son sued me and the Party Village Committee in Laiyang Court. The court was an administrative department under jurisdiction of Laiyang government. Within the administrative management system, local governments took the responsibility for managing the local people. However, if people were not satisfied with the local government, they could appeal to higher authorities or the court for help. Director Sun of Laiyang Civil Court came to discuss the matter with me after he had carefully investigated the case. Because I had given a formal reply to the Party Village Committee when they asked approval from me, I became the main defendant. I understand that all cadres and masses do not approve of him inheriting her wealth, he said, but according to the law, he is her only legal heir. He has the right to inherit her wealth. I said firmly, The law should defend right, justice and truth. He has abdicated all responsibilities for the care of his mother. He should not inherit his mother’s wealth. Sun agreed with me and said that there were laws to punish impiety. In the end, her second son did not inherit her wealth.

Our work was extremely difficult. All villagers were in opposition and in an irritated mood since we first entered these five villages. However, I kept making friends with them, showing my true love and care for them. Finally, I gained respect and love from people after half a year. People trusted me. Even when they were sick, they came to me. One day, the Party Village Secretary of Xi-liu-quan came running in a hurry and told me that his wife’s hand was swollen. She had just worked in the field and cut her hand with crop’s root. Now it had been nearly three hours. There was a red line from her hand to her armpit. She had a fever and trembled all over. Villagers called it tetanus; it was very dangerous. It was too far to the hospital. I urged them to catch a toad immediately. I cut the toad from the belly and applied it to the wound. After fifteen minutes, the pain stopped. The second day, she was cured.

When autumn harvest, plowing and planting were nearly finished, Duan Yu-ting ordered me, Build Dazhai-type fields in this area as soon as possible and set a good example for the whole commune. Duan Yu-ting wanted me to set a good example of a back-ward-to-advanced area. He really wanted me to do compelling work, but it could not be done in one day to turn such a historical backward area around. After he urged me several times and I had been thinking carefully how to do it, I decided to have a go at Xi-liu-quan Village. The leading body of this village had an advantage because of its Party Village Secretary. He used to be an advanced student in the Laixi First Senior High School and had joined the Party in the school ten years ago. When he responded to