In the twenty-sixth year of his reign, the Emperor of Qin, then ruler of Qin Kingdom of Zhou Dynasty, overcame his last rebellious peer.
“These treacherous, incompetent kings! I treated them with honor and hospitality, yet they repaid with plots and wars. As a mere mortal man, I stood up to restore peace on earth. Thanks to the Ancestral Spirits, the six kings have finally met their fate as a result of their sins. Coin a new title, my dear and trustworthy counselors, to commemorate this very moment!”
“Your highness! Even in ancient times, the most glorious five god-kings couldn’t control territories and people like you do. Commanding a host of justice and crushing insolent thugs like grapes, you rule all the settlements surrounded by the Four Seas and issue law for all people of China. Among every illustrious title that was ever carved on bamboo slips, we, your most humble and useless servants, recommend Tai’huang, the Supreme-Caesar.”
“I don’t think an empty adjective would do me any good. Get rid of tai and replace it with di, the name reserved for the legendary god-kings whom everybody once worshiped. I, along with my successors, should be hence known as Huang’di, the Emperor.”
And it was so.
“When a ruler died, historians would give him another name to reflect his deeds. Imagine a son talks about his father, a servant says things about his master! Pointless acts like these don’t have a place in my Empire. I am Emperor I, and there will be Emperor II, III, and all the way to the 10,000th, to the infinite.”
…
The new Emperor immediately went on to investigate the interactions between the Five Elements. The Fire of Zhou extinguished by the Water of Qin. “So be water.” The 10th month, the month of water and late fall, became the new year. Attire, flags, and badges were all coated in black paint, the color of water. Six, the number of water, was honored in every aspect of life, from hat height to how many horses should pull a carriage. Even the Yellow River was renamed to celebrate the beginning of the Age of Water. Every matter, large or small, was to be judged by the harsh law of Qin, like the chilly wind of the season or the high-pressure water blade that cuts through tungsten like butter. No grace or leniency would be granted, in accordance with the nature of the Element.
Some counselors advised that following the ancient feudal tradition, the sons of the Emperor should be made kings of the remote states. The Head Counselor objected, stating the fact that the kings of Zhou ended up fighting among themselves, whilst the glorious Emperor had already earned his right to rule whole China and could show his generosity by rewarding loyal subjects with gold. “Indeed, feudalism is the root of the problem.” The Emperor concurred.
The Emperor divided the whole continent into 36 states and appointed governor and officials for each. He renamed people qian’shou, black heads (as in the word headcount). He ordered that all weapons (saving those of his own army) to be confiscated, delivered to the capital, and melt for twelve metallic colossi to be displayed before the Grand Palace. He ordered that all Chinese should use a single set of units, follow a single set of codes, drive horse carriages that had the same width, and write and read Chinese characters in the very one style established by the Head Counselor. To further expand the capital of his ancestors and now the newborn Empire, he relocated 120,000 rich families to it. As regards the treasures and beautiful maidens that once belonged to his enemies, he’d claim everything for himself.
To inspect his new territory, the Emperor and his entourage traveled all the way to the East, to the boundless sea that was the limit of the known world. In search of the Elixir of Eternal Life, he dispatched a team to brave the wind and waves. Allegedly, the band, constituted by Taoist masters, artisans, and young boys and girls (the idea of generation ship might actually come from here), reached Japan and decided to never return to their fatherland.
In the thirty-third year of his reign, the Emperor rallied bands of social scums, the convicted, the escapees, the husbands in matrilineal marriage, and the hawkers. He attacked the Huns in the north and the Viets in the south. The bands resettled in these new lands.
During a feast in the Grand Palace, a certain scholar brought up the concerns of deviating from feudalism once more. The Head Counselor believed that the scholars were not behaving: They should be following laws and serving as role models for the common folks. Instead, they justified their atrocities and incited dissent with dead texts. The Emperor nodded and tens and thousands of forbidden books were burnt and lost for good. Those who still dare to mention the ancient works were publicly executed, their mutilated carcasses left in the center of the markets as warnings for the people.
In the thirty-seventh year of his reign, the Emperor fell ill during his last tour of inspection. Really fear of death, he never dared to mention the word, nor would his entourage. He wrote a letter to his firstborn with instructions and asked the Head Counselor to keep it for delivery at the moment of his passing.
The Emperor died unceremoniously. The Head Counselor decided that it would be best to keep the untimely news a secret. He took the liberty of making a much younger and thus more gullible prince the heir. In the meantime, he carefully disposed of the original letter and issued fake ones, ordering the late Emperor’s firstborn as well as his most reliable general to commit suicide. Servants brought food and water to Emperor’s carriage as usual. As the stench started to emanate from the dead body, the Head Counselor ordered that the entourage to attach a cart of salted fish after each carriage.
Following the advice of the Head Counselor, Emperor II of Qin killed thousands of concubines of his father so they might continue to serve him after death. He also butchered his siblings and powerful ministers, so they would never lay a claim to the throne. Despite all his efforts, the angry heirs of the old kingdom nobles and common thugs began to revolt all over China. Emperor II was concerned and suspicious, so the Head Counselor ordered him to be removed as well. He begged for his life not unlike a lowly peasant, but as we all know, in the Empire of Qin there was no such thing as mercy.
On a spring day in ’74, Zhong and I were summoned to the office of the League secretary. We met a passionate and humorous cadre in his 30s, who was later known as Mr. Pan, the leader of the Provincial Red Guard Congress Propaganda Corps. We were overjoyed as soon as we founded out about the new duty tasked to us: We took a bus every morning to a vacated kindergarten and supervised the Red Song Gatherings all over the province. It was more of a privilege than a job as we were not paid. Nevertheless, we did enjoy the perk of four free meals a day at the Provincial Government Canteen. Also, when I wished to have a glass bottle of beer or two, I’d collect some discarded bus tickets and file reimbursement requests under “Traveling Expense.”
We organized rehearsals from time to time and eventually performed at the Grand Hall of People’s Political Consultative Conference. It was a place I frequented as a child, as grandpa was granted a “membership” for willing giving up that department store for the New China. The Corps would ingeniously update the repertoire to reflect the new victories and accomplishments of the Great Cultural Revolution, from the Defense of Chairman Mao to the Defense of the Party Central Committee, from the Final Battle between the Two Routes to the Combined Forces of Diverse Age Groups. Despite all our dedication, hard work, and ingenuity, occasionally we still made careless mistakes and received angry letters of complaint (e.g. if thousands of rivers returned to the Earth, would it be the Flood all over again?!).
While Zhong and I carried out this service for the state, probably the greatest one in our lives, we often met Mr. Zhang, the Vice-Chairman of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee and the head of the Provincial Red Guard Congress. Despite being an acting leader of the government, he still wore his worn-out black-rimmed glasses and green uniform, retaining the demeanor of a scholar. During his monthly inspections, he always carried his chrome-plated hair clipper and did free haircuts for us.
Decades later, I came across Mr. Pan in the Red Flag Store by the avenue before the Railway Station and near the rotary on the far end. He was sentenced eight years in prison, and eventually commuted the sentence into “community-supervised labor.”
“Remembering Mr. Zhang? He was still serving his 20-year term.” He seemed to try to elicit a response from me.
In a typical fall afternoon of ’76, a friend and I took a bicycle ride to the suburb to hunt sparrows with air guns. With a dozen or so birds dangling below the handlebar, we rode toward home triumphally, not fully aware of the message broadcast by the loudspeakers in nearby villages.
The founder of the People’s Republic of China… has earned heartfelt love and boundless reverence… The great leader and mentor shall be immortal in the hearts of the people!
To the Whole Party, Army, and People of China
Unlike those Beijing citizens on television, folks in Jiangnan processed the shocking news in a relatively calm way, even eerily quiet at times. Once again, the League secretary summoned me. He entrusted the sole weapon of the high school to me — an unloaded Type 38 rifle captured from the Japs back in the days, completed with a deadly Type 30 bayonet. Thus, I stood guard by the school gate, being ever vigilant for the DEFCON I scenario.
A classmate, Rong, thought it would be a great moment to make fun of my attire and posture as I was not supposed to move from my post. Trying to mimic the solemn sentries I saw in movies and real life, I tried to keep my cool as much as I could, until I reached my limits and punched a pair of holes right in the crotch of his pants with the bayonet.
Rong’s face turned pale in the split of a second. Finally realized that I meant to hurt him, he turned back and ran for his life.
On the special occasion, kind teachers instructed every one of us NOT to wear clothes in bright colors while attending school. But another student, Hua, enthusiastically flaunted his maroon shirt. Within minutes, he was escorted to the headmaster’s office. As you may expect, the whole school soon engaged in a pi’dou to expose such heinous act. The headmaster made a phone call to Hua’s father, who served as a representative in the Army Liaison Office of the Jiangnan Railway Bureau. Without a second thought, he rushed to the school in a sleeveless shirt and combat pants. Wiggling his way out of the crowd of students and teachers to the dais, he slapped Hua right in the face with all the might he could muster. The sharp sound was further amplified by the speakers and reverberated above the campus grounds. Before everyone was able to react, he dragged Hua away by the ear, saving his son from a certain fate.
Within a month, the Gang of Four was decimated by the wise leader Chairman Hua. The File No. 1, which announced the news of the palace coup and the “victory” of the Cultural Revolution, soon reached every nook and cranny of China. Did an era really come to an end? When the staff of the Railway Locomotive Office met to study the File No. 1, a young female worker, aged 23, objected.
“How come Jiang Qing, with her miniature figure, overturned the magnificent physique of the Chairman?”
Her observation was immediately reported to the Party Committee of the Office. Within a week, she was summarily executed after a public trial in pi’dou style, for her crime of attacking Chairman Hua, who was asked to resign in the early 80s by Deng Xiaoping.
The most publicized case of the province would be Li Jiulian. She was a red guard at the age of 18 back in 1964. Her boyfriend, who was applying for party membership while serving in the army, betrayed her by turning her dairy in, which contained a defense of Liu Shaoqi (the vice-chairman who became a Cultural Revolution victim) and criticism against Lin Biao (the famous general and another vice-chairman). When Lin Biao betrayed Chairman Mao and the plane carrying him to USSR crashed in Mongolia in ’71, Li Jiulian was released from the prison. Obviously, she was resentful for all the injustice she suffered, and took every opportunity to protest. In 1975, she was arrested again and sentenced to another 19 years. Refusing to sign the verdict, she was executed two years later as a counter-revolutionist. Her remains were allegedly mutilated by a local peasant.
The father of my classmate Shun was a chef in the Railway Canteen and arduous supporter of red guards. Not only did he take care of their need for nourishment to the best of his ability, but he also provided them with a constant supply of crude flour glue for their revolutionary posters. The kind chef was sent to the labor camp for two years. When I met him again, he just claimed that he took the time to do some military training for China. I paid attention not to expose this white lie.
Shun suffered from the family legacy as well. Though he took his father’s place in the Canteen, he was discriminated against and didn’t have much of a friend or girlfriend. Luckily, he managed to find a wife eventually, who was the daughter of a zao’fan’pai leader.
Even prominent figures who once served in the Red Army could be prosecuted in the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Wu, once a Red Army soldier and the Police Station Chief of Nanjing, was transferred to Jiangnan Railway Bureau as its new head. However, his own son was tried for opposing Jiang Qing and executed. Red guards broke into his home and confiscated banknotes of 30,000 yuan hidden in the space between the outer plastic case and inner chamber of a vacuum flask.
Mr. S, another denizen of the Hood, used to be a Red Army Sergent. He was relieved of the post after he led a platoon of soldiers to his hometown to offer his father, a landlord, some extra protection during the Land Reform Movement. He served as a quartermaster during the rest of his military career, and was offered an officer job with the Railway after the Chinese Civil War or Liberation War. When red guards invaded his home, Mr. S Jr, the eldest son, held the Shanghai-manufactured 555-brand desk clock against his chest and ran as fast as he could toward the alley by the poultry farm. Being his close friends, we did what we could to provide cover and obstruct the pursuers. When I recalled the event decades later, it suddenly came to me that even the so-called Red Lineage was not well off at that time, as they would risk their lives for a timepiece.
In general, my own family did not take much of a hit during the Cultural Revolution. On the one hand, grandpa retained his ties with the Political Consultative Conference. On the other hand, as a token of friendship for the department store handover, Xi Zhongxun, the father of President Xi Jinping, made arrangements so that a younger sister of mom could join the army (and continue sending monthly allowance of 5 yuan to grandpa until his death). With a plate reading “Proud Family of the Army” pinned onto the front door, the household was literally bulletproof. Although, all sorts of investigators and meddlers still wished to interview grandpa as an effort to collect incriminating evidence against almost anyone. Grandpa would tell them:
“I’ll entertain you lot after 3pm. Let an old man take his nap first!”
On the contrary, some relatives did not have such fortune. My uncle Tianhua used to fight in Korea and lost his left leg in the field. Even as the party sectary of a hospital in a neighboring town, he was still branded as a warlord by the red guards for his service record in the ROC army. The father of another uncle Fanguo was a capitalist. During the Cultural Revolution, his two-storey flat, with patio and all amenities, was seized and the family had to stay in a shack by the Yangtze tributary. The only remnant of an age lost would be a pair of fine armchairs with redwood armrests. For a time, Fanguo placed the furniture in our apartment for safekeeping. But seeing that grandpa and I rested comfortably in the chairs, he thought it would probably be best to take them home and enjoy while it lasted. It turned out to be a bad move, as the red guards forcibly took the chairs away the next day after he painstakingly hauled them back with a tricycle.
Here’s to the two martyrs and many others who willingly gave up their lives for their ideals.
She was a rising film star living at large in the metropolis of the East, surrounded by admirers and every luxury one could imagine. Yet she’d give up them all, traveling to the rebel capital for an uncertain destiny in pursuit of progress and self-fulfillment. There she met who would become the most powerful man in China, and served as his lifetime companion, aide, and pupil. She grew into a determined revolutionist and feminist, who commissioned great artworks which every Chinese enjoyed.
She was thrown in jail like a petty criminal as soon as the great undertaking failed. She was first detained for five years, allegedly beaten, tortured, and interrogated. What happened next was a scripted, televised trial. Having dismissed the assigned lawyers typical in a show trial, she defiantly made an elegant defense of herself and her cause. She would spend the rest of her days in solitary confinement and took her own life by hanging on the 25th anniversary of the Revolution.
Her last words were considered a state secret, but many sources agreed that she intended to reunite with the Chairman in the afterlife.
He was a much-blessed scholar, businessman, writer, and evangelist. With unparalleled Bible knowledge and refreshing inspiration from God, he spread Gospel all over China. When the civil war ended, he refused to leave and insisted on enduring the ordeal together with his flock. As he did not comply with the demand of joining the government-controlled congregation, he was put in prison as his old allies and friends bore false witness. Following biblical teachings and the very example of Jesus Christ, he plainly accepted the great test of the Lord with immense humility and obedience.
His sentence was fifteen years imprisonment with reform by labor, but he was never released. Drawing his last breath, he testified:
Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ.
Watchman Nee
Pater noster, qui es in caelis:
Sanctificetur nomen tuum:
Adveniat regnum tuum:
Fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in caelo, et in terra.Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie:
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et dimittimus debitoribus nostris.Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.Amen.