At the intersection near the People’s Liberation Army Court in Beijing, a 90-year-old gentleman with glasses is seen every day, dressed neatly, with a stooped back and stumbling towards the petition registration office. Passers-by in a hurry would subconsciously avoid him in case they knocked him over. On the wrist of the old man, who was a bit dry from aging, hung a small bag of camouflage cloth, which contained a cell phone, keys and a phone book, in case someone could contact his family when he fell down. Passersby did not know that this old man, from the Republic of China, fifteen years old that is to do the “bookkeeper” of the old time fluttering young man.
“Bam…” The military jeep suddenly jolted, sitting in the car “big embezzler” Qi Lianfang, his body instantly hit the front seat backrest, ” Am I going to be killed here?” He looked out in fear and alertness, and saw a small car in front of him crashing into the front of the jeep.
In 1973, on a cold, winter afternoon, the military jeep transporting Qi Lianfang from the Beijing military prison to Gaobeidian, Hebei Province, collided with a local car, but the accident was not too serious.
Compared to more than two years ago, when he was subjected to severe torture in the General Staff Administration, Qi had tried to commit suicide in order to get relief, but at this moment he had a strong desire to live – he wanted to live and prove his innocence.
Years later, Qi would look back on the horror of the crash and laugh dumbly. When you think about the Cultural Revolution, life was like grass, to get rid of one person, why go through the trouble of designing a car accident. If Lin Biao hadn’t fled, he would have been dead in this world.
Qi Lianfang came from a poor background, but had a bright past in the military: in the General Staff Department Administration Hospitality Division, he served as the accountant and head of the service club, providing commodity services for the General Staff and the various military branches; due to outstanding performance, he was received by Deputy Chief of General Staff Zhang Aiping; he also accompanied Liu Shaoqi and other state leaders many times, watching movies and listening to Beijing opera in Huairen Hall; he had a beautiful and lovely wife and children, his father-in-law was the personal health officer of the Beiyang warlord Wu Peifu, and his son shared a table with Mao Zedong’s granddaughter Kong Dongmei ……
During the Cultural Revolution, he was accused of selling nearly 100,000 Mao pins and “embezzling” 14,258.79 yuan. In the days when his monthly salary was 50 to 60 yuan, he was the “big embezzler” of the whole army.
The jeep that was hit was sent to the nearby 38th Army repair shop for repairs and then continued on to the 4th Hebei Provincial Prison in Shijiazhuang, where it arrived on New Year’s Eve, the 30th day of the Lunar New Year.
Qi sat in prison, missing his wife and son, whom he had not heard from for nearly three years and whose fate was still unknown. In the years of national calamity, how many reunions can there be, let alone people in prison?
1
In 1928, Qi Lianfang was born in Nanpi County, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province. He went to elementary school for two years. He was in the first half of the first grade when the July 7th Incident broke out and school was interrupted. The Japanese came and set up a Japanese language school in his hometown, but a year later the Japanese were fought off and he lost his schooling again.
Eager to study, he ran to his sister’s side of Cangzhou to attend private school and read through eight books, including the Three Character Classic, the Hundred Family Names, and the Analects of Confucius. The private school greatly inspired Qi Lianfang’s sense of self-learning, and from then on he consciously practiced calligraphy and taught himself beadwork and bookkeeping.
At the age of fifteen, Qi worked as a bookkeeper in a dried fruit buying store in Botou. There was a railway station in Botou, and there were special warehouses around the station, where merchants from Nanjing and Shanghai were constantly buying dried fruits such as dates and pears from the north and shipping them to the south. Qi’s dried fruit store, there are more than forty workers, the daily store of dried fruit in and out, the workers’ wages, every pen he calculated without error, coupled with a gentle character, serious work, the workers respected him as a young “bookkeeper”.
At that time, the warlords of the Republic of China were at war with each other, and the benevolent people were seeking for the truth of national salvation, they founded various newspapers and magazines to spread advanced ideas and thoughts. Qi Lianfang was a quiet and attentive person who loved reading newspapers, through which he accumulated a lot of knowledge about humanities, geography and history.
Two years later, Japan surrendered, and the landlords and gentry who had gone into hiding during the war returned home one after another, known as the “Returning Home Group”. In Qi’s village, there were three factions: the Returned Villagers, Wang Jingwei’s government, and the Eighth Route Army. The group was worried about the eight-way land reform and land distribution, and joined forces with the Wang False Government to gain dominance on the ground in Nanpi, and divided Nanpi into several districts, which collected field assignments and taxes. Qi Lianfang was chosen to do the accounting and tax collection in the district because he needed someone who knew how to keep accounts. At that time, the three factions had an agreement, the eight-way army in the designated landlord’s home to eat, can open a white slip, the white slip can offset the tax.
Several forces were in constant friction and conflicts were escalating. Qi’s mother was worried about her son’s safety, wrapped in small feet, she walked more than 20 miles from home eight times to persuade him to return home.
Qi understood his mother’s bitterness and did not dare to offend the forces, so the day after he returned home, he secretly ran to his sister’s house. Through the help of his brother-in-law, who worked in a warehouse, Qi got two bags of wheat on credit from a wheat store and went to Tianjin to sell them. But after selling the wheat and preparing to go home, he learned that the railroad had been stripped by the Eighth Route Army.
After that, from 1946 to 1949, four years, Qi was forced to survive in Tianjin. In order to survive, he had to go to the dock to resist parcels, and later joined a quilt factory left behind by the Japanese after the war and taken over by the National Army, doing odd hours.
In 1949, the civil war ended. Qi Lianfang used all his savings from his four years in Tianjin, a bag of about fifty pounds of cornmeal, to get a bicycle, which he now bought and learned to ride all the way from Tianjin to Nanpi County, three hundred and sixty miles away. When he arrived in Cangzhou, he was exhausted.
When he fell to the side of the road to rest, he saw an ox cart passing by with a brand new coffin on it. When he saw that the man driving the cart was from the same village, he was so excited that he moved his bicycle onto the cart and climbed on it himself, then leaned on the coffin and took this “hitchhiker” home.
In Tianjin for four years, Qi Lianfang had not even passed a letter with his family, so he was extremely happy to see his parents and wife and children again.
2
Qi Lianfang had a foundation in bookkeeping, and at the National Army Quilt Factory, he learned from a Kuomintang accounting chief about the “cash-and-pay bookkeeping method” commonly used in those days. Later, Qi Lianfang and did the Beijing leather factory in Shenyang’s foreign attachments (manager). In Shenyang, Qi enrolled in accounting school, to learn modern accounting knowledge, from bookkeeper to accountant to complete the upgrade, then the accounting school is taught more scientific “debit and credit bookkeeping method”.
In 1956, Qi Lianfang passed the interview and worked in the Hospitality Department of the General Staff Administration.
The six branches of the General Staff Administration were called the Beidaihe Sanatorium, in addition to the five guest houses. Before Lin Biao’s escape, the vehicle he took to Beidaihe was sent by the Administration. The General Staff Administration was responsible for the living, meeting, and study needs of the military organs, all military branches, and their families during non-war time.
The hospitality office of the Administration seems to be insignificant in the military, but it is related to the clothing, food, housing and transportation of officers and soldiers. In those years, meetings were frequent, and the expenses could be imagined. After Qi arrived at the Administration, the General Service Society of the Military Commission allocated 500 yuan for Qi to set up a service club in the third guest house of the hospitality office, with Qi as the accountant and person in charge.
Qi Lianfang when he was working in the General Staff. (Photo provided by Qi, reproduced by the author.) Qi Lianfang at the time of working in the General Staff. (Photo courtesy of Qi, reproduced by the author.)
The service agency opened a store, selling not only daily necessities but also rare items such as wool and watches, as well as special items such as Maotai wine and Chinese cigarettes, which were rarely found in the market. Planned economy, the implementation of unified purchase and sale, wholesale prices nationwide, the average price of all types of goods and taxes 11%, Maotai wine 3.5 yuan a bottle, Chinese cigarettes 4 yuan a. Rare goods, special supplies, etc., all with tickets and level, and even have connections to buy.
At that time, there was a black market in Tianqiao, someone would get special supplies from the store to sell. Qi straightforward nature, do not take the goods “back door”, will certainly offend some people. After one year of operation, he handed over five thousand dollars in profits to the General Service Agency.
The superiors think highly of the Authority, so there are special “benefits” left to the officers and soldiers of the Authority from time to time. When foreign guests visited, they needed to be accompanied by officers and soldiers, and there were several times when they accompanied Liu Shaoqi and other national leaders to watch movies and listen to Peking Opera in Huairen Hall. In addition to his excellent work, Zhang Aiping, the then deputy chief of general staff, also personally gave him honorary certificates and awards and took pictures together.
At this time, Qi Lianfang could be said to be flourishing, and he was very enthusiastic.
Because there was no emotional foundation with his wife, they did not even talk to each other for many years after the marriage. After they had three children, the wife twice took the children back to her mother’s house, and finally divorced at the wife’s request.
Qi Lianfang, who was single again, was handsome, and paid attention to the instrument, often dressed in a dress, and exuded the air of “Mr. Republic”. Therefore, one after another people for Qi matchmaking. After the landlord’s sister, he married the daughter of a former health worker of the Beiyang warlord Wu Pei Fu. At that time, the woman was 25 years old, that era is absolutely “leftover women”, but beautiful and quiet, and the family is well-off.
After the marriage, the two had a son, fat and white, the compound called him “fat”. When Fatty was in the second grade, he was at the same table with Mao Zedong’s granddaughter, Kong Dongmei. Fatty was so mischievous that he made Kong Dongmei cry several times.
Qi did not realize that during the Cultural Revolution, all of the above had become the root of the trouble.
3
In 1966, China’s “Cultural Revolution” broke out.
In the early days, Qi Lianfang heard and witnessed many major and tragic criticisms and casualties.
In his own unit, Qi witnessed Zhou Enlai being besieged by Red Guards in Inner Mongolia and then moved to the auditorium of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference until troops from the Beijing garrison went over to relieve the siege; in the criticism of Peng Dehuai, his unit organized Qi Lianfang and his colleagues to go to the scene to wave fists and shout slogans; in the criticism of Chief of General Staff Luo Ruiqing, he saw Luo, who had jumped off a building and broken his leg, being carried to the scene by Red Guards in a large basket to criticize him.
The Red Guards carried Luo Ruiqing in a basket. (Web Photo) Red Guards carrying Luo Ruiqing in a basket. (Network picture)
In January 1970, with the Cultural Revolution in full swing, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) issued the “Instruction of the CPC Central Committee on Combating Counter-Revolutionary Sabotage”, a campaign to combat counter-revolutionary sabotage, corruption and theft, speculation and wastefulness.
In response to the call, Qi’s unit, headed by Director Liang of the Bureau of Management, set up a working group and asked the entire Bureau to uncover, report and criticize, and the troops were in a panic.
In the name of the campaign, some colleagues pointed the finger at Qi Lianfang, accusing him of “marrying a rich wife”, “his son and Mao’s granddaughter at the same table”, “the family of three eat fat”, “dressed beautifully”. “dressed beautifully” …… said he dressed beautifully, because in those years in Shenyang, Qi earned some money, itself he paid attention to the instrument, so the purchase of a number of silk and satin, dresses and hats. In that era of general simplicity, Qi’s dressing looks different.
These various statements, for the lack of the so-called political sensitivity of Qi, do not care.
However, on March 22 of the same year, the working group suddenly sent people to seal the door of the service club store, and at the same time, they took away all the books, bills and notes, including special supplies, and did not allow Qi Lianfang to attend the meeting.
On Saturday evening, six days later, Qi went to the cafeteria for dinner as usual and was about to go home after dinner when the director called Qi to a guest room. Qi Lianfang was unaware that he had lost his personal freedom since then.
4
Qi Lianfang is usually close to Political Commissar Lv, his wife and son’s account are political commissar help for. But in the unit, political commissar Lv and Secretary Liang are on the “opposite side”.
The first thing that Director Liang did was to target Qi, and without any evidence, he said openly in the General Assembly: “Look at Qi Lianfang’s long fetus, (fat and white) like a big embezzler”.
During the detention period, Director Liang talked to Qi Lianfang four times and forced him to provide materials to testify against Political Commissar Lu, but Qi refused to cooperate. Director Liang pointed at Qi and angrily roared: “Look at you, this fetus, I want you to chicken and eggs, family broken!”
At this point, Political Commissar Lu did not lose his freedom, he was still able to attend the meeting. The guest room where Qi Lianfang was detained was next to the toilet, and participants often went in and out of it. Political commissar Lu had a severe pharyngitis and would cough when he went to the toilet. Whenever this happened, the soldiers guarding Qi would be unusually vigilant, fearing that the two of them would exchange information in code. Soon, Lv political commissar was still beaten, the passbook was found 2,000 yuan, which became the “evidence” of two people conspiring to embezzle.
To obtain more trumped-up evidence, the working group also rushed to Tianjin, Qi’s father-in-law to threaten and intimidate, deceive blackmail, copied the father-in-law’s home deposit slip 12, 500 yuan each, as well as a wool, and the father-in-law escorted to the local Public Security Bureau.
Working Group for Qi case ad hoc task force. During the four-month-long detention, the task force commanded five soldiers, taking turns to force a confession from Qi Lianfang. To achieve its goal, the task force used all kinds of tricks. Sometimes “stand floor circle”, using chalk on the floor to draw a small circle, requiring him to stand straight in the middle, one stop on the day; sometimes “cover quilt”, more than 30 degrees in July, with a thick quilt to cover him tightly; and then The physical torture was extremely painful, such as “stabbing ribs” and “twisting arms”. One day 2 soldiers stepped on Qi’s two feet, and another 2 soldiers twisted their hands backwards, over and over again, all morning. Eventually, Qi’s right hand was crippled.
Qi tried to commit suicide to get relief, but even suicide became a crime – the task force reprimanded Qi for his “bad attitude” and “threatening the organization with suicide”, which was later included in the verdict.
In the end, Qi Lianfang, who could not stand it, copied the charges compiled by the task force and admitted to embezzling 14,258.79 yuan. In addition to his father-in-law and political commissar that two money, another dumped Mao statue money nearly 1,000 yuan, bus ticket money 1 yuan, ribbed pants money 0.5 yuan, etc..
At that time, Qi’s monthly salary was only 73.5 yuan, and he admitted to embezzling more than 14,000 yuan, and it was “selling Mao badges”, which was absolutely “a particularly large amount” and “particularly serious circumstances” at that time. “. After the task force obtained the “evidence”, immediately reported to the General Staff, the General Staff informed the whole army, so that the “shocked the whole army” of the case is considered “confirmed”.
Immediately afterwards, the Administration held a meeting of a thousand people in the auditorium to criticize Qi Lianfang.
In addition to the crime of embezzlement, Qi was convicted of working in a dried fruit store and a National Army clothing factory before liberation, as well as his father-in-law’s family ties and the fact that he had filled out a form to join the Democratic Socialist Party in Tianjin in his early years.
5
Outside the scene where Qi Lianfang was being criticized, a frightened and helpless Qi’s wife, with her nine-year-old son, begged the soldiers that she wanted to enter the scene to tell the truth. Seeing this, the director of the Third Guest House immediately ordered two soldiers to bind Qi’s wife for disturbing the order of the meeting, scaring her son into crying.
But the deafening “Down with the embezzlers” echoed inside the venue, completely covering the cries.
The chief of security at the side yelled sternly at Qi’s wife: “You hurry up and take the child home, or you will always be tied up!” Qi’s wife was so sad and helpless that she had to leave. The young and tender son, stimulated by the situation inside and outside the dueling ground, was left with lifelong after-effects.
During this period, Lin Biao and the Four Vajra (Huang Yongsheng, Wu Fa Xian, Li Zuopeng and Qiu Huizuo) were in power in the military. Director Liang said to his wife one day, “If old Qi has a bad attitude, if Chief Huang (Huang Yongsheng, then Chief of General Staff) says one word, old Qi will not survive”.
Soon thereafter, Qi Lianfang’s home was raided, certificates, awards, group photos, as well as wages, food stamps, etc. all copied away. His wife, who had no money or tickets, was deported to the Tianjin countryside with her son, who was “scared silly”.
On July 24, 1970, the head of the security department handcuffed Qi Lianfang, and for the first time since his detention, Qi cried. Qi was so convinced of his innocence that he did not even lower his head at the scene of the criticism. After being handcuffed, Qi was put into the Beijing Military District Prison, located at No. 6 Baimiao, outside Deshengmen, Beijing, codenamed 366. The handcuffs took two months and seventeen days to be removed.
The inscription of the newspaper “Comrades in Armed Forces”, which Qi must read, had been replaced, and there were often tridents hovering low around the prison. Qi had a feeling that something had happened outside, but he did not know what it was.
In prison, the whole day to read the “old three”, first along with the memorization, memorization until familiar, and then practice backwards memorization. Shortly after the inscription in the “Comrades of War” newspaper was replaced, common criminals and economic prisoners were given preferential treatment to be released for about twenty minutes at a time, while political prisoners were not allowed to be released, so Qi could occasionally move around outside.
In January 1973, after almost three years in the military prison, the prison gave Qi a verdict from the Military Court of the General Staff Department: a sentence of five years, with the amount of embezzlement changed from 14,000 yuan to more than 2,000 yuan, and a sentence of five years’ imprisonment.
No court session, no cross-examination, no defense.
Afterwards, Qi Lianfang learned that if not for the death of Lin Biao on September 13, the four villains in the military power out of favor, he would most likely have been shot.
The verdict in 1973. (Photo provided by Qi, reproduced by the author.) The verdict in 1973. (Photo courtesy of Qi, reproduced by the author.)
After the Lin Biao incident, the task force was in a dilemma. To reduce the impact, they first returned six thousand dollars to Qi’s father-in-law – his father-in-law’s money was legally earned from running a clinic in his hometown. The same was done for the political commissar Lv, who returned from North Korea in 1958 and had to change his bank passbook when his 2,000 yuan was due. Political commissar to deposit this money, people in North Korea, the two have not known.
Other so-called embezzlement, Qi firmly believes that the same is not true. For example, nearly 100,000 pieces of the Mao statue badge payment, from the Beijing Arts and Crafts Service Department to purchase back, even the service agency warehouse did not receive, directly all the original price to the Chengdu Military Region Central Learning Class. Later 0.06 yuan of the purchase price, down to 0.05 yuan, while the money has been credited and handed over, is to have a bill invoice, etc.
6
In 1973, the task force exchanged Qi Lianfang from the Beijing military prison, to the fourth prison in Hebei Province.
At that time, there were 4,000 to 5,000 people in Prison No. 4. Most of the prisoners during the Cultural Revolution had nowhere to complain about their grievances, and their grievances were accumulating day by day. The slightest disagreement between inmates or verbal confrontation could lead to physical confrontation. It seems to have become an unwritten rule that new inmates who first entered the prison were bullied and beaten by old inmates, and those who hit the hardest became “jailbait”.
The existence of the prison bully, to a certain extent, to maintain order in the prison, so the supervisors often turn a blind eye to the prison bully beatings.
Just to the fourth prison, the prison bully see Qi Lianfang from the army, did not dare to move him. One day, when the bully was beating up other prisoners, Qi Lianfang went up to him and shouted, “What right do you have to beat people up?” In the onlookers waiting for a more intense “fight”, Qi immediately changed his tone: “We are all suffering, stop harming each other ah! Then reasoned with emotion, the prison bully actually stopped the hands and feet.
This matter was soon reported to the prison cadres, learned that Qi can mediate, deal with conflicts between inmates, they let him do the “sitting”. The so-called “sitting class” is the official name, commonly known as the “head of the prisoners” – another version of the prison bully. The “sitter” does not need to go to the site to do heavy physical work, mainly to assist the cadres to manage prisoners, report on the daily lives of prisoners, timely mediation, dealing with conflicts between prisoners, plus to go to the site labor of prisoners to send meals, sharing meals, night duty.
Qi not only does not beat people, but also forbids others to do so. Prisoners knew that he was educated, could do accounting, was kind, dared to speak up, and treated him with great respect. At that time, life was much better than in the Beijing military prison, in the Beijing military prison, Qi was also beaten by the prison bully.
But in the fourth prison, Qi also cried once. One day, the prison conveyed Zhou Enlai’s instructions, to the effect that the prison should “treat prisoners as human beings”. Listen to this sentence, Qi thought of his years of injustice, was severely tortured to confess, his wife and children do not know life and death, he could not control the whimpering up ……
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public and private sectors. The second squadron, where Qi is located, is responsible for car repairs. The inmates received parts, repair tools, often thrown around, or deliberately broken. The prison cadres found that Qi loved to treasure things, so they put Qi in charge of managing the distribution of items and tools for recycling. Since then, the situation of damage and waste has also been greatly improved.
Because of this quality of frugality, the prison later kept Qi employed after his sentence was completed, allowing him to work in the depot of the motor transport team, which required more items to be managed.
The prison cadres said to Qi: you have good character, we are assured that you are in charge of things, they dare not waste.
The transport team had revenue, and the supply section had purchases, all of which had access to cash and accounts. As a “big embezzler”, and then do this “sinful” work, or the execution of his crime sentence prison let him do, Qi has a different feeling in the heart.
7
On July 23, 1975, Qi Lianfang’s five-year sentence expired.
At this time, Qi’s greatest wish was to get his innocence back. According to the regulations at that time, even if he had completed his sentence and was employed in prison, he needed a certificate from the prison to send a letter to Beijing and to buy a train ticket to Beijing, and the prison gave Qi great support.
In the following decades, Qi Lianfang sent more than 300 letters to Hua Guofeng, Geng Biao, Luo Ruiqing, Zhang Aiping, Peng Gang (then deputy secretary of the Military Discipline Inspection Commission, Peng Dehuai’s niece) and other party, government and military leaders and relevant departments, all of which were never heard from.
Qi sent a personal letter envelope to Luo Ruiqing, then secretary general of the Central Military Commission. (Photo provided by Qi, reproduced by the author.) A personal letter envelope sent by Qi to Luo Ruiqing, then secretary general of the Central Military Commission. (Photo provided by Qi, reproduced by the author.)
When the term expired in July of that year, Qi Lianfang went to Beijing in October and went straight to Director Liang’s house, asking him to give an explanation. For fear of being controlled again, Qi also took his wife with him. When he entered Liang’s house, the director, who was eating the nanny’s fried dumplings, said to Qi: “Hey! You still have that look (white fat)”. Qi’s grief and anger are hard to name, but the director said he was now also being fixed, Qi’s heart softened and did not speak again. Liang was a subordinate of Lv Zhengcao, and Lv was a direct descendant of Zhang Xueliang, so some people criticized Liang as a Kuomintang agent during the Cultural Revolution.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, the years of extensive rehabilitations, Qi again took his youngest son to the Liang family. This time, Liang’s eyes dodged, and he was frightened and calm, and welcomed him with a smile. He said to Qi’s son, “I’ve been rectified during the Cultural Revolution, you’re still young and don’t understand, the Cultural Revolution killed more people than a war. Then patted Qi’s shoulder and said, “Must believe in the organization, now set things right, many people have been rehabilitated, even Liu Shaoqi was rehabilitated, give the organization some time will clear your name.”
Qi was again persuaded. Take the son out of the Liang family, father and son have not yet out of the family compound, the director of Liang has called the security office, scolded: “How can you let them in father and son? What if something happens?” Father and son passed by the security office, the director of security Qi said, “Old Qi, the old director is afraid.”
After that, Qi Lianfang never entered the Liang family’s door again.
In between, in April 1979, the General Staff Administration Court made a ruling to reduce the amount of Qi’s embezzlement to another 1,209.89 yuan and upheld the original sentence. In 1981, the court reduced the amount of embezzlement to 1,123.01 yuan, commuted the sentence to three years, and dismissed Qi Lianfang from public office. “What about the extra two years in prison?”
No one offered compensation, let alone an apology.
The most grievous thing for Qi Lianfang is that, in order to find evidence, he visited his colleagues in the service club at that time, his cellmates in the Beijing military district, etc., and obtained a lot of physical and human evidence. Some sympathetic colleagues even provided him with the original bills and pages from the time of the case, enough to prove his innocence, but no judge or prosecutor ever, verified the evidence with him. Each time the amount of embezzlement is reduced and changed, it is done on the material of the year of torture to force a confession.
8
In the second half of his life, Qi Lianfang walked the road of revenge every day without a date.
In the 1980s, with policy support, Qi Lianfang lived in the guest house of his former unit. Because he was employed in prison, he was given food stamps for meals, while he needed cash for meals in Beijing. His youngest son, who had already joined the workforce, also gave him some relief from time to time.
When he had no money to eat, he picked up leftover fried steamed buns from the unit’s canteen to feed himself. After living in the guest house for ten years, he was no longer allowed to live there and had to rent a room. In the following 30 years, Qi rented a basement, from more than 30 yuan a month to nearly 1,000 yuan. Earlier this year, rented almost twenty years of Beijing Wangjing basement, because the government cleanup is not allowed to live, Qi Lianfang had to move to the South Fourth Ring side of the countryside.
Badge style. (Photo provided by Qi, reproduced by the author.) Badge style. (Photo courtesy of Qi, reproduced by the author.)
In 1999, the General Staff Court finally accepted Qi Lianfang’s complaint. A three-member review team, consisting of one person from each of Qi’s administration’s security office, the hospitality office, and the General Staff Court, was formed to review Qi’s case. This investigation took four years and six months.
Before the review team informed Qi of its conclusions, a judge probed Qi, “Do you accept to change the number of embezzlement to less than 500 yuan? This will be handled internally.” Qi disagreed. The final result: no new evidence, no change in sentence.
Qi Lianfang, overcome with grief and anger, questioned, “Isn’t the large amount of human and physical evidence I submitted evidence?” The judge returned: “The human and physical evidence you submitted, and the conclusion are two different things.” The head of the review team also added: “The conclusion is the organization’s study.” Qi asked rhetorically, “Is the organization the law?” In the moment of anger and helplessness, the elderly Qi Lianfang “poof”, kneeling in front of the judge, old tears.
Soon thereafter, the judges who reviewed Qi’s case were promoted, transferred, retired. The company is also sympathetic to Qi, before leaving to say hello to the newly transferred Vice President Qin. After taking office, Vice President Qin took President Luo to visit Qi in his rented basement in Wangjing, Beijing.
The damp and dark basement, with dirty hallways and foul smells, was around the corner from the shared kitchen and toilet. When I pushed the door into Qi’s room, it was a different story. Less than 15 square feet of clean room, a table, a chair and a bed, plus some neatly arranged toiletries, tableware. The sheets are flat, the bedding is folded into squares, still the military life model. In addition, there are stacks and stacks of petition materials, which are also neatly arranged.
The vice president of Qin should be moved, after talking with Qi about the case, before leaving also let President Luo buy food to Qi.
Later, President Luo came with another civilian officer and sent a thousand dollars plus a quilt. Qi thought, “I am concerned about my life, but there is no progress in the case, so I refused to accept their money and goods again. The civilian officer said: “Your case problem objectively exists, can not run away, you have a bad attitude.” Qi angrily rebuked: “Is the attitude good or bad is relative, you treat me like this, can I be good? Do not send me again, send me throw out.” President Luo added: “You have worked for the Kuomintang and capitalists?” Qi Lianfang asked aloud, “What’s wrong with the Kuomintang? What’s wrong with the capitalists? They hire people, they hire people for their character.”
There was no further correspondence after that.
9
At the age of 61, Qi Lianfang was given a half-retirement and half-retirement from the Fourth Prison, with a monthly living allowance of 60 yuan. From then on he rented a place in Beijing and “petitioned” full-time. For several years, this “big embezzler” returned to Shijiazhuang on weekends to help with the prison’s accounts. Until now, the prison is still giving him a monthly subsistence allowance, which is his only source of livelihood.
In the third year after the review’s conclusion was communicated, Qi’s wife died. Because Qi had been petitioning in Beijing for years, his wife had been living in Shijiazhuang with his young son. The son was stimulated as a child and grew up with a serious alcohol problem, and his marriage was tied up and divorced.
After a heated argument between his mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, Qi’s wife thought of the decades of injustice and could not sleep for several days and nights, and left the world with a sudden heart attack.
At that moment, Qi really felt what Director Liang said back then, “the chicken flies to the egg, the family is broken”.
The Cultural Revolution informed the entire army of the huge corruption case of 10,000 yuan, only the number of embezzlement has four, and has been changed three times. Qi commissioned a lawyer three times, but was unable to read the file. Qi often told his sympathizers that in the era of the special Maotai 3.5 yuan a bottle, Chinese cigarettes 4 yuan a piece, if he had gone through the “back door” of a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes, or evidence to prove that he had embezzled a penny, he would die in peace. When directly involved in the torture of confessions Qi, before and after a total of fourteen people, now there is still one alive. “The thirteen are not a good death”, this bit of present-day revenge, seems to give Qi a little comfort.
If innocence comes, can we still see it? (Photo by the author) If innocence comes, can we still see it? (Photo by the author)
Qi sometimes says to himself, “Anger gives me strength. Not only does anger give Qi strength, it also seems to make him live longer.
Now, almost every weekday, at the intersection near the People’s Liberation Army Court in Beijing, an elderly gentleman with glasses can be seen, neatly dressed, hunched over, stumbling toward the petition registration office. Passers-by in a hurry would subconsciously avoid him in case they knocked him over.
On his wrist, which is a bit dry from aging, hangs a small bag of camouflage cloth, which contains a cell phone, keys and a telephone book, in case he falls down, so that someone can contact his family. Passers-by do not know that this old man, from the Republic of China era, was once fifteen years old that is, “Mr. Bookkeeping” of the young man.
If innocence comes, can we still see it?
(Censored at the time of publication)
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