Liu Qing and his "Three Character Classic"

Source: People's Daily

In the summer of 1962, when I was 22 years old, I graduated from university and was assigned to work in the Literary and Art Department of Shaanxi Daily for less than a year. I wrote to Liu Qing, Du Pengcheng, Wang Wenshi, Wei Gangxi, professional writers of the Shaanxi Writers Association (then known as the Xi'an Branch of the China Writers Association), as well as well-known writers such as Qin Mu in Guangzhou, Wu Qiang in Shanghai, and Guo Feng in Fujian. Soon, Du Pengcheng, Qin Mu, and Guo Feng each sent a draft, and Wang Wenshi wrote back with a brush saying that there was no short draft for the time being, and that if there was one, it was given, and Liu Qingjian had no reply.

I didn't give up, so I "knocked on the door." At that time, communication was inconvenient, and it was difficult to make an appointment by calling from Xi'an City to Chang'an County, where Liu Qing was located, and asking the rural post and telecommunications office to go to Liu Qing's home a few miles away to ask someone to answer. So I simply got on my bike and rode more than 20 miles to "find the door." On the god Heyuan, down toad beach, into the Huangfu Village, a fellow led me to the Zhonggong Temple where Liu Qing lived, shouted the door: "Uncle, someone is looking for me!" When I entered the door, I saw a "half-old man" wearing a pair of pants, stepping on a thousand-layered cloth shoes, with a flat head, a beard, and a tan, who was serving vegetable fields in the courtyard. That was Liu Qing.

I reported to my home, explained my intentions, and he let me sit and pour water. After meditating for a moment, he said directly: "Yun Ru, a good manuscript is not 'about' written, not a propositional composition." Only when you have something to say in your heart can you write a manuscript. I'll send it to you when I have the right manuscript. Although Liu Qing's words were very slow and gentle, considering the words, afraid of hurting the young man who had just worked in front of him, his eyes were as sharp as a scalpel, just like the eyes of the old branch book described in his novella "Fierce Iron", and he had a lot of confidence and stubbornness to "bite through the shovel".

Three or four months later, in the early winter of 1962, the newspaper's clerical manuscript was registered, and the original manuscript and handwritten letter of Liu Qing's "Three Character Classics on Farming and Animal Husbandry Management" were found in the free manuscript. Would a nationally renowned novelist write something like the "Three Character Sutra of Breeding Management"? The document asks us to confirm whether this is Liu Qing, the great writer who wrote the "History of Entrepreneurship". It is very inconvenient to contact the author who is far away in the village, so we compared the original manuscript with the handwriting of the author printed on the title page of the "History of Entrepreneurship", and then contacted some of Liu Qing's old friends in the Writers Association to identify and determine that this is "that Liu Qing". Therefore, Ye Nong, deputy director of the Ministry of Literature and Art, handed over the manuscript to me and asked me to handle it "seriously" and compile it and distribute it "as soon as possible."

But there was a little bit of an episode in the editing process. I just joined the work, young and vigorous, a little ignorant of the height of the sky, always feel that there are a few rhymes in the "Three Character Classic" that seem to be able to be scrutinized, so I dared to change the original manuscript with a red pen. Ye Nong did not agree with my approach, and I must send the author himself for approval before he could publish the manuscript. So I, another young editor, Zhang Tian, went to Huangfu Village with my partner.

Liu Qing saw the rhyme I had changed on his original manuscript and was obviously unhappy: "You are a foreigner, speaking Mandarin with a southern accent, my rhyme is the old Shaanxi dialect, the local countryside is easy to circulate, and the peasants are easy to use." After the spectacle lenses, my eyes lit up like a scalpel again, and I once again felt the strength of the old farmer in Guanzhong "biting through the shovel". I sat there for a while embarrassed, so I had to silently re-read the manuscript carefully, avoid his gaze, lower my voice, and say: "Old Willow, it seems that the manuscript has been changed incorrectly." I think there are about three problems, one is my accent problem; the other is that I didn't take into account that you have a few rhymes in the text, and you read it according to one rhyme, of course, it doesn't work well. The most important point is that you mainly focus on 'using' and being effective and useful in rural practice, while I am more from 'reading' and sticking too much to genres and words, which is too bookish. His eyes slowly softened.

The original manuscript of the "Three Character Classics on The Management of Cultivating Livestock" is written on a gray rough paper with a delicate pen. In a letter sent to the editor along with the original manuscript, Liu Qing wrote:

Editorial Comrades:

This "Three Character Classic of Cultivating Livestock Breeding and Management" was collectively discussed by Comrades Wang Peihai of the Huangfu Commune in Chang'an County and Wang Jiabin and other comrades of the Victory Brigade in April this year. After the opinions of the members, breeders and cadres of the whole commune, they have been revised several times and have become what they are now. At first, we only discussed the "Convention on the Management of Cultivated Livestock", but later formed the idea of writing a "Three Character Classic". We are doing this in a way that, on the one hand, we want to make it function as a mass convention, and on the other hand, we want to make it acceptable and memorable. I don't know if I can achieve these two goals? Now I send it to you, I hope to publish it, and I ask interested readers to correct it. We also want to compile a "three-character scripture" or "thousand-character text" for the operation and management of the production team, because I do not have this kind of talent, so I have not started to do it, and I hope that comrades with this talent will complete this work at an early date with the collective help of the masses and cadres. The thing that is being published now is a throwing brick.

salute!

Liu Qing

1962.11.28

At that time, it was a "three-year difficult period", the rural forage was in short supply, and the livestock were thin, so Liu Qing wanted to use this popular style to summarize the experience of feeding livestock and promote it in the countryside to restore livestock and enhance rural productivity.

Today, re-reading Liu Qing's letter and the "Three Character Classics of Farming and Animal Husbandry Management" through the lens of history, I have a deeper understanding of Liu Qing's sense of social responsibility as a writer.

In the article, Liu Qing uses the identity, feelings, ideas and tone of a completely thorough village cadre and agricultural labor writer. In order to write well about the countryside and peasants in her works, Liu Qing consciously created and chose this path of writers stationed in villages as farmers, and consciously insisted on not changing her original intention for 14 years.

Liu Qing was concerned and worried about practical problems in agricultural production and peasant life, and showed the theoretical standards, ideological consciousness, and pragmatic courage of an old Communist Party member. Thinking of Liu Qing's later article "Suggesting Changing the Land Management Policy in Northern Shaanxi" (February 1, 1979) published in the People's Daily, starting from the reality at that time, it was proposed that northern Shaanxi should fallow grain, return forests and grasslands, and a variety of apples as soon as possible. He wrote: "I am confident that I have no selfish thoughts for the sake of the people, and have no other intentions, because I have not completed any purpose other than the writing plan." The position, viewpoint and method of this proposal are open to criticism if they are wrong. This is the responsibility and courage of a party member writer. Writers are not only clerks of society and the heart, but also builders of society and the heart.

The whole process of the "Three Character Classic" embodies Liu Qing's humble feelings of treating the masses and showing compassion for the people; he is not a writer in the ivory tower, but a cultural person who knows the countryside, peasants, and agriculture very well, and is a person who works earnestly and pays attention to practical results. He repeatedly stressed that the "Three Character Classics of Breeding Management" were finally formed after discussion and revision by the masses, and then disseminated and tested in practice. Moreover, it shows that if we engage in such things in the future, we must also come from the masses and go to the masses, and we must have practical results in rural life. This is slightly different from his self-confidence and firmness in literature and aesthetics as a literary and artistic artist, and what we see is his sincerity and humility in front of the masses and practice.

Liu Qing's manuscript was published on December 22, 1962 in the headline of the "Qinling" supplement of Shaanxi Daily, which quickly aroused the attention of all walks of life. The critic Akne was very touched by the reading of the article, saying: "It can be seen that the ways and means in which writers serve the peasants are not narrow, but broad, not single, but diverse." Hu Cai, chairman of the Xi'an Branch of the China Writers Association, wrote: "Comrade Liu Qing, a writer, in the countryside, did not float outside and above life, but was deeply immersed in life and among the masses of the people. ”

In August 1963, the China Youth Publishing House published a single edition of the "Three Character Classic", which was first printed in 38,000 copies. What is particularly rare is that the single book invited the famous calligrapher Deng Sanmu to write the text content with a brush, and the famous woodcarver Yang Yongqing accompanied it with pictures.

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Nearly a year has passed, and the editing, publication and social influence of the "Three Character Classics of Farming and Animal Husbandry Management" are still vividly remembered, and the afterglow is continuous. Sometimes, an ordinary experience, if you are not careful, becomes history, and it is always warm and inspiring to future generations. (Xiao Yunru)

People's Daily (June 2, 2021, 20th edition)