Xianglinpu Commune’s Diaogaolou brigade was distinguished by two particularly infamous cases that were eventually included on the Task Force’s list of classic cases. I remember the first time we went to do our reporting in Diaogaolou and asked a friend in the county seat how to get there; the first thing he said was “Oh, that’s the brigade where a husband killed his wife.”
This story circulated far and wide, and many people told it to me. This is how I recorded it at the time:
The Diaogaolou brigade had a young core militiaman, strong and manly, whose wife was the daughter of a landlord. She was pretty and virtuous and could sing and dance, and she had a middle-school education, which at that time qualified her as a midlevel intellectual in the Daoxian countryside. The two had been happily married for three years.
On August 26, 1967, the woman heard that people in her home village had been arrested and were being held in the brigade ancestral hall. In a panic she rushed to her native Jiujia brigade and ended up being arrested by the Jiujia militia. At that time her husband was passing by Jiujia in the line of duty, and someone rushed over and told him, “Your wife has been arrested by the Jiujia militia. Go and save her!” Upon hearing this, the husband hurried over and found his wife bound hand and foot to a pillar in the ancestral hall. When she saw her husband, the wife believed he’d come to save her, but he ignored her imploring gaze and kept his distance. When the head of the Jiujia peasant supreme court asked him, “How should we handle this?,” he replied, “She should be treated the same as those others [referring to the other black elements and offspring in the ancestral hall]. I’ll leave it to you.”
The woman was led off by the Jiujia militia and clubbed in the head but didn’t die, and when she regained consciousness the next day, the Jiujia brigade cadres discussed the matter among themselves. They decided that since she had married a poor peasant, she should be considered part of a poor peasant family, and they sent her back to the Diaogaolou brigade. Since the Jiujia brigade had given her a way out, the Diaogaolou brigade should have been even more inclined to show her mercy, but against all expectation, her husband, the son of a poor peasant, showed the face of iron justice and refused to show any favoritism, insisting that she be killed. The woman knelt before her husband, begging him, “Look, I have your child inside me! If you don’t believe me, feel my belly! It’s moving! If you still don’t believe me, I can go for an exam at the commune clinic. …”
The husband remained unmoved and with an expression of complete indifference said, “Then I’ll do without the child.” He personally tied his battered wife up like a rice dumpling and took her to the execution ground to be killed with the others. When it came time to kill his wife, the others just looked at him and didn’t make a move. Seeing the hesitation of the others, he raised his carrying pole and brought it down twice on his wife’s head. The others then took up their stones and fowling guns, and that’s how this lovely young woman met her death at the hands of her own husband.
I originally regarded this case as one of putting duty above family, but when I made a subsequent visit to Daoxian for follow-up interviews, a friend gave me a petition written by the woman’s family:
My elder sister, Yang Jingui, married Neng Zi of Xianglinpu Commune’s Diaogaolou Village in 1964. When she failed to produce a child after three years, Neng Zi blamed my sister, and when the killing wind began to blow in Daoxian in 1967, he had a discussion with his uncle about taking this opportunity to do away with my sister. They deceived her into leaving the village, and then his uncle shot her with a fowling gun. When my sister fell to the ground, Neng Zi stabbed her several times with a saber, and, thinking her dead, they went home. In the middle of the night, my sister regained consciousness and attempted to return to her home village, but she was discovered and sent back to Diaogaolou. The heartless Neng Zi used the excuse that my sister was a landlord whelp to kill her with a fowling gun.
After reading the petition, a multitude of feelings welled up in me. How superficial our reporting had been that first time! Of course, the cursory nature of the official investigations was also a factor. I remember one Task Force comrade saying, “Under normal circumstances, if there’s no special evidence, we don’t investigate the motives of the killers too much. If we did, there would be many more cases requiring the death penalty.” Things we didn’t pay much attention to back then ring like thunderclaps in my ears when I think back on them now.
My initial manuscript included the following exclamation: “This is simply inexplicable.” It seems that apparently inexplicable matters often have less than cryptic reasons behind them.
The other “classic case” Xianglinpu District managed to claim credit for was the killing of six teachers from the Zhanjia Primary School in Cenjiangdu Commune.
Quite a number of Daoxian’s primary- and secondary-school teachers were from landlord or rich peasant families, so it wasn’t surprising that one county-level leader at that time summed up the situation of the local education community by saying, “Over the past 17 years [since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949], Daoxian’s education community has been largely taken over by the bourgeois class. It’s run by ox demons and snake spirits, and this phenomenon can absolutely not be allowed to continue.” The Task Force’s files reveal that during the 1957 Anti-Rightist campaign, 299 of the county’s primary- and secondary-school teachers were designated Rightists and dismissed from the teaching ranks, while 201 “voluntarily” resigned and returned to their villages during the economic hardship from 1959 to 1966. During the Socialist Education movement and Cultural Revolution, 209 teachers were purged and dismissed. Likewise, teachers were particular targets of the killing wind, with 43 primary- and secondary-school teachers killed, including 34 who were still actively teaching.
The name Cenjiangdu refers to a major crossing on the lower reaches of the Yongming (Yanshui) River, as well as to a lovely village next to the crossing and the fertile stretch of land west of the Tuo River at the Yongming’s lower reaches in Xianglinpu District. The crossing has a three-arched bridge about 100 meters long where the only national highway traversing Daoxian from north to south crosses the Yongming River on the way to Jiangyong and Jianghua Counties. Below the crossing, the confluence of the Yongming River with the Tuo creates a broad waterway containing 15 sandbars overgrown with old camphor trees, willows, and bamboo whose luxuriant foliage blocks the sun. Streamlets burbling among these groves create the unusual effect of land in the water and water on the land, and the azure water’s rippling reflection of trees, clouds, and birds in the sky gives the scene a hallucinogenic quality. Local people call this place Lianghekou, the Mouth of Two Rivers, and it is renowned as the broadest and most beautiful stretch of Daozhou’s river system. When reporting in Daoxian, we rowed here in a skiff, and as the boat glided into the dense green shade of the sandbars, I could hardly hold back my tears as my callused heart gradually softened and melted in a luxuriant distress. …
All the people involved in killing the teachers had left the area in the ensuing 19 years, so my reporting was limited to visiting the site and absorbing the atmosphere. Although mentally prepared, I still felt disappointed by the utter ordinariness of a school that had lost six teachers to the killing wind.
A comrade from the Daoxian Education Department explained that back in 1967, Daoxian’s primary schools were divided into three types: the first type consisted of core primary schools, of which there were about five in the county. The second type comprised comprehensive junior-senior primary schools covering grades one through six, of which there was one for each commune. The third type included lower primary schools, of which there were more than 400 in the county; these covered only grades one through four, and the poorest of them had mixed classes in which one teacher taught several grade levels at once. Core primary schools typically included three years of middle-school classes, while lower primary schools were typically subordinate to the comprehensive junior-senior primary schools in their respective administrative divisions. The Zhanjia school was a comprehensive junior-senior primary school.
The deaths of the Zhanjia Primary School’s teachers involved a wide range of individuals who shifted the blame onto each other, so it was difficult to determine who bore the main responsibility. The Task Force’s repeated inquiries only compounded the complexity of the situation, so I will simply pull together the historical fragments to present a version as close as possible to the truth.
The first victim, Zhou Shenghong, came from a landlord family and was labeled a bourgeois intellectual at the outset of the Cultural Revolution. As an introvert, he took the usual public denunciation and beatings especially to heart. He might reasonably have felt flattered to be labeled a “bourgeois intellectual,” given that he was merely a graduate of a teacher’s college, but Daoxian had precious few college graduates at that time; county Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary Shi Xiuhua had only a middle-school education, and county head Huang Yida was only a high-school graduate. In any case, it wasn’t the second term that mattered so much as the first; to be “bourgeois” rather than “proletarian” determined whether you were revolutionary or a target of revolution.
Zhou was the kind of fellow who in the best of times feared so much as a leaf falling on his head. This kind of sensitivity is fine when all is well, but once things go wrong it can be disastrous. In 1957, the county gathered all the primary- and secondary-school teachers together and asked them to submit their views to help the CCP rectify itself. Zhou could not be convinced to say anything more than that the Communist Party was great and socialism was good, which spared him having a Rightist cap slapped on his head during the subsequent political backlash against the CCP’s critics. The tempest of the Cultural Revolution brought out the worst in him, however. On August 22, 1967, Zhou Shenghong somehow heard reports of killings, and it sent him into a panic. That afternoon he crept off to Cenjiangdu’s Wantang Mountain with a rope, planning to hang himself. Reaching a ridge, he found a suitable tree, tied the rope to it, and placed a large, round rock beneath his feet. Just as he was about to kick it away, he was spotted by He Daixiu, a member of Cenjiangdu Commune’s Shangqing production brigade, who was gathering mushrooms on the mountain. He Daixiu immediately shouted and ran over, and when he saw it was Teacher Zhou preparing to hang himself, he asked what could possibly drive him to take his own life. Weeping, Zhou Shenghong said, “Leave me alone and let me go in peace.” He Daixiu said, “There’s no way I’ll let you die like this,” and he began calling for help. Two militiamen patrolling the mountain at that time ran over, and when they heard what was going on, they urged Zhou not to be foolish. Finally the three men talked Zhou around, and the militiamen accompanied him back to the school.
After returning to his brigade, He Daixiu told brigade CCP secretary He Daiji what had happened. He Daiji leaped up and berated He Daixiu for his stupidity; the class enemy was attempting to commit suicide to escape punishment, but instead of sharpening their vigilance, He Daixiu and the militiamen had let him off.
Since Shangqing was close to Cenjiangdu and part of the same commune, He Daiji immediately ran to the Zhanjia Primary School and told principal He Juanshu about Zhou Shenghong’s suicide attempt. He Juanshu was a stalwart communist with a high awareness of class struggle, and she took the matter very seriously: “Zhou Shenghong is a landlord. This is a major problem, and we have to put him under control right away. But our school doesn’t have the authority. Could your brigade send people to take him to the commune headquarters?”
He Daiji said, “That’s easy enough.” He went straight back and sent public security chief He Guangzhong with several militiamen to the school to arrest Zhou Shenghong. He then telephoned the commune, where commune secretary Mo Rongxing instructed him to tie Zhou to the commune telephone pole. Since Zhou Shenghong was a member of Xianglinpu Commune’s Shangdu brigade, Mo Rongxing then telephoned the Shangdu militia headquarters and told them to come posthaste to take Zhou away. Xianglinpu Commune security officer He Shiyuan arrived by bus with a militiaman, and they took Zhou back by the same route. When the bus dropped the group off at Xianglinpu, Zhou Shenghong refused to go any farther, kneeling on the ground and begging, “Please just get it over with quickly here!”
He Shiyuan said, “Teacher Zhou, don’t be so paranoid. My superior didn’t tell me to kill you, just to bring you back to Shangdu. Don’t make things difficult for me.” But Zhou Shenghong was unwilling to take another step, and He Shiyuan and the militiaman had to half-drag, half-hurl Zhou Shenghong back to Shangdu.
The next day, after permission was obtained from the Shangdu militia headquarters, He Shiyuan satisfied Zhou’s request of the day before by executing him with a fowling gun along with three class enemy offspring who had fled from Shenzhangtang Commune’s Songliu brigade.
The second Zhanjia Primary School teacher to be killed was Xu Zhishen, who was likewise a class enemy offspring, and whose killing was indirectly related to Zhou Shenghong’s attempted suicide. Xu Zhishen and Zhou Shenghong were merely colleagues who had little contact with each other, and they had very different characters and were far apart in age. Even so, the close proximity of two people with problematic class backgrounds aroused unnecessary suspicion. Xu Zhishen was from the Shangqing production brigade, and since a member of the Shangqing brigade had discovered Zhou Shenghong attempting suicide, the brigade was subsequently notified when Zhou was killed. When the Shangqing brigade held a meeting on August 25 to discuss a list of people to killed, thoughts automatically turned to Xu Zhishen; since another brigade had killed this kind of bourgeois intellectual, why shouldn’t they do likewise? Brigade CCP secretary He Daiji observed, “Principal He says Xu Zhishen is very reactionary. Such people shouldn’t remain at the school to poison the minds of poor and lower-middle peasant children.” On August 28, the Shangzing brigade went to the primary school, bound Xu Zhishen, and brought him back, and he was killed that same night.
The third teacher killed was He Rongzi, who came from Xianglinpu Commune’s Langlong brigade. His demise came in a final round of killings resulting from Yuan Lifu’s “big cleanup.” The brigade had just killed a batch of nine class enemies the day before (August 26), and during discussions of the name list for the new round, Cultural Revolution Committee (CRC) chairman He Rongyue pointed out: “Chairman Mao has instructed us that taking control of a country requires both guns and pens, and retaining control also depends on both. Black elements also rely both on guns and pens to mount insurrections and restore the old order. We need to kill pen-wielding class enemies, because they’re the most dangerous.” On that basis, they included teacher He Rongzi among the 20 people on their killing list.
The next day, Youth League secretary He Yangzhu and four core militiamen went to Zhanjia Primary School to arrest He Rongzi. Clutching at a last thread of hope, He Rongzi said, “If you want to take me back, you have to get permission from the school’s leadership.” He Yangzhu went to see school principal He Juanshu, who said, “If the production brigade wants him arrested, take him away. We firmly support the revolutionary actions of the poor and lower-middle peasants.” He Rongzi was killed with the 19 others the next day.
Killed along with He Rongzi was another teacher from the primary school, He Yan. A rich peasant who was also from the Langlong brigade, He Yan was terrified when he saw Zhou Shenghong and Xu Zhishen taken away and killed. Determined to avoid the treacherous He Juanshu, He Yan requested leave and returned to his production brigade, thinking he’d be safer there and knowing nothing about the plan to target pen wielders in a final batch of killings. He was doomed no matter what he did.1
The fifth teacher killed was Jiang Daiyi, who strictly speaking was a teacher at the Chibatang Lower Primary School, subordinate to the Zhanjia school. He was a member of Wanjiazhuang Commune’s May 1st production brigade and a member of the landlord class. On August 29, Jiang Daiyi went to the Zhanjia Primary School to fetch his wages and grain rations, but Principal He Juanshu was not at the school, so Jiang went to the home of a cousin to borrow some rice and ask for news of his family back home. While he was there, his cousin’s husband came in and told Jiang Daiyi to leave right away: “The principal of your school has put out the word that anyone who sees you has to tie you up and take you to the commune.” Jiang Daiyi grabbed the rice and hurried back to Chibatang as fast as he could.
On the way, he encountered school principal He Juanshu, but she smiled at him as if nothing was amiss, and he wondered if the situation had been exaggerated. Jiang Daiyi asked He Juanshu to write him a certificate so he wouldn’t have problems on the way home. He Juanshu replied, “Why do you want a certificate now? Go home first and we’ll deal with it later.”
After parting from Jiang Daiyi, He Juanshu hurried to the nearest production brigade and asked for two militiamen to detain Jiang Daiyi and take him to the commune. The militiamen caught up with Jiang at Guaiziling and escorted him straight to Cenjiangdu Commune, where commune secretary Mo Rongxing telephoned Wanjiazhuang Commune’s May 1st production brigade and told them to come for Jiang Daiyi.
What I’m recounting here are the basic facts, without unconfirmed allegations of who did what or said what, but behind each victim are human forms, some distinct and others vague. For example, some reports link Jiang Daiyi’s death to Huang Xisheng, the principal of Wangjiazhuang’s Changxing Junior-Senior Primary School, who was behind the killing of another primary-school teacher in Wangjiazhuang’s May 1st brigade, Liu Fucai.2 In any case, the May 1st brigade took Mo Rongxing’s telephone call very seriously and sent militiamen to bring Jiang Daiyi back.
On the way back to the brigade they reached Cenjiangdu’s pontoon bridge at the Yongming River. The concrete highway bridge wasn’t built until 1969, so the crossing consisted of the old pontoon bridge and a ferry large enough to carry one motor vehicle. At the other side of the pontoon bridge was a pavilion, and the militiamen decided to stop there to take a breather. The pavilion was in a state of disrepair, but its basic structure of stone pillars and green tiles was still intact, and its granite benches were cool and polished smooth by the rumps of numerous passersby. Travelers could refresh themselves with tea from two granite water vats filled by people hoping to accumulate merit through good works.
After sitting there for a short time, one of the militiamen cast his eyes up toward the roof of the pavilion and sighed with great emotion: “Daiyi, Daiyi, please don’t blame us. We’re under orders from our superiors, and if you want someone to blame, it’s them. …”
Exchanging glances, the militiamen stood and led Jiang Daiyi to the hillside beside the pavilion. When they were halfway up the slope, a militiaman raised his blunderbuss and fired a single shot into the back of Jiang Daiyi’s head. Each of the other militiamen then shot him in turn to put him out of his misery.
The last of the Zhanjia Primary School teachers to be killed was a man named Feng Yibo. I was never able to clarify the circumstances of Feng’s death. He was a substitute teacher, and once classes were suspended for the Cultural Revolution, he was reportedly killed after returning to his production brigade in Lijiaping Commune. Since Lijiaping Commune was subsequently put under the jurisdiction of Shuangpai County, it’s possible that the Task Force investigating events in that county has some record of the circumstances of his death.