Will the Boat Sink the Water?: The Life of China's Peasants (19 page)

The president of the local People’s Congress (an honorary

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position), Mr. Li Changzhou, was present and heard the exchange and actually took Wang’s side. Li said to Zhang, “Now, Zhang, you listen to me. You may agree, or you may not agree, but Wang is telling you the facts as they are. This is China. Let’s say you killed a man—you will certainly pay for it with your life. But take me, for instance—if I kill a man, will I die for it? Don’t be so sure. Get real; get rid of your one-track mind. I’m telling you this because you are a friend of a relative of mine. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”

Zhang Jidong was flabbergasted; he knew the older man was telling him the truth, but the truth was unacceptable. It was against that background that he heard of the white-bearded old man Gao Zongpeng and his unsuccessful trips to Beijing in search of justice.

Zhang Jidong and Gao Zongpeng clicked immediately when they met. They discussed all the details of the Gao Village incident— the distress of the poor old lady who was only known by her husband’s surname and never even had a name of her own, and the villainy of Village Chief Gao Xuewen. They couldn’t imagine how the events in the village could have been construed as a violent “antitax uprising.” Nor could they imagine how Zheng Jianmin, the deputy head of Fengmiao Township security, relying solely on Gao’s distorted version of his visit to Granny Gao’s, could have attempted to arrest peo-ple and threatened them with a gun. They struggled to compre-hend how a handful of township cadres could stage a major attack on a poor village—as the aged Gao Zongpeng had surmised—thus creating one of the gravest cases of miscarriage of justice in the history of Lingbi County. The case weighed heavily on the hearts of the two men. Zhang felt that if the true facts of the case were not thoroughly aired, history could repeat itself in his own village, or any other village. Seeing how the white—

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bearded old man had almost wrecked his health by his efforts to find justice, Zhang Jidong felt impelled to take up the cause. The news of Zhang’s visit to Gao Zongpeng quickly leaked out, and the township authorities were alarmed. Township Party Boss Hou Chaojie and Zhang Qiwu, the deputy head of township administration, descended on Dongliu Village, and Hou Chaojie came to the point right away, warning Zhang, “You must know that the action taken in Gao Village had been pre-approved by the prefecture and reported to the provincial

authorities.”

Zhang had not been aware of the fact, but he did not doubt it now that he heard it. Obviously, the Party hack was using his bosses’ approval to cover his tracks. The point was, how had the approval been obtained? The township, the county, the prefecture, and even the provincial authorities had been fed false information. And now, in the aftermath of the event, the local officials were trying to preempt complaints by touting the “pre-approval” of their superiors.

Township Party Boss Hou Chaojie ended by warning Zhang Jidong, “Don’t you dare meddle in the Gao Village case. Don’t even think of going and complaining to higher-ups.”

The anxiety that lurked behind Hou’s last remark allowed Zhang Jidong to see through their bluff. Realizing that they were afraid of being reported to the central authorities, he retorted, “Since the action was formally approved by the prefecture and had the nod of the provincial leadership, obviously it is correct. So why are you so touchy? It sounds as though something fishy is going on.”

Hou Chaojie interrupted him rudely, saying, “You are acting against the local government. If you persist, you will find yourself in deep shit. Don’t say you have not been warned.”

Then it occurred to Hou Chaojie that it served no purpose to threaten Zhang Jidong, so he changed his tune and said to Zhang, “Don’t try to draw firepower to yourself, my man.

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Now, look, you have raised complaints regarding affairs in Dongliu Village, your writings have even been published in the bulletin of the National People’s Congress. Both the central and the provincial governments ordered investigations in light of your complaints, and the county has opened a special case and conducted a month-long investigation. What did all this fuss amount to? Was anyone punished in the end? No. And now you are agitating again on behalf of the folks in Gao Village. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this time you win, and we all— from the prefecture to the county down to us at the township— let’s say we all lose our jobs. How will it benefit you? Will you be asked to step into our shoes? I don’t think so.” Finally, in a tone of friendly exhortation, Hou Chaojie said, “You should look up the documents of the Party’s Ninth Congress; study it well . . . ”

Zhang Jidong was totally confused. Why in the world was Hou bringing up the Party’s Ninth Congress. The Ninth Party Congress was in 1969—wasn’t that part and parcel of the Cultural Revolution?* Hou was obviously talking through his hat.

After Hou had waddled away, Zhang carefully went over in his mind the whole string of events involved in the Gao Village incident and realized that raising the question again of what really happened, and why, did carry certain risks. It finally dawned on him that to lay bare all the facts of the Gao Village incident would mean making himself an enemy of the local government. But what he couldn’t understand was this: Wasn’t the local government supposed to stay in step with the central government? Since it was already established that the central

*The Ninth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Beijing April 1 to 24, 1969. It has been seen as legitimizing theories and practices of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76); to date there has been no Party document criticizing the conclusions of the Ninth Party Congress.

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government—the State Council—was ruling by law, shouldn’t the prefecture, the county, as well as the township and village rule their own territory by law as well? Having come to this conclusion, Zhang Jidong came to a painful resolution—he decided to stick his neck out no matter what. And so, in order to get to the bottom of the Gao Village incident he started quietly to carry out an investigation of his own.

Can You Lie to All the People All the Time?

What was to be expected did, after all, take place.

One day, Zhang Jidong was at home in Dongliu Village, sitting idly with a few buddies, when several members of the Fengmiao Township security, in uniform and imposing police caps, burst in, shouting, “Which of you is Zhang Jidong?!” The arrival of these cadres did not bode well for him, but since they did not recognize him, Zhang replied coolly, “He is not in, can we take a message?”

His buddies quickly got the message and immediately fell in with Zhang’s ruse, saying, “Please step in. Do sit down. Make yourselves comfortable. Zhang Jidong went to the county town. Would you like to wait, or let us take a message?”

The security men looked around, and said, “All right, when he gets back, tell him to come to the township security.” Then they left, not suspecting anything. Zhang Jidong was amused by the scene, but he saw that Party Boss Hou Chaojie was showing his hand and realized that he could no longer stay in Dongliu Village.

Zhang made his way to Si County, where he worked as a migrant laborer to support himself, all the while trying to piece together the facts of the Gao Village incident.

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*

Party Head Hou Chaojie was not about to give up his vindic-tive pursuit of Zhang. It was December 26, an icy winter night in the middle of the eleventh month by the lunar calendar, when the head of the township security, Ma Li, and his aide kicked in the door of Zhang’s house in Dongliu and burst in. Without showing any legal document pre-approving” their action and without a word of explanation, they dragged Zhang’s teenage son, Little Five, from his bed. After hitting and kicking him, they pushed the young fellow out the door, without shoes or warm clothing, and marched him through the open fields until they reached the security headquarters of Huigou Township. By the time they were settled and ready to begin the interrogation, Little Five’s teeth were chattering with cold and he was unable to speak a word. Ma Li hoped to squeeze out of Little Five whether his father, Zhang Jidong, was in cahoots with Gao Zongpeng to get to the bottom of the Gao Village incident and see justice done.

The “interrogation” began with Ma Li seizing the young fel-low’s head and slamming it against the wall. Next the township security chief prodded his mouth with an electric rod, until the boy felt that his head was about to explode. Then Little Five was made to do push-ups on the ice-cold concrete floor while the two interrogators took turns stomping on his ankles. This was just the first round. Next, Ma Li tried a method of his own invention—he used his two thumbs to press down on the two acupressure points on either side of Little Five’s eyes, which reduced the young fellow to animal-like screams of pain. A round of martial-arts blows to the chest, enforced by resounding slaps on the cheeks, finished off the first phase of the interrogation. Then Little Five was made to answer the question “Did we hit you?” Little Five was just a raw youth, and was not sure how to act under the circumstances. Not daring to lie, he began to say “You hit me—” Ma Li’s fist landed on him and he