In 1966, shortly after I entered high school, the “Great Cascade” began.
At first, this honor was reserved for the “Beijing Delegation”, a small group of people selected by the school, and we freshmen did not even think about it. When they came back, they told us about the revolutionary situation along the way to Beijing and how excited they were to be received by Chairman Mao, which was a great encouragement to us. We crowded forward to shake hands with these “delegates to Beijing” in order to get some of the “leader’s light”.
Soon we heard that all students were given free rides to “cascade” and learn from the experience of the Red Guards abroad. In our opinion, this was like a free tour. My brother got this news the first Time with a few boys formed a lean “Mao Zedong Thought Squad”, whistling away and whistling back, twice out. Each time we came back to bring us unparalleled fresh insights, listen to us only admire the part. I would love to join them, usually my brother still take me to play, but unexpectedly this time by the unanimous rejection of their group – “picketing train fights” with girls is a burden, although I strive to show that boys do anything I can do, but still be collectively rejected I was rejected by the group.
We had no choice but to go with the four brave girls who had just started their first year. There were not many girls in our freshman year who went out on “tandem”. Parents are not comfortable with these 12 or 13-year-old girls running around. When I was eleven years old, I took the train from L County to Tianjin by myself, and also transferred from Beijing, and had a smooth journey, thinking that I was a “little old man” with travel experience. In fact, at that time there were two uncles from the Shenyang Design Institute peer care, in Beijing when the train conductor also helped me a lot.
My father supported me to go outside to “see the world” and, if possible, to see the current situation of my colleagues in the Party School of the Northwest Bureau.
When we were still at Home, we were afraid of the wolves and the tigers, and we were afraid of not taking everything with us when we went away. Only when we arrived at the station did we find that we could not afford to have all the high school students in the country come out, many of them with a small satchel and a military kettle, walking to where they ate and lived. There are Red Guard reception stations everywhere, meals and accommodation are free of charge, students easily mingle with each other, and there is nothing you can’t do if you ask more questions about everything.
But we also found that the “big group” is far from romantic as we thought at first. The other three girls on the trip were all first-time train riders and were excited to go out. It turned out that all the coaches were seriously overcrowded, and the cars were stuffed like sardine cans, the crowdedness was indescribable, each seat space accommodated several times the number of people, and just getting on the train was a big test.
Lanzhou to Beijing, to Shanghai, the long-distance direct express stop in our place, all do not open the door, only individual boys from the open window slit squeezed in. I also wanted to do the same, because if not, simply can not get on the car, but the other girls do not want to, which means that our small collective is facing dissolution before we get on the train. I think we all swore in advance that we would not quarrel or fight on the way, that we would not scatter our actions, and that we would go and return together regardless of the circumstances, so I had to give up. In fact, if there is no one in the car window to meet, two no one in the bottom to help, I simply can not climb into the car window.
After waiting for a long time we finally got on a slow train to Baoji, looking at the situation, we can only go one section at a time, where to count, the original plan to go straight to Beijing simply does not work. As soon as we got on the train, we were crammed, the carriage was crowded with people into photos, the seats were underneath, on the backrest, on the luggage rack were all people, the supply of Food and water could not be carried out. Two other girls and I were stuck in the toilet and couldn’t move. The only good thing was that there was a place to deal with it in case of internal emergency.
Later, a girl to go to the toilet, let me to her position temporarily sit for a while, I can enter the carriage seat to stretch their legs. The car started shaking people evenly, unlike just get on the car so face to face, back to back so wretched. The young people quickly got acquainted, and students from the north and south told new trends and anecdotes from all over the world, which was new and eye-opening for those of us who had just entered high school.
I even met a junior boy from our school, because he was dark and did not look like a Han Chinese. He told others that he was a “Tibetan”, with a local dialect and a Russian-like curly tongue, which made people around him flinch and pull out their notebooks for him to sign and leave his address. There was a real Tibetan student from the Northwest Civil College passing by to fetch water, and two questions and answers in Tibetan made him reveal himself. Because all along the way to give way to the fast train, the train goes and stops, from Longxi to Baoji more than 300 kilometers of the journey we spent more than ten hours.
When we arrived in Baoji at first we did not leave the station, thinking that this is a large station, perhaps the next train to Beijing. But Baoji station has gathered a large number of students ready to go to Beijing from the Longhai Line, several times on the train “sprint” have failed, we are small squeeze those boys. As a whole day basically not into the water and rice, has been sleepy horse, had to rest in Baoji for a day and then take it easy to plan.
So I went to the Baoji Municipal Committee to find Y and Y aunts who had served on the Standing Committee of the Municipal Committee, they are old colleagues of my parents, their daughter Xiaoqing is my elementary school classmate. However, the big-character posters of the Municipal Committee were already everywhere, knocking down and bombarding Y. My uncle told me that the Northwest Bureau and the Party School were in chaos, all the heads were criticized, all the underground party members were traitors, and even the “anti-revisionist fighters” who had criticized my father had become gangsters. He was worried and did not know how long this situation would last. Auntie said, “Your mother is really big-hearted, in this situation, but still dare to let a little girl run around.
Seeing the backlog of students at the Baoji station, I guess the eastbound trains were too small for us girls to squeeze onto, so I agreed to get on the train as soon as I saw it, not to dwell on whether I had to go to Beijing or not, and to go wherever I could. Finally we squeezed onto the slow train to Chengdu. The Baocheng line is characterized by many caves and many meetings, the principle of meeting cars is generally slow cars to let fast cars, fast to let straight fast, straight fast to let special fast, so the way to stop and go, almost a day and a night to Chengdu, until the time to get off the train, our feet swollen like buns, can not walk.
We were assigned to the Chengdu Normal School, where we bunked in classrooms and ate in the student cafeteria. A dozen people lived in one classroom, and the floor was covered with mats for gym class, so the four of us made two beds and covered two beds. During the day, we read the big-character posters in the street. Everywhere was the text accusing Li Jingquan, Li Dazhang, Liao Zhigao and others of being “capitalists” in Sichuan. Li Jingquan in particular was a target of the masses at that time. He was the first secretary of the Southwest Bureau, equivalent to Liu Lantao of the Northwest Bureau. Before 1949, he was in Jinsui to carry out land reform and killed the most people, and when he was in charge of Sichuan during the Great Famine, he was the first in the country to die of starvation.
In the Cultural Revolution, Li Jingquan was very miserable by the Sichuan people. But the strange thing is: the one who rose up to “appear” to rebel and once became the figure of the Cultural Revolution in Sichuan was a couple of Liu Jieting and Zhang Xiting, who were more “leftist” than Li Jingquan and had been the heads of the Yibin local and municipal committees respectively. These two people had been rectified by Li Jingquan in the official circles before the Cultural Revolution, and now they took advantage of the chaos to take revenge, saying that Li Jingquan was still too “right” and guilty of harboring class enemies!
My father was concerned about the situation and searched for a lot of leaflets every day, so I was no stranger to these “vassals”. In addition to reading the big-character posters, we also went to Liu Wencai Manor in Dayi County, the Wuhou Temple, and Qingcheng Mountain ……
Chengdu is in the end the land of heaven, although the food at the Red Guard’s reception is usually 2-3 taels of rice and a portion of vegetarian dishes. For those of us who have not seen rice for a long time, it is really sweet. And the variety of snacks on the street, the price is cheap, so you can say that both the eyes and mouth addiction. We also found a place to buy rice without food stamps. In L County rice is a rare thing, the Family save a little, when sick to grab two handfuls out of the porridge. I remember my grandmother once said that the small station rice and japonica rice is delicious but not out of number, indica rice is high in rice. Afraid to miss this opportunity later can not be touched, so bought five pounds of indica rice, the result of the five pounds of rice on the way to the weight added endless trouble.
At that time, we received the order that the tandem was temporarily stopped, and when it would restart after the railroad department had rested and the reception work in various places was more perfect, we would wait for the notice. We thought at the time, there will be opportunities later, although very reluctant to go home on this, but obey the order to listen to the command is Chairman Mao good soldiers. When we returned from the field, the school was closed for the revolution. A few of us junior high school students formed a “red anti-revisionist battle group”, received a mimeograph, paper, pen and ink, according to the field of leaflets and other people’s large print, we also carved wax plates to print leaflets. Soon the entire school, from senior to junior grades, was disorganized and mixed into eight battle groups, with senior students leading us junior high school students to “make revolution”.
The junior high school students had a “newborn calf is not afraid of tiger” brutal energy, revolutionary enthusiasm is particularly high. This new Life was at first full of novelty and excitement for us, as our parents had not yet been shocked, and it was always exciting and fun to revolutionize other people’s lives. We followed the high school students around, but we were more pure and committed than they were, criticizing the task force, putting up large-print posters for teachers, and rushing in once we had a specific target.
I couldn’t get down in the process of criticizing teachers, and was considered by my revolutionary classmates to be unswerving in my stance. Once the school held a conference to criticize teachers, each teacher wore a high hat, and finally there were not enough paper mache high hats, so the two chemistry teachers in the back of the line each had a tin bucket on their heads. We wore borrowed men’s uniforms, with military caps and belts, and stood behind each of the teachers being criticized on the stage as an escort, in order to strengthen the momentum. This role was not open to anyone, but was assigned by the senior students who already controlled the school.
When I was escorted up the steps to the criticism site, the chemistry teacher fell to her knees on the steps because the bucket was up to her neck and she couldn’t see the road ahead. I was completely subconscious, “ouch”, and helped the teacher up, and then helped him to the stage. This is good, immediately someone shouted slogans to remove me, saying that my class position has problems. Afterwards, the leaders of the Red Guard organization criticized me and told me to watch my behavior. I did not think I had done anything wrong, arguing that for someone who could not see the road, there were only two options for him to walk to the criticism platform, either to take off the bucket and let him walk by himself, or to have someone help him walk. I was lost for a while when they decided I wasn’t fit to be an escort and wouldn’t let me on the stage after that.
Soon we were integrated by the high school students into the “8-1 Corps”. I lived and ate in the school, and did not even go home. In the words of the time, I threw myself into the “melting pot of the revolution” with enthusiasm, and was busy as an announcer, a propaganda member, writing and scheduling programs, writing large-print posters, and playing for the high school students. The students in the class were divided into two factions, one belonging to the “August 1st Corps” under the “Red Three Divisions” and the other belonging to the royalist “Long Ge”. The two mass factions were accusing each other of taking the black route of feudalism, capitalism and revisionism, while they were the most loyal to Chairman Mao and the most resolute in implementing his instructions. The two factions from the debate gradually escalated to mutual siege hands stage.
A group of male and female students of “Long Ge” occupied the bell and drum tower next to the school, and the loud speakers from high above were practicing “high decibel noise bombing” and language provocation against the other faction. The “81st Regiment” immediately launched a battle for the bell and drum building, but was unsuccessful. They then blocked access to the building, just as Ma Su had been besieged on the hill at Jieting, and cut off water and food to the lonely building for several days. Finally they had to admit defeat and surrender and were escorted down.
The people said that the men and women were mixed together up there for so many days that they were expected to come down with “dolls”. 12-year-old me didn’t understand what that meant, but I knew it wasn’t good, and because of the faction, I parroted the words. There was a girl from my class in the bell tower, she heard it and gathered a group of boys from that faction to beat me up, so I rushed to the “8-1 Corps” to get help.
Seeing the “martial arts” from “cold weapons” to “hot war” development. My brother and a group of high school students with ink bottles filled with earth explosive detonator fuses in the grenade test, seems to work pretty well, the power is quite large, shaking the classroom glass clattering. A few of us female students in a small classroom to cut paper and paste, is ready to write large print supplies. Suddenly a smoking ink bottle rolled into the classroom, looking at the fuse to burn out, the girls a panic and shouting, drilling tables and windows to flee in all directions to escape. I ran to the classroom door, ready to take the road to escape. A junior boy hands on the door frame to prevent me from going out, looking at the ink bottle will explode.
I was so white and anxious that I was about to cry when I heard the sound of laughter from the boys outside the window. I realized that there was neither explosives nor detonators in the ink bottle, and sat down on my butt with weak legs. The gang of bad boys probe in and say we bet to see if you girls in this group will come out of a “Wang Jie, Liu Yingjun”.
Someone said, we think, Jin Yan is most likely to protect everyone, defiantly pick up the “ink bottle” thrown out the window, the results did not expect her to be the first to scurry. It seems to be a “paper tiger” that is strong on the outside. I was so angry that I ignored my brother for two days, thinking that he had taken the lead in making the bad. In hindsight, if it was really an earth bomb, how could it have blocked the door to keep us out? I was also confused by the shock.
Later, there were big posters on the street criticizing my father, and five scary hats were put on my father’s head: historical counter-revolutionary, gangster, revisionist, capitalist in power, and class dissident, and he was paraded around and criticized. In the atmosphere of “old son is a hero, good man, old son is a reactionary son is a bastard”, I turned from a “revolutionary general” to a “son of a bitch”.
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