In its 100-year history, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has always been closely linked with farmers and land.
Chairman Mao once said that he had studied and attached importance to the issue of peasants all his life. The broad masses of peasants have played a very important role in the process of establishing and developing the party and the state, and some of them have become pioneers of the revolution and some have become leading cadres of the party.
And one of them, he went from an illiterate ordinary peasant to a vice premier of the State Council, he is Chen Yonggui. Today, let's learn about his legendary life.
1. Childhood is bumpy, and perseverance is cultivated
Chen Yonggui was born in a small rural village in Xiyang County, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province, and his childhood can be described as very bumpy. At that time, Chen Yonggui's family only had a few acres of "thin land" that was not fertile, Chen Yonggui and his sister were still young, and the family of four could only rely on Chen Yonggui's father to farm and support, and his mother in addition to taking care of the housework, occasionally went to other people's homes to do some farm work to subsidize the family.
When Chen Yonggui was 5 years old, Shanxi Province was hit by a once-in-a-century drought, and the farmland was basically lost. Within a few months of the drought, Chen Yonggui's family had all their rations, and Chen Yonggui's father looked at his skinny wife and children, and then at his destitute home, and suddenly lost his mind.
Two days later, Chen Yonggui's father heard that a family in the county needed two female workers, and he had to choose the former when faced with the choice between survival and perdition, but this meant that the family was broken. After Chen's father sold his wife and daughter to this family, he got money to keep him alive.
But even so, Chen Yonggui's father decided to leave Xiyang County with Chen Yonggui. On the one hand, it was not a glorious thing to sell his wife and daughter, and he could not face the villagers in the village; On the other hand, under the influence of the disaster, the family's farmland has not been harvested at all, so it is better to try your luck in the next village.
His father took Chen Yonggui to the "Dazhai Village" next door - the place where Chen Yonggui continued his painful childhood, but finally became famous.
Due to the severe drought, coming to Dazhai Village did not improve the life of Chen Yonggui's father, the father and son were not familiar with the place in Dazhai Village, so they could only barely find a thatched house to live in, and occasionally do some farm work for others, but the remuneration that could be exchanged was still not much.
The long-term famine and fatigue made Chen Yonggui's father even thinner, and he also fell ill because of it, and it didn't take long for him to end his life, leaving the young Chen Yonggui alone in a foreign land.
The loss of his father at a young age made Chen Yonggui's already bumpy childhood even worse, and in addition to grief, he also realized that the life of the people at the bottom was not easy. With no money on him, he couldn't even bury his father, so he had to cover his body with a broken mat.
Chen Yonggui, who was alone, did not lose the courage to live like his father, on the contrary, he decided to find a way to live, and only by living could he have the opportunity to change his fate.
After that, Chen Yonggui worked for others everywhere, as long as it was a job that could be exchanged for money, he was willing to do it, sometimes others were really unwilling to give money, even if there was a bite to eat, he was willing. In this way, Chen Yonggui spent his childhood tenaciously in the yellow earth of Dazhai Village.
2. Daqing of industry and Dazhai of agriculture
Dazhai Village, one of the small mountain villages in the southeast of Xiyang County, belongs to the soil and stone mountains of the Taihang Mountains, covering an area of less than 20,000 square kilometers, but the average altitude is more than 1,000 meters. Like many other places in the Taihang Mountains, Dazhai Village has been subjected to long-term wind erosion and water cutting, and the land is barren, with thousands of ravines and ravines, and the terrain conditions are very harsh.
In 1945, the Japanese army was defeated and surrendered, and the Communist Party established people's power in Dazhai Village, and the vast number of peasants and people in Dazhai Village were liberated.
At this time, Chen Yonggui, after years of hard work, not only survived in Dazhai Village, but also became a representative of the farmers in the village. Over the years, he has been leading the farmers in the village to grow food and feed the population of the village under difficult conditions.
In 1947, the party branch was formally established in Dazhai Village, and a year later, Chen Yonggui joined the Communist Party of China. Chen Yonggui, together with Jia Jincai, secretary of the Party branch of Dazhai Village at that time, Jia Chengrang, Song Liying and others, led the farmers in the village to constantly fight against nature, laying the foundation for the agricultural development of Dazhai Village.
In 1952, Chen Yonggui was elected secretary of the party branch of Dazhai Village, and this year, he was 38 years old. From wandering alone in Dazhai Village to being elected secretary of the party branch, Chen Yonggui's journey was too bumpy, but it was precisely because of his spirit of not being afraid of hardships and persistent struggle that he survived the most difficult period.
After being elected secretary of the party branch, Chen Yonggui strengthened his determination to lead the villagers of Dazhai Village out of poverty. On the basis of the work of his predecessors, he called on the villagers to carry out a "major transformation" of the land in Dazhai, in his own words, that is, to reproduce the feat of "Yugong moving mountains".
As mentioned earlier, the natural conditions of Dazhai Village are very poor, the land is very barren, the local people describe the natural landform of Dazhai as "seven ditches, eight beams and one slope", therefore, the agricultural harvest of Dazhai Village has always been bad, before Chen Yonggui became the secretary of the party branch, the average harvest of one acre of land in the village is less than 70 kilograms of grain a year, and the yield is very low.
Chen Yonggui personally led the peasants in the village to fight against the "poor mountains and bad waters" in Dazhai.
At that time, the degree of agricultural mechanization was still very low, and there were no advanced production tools in Dazhai, so Chen Yonggui and the villagers relied on a hoe per person, a pair of hands, two shoulders, and a basket, working day and night on the land, transforming the river ditch into a field and the hillside into a terraced field.
The land transformation of Dazhai Village lasted for ten years, and during these ten years, the land productivity of the village has been continuously improved.
Patches of barren land have changed from 70 kilograms per mu to fertile land with a yield of 1,000 catties per mu, and the lives of the peasants have been greatly improved, not only solving the problem of food and clothing for the people in the village, but also handing over more than 200,000 catties of surplus grain to the state every year. It can be said that Chen Yonggui led the farmers of Dazhai to create a miracle with their hands.
However, God is not beautiful. In 1963, another devastating flood occurred in Dazhai Village, the flood almost submerged the land that the villagers had spent years leveling, and many houses in the village were also washed away by the flood, and Dazhai Village seemed to return to its pre-liberation appearance.
After learning about the disaster in Dazhai Village, the central organization sent officials to Dazhai Village to offer condolences and sent food, disaster relief materials and funds to Dazhai Village to help the villagers tide over the difficulties.
However, what is unexpected is that the villagers of Dazhai under the leadership of Chen Yonggui did not have a trace of joy on their faces after seeing the materials and funds sent by the organization, on the contrary, they actually returned the things.
At that time, the villagers who took the lead said to the officials who came to provide disaster relief: "The villagers understand the organization's concern for Dazhai, but the whole country, Dazhai is not the only one who suffers from the disaster, if everyone relies on state relief, then where will the country's money come from?" ”
In the face of natural disasters, the simple feelings of the villagers of Dazhai who never admit defeat are moving.
However, it is not enough to have feelings, and the primary problem in front of the villagers of Dazhai is how to rebuild Dazhai after the disaster. After the flood receded, Chen Yonggui and several respected farmers in the village immediately convened a meeting of the villagers to discuss ways to rebuild Dazhai.
The Dazhai Party branch first put forward the policy of "three don'ts, three no less", that is, "don't want the state's money, grain and materials, the grain handed over to the state can not be less, the masses can not share dividends, and the villagers' rations cannot be less". Under the guidance of such a policy, Chen Yonggui once again led the villagers to carry out a transformation movement of "fighting heaven and earth" on the land of Dazhai.
Unlike the last time the land was renovated, this time, the villagers are faced with "tearing down and starting over", and when everyone inevitably encounters friction and discouragement in their work, Chen Yonggui is often told that the conditions in Dazhai Village may not be suitable for agriculture at all, and the ecological conditions here are too fragile.
Whenever he heard someone say this, Chen Yonggui would always reprimand the other party with a series of rhetorical questions, he said: "If you don't create conditions, when will good conditions come?" Heaven for you to fall? Will it run out of a good condition for you on its own? Can it come on its own? You're going to transform it! There is already the power to transform the conditions of nature, and with the socialist collective economy, do you not have the power to transform it? ”
In this way, with the efforts of Chen Yonggui and other Dazhai people, Dazhai Village has regained its previous appearance, not only the land production conditions have been improved, but even the villagers who have always lived in the earthen kiln have transformed their houses into stone kilns.
For a time, the whole country once again set off a trend of learning from Dazhai Village, at that time there was a popular sentence in the whole country: Daqing of industry, Dazhai of agriculture.
3. The transformation has achieved results, and he went to Beijing to be the vice president
The deeds of Dazhai Village have been widely praised, which fully reflects the effect and achievements of Dazhai Village's agricultural transformation. The earth-shaking changes in Dazhai Village are inseparable from Chen Yonggui's leadership and efforts, and he himself was later elected secretary of the Xiyang County Party Committee and Shanxi Provincial Party Committee.
At that time, it happened that the central organization hoped to establish a group of model workers and outstanding representatives at the grassroots level throughout the country, and the deeds of Chen Yonggui and his Dazhai Village had already reached the central authorities.
At the beginning of 1975, Chen Yonggui, as a deputy to the Shanxi Provincial People's Congress, went to Beijing to attend the Fourth National People's Congress. During the meeting, deputies to the people's congresses from all over the country met with Chen Yonggui one after another, hoping to learn from the advanced experience of Dazhai Village.
One day, Chen Yonggui received a notice that Premier Zhou wanted to meet him, and Chen Yonggui, who heard the news, was very excited and immediately set off to meet Premier Zhou.
Chen Yonggui came to the premier's office in Zhongnanhai, and the prime minister beckoned him to sit down in front of him. Knowing that Chen Yonggui was born as a farmer and was straightforward and simple, the prime minister did not have too many greetings, and said directly to Chen Yonggui: "The organization appreciates you and the deeds of Dazhai Village very much, and this time I want to transfer you to the State Council as vice premier, you must be prepared to promote the spirit of Dazhai to the whole country." ”
Although Chen Yonggui knew that the premier's reception of him must be related to the Dazhai incident, he never expected that he would be appointed as vice premier of the State Council. So Chen Yonggui hurriedly excused himself: "Prime Minister, this is not good, my cultural level is not good, I can't be this vice premier!" ”
Premier Zhou looked at Chen Yonggui's rejection, and his expression immediately became stern: "Yonggui, are you still not a party member?" If you are a party member, you have to accept the organization's arrangement. You and the villagers of Dazhai have spent decades overcoming difficulties and transforming Dazhai Village into the first village in China, but you can't just think about Dazhai, there are still many poor and backward villages in the country, and you need to use Dazhai's experience to help them. ”
As soon as the prime minister's words came out, Chen Yonggui no longer dared to refuse, and he accepted the organizational arrangement. It didn't take long for Chen Yonggui to become vice premier of the State Council, in charge of the country's agricultural work.
After Chen Yonggui became vice premier, he still cared about the vast number of peasants, he knew very well that he grew up in the yellow earth, and was the son and daughter of the peasants.
At the beginning, Chen Yonggui came to Beijing to work, and he was followed by special guards every day, which made him very unaccustomed.
Moreover, he has always been rooted in the grassroots, but after arriving in Beijing, he was always worried, he was afraid that he would be far away from the land and the peasants, that he would not be able to hear the voices of the peasants, and that he would not be able to appear when the masses of the people needed him most.
During the days when Chen Yonggui was working in Beijing, the happiest time was when the members of the Dazhai committee came to visit him.
In the office, he listened carefully to the farmers of Dazhai telling him about the changes in Dazhai and the ideas for carrying out the work, and this conversation was a whole day, and even the farmers in Dazhai said that even after Uncle Yonggui became the prime minister, he still cared about the grassroots farmers very much, and there was no bureaucratic frame at all.
Later, Chen Yonggui, who was really worried about the land and peasants, wrote a letter to Chairman Mao, in which he proposed to the chairman the "three-three system" working method, that is: one-third of the time in Beijing, one-third of the time in Dazhai, and one-third of the time to run the whole country. After seeing this, the chairman agreed very much, thinking that this was a good way to give full play to Chen Yonggui's enthusiasm for work, so he readily agreed.
In this way, Chen Yonggui held a meeting with officials in charge of agriculture in Beijing to discuss the direction of agricultural development, and then returned to Dazhai to learn about the production and construction situation in the village, and then went to other most difficult and impoverished villages in the country.
This "three-point-one-line" work continued until Chen Yonggui resigned from the post of vice premier after the reform and opening up.
After resigning from his job at the State Council, Chen Yonggui still did not leave his old profession, he worked as a consultant on a farm in the eastern suburbs of Beijing, and continued to shine on the land.
In 1986, Chen Yonggui died of lung cancer at the age of 71.
Chen Yonggui's life was both bumpy and legendary, and he often told others that he was the first "illiterate prime minister" of New China, and he was forever grateful for the party's cultivation.
When Chen Yonggui was treated for lung cancer in a hospital in Beijing, he often said that he could be related to Chairman Mao in this life, which was really in vain, and he was born as a farmer, and he was able to become a vice premier of the State Council, which can be regarded as unprecedented and unprecedented.