During the Cultural Revolution, Xi Jinping, Nie Weiping and Liu Weiping, known as the “three pings” of Beijing’s 25th Middle School, were suddenly attacked during a Red Guards’ armed struggle. They rushed out and beat us on sight. Although there were more of us than them, we were unprepared, unorganized and uncommanded, and under their organized and prepared “surprise attack”, we became a mob. The three of us turned around and ran towards the locked car. Xi and I were fast and escaped, while Liu Weiping was a step behind and was concussed.” This article is taken from “Nie Weiping – A Life in Go” by Nie Weiping and Wang Duangyang, published by China Federation of Literary Press.
Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping in their early years together
In my lifetime, I had four close calls.
The first time was in 1968, I can’t remember the month. At that time, the Red Guards in high school had already divided into many factions, including the 4-3 faction, the 4-4 faction, the old Red Guards, the Linkage, the Easy Faction, and so on, and there were often “factional battles” between the various factions. I myself belong to the loose faction, to those activities basically do not participate, at most is a lively. At that time, two students came to our class, one named Xi Jinping and the other Liu Weiping, who were originally from the 81st school, but they were assigned to our 25th middle school after the 81st school was disbanded due to the so-called “high cadres’ children school”. Xi Jinping is the son of Xi Zhongxun, whose father was known as a big “gangster” at that time. Liu Weiping was the son of General Liu Zhen, whose father was also persecuted by Lin Biao because of his problems with him.
At that time, no matter what activities were held, the opening ceremony had to be a toast to Mao XX’s longevity and Lin Vice XX’s health. He thought Lin Biao was a bad person, which was a “big evil” at that time, and no one dared to do so, so they thought he was too “stupid”. My father was also a “gangster”, probably because of this, we became good friends, the last word of our three names is Ping, so people call us “San Ping”. We were the most “black” in the class, and people in the class looked down on us and didn’t dare to touch us, and we looked down on them, and we had a lot of contact with the old Red Guards outside the school, mainly because of the relationship between Xi Jinping and Liu Weiping. Under the influence of the two of them, my feelings clearly turned to the old Red Guards.
One day suddenly came the news that thirty-eight of the land, rich, anti, bad elements in the rebellion, called on the old Red Guards of the schools to go to “level” them. The three of us really went at the appointed time, and when we got there, we saw that there were really many old Red Guards from all the schools, several hundred, which was very inspiring. We locked our bicycles and followed them into the school. The playground was full of our people, and we didn’t see a single so-called earth, rich, anti, bad elements.
We were proud of ourselves when suddenly the doors of the auditorium opened wide and hundreds of people rushed out from inside shouting with sticks and beating people on sight. Although there were more of us than them, we were unprepared, unorganized and uncommanded, and under their organized and prepared “surprise attack”, we became a mob. The three of us turned around and ran towards the place where the car was locked, Xi Jinping and I moved fast and escaped, while Liu Weiping ran a step slower and was concussed. We were not able to “level” the others, but ended up being beaten up by them. Not long ago and has been the deputy secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee Xi Jinping talked about this matter, both lamented that if we had not run fast, maybe there is no drama now, we can say that we are friends in distress.
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