In the midst of the Communist Party’s anti-corruption campaign, Jiao Yu-lok was once again highly publicized in the official media, and CCP officials were asked to learn from this “good public servant of the people”. It is also true that the CCP can’t find many other officials who are good at this. However, what are the secrets behind the halo of this county party secretary of Lankao County, Henan Province, who has been widely publicized by newspapers, magazines, movies, and TV, and has numerous “touching deeds”?
One and a half years in Langkau
Jiao Yulu was born in Shandong province in August 1922, and had a troubled life as a teenager, having been beaten, imprisoned, and forced to work as a pseudo-army soldier by the Japanese; he joined the Communist Party in 1946, and worked in Henan after 1949; in December 1962, he was transferred to Lancao County, where he served as second secretary and then secretary until his death from liver cancer in May 1964 at the age of 42.
Going back in history, it is not difficult to find that 1962 was the end of a rare, man-made famine that killed at least 40 million people in Chinese history. In Henan, the area hardest hit by the famine, not only were people unable to make ends meet, but grain production in Lancao County dropped to its lowest level ever that year. In addition, Lankao was also a disaster area that suffered from sandstorms, salinity, and waterlogging, which were also caused by man. As a matter of fact, as early as 1957, Lankao was a rich forest, and later the Great Leap Forward made the trees to be cut down and stolen. When the trees were gone, the sandstorm naturally reappeared; and by going against nature and not dredging the area, waterlogging was caused, and due to the rising water table, saline lands were created.
According to the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party media, the day after Jiao Yulu came to Lankao, that is, dragging his body with chronic liver disease, he went deep into the grassroots to conduct research. “In more than a year, he traveled to more than 120 of the county’s 140 brigades.” “In leading the people of the county in the struggle to seal the sand, control the water and change the land, Jiao Yulu led by example. When the sandstorm was at its peak, he took the lead in checking the vents and exploring the quicksand; when the rain was pouring, he took the lead in wading through waist-deep floodwaters to check the flow of the water; when the snowstorm was overwhelming, he led his cadres to visit the poor and ask about their plight, and went door-to-door to deliver relief food to the masses. He often went into peasant huts and cowsheds to eat, live, and work with ordinary peasants.
Because of his hard work, Jiao Yuluo was eventually killed by liver cancer. In November of that year, the Henan Provincial Party Committee called on the province’s cadres to “learn from Comrade Jiao Yulu’s revolutionary spirit of working faithfully for the Party and the people.” In February 1966, the Xinhua News Agency broadcast a long newsletter written by Mu Qing and others entitled “A Good Example for County Party Secretaries–Jiao Yulu”. Jiao Yulu”, which triggered a nationwide fervor to study Jiao Yulu.
Exaggerated Propaganda
If we look at the content of the propaganda of the Chinese Communist media, Jiao Yulu did not make any significant contribution to changing the face of Lankao, given that he worked there for such a short period of time, but at best his spirit of serving the people was commendable.
Ren Yanfang’s book “Behind Jiao Yulu: My Tragic and Comic Story in Lankao”, published by Guangdong People’s Publishing House in 2009, also confirms that Jiao Yulu came to Lankao to implement the spirit of the 8th and 10th Plenum of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and that his main focus was on the class struggle and the struggle between the two lines. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, the county party committee leader who succeeded Jiao Yulu also said that there was no fundamental change in Lankao during Jiao Yulu’s administration. However, Xinhua News Agency reporter Mu Qing and others deliberately elevated this aspect in order to highlight Jiao Yulu’s towering image.
Later, Jiao Yulu’s wife also went to Beijing and approached Mu Qing, saying that the article was false, such as publicizing the fact that Jiao’s reading of Liu Shaoqi’s book made his family nervous. Mu Qing also admitted this. But when Xinhua Press republished Jiao Yulu, the newsletter of Mu Qing and others, in February 1980, it still had not been revised in terms of content.
One of the reasons why Jiao Yulu became a key propaganda figure cannot be ignored, and why he was always a good student of Mao Zedong. Jiao YuLu’s quotations will show that his words are true. For example, “When you are not motivated enough, you have to search your thoughts; when your thoughts are not clear, you have to read Chairman Mao’s book more closely”; “With the leadership of the Party, Chairman Mao’s works, and hundreds of thousands of people, if you work hard, you will definitely make your way through the difficulties and change the face of Lancao! “…… Obviously, the so-called spirit of Jiao Yulu, in addition to the sense of serving the people, but also to listen to the words of the Party, listen to the words of Mao.
What changed Lankao was Zhang Qinli?
In fact, it was Zhang Qinli, then deputy secretary of the county party committee, who did much to bring about change in Lankao, and it was from him that some of Jiao Yulu’s deeds were publicized. In 1959, for speaking the truth, he was branded as a serious rightist, dismissed from his post, and sent to rural labor in Lancao. 1961, he was reinstated. In 1959, for speaking the truth, he was beaten up for being a serious rightist, dismissed from his post, and sent to the rural laborers in Lanqao.
However, there are different views on what kind of person Zhang Qinli was. According to Ren Yanfang’s book, when Zhang Qinli introduced Jiao Yulu’s story to the Xinhua News Agency in 1965, he actually incorporated some of his own stories into it, and claimed that he was Jiao Yulu’s “close comrade,” which caused him to lie a lot during the Cultural Revolution. “In 1980, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Qinli was expelled from the Party and sentenced to 13 years in prison, mainly because he claimed to be Jiao Yulu’s successor and suppressed those who opposed him, resulting in many bloodshed cases. In 1980, after the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Qinli was expelled from the Party and sentenced to 13 years in prison, mainly because he claimed to be Jiao Yulu’s successor, suppressed his opponents, and caused a number of bloodshed cases.
However, the people of Lancao expressed a different respect for Zhang Qinli than the official one. It is said that after his death in 2004, his coffin was transported to his hometown for burial, and when it passed through the county of Lancao, at least 100,000 people walked along the streets to pay their respects, burning incense, and many people cried.
What is even more shocking is that around the cemetery, there are more than forty stone and jade monuments spontaneously erected by the people, forming a forest of monuments, and each monument is engraved with Zhang Qinli’s deeds and the names of those who paid tribute to him. The monuments were erected by people from different villages in Lancao, various parts of Henan, Shandong, Hebei and even Taiwan. One of the monuments, signed by Ding Shengjie, reads: “My great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, and my father have carved many famous people’s steles over the past hundred years, but never have I carved so many people’s tributes to Secretary Zhang Qinli, nor have I seen so many people come to pay tribute to an ordinary county official…. …”
Justice is in the mind of the people. The history of the world will decide whether Jiao Yulu and Zhang Qinli were right or wrong. Perhaps, they are both just tragic figures under the Chinese Communist Party, and both are just pawns used by the Chinese Communist Party.
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