Authors: Yan Lianke
The county chief stared at Mao Zhi in astonishment, then called her into his office and asked her many questions. He went to a map hanging on the wall, and searched it for a long time. On the outer edge of the map, he found several of the villages that Mao Zhi had mentioned, but for the life of him he couldn’t find Liven. Eventually, he stepped out of the room and went to speak to someone in an adjacent office for a while. When he returned, he told Mao Zhi very solemnly, You should not have come to Gaoliu for this. According to the geographic plan, you belong to Dayu county. It is Dayu that has forgotten you. Dayu’s county chief is truly a piece of work.
Therefore, Mao Zhi and her husband proceeded on to Dayu, and after another month of walking all day and resting at night, they finally arrived. Dayu’s government was located in a mansion that formerly belonged to a rich landlord, and the county chief was a few years older than Gaoliu’s. He was a local, and knew the surrounding towns and villages like the palm of his hand. When Mao Zhi saw him, he knew why she had come before she even had a chance to finish speaking. He exclaimed, Fuck, the Shuanghuai county chief really has balls! How dare he treat one of his own villages like this, having everyone divide into cooperative societies while leaving a single village to continue operating as individual households? Where does he get off, letting one of his villages fall through the cracks, to the point that they don’t even know which district they belong to? As the county chief was cursing, he took out a map of Dayu and spread it out on a table, then asked Mao Zhi to examine it carefully. He used a ruler to measure out the distances on the map, and then drew a dot on the paper outside the margins of the actual map. He said, Look. The Balou mountain range is here and Liven should be about here, but it is about five-point-three inches from your village to our county’s Honglianshu township, while you are only about three-point-three inches from Shuanghuai’s Boshuzi township. Don’t you agree that your village must belong to Shuanghuai?
After another half month, Mao Zhi and her husband finally arrived in Shuanghuai. County Chief Yang had gone to the district center for a multiday meeting concerning the establishment of mutual help teams and cooperative societies, so Mao Zhi and her husband stayed in a mill near the front gate of the county government building for several days. When Chief Yang finally returned from the county seat, riding on a mule, it was already summer and sweltering hot. Chief Yang was from a military background, and was wearing a full uniform. Once he reached his office, his secretary, little Liu, gave him some water and reported on a number of things that had occurred during his absence, including the fact that a woman named Mao Zhi, who was staying in a mill house outside the government office, claimed that her village still didn’t know what county or district it belonged to. She claimed that, even now, each household in the village worked independently, and none of their ancestors had ever paid any imperial grain taxes. No one in the village knew what a landlord, rich peasant, poor peasant, or farm laborer was. Secretary Liu solemnly reported all of this to Chief Yang, who maintained a placid and expressionless demeanor, as though none of this was news to him.
Chief Yang said, Go summon that Mao Zhi woman to come over here.
Mao Zhi, sweat dripping from her face, approached Chief Yang’s office. Inside, were a desk and an old-fashioned armchair, and a portrait of Chairman Mao hanging from the wall. Next to the portrait, there was a pistol. As Mao Zhi walked in, Chief Yang was in the process of washing his face with cold water, after which he hung his wash towel on the pine basin stand. He then turned to look at Mao Zhi, and asked, How many blind people are there in your village?
Mao Zhi replied, There are not many who are completely blind. Perhaps five or six.
He asked, How many cripples are there?
She replied, We don’t have many cripples either. Perhaps ten or so, but they are all capable of working in the fields.
He asked, How many deaf-mutes do you have?
She replied, There are nine households with deaf people, and eight with mutes.
He asked, Are all their disabilities hereditary?
Mao Zhi replied, There are also some households who arrived in Liven years ago after fleeing famine. No one complained when they settled down in Liven, and we regard them all as disabled.
Chief Yang asked, What proportion of the village is made up of disabled people?
Mao Zhi replied, About two-thirds.
Chief Yang said, While in the district seat, I saw the chiefs of Gaoliu and Dayu counties, and said to myself, Fuck, those two are bad eggs. Take the Dayu chief. He claims that Liven is one hundred and twenty-three
li
from our county’s Boshuzi township, while it is one hundred and sixty-three
li
from their own Honglianshu township. What he didn’t mention, however, is that while it is true that Liven is a hundred and twenty-three
li
from our Boshuzi township, it is only ninety-three and a half
li
from their own Chunshugou township, which is to say, thirty
li
closer. As for the Gaoliu county chief, he is correct when he says that Gaoliu is far from your village, but in the intercalary fifth month of the eleventh year of the Republic—which is to say the
renxu
Year of the Dog in the lunar calendar—there was a great drought in Henan and many people starved to death, though in the Balou mountains there were several gorges in which the people had more grain than they could eat, including the one where your village is located, and that year Gaoliu sent someone to Liven to collect grain, which they took back to Gaoliu and used to save many people’s lives.
Chief Yang said, Look, in strictly geographical terms, Liven is somewhat closer to Dayu’s Chunshugou, and technically you should be under their jurisdiction. From a historical perspective, however, Gaoliu once collected grain from you, and one could also argue that you should belong to them. Both of those fuckers sent you over to Shuanghuai, even though we have no connection to you whatsoever. At this point, the sun reached its zenith, and several pagoda trees in the courtyard swayed gently back and forth. The secretary was standing beside the door watering the plants, and Chief Yang pointed outside and said, Secretary Liu, go to the canteen and tell them to prepare two extra lunches. We want our guests to enjoy a good meal while they’re here.
Mao Zhi stared intently at Chief Yang for a long time, then abruptly stood up and said, Chief Yang, you and I both contributed to the Revolution, and therefore I’d like to just ask you a few questions.
Chief Yang looked slightly startled, but said, Go ahead.
Mao Zhi said, Chief Yang, do you agree that the people of Liven belong to China? He replied, Yes. She continued, Do they not also belong to Henan province? He replied, Yes. She continued, And are they not also from Jiudu? He didn’t disagree. She then concluded, In that case, why is it that Shuanghuai, Dayu, and Gaoliu don’t want to have us? Aren’t you concerned that we’ll go down to the district seat to report you?
Chief Yang appeared surprised that a crippled woman from the countryside would have the guts to speak to him like this. He glanced at the revolver hanging from the wall, then snorted and replied, Heavens, would you dare report us to the district? He suddenly stood and said, Fuck, go report us. Go find the Party secretary. When I was in Yan’an, I was the one who initially introduced the Party secretary to the Party. Chief Yang stared coldly at Mao Zhi as he was saying this, as though he wanted to devour her with his eyes.
Mao Zhi, however, was not at all alarmed. She stared back at him for a while, then said, Chief Yang, you’ve been to Yan’an. I’ve also been to Yan’an, and if the women’s regiment had not been disbanded in the autumn of the
bingzi
year, I wouldn’t be here now asking this of you. As Mao Zhi was saying this, she rested her gaze on the county chief’s face. She’d originally planned to wait for him to look at her one more time, then turn around and walk out. To her surprise, however, she noticed he had suddenly gone pale. He gaped at her as if in disbelief, as though he had just recognized her for the first time. He asked, Which women’s regiment were you in? Were you really at Yan’an?
Mao Zhi said, You don’t believe me, do you? As she was saying this, she turned and hobbled out of his office. She returned to the mill house in front of the county government building, where she asked the stonemason to pass her her bag, which she then took to Chief Yang’s office. She opened the bag on his desk and took out two pairs of shoes, placing one shoe at each corner of the desk. Then, she took out a neatly folded white canvas pouch. She untied the pouch and removed an old, faded military uniform, which she spread across Chief Yang’s desk. On the jacket’s shoulder there was a large patch, which was made not from standard military uniform cloth, but rather from thick black fabric. Beneath the jacket was a pair of neatly folded military-issue trousers, which were as faded and yellowed as the jacket. The edges of the pants had already begun to fray, and it was obvious that this was a very old uniform. After Mao Zhi placed the uniform and travel bag on Chief Yang’s desk, she stepped away and said:
Chief Yang, we both suffered in the
bingzi
year, and if the Fourth Regiment had not been disbanded, I would not be here today asking this of you.
Chief Yang blushed deeply. He looked at the military uniform, and then back at Mao Zhi. He looked again at the uniform, and finally yelled out the door:
Secretary Liu, tell the canteen to prepare those two extra meals. Also, get me a bottle of liquor!
This was the end of the fifth month, and when Mao Zhi and the stonemason returned to Liven, they were accompanied by Secretary Liu, together with Boshuzi’s township chief and two soldiers from the township’s militia. The latter were carrying rifles, and when they reached the entrance to the village they fired three shots in succession, whereupon all of the villagers—be they blind or crippled—came to the village center to convene the village’s first-ever People’s Assembly. In this way, Liven was formally brought under the jurisdiction of Shuanghuai’s Boshuzi township.
With the sound of those gunshots, a mutual aid team was formed, and the villagers also entered a cooperative society. They thereby began enjoying heavenly days.
3
C
HAPTER 9:
F
URTHER,
F
URTHER,
F
URTHER
R
EADING—
H
EAVENLY
D
AYS
1)
Foreign cart.
A bicycle. In Henan’s Balou mountain region, bicycles used to be called “foreign carts,” and later they were called “pedal bikes.” After many years of attacks on the Four Olds—old ideas, old culture, old customs, and Maoist old habits—the people of Balou were no longer allowed to utter the word “foreign,” and began calling the vehicles “bicycles.” Even today, however, there are still some old people who persist in calling them “foreign carts” or “pedal bikes.”
3)
Heavenly days.
Heavenly days refers to the unusual period of collectivized labor that followed the institution of the mutual aid teams in Liven in the autumn of the
gengwu
year, 1960.
Each family’s land was combined, and their oxen, plows, hoes, and sowing drills were all collectivized. The families who already had these things obviously lost out, and although they initially wanted to cry and make a scene, after hearing a few gunshots they calmed down and handed over what they owed.
In this way, the mutual aid teams were formed. The township chief and the two militiamen stayed in the countryside for three days, and when they left they took with them one of the guns that they brought, while leaving the other in the village.
They left the gun with Mao Zhi.
Mao Zhi was originally a member of an army contingent. She had fought in battle, and had more experience than any of the militiamen.
She had been a revolutionary since she was young. She had been a leader.
After the oxcart bell was hung from the tree in the middle of the village, whenever Mao Zhi rang the bell the people of Liven would go together to work in the fields. If she told them to go to East Mountain to hoe the soil, they would go to East Mountain to hoe the soil. And if she told them to go to West Mountain to distribute fertilizer, they would go to West Mountain to distribute fertilizer. Originally, the mutual aid teams worked well, but for thousands of years each family in Liven had farmed its own land, plowing and sowing its own fields, with some families at the top of the hills and others down in the gorge, and if they needed anything they would simply give a shout. However, if the household of a cripple wanted to borrow a soil basket from a deaf man, it would not do for him to simply shout out a request, so from the depths of the gorge he would painstakingly trudge to the top of the ridge, and then trudge back down again. But with the establishment of the mutual aid teams, all of this became unnecessary. When Mao Zhi rang the bell in the center of the village and called for everyone to bring their shovels, they simply needed to take their shovels down to the fields. If she told everyone to bring their wicker baskets, they just needed to bring their wicker baskets.