1. Prelude

         Guanxian is a famous sightseeing resort town in China for its world-renowned Dujiangyan and Chingcheng Mountain. But, back in those years when class struggle like raging wild fires spread over every corner of China, the present day popular term of sight-seeing tours was still frozen in the locked-up dictionaries.  I was quite familiar with the famous legend of Governor LiBing together with his son who had regulated the rivers some 2000 years ago; now being in such depressed mood as a prisoner-to-be, even walking under armed escort through the famous bamboo suspension bridge, I did not even cast a glance to the beautiful sceneries surrounding me.

    In the Second Detachment of Railway Construction, similar to all the other LR or Laogai (Labor Camp) setups, there was a special unit called Intensive Surveillance Team, (some called Strict-Control Team), for the purpose of confining all kinds of the so-called anti-reform elements. That one of the Second Detachment was located at Zipingpu in Guanxian. Usually every captured escapee was first sent there for further interrogation. Once you were there, the authorities would investigate into your files, meanwhile gave you a head-on blow. They adopted the infamous Chinese principle of “evil against evil”, putting you in a denouncing meeting, asking you to confess all crimes you perpetrated on the run. They  used  old-time anti-reform elements to abuse you with whatever means they could lay their hands to, let the worst part of human nature find its way out, but kept a blind eye to it. The various kinds of torture instrument used was just for “strongly rescuing” you, or only to “weaken your arrogance in anti-reforming”. The result of it was physically turning your body into a mess of bruises and scars, and mentally put you into the lowest spirit. After this first step finished flawlessly, you were confined in the stinking dormitory, to self-examine your own counterrevolutionary crimes.

    I was not exempted from the routine schedule. While I proceeded into the self-examine period, in a pitchy dark night of the last week in December, when all the anti reformists were deeply in their dreams, two armed police abruptly called me up. I was, at the time, as usual with both wrists shackled behind my back (hind-shackled.) They ordered me to walk out right away. After doing so, I saw a military truck standing at the far end of the exercise ground; several soldiers in military overcoats with Russian style rifles on their shoulders were waiting. The hind plank of the truck was open, as if waiting to be loaded. A harsh ordering voice was heard from inside the truck: “Come here, get on the truck!” I knew by experience this kind of rude calling was exclusively for elements like us, so I walked over. But since both hands were shackled at my back, there was simply no way for me to climb up. Seeing this, several soldiers rounded up, some grabbing my arms and some legs, raised me up and threw me onto the truck just like throwing a sack of goods. With a “bang”, my right thigh bone bumped against the plank first, brought about a drilling sharp pain that I was unable to describe.

    The ground soldiers climbed onto the truck and ordered me to sit up in the middle. Soon the engine was turned on. The soldiers unloaded their guns from their shoulders, fixed their bayonets and pointed them toward me. On seeing this I could not help musing: was it necessary to deploy such strong armed force to deal with a weak bookworm like me? I had not long before been tormented with wounds all over my body, and both my wrists were gnawed by handcuffs behind my back, not even possible to move, and now they were still using so many sharp blades aiming at me.  What for?  The only weapon of mine at this time under their slaughter was nothing but my vision. Such an absurd scene only made me wonder: Wasn’t the director of this drama having problems with his own nerves?

      The truck was trudging on the rugged mountain road. The undulating terrain made me inevitably ponder, to where they were taking me in such a dark night? Were they taking me to some desolate place to shoot me dead? But it seemed unnecessary. Had it been imperative to put me to death, they could do it fair easily, just publish a list of my crimes, and kill me in broad daylight so as to give the other offenders a serious warning. They have their State apparatus at hand, no one dared to raise any question. According to their typical convict terms, my crimes were so malicious that sparing of my life would soon arouse the people’s indignation. How convincing it was!

    In the darkness I couldn’t make out my destination, but only wished the road would be smooth all the way, and no incidents would ever occur to cause an emergent skid. Otherwise, if any one of the bayonet-holding soldiers lost his balance, his sharp blade could easily thrust into my body just by inertia, and bring a serious new wound to my all-bruised body, or even have my valueless life taken away right on the spot.

    Thank God everything was OK all the way; now I could see streetlights by the roadside telling me we were in the city this time. From the thirty minute’s drive I reckoned we were in Guanxian County itself by now.

    Finally the truck pulled up into a courtyard. Before I was ordered to get down, the ‘bayonets’ jumped down all at once. I was afraid to have myself served as a ‘sack’ again, and moved to the rear as soon as possible. Been thrown down into the ground would significantly differ from onto the truck; it could easily break my neck and cost my valueless life, not just a throbbing pain again. I managed to slither down without the help of my arms; easy to say here but hard to achieve down there.

    I was taken into a room looked like a meeting room. Some ten people or so were sitting around a big table about a pingpong table’s size. I was brought to a corner opposite them where a small stool was for me.

    After every one was seated, my interrogation started. In the past I had had the experience of seeing doctors’ group consultation of a patient, but had no knowledge of many interrogators doing the same job at a prisoner. It was after a few years I came to know, that the reason of their treating me like a dangerous enemy was because in our Second Detachment of Railway Construction, a “counterrevolution group” named “The Union of Leninist Communists” had been unearthed.  A couple of scores of LR rightists got involved.  The top two, by name of Zou Juzhen and Yang Yingsen were executed the next year. Among them, Yang Yingsen was in the same squad with me and was said to be ‘singing the same tune’ with me.  The group’s name was close to the “Union of Communists” of then Yugoslavia, and in my verdict I was suspected to escape to the Embassy of Yugoslavia to ask for political asylum. (Quoted from my indictment from Procurator of Guanxian) It was said that the above case had alerted The Ministry of Public Security in Beijing, and a special group for investigation was dispatched to our place. Probably they were taking me for an important member of the group, being sent out to seek for support from foreign countries. Probably this answered the question that they spared no effort to deploy so many bayonets. To their disappointment, actually while this ‘organization’ was taking place I was already at large outside. There were no cellular phone at that time; we had no way to communicate. How could I know things occurred in the LR detachment when I was a thousand miles away? Too bad this argument was only my own assertion. In addition, and not to be astonished at all, as it was finally discovered after many years, the whole case was fabricated. All of them were wrongfully executed and sentenced, but I will deal with it at a separate section later.

    This serious interrogation took place more than forty years ago, all the conversations that night had vanished from my memory, only two things could still be called to my mind.

    One of them was that a night meal was served during the interrogation. Of course not for me, I could only sense the delicious smell of omelet, and the merry sound from their slurping of the noodles. Being full of evil intentions as I was assumed to be, I went so far as to doubt why they deliberately scheduled the interrogation at night. Actually they could have done it at any time during the day. The consumption of extra egg-noodle as a purpose could not be excluded. It ought to be known in those ‘Natural Calamity’ years, for the sake of getting more to eat, it was never exaggerating nor fabricating that people would spare no effort to create excuses, even plot conspiracies to achieve the goal, not even cadres from the central government were exempted. Please don’t overlook these additional mouthful of noodles, since every ounce of grain was strictly controlled by the government, they could only use my interrogation as an excuse to get it.

    The second one was my handcuffs were finally released. I have to make some explanations here: anyone who had been hind-shackled for over twenty days would have his physical conditions altered if not permanently damaged. Once the handcuffs were released, he should by no way to move his arms to the front directly. Doing so will bring serious pain almost unbearable, in serious cases dislocation was possible.

    It happened that night after I, the interrogated, had finished reading the record of their interrogation, should sign on every page to make my confirmation.  But apparently I couldn’t do it with my hands cuffed in my back. When everyone of them was racking his brain to find a way to solve this problem, the one sitting in the center broke out: “Open them for him.”  I could make out he was the highest leader of the group from his tone also from the respect the others were paying to him. At his word, my handcuffs were at once released. But my hands were still unable to move forward, so the young guy performing this task could only bring the ink stand to my back, holding my thumb to have it inked, then press it accordingly behind me. I felt sorry for not being able even to draw a circle like the illiterates would do.

    At 3:00 am, I was sent to Chen’s Alley Lockup of the Police Station of Guanxian, to start a new phase of my humble life.

 1. Prelude

         Guanxian is a famous sightseeing resort town in China for its world-renowned Dujiangyan and Chingcheng Mountain. But, back in those years when class struggle like raging wild fires spread over every corner of China, the present day popular term of sight-seeing tours was still frozen in the locked-up dictionaries.  I was quite familiar with the famous legend of Governor LiBing together with his son who had regulated the rivers some 2000 years ago; now being in such depressed mood as a prisoner-to-be, even walking under armed escort through the famous bamboo suspension bridge, I did not even cast a glance to the beautiful sceneries surrounding me.

    In the Second Detachment of Railway Construction, similar to all the other LR or Laogai (Labor Camp) setups, there was a special unit called Intensive Surveillance Team, (some called Strict-Control Team), for the purpose of confining all kinds of the so-called anti-reform elements. That one of the Second Detachment was located at Zipingpu in Guanxian. Usually every captured escapee was first sent there for further interrogation. Once you were there, the authorities would investigate into your files, meanwhile gave you a head-on blow. They adopted the infamous Chinese principle of “evil against evil”, putting you in a denouncing meeting, asking you to confess all crimes you perpetrated on the run. They  used  old-time anti-reform elements to abuse you with whatever means they could lay their hands to, let the worst part of human nature find its way out, but kept a blind eye to it. The various kinds of torture instrument used was just for “strongly rescuing” you, or only to “weaken your arrogance in anti-reforming”. The result of it was physically turning your body into a mess of bruises and scars, and mentally put you into the lowest spirit. After this first step finished flawlessly, you were confined in the stinking dormitory, to self-examine your own counterrevolutionary crimes.

    I was not exempted from the routine schedule. While I proceeded into the self-examine period, in a pitchy dark night of the last week in December, when all the anti reformists were deeply in their dreams, two armed police abruptly called me up. I was, at the time, as usual with both wrists shackled behind my back (hind-shackled.) They ordered me to walk out right away. After doing so, I saw a military truck standing at the far end of the exercise ground; several soldiers in military overcoats with Russian style rifles on their shoulders were waiting. The hind plank of the truck was open, as if waiting to be loaded. A harsh ordering voice was heard from inside the truck: “Come here, get on the truck!” I knew by experience this kind of rude calling was exclusively for elements like us, so I walked over. But since both hands were shackled at my back, there was simply no way for me to climb up. Seeing this, several soldiers rounded up, some grabbing my arms and some legs, raised me up and threw me onto the truck just like throwing a sack of goods. With a “bang”, my right thigh bone bumped against the plank first, brought about a drilling sharp pain that I was unable to describe.

    The ground soldiers climbed onto the truck and ordered me to sit up in the middle. Soon the engine was turned on. The soldiers unloaded their guns from their shoulders, fixed their bayonets and pointed them toward me. On seeing this I could not help musing: was it necessary to deploy such strong armed force to deal with a weak bookworm like me? I had not long before been tormented with wounds all over my body, and both my wrists were gnawed by handcuffs behind my back, not even possible to move, and now they were still using so many sharp blades aiming at me.  What for?  The only weapon of mine at this time under their slaughter was nothing but my vision. Such an absurd scene only made me wonder: Wasn’t the director of this drama having problems with his own nerves?

      The truck was trudging on the rugged mountain road. The undulating terrain made me inevitably ponder, to where they were taking me in such a dark night? Were they taking me to some desolate place to shoot me dead? But it seemed unnecessary. Had it been imperative to put me to death, they could do it fair easily, just publish a list of my crimes, and kill me in broad daylight so as to give the other offenders a serious warning. They have their State apparatus at hand, no one dared to raise any question. According to their typical convict terms, my crimes were so malicious that sparing of my life would soon arouse the people’s indignation. How convincing it was!

    In the darkness I couldn’t make out my destination, but only wished the road would be smooth all the way, and no incidents would ever occur to cause an emergent skid. Otherwise, if any one of the bayonet-holding soldiers lost his balance, his sharp blade could easily thrust into my body just by inertia, and bring a serious new wound to my all-bruised body, or even have my valueless life taken away right on the spot.

    Thank God everything was OK all the way; now I could see streetlights by the roadside telling me we were in the city this time. From the thirty minute’s drive I reckoned we were in Guanxian County itself by now.

    Finally the truck pulled up into a courtyard. Before I was ordered to get down, the ‘bayonets’ jumped down all at once. I was afraid to have myself served as a ‘sack’ again, and moved to the rear as soon as possible. Been thrown down into the ground would significantly differ from onto the truck; it could easily break my neck and cost my valueless life, not just a throbbing pain again. I managed to slither down without the help of my arms; easy to say here but hard to achieve down there.

    I was taken into a room looked like a meeting room. Some ten people or so were sitting around a big table about a pingpong table’s size. I was brought to a corner opposite them where a small stool was for me.

    After every one was seated, my interrogation started. In the past I had had the experience of seeing doctors’ group consultation of a patient, but had no knowledge of many interrogators doing the same job at a prisoner. It was after a few years I came to know, that the reason of their treating me like a dangerous enemy was because in our Second Detachment of Railway Construction, a “counterrevolution group” named “The Union of Leninist Communists” had been unearthed.  A couple of scores of LR rightists got involved.  The top two, by name of Zou Juzhen and Yang Yingsen were executed the next year. Among them, Yang Yingsen was in the same squad with me and was said to be ‘singing the same tune’ with me.  The group’s name was close to the “Union of Communists” of then Yugoslavia, and in my verdict I was suspected to escape to the Embassy of Yugoslavia to ask for political asylum. (Quoted from my indictment from Procurator of Guanxian) It was said that the above case had alerted The Ministry of Public Security in Beijing, and a special group for investigation was dispatched to our place. Probably they were taking me for an important member of the group, being sent out to seek for support from foreign countries. Probably this answered the question that they spared no effort to deploy so many bayonets. To their disappointment, actually while this ‘organization’ was taking place I was already at large outside. There were no cellular phone at that time; we had no way to communicate. How could I know things occurred in the LR detachment when I was a thousand miles away? Too bad this argument was only my own assertion. In addition, and not to be astonished at all, as it was finally discovered after many years, the whole case was fabricated. All of them were wrongfully executed and sentenced, but I will deal with it at a separate section later.

    This serious interrogation took place more than forty years ago, all the conversations that night had vanished from my memory, only two things could still be called to my mind.

    One of them was that a night meal was served during the interrogation. Of course not for me, I could only sense the delicious smell of omelet, and the merry sound from their slurping of the noodles. Being full of evil intentions as I was assumed to be, I went so far as to doubt why they deliberately scheduled the interrogation at night. Actually they could have done it at any time during the day. The consumption of extra egg-noodle as a purpose could not be excluded. It ought to be known in those ‘Natural Calamity’ years, for the sake of getting more to eat, it was never exaggerating nor fabricating that people would spare no effort to create excuses, even plot conspiracies to achieve the goal, not even cadres from the central government were exempted. Please don’t overlook these additional mouthful of noodles, since every ounce of grain was strictly controlled by the government, they could only use my interrogation as an excuse to get it.

    The second one was my handcuffs were finally released. I have to make some explanations here: anyone who had been hind-shackled for over twenty days would have his physical conditions altered if not permanently damaged. Once the handcuffs were released, he should by no way to move his arms to the front directly. Doing so will bring serious pain almost unbearable, in serious cases dislocation was possible.

    It happened that night after I, the interrogated, had finished reading the record of their interrogation, should sign on every page to make my confirmation.  But apparently I couldn’t do it with my hands cuffed in my back. When everyone of them was racking his brain to find a way to solve this problem, the one sitting in the center broke out: “Open them for him.”  I could make out he was the highest leader of the group from his tone also from the respect the others were paying to him. At his word, my handcuffs were at once released. But my hands were still unable to move forward, so the young guy performing this task could only bring the ink stand to my back, holding my thumb to have it inked, then press it accordingly behind me. I felt sorry for not being able even to draw a circle like the illiterates would do.

    At 3:00 am, I was sent to Chen’s Alley Lockup of the Police Station of Guanxian, to start a new phase of my humble life.

 1. Prelude

         Guanxian is a famous sightseeing resort town in China for its world-renowned Dujiangyan and Chingcheng Mountain. But, back in those years when class struggle like raging wild fires spread over every corner of China, the present day popular term of sight-seeing tours was still frozen in the locked-up dictionaries.  I was quite familiar with the famous legend of Governor LiBing together with his son who had regulated the rivers some 2000 years ago; now being in such depressed mood as a prisoner-to-be, even walking under armed escort through the famous bamboo suspension bridge, I did not even cast a glance to the beautiful sceneries surrounding me.

    In the Second Detachment of Railway Construction, similar to all the other LR or Laogai (Labor Camp) setups, there was a special unit called Intensive Surveillance Team, (some called Strict-Control Team), for the purpose of confining all kinds of the so-called anti-reform elements. That one of the Second Detachment was located at Zipingpu in Guanxian. Usually every captured escapee was first sent there for further interrogation. Once you were there, the authorities would investigate into your files, meanwhile gave you a head-on blow. They adopted the infamous Chinese principle of “evil against evil”, putting you in a denouncing meeting, asking you to confess all crimes you perpetrated on the run. They  used  old-time anti-reform elements to abuse you with whatever means they could lay their hands to, let the worst part of human nature find its way out, but kept a blind eye to it. The various kinds of torture instrument used was just for “strongly rescuing” you, or only to “weaken your arrogance in anti-reforming”. The result of it was physically turning your body into a mess of bruises and scars, and mentally put you into the lowest spirit. After this first step finished flawlessly, you were confined in the stinking dormitory, to self-examine your own counterrevolutionary crimes.

    I was not exempted from the routine schedule. While I proceeded into the self-examine period, in a pitchy dark night of the last week in December, when all the anti reformists were deeply in their dreams, two armed police abruptly called me up. I was, at the time, as usual with both wrists shackled behind my back (hind-shackled.) They ordered me to walk out right away. After doing so, I saw a military truck standing at the far end of the exercise ground; several soldiers in military overcoats with Russian style rifles on their shoulders were waiting. The hind plank of the truck was open, as if waiting to be loaded. A harsh ordering voice was heard from inside the truck: “Come here, get on the truck!” I knew by experience this kind of rude calling was exclusively for elements like us, so I walked over. But since both hands were shackled at my back, there was simply no way for me to climb up. Seeing this, several soldiers rounded up, some grabbing my arms and some legs, raised me up and threw me onto the truck just like throwing a sack of goods. With a “bang”, my right thigh bone bumped against the plank first, brought about a drilling sharp pain that I was unable to describe.

    The ground soldiers climbed onto the truck and ordered me to sit up in the middle. Soon the engine was turned on. The soldiers unloaded their guns from their shoulders, fixed their bayonets and pointed them toward me. On seeing this I could not help musing: was it necessary to deploy such strong armed force to deal with a weak bookworm like me? I had not long before been tormented with wounds all over my body, and both my wrists were gnawed by handcuffs behind my back, not even possible to move, and now they were still using so many sharp blades aiming at me.  What for?  The only weapon of mine at this time under their slaughter was nothing but my vision. Such an absurd scene only made me wonder: Wasn’t the director of this drama having problems with his own nerves?

      The truck was trudging on the rugged mountain road. The undulating terrain made me inevitably ponder, to where they were taking me in such a dark night? Were they taking me to some desolate place to shoot me dead? But it seemed unnecessary. Had it been imperative to put me to death, they could do it fair easily, just publish a list of my crimes, and kill me in broad daylight so as to give the other offenders a serious warning. They have their State apparatus at hand, no one dared to raise any question. According to their typical convict terms, my crimes were so malicious that sparing of my life would soon arouse the people’s indignation. How convincing it was!

    In the darkness I couldn’t make out my destination, but only wished the road would be smooth all the way, and no incidents would ever occur to cause an emergent skid. Otherwise, if any one of the bayonet-holding soldiers lost his balance, his sharp blade could easily thrust into my body just by inertia, and bring a serious new wound to my all-bruised body, or even have my valueless life taken away right on the spot.

    Thank God everything was OK all the way; now I could see streetlights by the roadside telling me we were in the city this time. From the thirty minute’s drive I reckoned we were in Guanxian County itself by now.

    Finally the truck pulled up into a courtyard. Before I was ordered to get down, the ‘bayonets’ jumped down all at once. I was afraid to have myself served as a ‘sack’ again, and moved to the rear as soon as possible. Been thrown down into the ground would significantly differ from onto the truck; it could easily break my neck and cost my valueless life, not just a throbbing pain again. I managed to slither down without the help of my arms; easy to say here but hard to achieve down there.

    I was taken into a room looked like a meeting room. Some ten people or so were sitting around a big table about a pingpong table’s size. I was brought to a corner opposite them where a small stool was for me.

    After every one was seated, my interrogation started. In the past I had had the experience of seeing doctors’ group consultation of a patient, but had no knowledge of many interrogators doing the same job at a prisoner. It was after a few years I came to know, that the reason of their treating me like a dangerous enemy was because in our Second Detachment of Railway Construction, a “counterrevolution group” named “The Union of Leninist Communists” had been unearthed.  A couple of scores of LR rightists got involved.  The top two, by name of Zou Juzhen and Yang Yingsen were executed the next year. Among them, Yang Yingsen was in the same squad with me and was said to be ‘singing the same tune’ with me.  The group’s name was close to the “Union of Communists” of then Yugoslavia, and in my verdict I was suspected to escape to the Embassy of Yugoslavia to ask for political asylum. (Quoted from my indictment from Procurator of Guanxian) It was said that the above case had alerted The Ministry of Public Security in Beijing, and a special group for investigation was dispatched to our place. Probably they were taking me for an important member of the group, being sent out to seek for support from foreign countries. Probably this answered the question that they spared no effort to deploy so many bayonets. To their disappointment, actually while this ‘organization’ was taking place I was already at large outside. There were no cellular phone at that time; we had no way to communicate. How could I know things occurred in the LR detachment when I was a thousand miles away? Too bad this argument was only my own assertion. In addition, and not to be astonished at all, as it was finally discovered after many years, the whole case was fabricated. All of them were wrongfully executed and sentenced, but I will deal with it at a separate section later.

    This serious interrogation took place more than forty years ago, all the conversations that night had vanished from my memory, only two things could still be called to my mind.

    One of them was that a night meal was served during the interrogation. Of course not for me, I could only sense the delicious smell of omelet, and the merry sound from their slurping of the noodles. Being full of evil intentions as I was assumed to be, I went so far as to doubt why they deliberately scheduled the interrogation at night. Actually they could have done it at any time during the day. The consumption of extra egg-noodle as a purpose could not be excluded. It ought to be known in those ‘Natural Calamity’ years, for the sake of getting more to eat, it was never exaggerating nor fabricating that people would spare no effort to create excuses, even plot conspiracies to achieve the goal, not even cadres from the central government were exempted. Please don’t overlook these additional mouthful of noodles, since every ounce of grain was strictly controlled by the government, they could only use my interrogation as an excuse to get it.

    The second one was my handcuffs were finally released. I have to make some explanations here: anyone who had been hind-shackled for over twenty days would have his physical conditions altered if not permanently damaged. Once the handcuffs were released, he should by no way to move his arms to the front directly. Doing so will bring serious pain almost unbearable, in serious cases dislocation was possible.

    It happened that night after I, the interrogated, had finished reading the record of their interrogation, should sign on every page to make my confirmation.  But apparently I couldn’t do it with my hands cuffed in my back. When everyone of them was racking his brain to find a way to solve this problem, the one sitting in the center broke out: “Open them for him.”  I could make out he was the highest leader of the group from his tone also from the respect the others were paying to him. At his word, my handcuffs were at once released. But my hands were still unable to move forward, so the young guy performing this task could only bring the ink stand to my back, holding my thumb to have it inked, then press it accordingly behind me. I felt sorry for not being able even to draw a circle like the illiterates would do.

    At 3:00 am, I was sent to Chen’s Alley Lockup of the Police Station of Guanxian, to start a new phase of my humble life.

 1. Prelude

         Guanxian is a famous sightseeing resort town in China for its world-renowned Dujiangyan and Chingcheng Mountain. But, back in those years when class struggle like raging wild fires spread over every corner of China, the present day popular term of sight-seeing tours was still frozen in the locked-up dictionaries.  I was quite familiar with the famous legend of Governor LiBing together with his son who had regulated the rivers some 2000 years ago; now being in such depressed mood as a prisoner-to-be, even walking under armed escort through the famous bamboo suspension bridge, I did not even cast a glance to the beautiful sceneries surrounding me.

    In the Second Detachment of Railway Construction, similar to all the other LR or Laogai (Labor Camp) setups, there was a special unit called Intensive Surveillance Team, (some called Strict-Control Team), for the purpose of confining all kinds of the so-called anti-reform elements. That one of the Second Detachment was located at Zipingpu in Guanxian. Usually every captured escapee was first sent there for further interrogation. Once you were there, the authorities would investigate into your files, meanwhile gave you a head-on blow. They adopted the infamous Chinese principle of “evil against evil”, putting you in a denouncing meeting, asking you to confess all crimes you perpetrated on the run. They  used  old-time anti-reform elements to abuse you with whatever means they could lay their hands to, let the worst part of human nature find its way out, but kept a blind eye to it. The various kinds of torture instrument used was just for “strongly rescuing” you, or only to “weaken your arrogance in anti-reforming”. The result of it was physically turning your body into a mess of bruises and scars, and mentally put you into the lowest spirit. After this first step finished flawlessly, you were confined in the stinking dormitory, to self-examine your own counterrevolutionary crimes.

    I was not exempted from the routine schedule. While I proceeded into the self-examine period, in a pitchy dark night of the last week in December, when all the anti reformists were deeply in their dreams, two armed police abruptly called me up. I was, at the time, as usual with both wrists shackled behind my back (hind-shackled.) They ordered me to walk out right away. After doing so, I saw a military truck standing at the far end of the exercise ground; several soldiers in military overcoats with Russian style rifles on their shoulders were waiting. The hind plank of the truck was open, as if waiting to be loaded. A harsh ordering voice was heard from inside the truck: “Come here, get on the truck!” I knew by experience this kind of rude calling was exclusively for elements like us, so I walked over. But since both hands were shackled at my back, there was simply no way for me to climb up. Seeing this, several soldiers rounded up, some grabbing my arms and some legs, raised me up and threw me onto the truck just like throwing a sack of goods. With a “bang”, my right thigh bone bumped against the plank first, brought about a drilling sharp pain that I was unable to describe.

    The ground soldiers climbed onto the truck and ordered me to sit up in the middle. Soon the engine was turned on. The soldiers unloaded their guns from their shoulders, fixed their bayonets and pointed them toward me. On seeing this I could not help musing: was it necessary to deploy such strong armed force to deal with a weak bookworm like me? I had not long before been tormented with wounds all over my body, and both my wrists were gnawed by handcuffs behind my back, not even possible to move, and now they were still using so many sharp blades aiming at me.  What for?  The only weapon of mine at this time under their slaughter was nothing but my vision. Such an absurd scene only made me wonder: Wasn’t the director of this drama having problems with his own nerves?

      The truck was trudging on the rugged mountain road. The undulating terrain made me inevitably ponder, to where they were taking me in such a dark night? Were they taking me to some desolate place to shoot me dead? But it seemed unnecessary. Had it been imperative to put me to death, they could do it fair easily, just publish a list of my crimes, and kill me in broad daylight so as to give the other offenders a serious warning. They have their State apparatus at hand, no one dared to raise any question. According to their typical convict terms, my crimes were so malicious that sparing of my life would soon arouse the people’s indignation. How convincing it was!

    In the darkness I couldn’t make out my destination, but only wished the road would be smooth all the way, and no incidents would ever occur to cause an emergent skid. Otherwise, if any one of the bayonet-holding soldiers lost his balance, his sharp blade could easily thrust into my body just by inertia, and bring a serious new wound to my all-bruised body, or even have my valueless life taken away right on the spot.

    Thank God everything was OK all the way; now I could see streetlights by the roadside telling me we were in the city this time. From the thirty minute’s drive I reckoned we were in Guanxian County itself by now.

    Finally the truck pulled up into a courtyard. Before I was ordered to get down, the ‘bayonets’ jumped down all at once. I was afraid to have myself served as a ‘sack’ again, and moved to the rear as soon as possible. Been thrown down into the ground would significantly differ from onto the truck; it could easily break my neck and cost my valueless life, not just a throbbing pain again. I managed to slither down without the help of my arms; easy to say here but hard to achieve down there.

    I was taken into a room looked like a meeting room. Some ten people or so were sitting around a big table about a pingpong table’s size. I was brought to a corner opposite them where a small stool was for me.

    After every one was seated, my interrogation started. In the past I had had the experience of seeing doctors’ group consultation of a patient, but had no knowledge of many interrogators doing the same job at a prisoner. It was after a few years I came to know, that the reason of their treating me like a dangerous enemy was because in our Second Detachment of Railway Construction, a “counterrevolution group” named “The Union of Leninist Communists” had been unearthed.  A couple of scores of LR rightists got involved.  The top two, by name of Zou Juzhen and Yang Yingsen were executed the next year. Among them, Yang Yingsen was in the same squad with me and was said to be ‘singing the same tune’ with me.  The group’s name was close to the “Union of Communists” of then Yugoslavia, and in my verdict I was suspected to escape to the Embassy of Yugoslavia to ask for political asylum. (Quoted from my indictment from Procurator of Guanxian) It was said that the above case had alerted The Ministry of Public Security in Beijing, and a special group for investigation was dispatched to our place. Probably they were taking me for an important member of the group, being sent out to seek for support from foreign countries. Probably this answered the question that they spared no effort to deploy so many bayonets. To their disappointment, actually while this ‘organization’ was taking place I was already at large outside. There were no cellular phone at that time; we had no way to communicate. How could I know things occurred in the LR detachment when I was a thousand miles away? Too bad this argument was only my own assertion. In addition, and not to be astonished at all, as it was finally discovered after many years, the whole case was fabricated. All of them were wrongfully executed and sentenced, but I will deal with it at a separate section later.

    This serious interrogation took place more than forty years ago, all the conversations that night had vanished from my memory, only two things could still be called to my mind.

    One of them was that a night meal was served during the interrogation. Of course not for me, I could only sense the delicious smell of omelet, and the merry sound from their slurping of the noodles. Being full of evil intentions as I was assumed to be, I went so far as to doubt why they deliberately scheduled the interrogation at night. Actually they could have done it at any time during the day. The consumption of extra egg-noodle as a purpose could not be excluded. It ought to be known in those ‘Natural Calamity’ years, for the sake of getting more to eat, it was never exaggerating nor fabricating that people would spare no effort to create excuses, even plot conspiracies to achieve the goal, not even cadres from the central government were exempted. Please don’t overlook these additional mouthful of noodles, since every ounce of grain was strictly controlled by the government, they could only use my interrogation as an excuse to get it.

    The second one was my handcuffs were finally released. I have to make some explanations here: anyone who had been hind-shackled for over twenty days would have his physical conditions altered if not permanently damaged. Once the handcuffs were released, he should by no way to move his arms to the front directly. Doing so will bring serious pain almost unbearable, in serious cases dislocation was possible.

    It happened that night after I, the interrogated, had finished reading the record of their interrogation, should sign on every page to make my confirmation.  But apparently I couldn’t do it with my hands cuffed in my back. When everyone of them was racking his brain to find a way to solve this problem, the one sitting in the center broke out: “Open them for him.”  I could make out he was the highest leader of the group from his tone also from the respect the others were paying to him. At his word, my handcuffs were at once released. But my hands were still unable to move forward, so the young guy performing this task could only bring the ink stand to my back, holding my thumb to have it inked, then press it accordingly behind me. I felt sorry for not being able even to draw a circle like the illiterates would do.

    At 3:00 am, I was sent to Chen’s Alley Lockup of the Police Station of Guanxian, to start a new phase of my humble life.

 1. Prelude

         Guanxian is a famous sightseeing resort town in China for its world-renowned Dujiangyan and Chingcheng Mountain. But, back in those years when class struggle like raging wild fires spread over every corner of China, the present day popular term of sight-seeing tours was still frozen in the locked-up dictionaries.  I was quite familiar with the famous legend of Governor LiBing together with his son who had regulated the rivers some 2000 years ago; now being in such depressed mood as a prisoner-to-be, even walking under armed escort through the famous bamboo suspension bridge, I did not even cast a glance to the beautiful sceneries surrounding me.

    In the Second Detachment of Railway Construction, similar to all the other LR or Laogai (Labor Camp) setups, there was a special unit called Intensive Surveillance Team, (some called Strict-Control Team), for the purpose of confining all kinds of the so-called anti-reform elements. That one of the Second Detachment was located at Zipingpu in Guanxian. Usually every captured escapee was first sent there for further interrogation. Once you were there, the authorities would investigate into your files, meanwhile gave you a head-on blow. They adopted the infamous Chinese principle of “evil against evil”, putting you in a denouncing meeting, asking you to confess all crimes you perpetrated on the run. They  used  old-time anti-reform elements to abuse you with whatever means they could lay their hands to, let the worst part of human nature find its way out, but kept a blind eye to it. The various kinds of torture instrument used was just for “strongly rescuing” you, or only to “weaken your arrogance in anti-reforming”. The result of it was physically turning your body into a mess of bruises and scars, and mentally put you into the lowest spirit. After this first step finished flawlessly, you were confined in the stinking dormitory, to self-examine your own counterrevolutionary crimes.

    I was not exempted from the routine schedule. While I proceeded into the self-examine period, in a pitchy dark night of the last week in December, when all the anti reformists were deeply in their dreams, two armed police abruptly called me up. I was, at the time, as usual with both wrists shackled behind my back (hind-shackled.) They ordered me to walk out right away. After doing so, I saw a military truck standing at the far end of the exercise ground; several soldiers in military overcoats with Russian style rifles on their shoulders were waiting. The hind plank of the truck was open, as if waiting to be loaded. A harsh ordering voice was heard from inside the truck: “Come here, get on the truck!” I knew by experience this kind of rude calling was exclusively for elements like us, so I walked over. But since both hands were shackled at my back, there was simply no way for me to climb up. Seeing this, several soldiers rounded up, some grabbing my arms and some legs, raised me up and threw me onto the truck just like throwing a sack of goods. With a “bang”, my right thigh bone bumped against the plank first, brought about a drilling sharp pain that I was unable to describe.

    The ground soldiers climbed onto the truck and ordered me to sit up in the middle. Soon the engine was turned on. The soldiers unloaded their guns from their shoulders, fixed their bayonets and pointed them toward me. On seeing this I could not help musing: was it necessary to deploy such strong armed force to deal with a weak bookworm like me? I had not long before been tormented with wounds all over my body, and both my wrists were gnawed by handcuffs behind my back, not even possible to move, and now they were still using so many sharp blades aiming at me.  What for?  The only weapon of mine at this time under their slaughter was nothing but my vision. Such an absurd scene only made me wonder: Wasn’t the director of this drama having problems with his own nerves?

      The truck was trudging on the rugged mountain road. The undulating terrain made me inevitably ponder, to where they were taking me in such a dark night? Were they taking me to some desolate place to shoot me dead? But it seemed unnecessary. Had it been imperative to put me to death, they could do it fair easily, just publish a list of my crimes, and kill me in broad daylight so as to give the other offenders a serious warning. They have their State apparatus at hand, no one dared to raise any question. According to their typical convict terms, my crimes were so malicious that sparing of my life would soon arouse the people’s indignation. How convincing it was!

    In the darkness I couldn’t make out my destination, but only wished the road would be smooth all the way, and no incidents would ever occur to cause an emergent skid. Otherwise, if any one of the bayonet-holding soldiers lost his balance, his sharp blade could easily thrust into my body just by inertia, and bring a serious new wound to my all-bruised body, or even have my valueless life taken away right on the spot.

    Thank God everything was OK all the way; now I could see streetlights by the roadside telling me we were in the city this time. From the thirty minute’s drive I reckoned we were in Guanxian County itself by now.

    Finally the truck pulled up into a courtyard. Before I was ordered to get down, the ‘bayonets’ jumped down all at once. I was afraid to have myself served as a ‘sack’ again, and moved to the rear as soon as possible. Been thrown down into the ground would significantly differ from onto the truck; it could easily break my neck and cost my valueless life, not just a throbbing pain again. I managed to slither down without the help of my arms; easy to say here but hard to achieve down there.

    I was taken into a room looked like a meeting room. Some ten people or so were sitting around a big table about a pingpong table’s size. I was brought to a corner opposite them where a small stool was for me.

    After every one was seated, my interrogation started. In the past I had had the experience of seeing doctors’ group consultation of a patient, but had no knowledge of many interrogators doing the same job at a prisoner. It was after a few years I came to know, that the reason of their treating me like a dangerous enemy was because in our Second Detachment of Railway Construction, a “counterrevolution group” named “The Union of Leninist Communists” had been unearthed.  A couple of scores of LR rightists got involved.  The top two, by name of Zou Juzhen and Yang Yingsen were executed the next year. Among them, Yang Yingsen was in the same squad with me and was said to be ‘singing the same tune’ with me.  The group’s name was close to the “Union of Communists” of then Yugoslavia, and in my verdict I was suspected to escape to the Embassy of Yugoslavia to ask for political asylum. (Quoted from my indictment from Procurator of Guanxian) It was said that the above case had alerted The Ministry of Public Security in Beijing, and a special group for investigation was dispatched to our place. Probably they were taking me for an important member of the group, being sent out to seek for support from foreign countries. Probably this answered the question that they spared no effort to deploy so many bayonets. To their disappointment, actually while this ‘organization’ was taking place I was already at large outside. There were no cellular phone at that time; we had no way to communicate. How could I know things occurred in the LR detachment when I was a thousand miles away? Too bad this argument was only my own assertion. In addition, and not to be astonished at all, as it was finally discovered after many years, the whole case was fabricated. All of them were wrongfully executed and sentenced, but I will deal with it at a separate section later.

    This serious interrogation took place more than forty years ago, all the conversations that night had vanished from my memory, only two things could still be called to my mind.

    One of them was that a night meal was served during the interrogation. Of course not for me, I could only sense the delicious smell of omelet, and the merry sound from their slurping of the noodles. Being full of evil intentions as I was assumed to be, I went so far as to doubt why they deliberately scheduled the interrogation at night. Actually they could have done it at any time during the day. The consumption of extra egg-noodle as a purpose could not be excluded. It ought to be known in those ‘Natural Calamity’ years, for the sake of getting more to eat, it was never exaggerating nor fabricating that people would spare no effort to create excuses, even plot conspiracies to achieve the goal, not even cadres from the central government were exempted. Please don’t overlook these additional mouthful of noodles, since every ounce of grain was strictly controlled by the government, they could only use my interrogation as an excuse to get it.

    The second one was my handcuffs were finally released. I have to make some explanations here: anyone who had been hind-shackled for over twenty days would have his physical conditions altered if not permanently damaged. Once the handcuffs were released, he should by no way to move his arms to the front directly. Doing so will bring serious pain almost unbearable, in serious cases dislocation was possible.

    It happened that night after I, the interrogated, had finished reading the record of their interrogation, should sign on every page to make my confirmation.  But apparently I couldn’t do it with my hands cuffed in my back. When everyone of them was racking his brain to find a way to solve this problem, the one sitting in the center broke out: “Open them for him.”  I could make out he was the highest leader of the group from his tone also from the respect the others were paying to him. At his word, my handcuffs were at once released. But my hands were still unable to move forward, so the young guy performing this task could only bring the ink stand to my back, holding my thumb to have it inked, then press it accordingly behind me. I felt sorry for not being able even to draw a circle like the illiterates would do.

    At 3:00 am, I was sent to Chen’s Alley Lockup of the Police Station of Guanxian, to start a new phase of my humble life.