by Yan Lianke
Hongmei leaned against me and gripped my hand. She was secretly congratulating me for having mobilized the crowd, for my success, and for my great ability to obtain the support of the people. She was suggesting that success lay just ahead. By the terms of our secret agreement, we would be able to take advantage of the post-success revolutionary passion and crazily do that thing. We could find a secluded location and, forgetting everything, let our passionate enjoyment, or “livening,” reach a heavenly site. (It would be truly great once the tunnel was completed and the underground room was ready, because that would be such a perfectly secluded location. Unfortunately, at that point I had dug only thirty meters, reaching only Rear Cheng Street, and had not even reached the edge of the temple.) Hongmei’s hand felt warm and soft, and a soft smell of sweat and a mysterious feminine scent emanated from her tender fingertips to her palms. My body began to tremble, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to resist doing something inappropriate. I coughed, and she immediately loosened her grip. The crowd had already gathered around the entrance to the temple, and the screams of children being trampled hovered over the temple entrance. My father-in-law was originally the temple’s most powerful protector, but when he heard we were going to burn the temple’s books, he began laughing darkly. With a smirk, he rubbed his hands together and projected an attitude of extreme impatience.
He had completely lost his mind.
The militia had arrived at the entrance to the temple.
Cheng Temple’s main gate was still tightly locked, but someone was pounding on it, trying to force his way in. I made my way to the front of the crowd and shouted for that person to stop. Upon hearing me, the crowd immediately quieted down. I had never expected that a few words from me would be enough to make the entire village burst into tumult, and then a few more others would make them quiet down like magpies. I suspected that if I were to give the order, the villagers would immediately destroy the temple’s three-room courtyard and dismantle the temple brick by brick. If that had indeed come to pass, Hongmei and I would have had a very different fate. This story would have flown down the middle of the road like a carriage, and perhaps our fate would not have been the execution grounds but rather a meeting hall or stage with bouquets of flowers, vast crowds of people, and thunderous applause. But I was too fond of the feeling of being like an emperor appearing before the people or a general directing his troops—I was simply too attached to that power of being able to rally multitudes with a single call. I initially assumed I was already a mature rural revolutionary and politician, but I didn’t realize that, in pursuing revolution, I was still committing many infantile mistakes. In the end, I didn’t let the crowd destroy the temple, nor did I let them pound on the temple’s mahogany door.
Instead, I tore down the door myself.
This was just before the hottest part of the summer, and the sun had already begun sending down its searing rays. But after the temple door opened and the fresh air from the courtyard rushed out, the crowd followed me into the outer courtyard. Needless to say, some of them hadn’t had an opportunity to enter the courtyard and see the manuscript depository for ten or twenty years, if at all. Now the moment had finally arrived, and it was the revolution that had granted the People this opportunity. Everyone rushed in, stumbling over each over as they crowded into this mysterious temple, joining the effort to destroy these feudal remnants.
I was the first person to enter the middle courtyard.
On either side there was a pair of wing rooms shaded by grape trellises, the Gentle Wind and Sweet Rain room and the Scorching Sun and Autumn Frost room. In the tenth month of the twenty-seventh year of the Guangxu reign (which is to say, 1901), when Emperor Dezong and Empress Dowager Cixi were returning to Beijing from Yan’an, they passed through the town of Longmen in Luoyang, where they each inscribed a plaque with the phrases SOURCES AND ORIGINS OF THE YI AND LUO RIVERS and ADMIRING AND FOLLOWING YAN HUI AND MENCIUS. These plaques were hung above the doors to the Gentle Wind and Sweet Rain room and the Scorching Sun and Autumn Frost room, but now were covered by grape leaves. Four grapevines that had been planted in the courtyard dozens of years earlier, each with a trunk as wide as a rice bowl, were now full of tiny unripe grapes that would brush people’s heads when they walked past. The plants’ roots pushed up the bricks in the middle courtyard, reflecting the temple’s simplicity and peacefulness. (The commune members had never been allowed to enjoy the grapes that these vines produced every year; instead the grapes were always consumed by Cheng Tianqing’s village cadres, who would also give some to the town cadres and members of the county committee and the county government; because of this behavior alone, the cadres should have been removed from their positions.) As everyone surged from the front courtyard to the middle one, I thought they would cry out as they had done when they saw the front courtyard, but instead they were silenced by the solemnity of the middle one. They had surged in like a swarm of bees, but when they reached the middle courtyard, the gloomy chill and the sight of the grape trellises immediately silenced them. (This certainly helped explain why Cheng Tianmin had wanted to move into the temple and live in this celestial location!) I saw someone pick some grapes and put them in his mouth but then immediately spit them into his hand. At that point I resolved that I would definitely give everyone a bunch of grapes after they were ripe in order to demonstrate the principles and advantages of socialism, collectivism, and egalitarianism. This very small and practical act could permit everyone to appreciate how different Gao Aijun’s relation with the People was from Cheng Tianqing’s. Lost in thought, I had already traversed the eight-zhang-long courtyard and reached the manuscript depository. This was a two-story brick and wood structure with three rooms on the first floor; the middle of these rooms contained a passageway to the rear courtyard, while the two rooms on either side were piled high with furniture, artifacts, and dusty reed mats. In this middle passageway, leading to the adjoining room on the second floor, there was a golden plaque with the words MANUSCRIPT DEPOSITORY, allegedly written by the Cheng Brothers’ disciple Zhu Xi himself. This plaque granted the building its presence and eminence in the center courtyard.
Hongmei and I stood on the first floor.
The commune members also stood on the first floor.
The villagers also stood on the first floor.
I told several militia members to stand in the doorway to the building, and told several production brigade cadres to follow me to the second floor. The staircase was to the left of the front door, and after it creakily carried us up to the second floor, we were confronted with an astonishing scene.
Back when I was still in school, I would often go to the manuscript depository, and I continued doing so even after marrying into Cheng Tianqing’s family. I’m therefore a hundred percent certain that the walls of the five rooms on the second floor had originally been painted with white lime, to prevent fires, though over the years they had become caked in a thick layer of dust and grime. I remember that, under the north-facing wall, there had been a row of old-style red pine shelves, and above the middle door was a locked shelf filled with the Cheng Brothers’ writings, including their Posthumous Works, Additional Works, and Collected Works, their commentaries on the Book of Changes, their Explanation of the Classics, as well as their Miscellaneous Writings. At that time, the Cheng Brothers had been the pride of the entire Balou mountain region. Teachers would often discuss them in class, and in the spring and fall they would take their students to visit this site. They would lead groups of students to the second floor of the manuscript depository building and stand in front of those bookshelves, where their students would listen as the teachers showed off their devotion to and knowledge of the Cheng Brothers. I remember how before I went to the county high school, there was a hunchbacked, lackey-like teacher. (He really was a fucking good language teacher, and my current ability to write is mostly thanks to him, so if one day people try to criticize him, I’ll definitely defend him, though I can’t let this
influence my political life or future.) This teacher selected several students to stand in front of those bookshelves and listen as he introduced each of the Cheng Brothers’ works. He explained how Cheng Yi, the younger brother, published more essays, including his “Memorial to the Renzong Emperor,” “A Letter of Resignation Submitted to the Faculty of the Xijing Imperial College,” “Treatise on How Yanzi Is Able to Learn So Well,” “A Letter to the Prime Minister on Behalf of My Father,” and so forth. As for Cheng Hao, the elder brother, there was only “Memorial to the Palace Master,” “In Response to a Letter from Zhang Hengqu,” “Inscription for Yan Leting,” and so forth. Our language teacher asked us to write down and memorize everything he told us. He said that the examination questions provided by the district always included some supplementary questions about the Cheng Brothers, and if we answered them correctly we could receive ten or fifteen extra points. (That year there were indeed some supplementary questions of this nature on the exam, for this hunchbacked teacher, who by this point had already retired, was one of the people proposing exam questions.) Standing in front of this bookshelf, he also introduced Cheng Yi’s and Cheng Hao’s calligraphy and painting, telling us their birth and death dates, as well as the obstacles they encountered in their careers. Once, as I was looking through the second volume of The Cheng Brothers’ Complete Works, I accidentally dropped it and knocked off the brittle cover. The hunchbacked teacher glared at me, and said, “This is the only extant copy of this book, and it’s a scripture for governing the nation. How could you be so careless? Go write three self-criticisms and post them for everyone to see.” I had no choice but to write the self-criticisms. I posted two of them in the schoolyard and the third in the classroom. It is for this reason that I longed to burn the documents and scrolls in the manuscript depository. I wanted to scorch the Cheng Brothers’ hearts. Needless to say, this was also a revolutionary imperative. It was an excavation and attack to deepen the revolution and a display of power and resistance toward Mayor Wang.
Now, however, there wasn’t a single volume, or even single page, of the Cheng Brothers’ works on those bookshelves, nor was there a single example of their calligraphy. The rolled-up portraits of the Cheng Brothers’ disciples Zhu Xi and Yang Shi that had previously been stored in a cabinet were also missing, and even the faded portrait of the Cheng Brothers’ teacher, Zhouzi—which had previously been in the center of the bookshelf—was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the bookshelves were now full of the same four-volume set of Chairman Mao’s Collected Works that can be found in any of the city’s Xinhua bookstores. There were also many different editions of Chairman Mao’s Quotations and Chairman Mao’s Selected Poetry. There was a large-format edition of Marx and Engels’s Kapital, together with copies of Lenin’s and Stalin’s works, more than a hundred volumes in all. From Karl Marx to Chairman Mao, the works of these five masters were arranged neatly on bookshelves that had been covered in red paper. The remaining shelves were either empty or else neatly decorated with the leaders’ colorful portraits, and on the middle table, in place of the portrait of Zhouzi with its large mirrored frame, there was instead a copy of that vivid and vigorous full-body portrait of Chairman Mao holding an umbrella en route to carry out revolution in Anyuan.
I couldn’t believe it. The manuscript depository was now full of works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong.
That is to say, this most feudal location had already become Chenggang’s vault of treasured revolutionary thought and proletarian theory.
That is to say, our revolutionary march had been slowed a notch, as enemies wearing revolutionary hats obstructed the real revolutionary activity.
That is to say, some people had already taken into consideration our plan to extend the revolution to Cheng Temple, just as Cheng Tianmin had already anticipated my decision to burn the works by the Cheng Brothers, those Neo-Confucian classics.
The village cadres were standing in front of the bookshelves in the manuscript depository, staring blankly into space with their pale, naïve faces. The light shining down through grape trellises and the intricately carved wooden windows landed gently on our faces and bodies, illuminating our embarrassment to them.
I heard that those manuscripts and documents had been removed from the manuscript depository two years earlier. Some people claimed representatives from the county’s culture center had come to take them away, and others reported that they saw a jeep come, while others said that those representatives from the cultural center took only some tables and chairs but didn’t seize a single manuscript. So, where did all the old manuscripts and documents go? Everyone stared at each other, with dark clouds over their faces. They began to suspect that the mayor must have transferred the books to the rear courtyard, and therefore they began clamoring to open the door leading from the manuscript depository building to the rear courtyard, so that they could search Cheng Tianmin’s residence. However, I said to myself, in the event that it was in fact Cheng Tianmin who, two years earlier, had moved the manuscripts and scrolls, do you really think he would have left them here in the courtyard, where you could find them? But if we can’t find the manuscripts, how can we deal with Cheng Tianmin? (Fuck his ancestors! Everyone knows that Cheng Tianmin is a member of the county-level Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and often fraternizes with the current county Party committee secretary. Although he’s no longer mayor, his position is even better than that of the mayor). Can we force our way into the three-section courtyard that is his home? Do we dare break in and search the premises when he’s not there? The revolution must advance under a process of reflection, and it is only by being farsighted that we can have high aspirations. In war, the most dreaded thing is when the enemy’s position is unknown, and one must therefore attack while blind. In war, it is only by knowing oneself and one’s opponent that one can be guaranteed success. Revolution and revolutionary war require offense but also defense and retreat—this is absolutely true. You defend in order to attack, you retreat in order to advance, you turn in order to go straight—this is an unavoidable phenomenon that we often observe in the course of development, and it is especially true of revolution and specifically of revolution’s military action.
(Motherfucker, if only my relationship with the county head were like Cheng Tianmin’s!)
Gazing out at the village cadres and commoners, I finally announced, “Our current task is to overthrow the capitalist raiders who are now in power, not to seize those who are already out of power. We cannot shift the direction of the struggle. Given that Cheng Tianmin had the foresight to hide the texts, he certainly wouldn’t have placed them where we could easily find them.”
I said, “Right now, the main contradiction involves our need to seize power from the town government, and after we resolve this contradiction, the secondary contradictions will easily resolve themselves. Cheng Tianmin and Cheng Temple are both secondary contradictions that will be resolved after the main contradiction. What do we mean when we say that once the headrope of a fishnet is pulled, its mesh will open? This means that we must first overthrow the town government, and then we can clean up the temple and those other messes.”
That day, after we had eaten breakfast as usual, we went to the middle courtyard to retrieve Emperor Dezong’s SOURCES AND ORIGINS OF THE YI AND LUO RIVERS plaque, Empress Dowager Cixi’s ADMIRING AND FOLLOWING YAN HUI AND MENCIUS plaque, the MANUSCRIPT DEPOSITORY inscription that had been written by either Zhu Xi or Yang Shi, and seven other plaques from the front courtyard that had been inscribed during different historical periods in honor of Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, and the temple. Then we took all these plaques to the location in front of Cheng Temple where people had burned incense and sacrificed to the ancestors, and proceeded to burn them. At the same time, we also destroyed the two steles that had been erected in front of the temple during the Song and Ming dynasties as well as the two stone lions that some high official had given the temple in the late Qing. In this way, we were abl
e to declare a symbolic end to our revolutionary offensive—for now.
3. Victory
After we succeeded in burning a set of Cheng Temple’s imperial plaques and destroying its two imperial steles, I heard that Mayor Wang was so furious that he smashed his rice bowls in the town government’s canteen. This permitted us (permitted me) to achieve our (my) original goal. I had already recorded in my notebook the time, place, and witnesses of Mayor Wang’s cursing and bowl-breaking. We had eradicated superstition, abolished feudal activities, reformed people’s thought, and elevated people’s awareness, so why was Mayor Wang so angry that he had to smash his rice bowls? How did he dare curse those bastards who would starve to death if they didn’t irrigate their land? And who are these bastards? Is it us revolutionaries? If we are all bastards, wouldn’t that make Mayor Wang a feudal lord? If it is said that revolutionary youth are bastards, then we will happily be bastards and show him to be a feudal lord! Let him carry the most outstanding, most powerful protective umbrella, in order to protect the Chenggang feudal class epitomized by this “Cheng Brothers’ Neo-Confucianism.” Lu Xun once said that silence is also a form of resistance, and perhaps it is in fact the best form of resistance. As for Mayor Wang and other issues, it is not that we wouldn’t deal with them, but rather that the time wasn’t right. But when the time was right, we would of course deal with them. If we didn’t deal with them when the time was right, then we ourselves would need to be dealt with.