During the wheat harvest season of 1971, Meilan Zhang became pregnant, which caused me very happy and worried as well. We were in a village, and had nothing of our own. Where we would deliver the kid? How could we raise the child? Mother-in-law expressed that she would help us whole-heartedly and my parents in Nantong promised to let my youngest sister to come to help us. The support from the parents made us relaxed. Time was flying fast, small life was growing and the expected date of childbirth would be around the spring festival. We were anxious to wait for the day to come.
It was not long before the winter came and an unexpected disaster fell upon us. One afternoon I was noticed to come to a commune vice party secretary office. I was told that the Real Estate Management Department from Nanjing sent three people here and asked me to explain clearly something about my association with their unit during the Cultural Revolution. I was forced to stay that evening. They said the bed was ready and the daily necessities would be brought by my wife. Threatened, I entered the so called study class and was isolated actually.
At the dinner time, Meilan Zhang came with swell belly, bring toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, tower and some clothes for me to change. She asked the three people from Nanjing why her husband was deprived of freedom. They didn’t answer her question clearly and Melan quarreled with them fiercely. I was confident in my heart that I had done nothing wrong in their unit and persuaded her to leave. But I was very much worried about how she lived alone, how to bring water from the well and how to carry it to our mill room.
In the spring of 1967, I responded to the call of Zedong Mao and went to the nearby unit of NJU to investigate the situation of the Revolution, which was subordinate to the Nanjing Real Estate Management Department. I contacted a worker called Gao and by his introduction I got to know a young rebel Liu so that we had communications with each other. Occasionally I went to the suburb to play with my classmates and lent a bike from Gao. Xiao Liu told me something about the rebellion of their unit but I had never taken any part in fighting their leaders. The three people told me the main purpose of coming, asking me to say clearly about my relationship with Xiao Liu. I told them the process of how I got to know Gao and Liu and that we had cut the communication since 1969. They exhibited an interrogation face and asked me to say what things we had done together. I tried hard to recall and told every single detail of what I did with Liu and Gao, they were not satisfied. I had to give up working with them. Every evening they rubbed the saliva with me and I could only say the same thing. My simple principle was I must tell the truth and could not fabricate anything.
Mailan Zhang didn’t know anything about me in the production team and wrote a letter hidden in clothes which she asked the team accountant to bring to me when he went to the market. The clothes were checked out and the letter was discovered. It was the first time that I tasted the importance of the freedom.
The three people expressed the purpose of their coming finally, saying that I was a member of the 516 counterrevolutionary group. They asked me to tell them how I joined the organization and how I made Liu become its member. Such a pure fabricated matter made me think it very funny. However, they thought I was a backbone member and didn’t tell anybody including parents and wife, crazy and stubborn. They said that I was cruel and didn’t take care of the health of pregnant wife, which made me so angry that my lungs were almost exploded. Utter nonsense!
One day after lunch, when they were taking a midday nap, I noticed a piece of paper, on which was written that the rebel Liu said that I made him join the 516 Group in the garret of their unit. When they were awake I told them that I had read the material on the desk and what Liu said was not true. They had no reason to blame me for reading the material, which lay on the desk. I doubt that they were inducing a confession. A point should be affirmed that they didn’t force confession and so I could tell the truth. About three weeks passed and the spring festival was drawing near. They decided to stop the so-called study class and I got the freedom again.
Three weeks was not a very long time, but Meilan Zhang met a lot of difficulties, living alone in the production team. It was a very cold winter, a world of ice and snow. Pregnant, she was not able to bring water from the well. Thanks to the storekeeper of the production team, Zhaokun Wang, he helped her every day. Furthermore, she suffered stomach-ache attack and didn’t dare to take any medicine during the period of pregnancy. Mother-in-law got the news that I was isolated and came to see me. She took the train, got to the Damiao Train Stop and went on foot for more than 10 kilometers. I asked her to bring Meilan home and I didn’t need any help from her. When I got out of the so-called study group, it was covered with white deep snow everywhere, mountains, forests and boundless lands shining in the sun. I could even not open my eyes. From Maozhuang to Wulou, and then to Damiao Railway Stop, I walked for almost four hours. I had no interest in the snow scenery and hurried as quick as possible in order to see wife as soon as possible, setting her heart at rest. I suddenly came before them and gave them a surprise. In those days of no telephones such a surprise often appeared.
When snowing it became very difficult to draw water from the well
Meilan Zhang wrote a letter to Nantong, telling my family what had happened to me. All the members were at a loss. Father regretted letting me read so many books. None of them could eat what was cooked, including the two younger sisters, who were almost adults.
Our kid would come to the world, and the expected date of childbirth would be before or after the spring festival. According to the local custom, the daughter could not be allowed to give birth in her mother’s home. Meilan Zhang found a small house of her uncle, mother’s brother, but there was no bed in it. Some wheat straw was spread on the ground. When I saw this scene I was deeply pained. Why my first kid would be living here like a beggar, which I didn’t agree at all. Later mother-in-law inquired of neighbors and said that ten days after the birth, the daughter could enter mother’s home with her kid. That was OK. We could live in hospital for 10 instead of 3 to 4 days.
My family were being worried about me, so I should go home. In addition, brother Delong would be married on the fourth day of the new lunar year. We decided that I went to Nantong with brother-in-law, Xinshun Zhang, on the first day of the spring festival and come back on the fifth. At that age, it was not easy to go from Xuzhou to my home. We first took the train to Nanjing, in the evening we got to the ship at Nanjing Zhongshan Wharf, got off the ship on the second day morning at Nantong Harbor, took the bus to the county city, Jinsha and then were carried by two bikes to my home. We started off in the morning of the first day and got home at noon of the second day. Before leaving Pipa Mount, I was particularly worried that our kid would soon come to the world. Fortunately, when we got back in the evening of the sixth day I heard Meilan Zhang walking merrily in the court, which made me completely relaxed. It was not until the early morning of fourteenth of the new lunar year (Feb. 28 solar year) did she have a child omen and I carried her by bike from the northern part of Xuzhou to the southern Maternal and Child Health Hospital. The brother-in-law and mother-in-law followed us, bringing something needed. When the dawn was breaking, our first kid was born.
It was time for us to name our son. All sorts of feelings were disturbing me. When the boy was about to be born, the disaster I suffered threw me into confusion, contrary to my personality. I am a methodical person and like to get everything ready to do something. At the same time, I felt that I had endured a kind of test and stood firmer than ever. The position of the fetus was not positive with the feet first appearing, so I would like to call him “Li” (Stand). Whatever difficulties we meet we should stand firm. We would rather die standing than live kneeling. Our personhood must have such strength of spirit.
The unjust case of fictitious 516 members did not get correction until about 1974 when I already worked as a teacher in the Map Middle School. Nanjing Estate Administration Department sent two people to come to Xuzhou and they inquired about where we were working. They came to Mapo and apologized to us for what they had imposed on me. They burned what I wrote during the so-called study class and said a lot of good words, showing very sincere appearance. I set a request, asking them to go to Wulou Village to find the production leader, accountant and storehouse keeper and told them about my case. They agreed and went there indeed.
As for the 516 Counterrevolutionary Group, the Party Central Committee had issued a document, ordering to expose and suppress. We felt that it had nothing to do with us. However, when we left NJU, digging out 516 members had begun under the leadership of military commissars and the worker propaganda team, with sinister appearance. We often heard of suicide cases. A lot of rebels were cleaned up. We didn’t know whether they were real or fabricated 516 members. In 1973, our alumnus of NJU, Jian Li, came to Mapo to work with us, who used to study in the Department of Physics. I asked him whether he remained in NJU to dig up 516 members (A classmate of ours didn’t leave Nanda (NJU) as we did and continued to work in the special case team to dig up 516 members). He talked ambiguously and didn’t reply to me directly. As time went on we became intimate friends. He told me in detail his horrible experience of being made into a 516 member, making me badly frightened.
Just when we left NJU in July, 1970, Jian Li was isolated to be examined. The interrogation lasted 24 hours, 48 hours and even 96 hours, with the interrogators in turn. Mr. Li could not endure the weariness any longer. The unique need for him was a while to sleep, which was impossible. He thought of escaping and found a place to lie for a while. He had an elder female cousin in Nanjing and came to her. When she saw his chilling appearance she was afraid and asked why he looked so pitiful. Li told the truth and the sister was so frightened that she reported the case to NJU, because she knew if someone gave the shelter to a 516 member, he or she would also be thrown into prison. Mr. Li was sent back to NJU and you can imagine what kind of disaster he would suffer. The behavior of the sister and the persecution of the case examiners made him completely hopeless and he decided to finish his life by committing suicide. He jumped from the storey, heavily injured, and was sent to hospital. Mr. Li said that he finally got what he needed most: sleeping. How heartbroken I was feeling!
I got to know a lot about how to dig out 516 members in Nanjing and NJU. Completely fictitious, someone could be isolated by means of oral confession, so a lot of people were arrested. The commander in chief of digging out 516 members was Shiyou Xu, who was director of the Jiangsu Provincial Revolutionary Committee. He interrogated Fenglai Wen personally, who used to be the rebel chief of NJU, and frightened him by carrying him to the open country at night and threatening to shoot him, forcing him to admit he was the 516 commander in chief of Jiangsu Province. Fenglai Wen was a dauntless man and never surrendered, and never admitted. On an assembly of more than 10000 people, some rebels afraid of death fabricated and indicted him, he shouted “a pure rumor!”. When the digging movement had to be stopped and it was announced that he was innocent, he was overexcited and became so wild that he killed himself. What a dark age it was! Zedong Mao called for the rebellion and the biggest criminal was the biggest ruler. The rebels had mistakes or crime and should be corrected or punished according to the fact and the law. How could they be enforced to death. If there was a single 516 member, show us one. None! How many 516 members were dug out? Numerous. Such a dark rule I could only snort at contemptuously. I completely gave up the interest in politics, and determined to do away with the temptation and interference in order to delicate myself to the career of teaching myself, teaching my students and doing my scholarly research.
Nov. 12, 2008 in Melbourne
Proofreading on Feb. 7 in Chicago
Uploading on Aug. 4, 2023 in Xuzhou
