The old peasant secretary
Xie Peng
At the junction of Xintian and Jiahe in southern Hunan, the karst landform stretches for more than 20 miles, with strange rocks, beautiful scenery, clear flowing water, fertile land, and the local people are known as "ancient cave stone sheep".
There is a village in Shiyang Town called Longyantou, and there is a well called Goose Well at Longyantou. This well is not simple, "Cihai" records that it is "the first spring in the south", and there is a poem to praise: "The drought, scorched dust flow is unabated, and the amount of rain in Kunlun does not increase." "In the 30s of the last century, during the years of the War of Resistance Against Japan, my uncle and grandfather were born in Longyantou Village, where the mountains and rivers are beautiful, and grew up drinking goose well water.
Uncle and grandfather are full cubs, so they are naturally more cute. When they reach the age of two or three, they already show intelligence that is different from that of ordinary children. There is a Jingxian Temple next to Longyantou Village, and this temple has a lot of origins. According to the records of Xintian County, the temple was built in the five years of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, and the temple door jewelry ox head, because "immortal" and "first" have the same sound, it seems to be related to the minister Niu Jingxian who followed the exile of Emperor Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty. By the time my uncle was a child, the temple evolved into a blessed place for pure benevolence, filial piety, and education. A monk saw that his uncle and grandfather had spirituality, and went to his uncle's house again and again to persuade him to enter the temple to become a monk and preach almsgiving. Although the maternal great-grandfather and maternal great-grandmother gave birth to three sons, they were reluctant to be a monk after all, and only agreed to follow the monk to read and write.
My uncle and grandfather entered the county government office when he became an adult, and because he wrote good articles, he was selected by the county magistrate as a text secretary. My uncle and grandfather wrote a lot of materials in his life, but unfortunately computers were not widely used at that time, and the written materials written by my uncle and grandfather did not leave an electronic version, and he did not keep a paper version. In the first month of the year, I went to play with my classmates, and my classmate's father was a Chinese teacher, and when we were talking, I accidentally mentioned my uncle's name. Uncle, the second son of his uncle and grandfather, graduated from the Department of Philosophy of Nanjing University with a doctorate, and sent the graduation cover letter to his uncle and grandfather for review. In fact, my uncle didn't even have a primary school diploma. With the death of his uncle, there is no way to verify, but his reputation as "a pen in the county" is known far and near.
Source: Oriental IC
Because of his outstanding work, his uncle was directly promoted to the post of secretary of the county magistrate to serve as the secretary of the township party committee. In this main leadership position at the grassroots level of China's party and government institutions, he fully demonstrated the earthy feelings of a peasant son and the political nature of serving the masses. During the spring ploughing season, I went into the village to inspect agricultural production, and saw a farmer who had lost his ability to work due to illness, so my uncle and grandfather didn't say a word, and directly rolled up their trouser legs and went down to the field to help plant seedlings. That posture is alive and well from an old farmer who has been farming all his life. Once when I went into the village, I met an old man who died, and the old man's family was so poor that they couldn't afford to buy a coffin, and the family was sad and had nothing to do. My uncle and grandfather took the initiative to donate money and help the family bury the old man properly. My uncle and grandfather were familiar with every village in the jurisdiction, and often stayed in the village to experience the ups and downs, love and hatred of the masses. In that era of scarcity of materials, peasant friends had nothing to entertain their parents who met every day. My uncle and grandfather often used a cup of cheap hot wine brewed from sweet potatoes, which completely dissolved the wall of heart in the middle of the relationship between the party and the masses, so it won the reputation of "old peasant secretary" within a radius of 20 miles.
At a county people's congress in the 80s of the last century, the deputies of the people's congress spontaneously proposed to nominate their uncle and grandfather as candidates for deputy county magistrate, and they passed with full votes. In this way, my uncle and grandfather were pushed to the post of deputy county magistrate by the people, and served as a deputy county magistrate and a deputy director of the Standing Committee of the County People's Congress. At that time, I was already studying in the county No. 1 middle school, and I often saw the white-haired uncle and grandfather supporting my uncle and grandmother, walking slowly under the row of graceful willow trees in the Chungling River, and from time to time someone went up to say hello: "Hello old secretary!" The breeze blew, and the wicker blew on the face, what a leisurely picture of a warm political voice and public opinion chatter!
Selected from "Xinxiang Review" Issue 8, 2024
First instance: Chen Jiaqi
Second trial: Wu Jin
Third trial: Zhang Qinfan
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