The two-faced life of Zhang Jian, former president of the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court

In recent years, news of the fall of senior officials has not been uncommon. However, in August this year, after the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission published the news that Zhang Jian, former president of the Anhui Provincial High People's Court, was suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and was subject to disciplinary review and supervision and investigation, it caused a wave of waves in the place where the deputy provincial high-ranking official had once ruled.

Whether in Hubei or Anhui, some businessmen have been bitter for a long time, believing that he has used his power to interfere in the judiciary, know the law, play the game, and enforce the law. Now that corrupt officials have fallen from power, it is really a great pleasure.

But there are also many cultural people and media reporters, and it is difficult to believe that Zhang Jian will eventually end up like this. In their impression, Zhang Jian, who was in a high position, did not lose his true character as a literati, sang harmony with the poetry of the crowd, and often had the act of courtesy and courtesy, which was quite touching.

Both reactions may make sense, but they are not comprehensive. The real Zhang Jian also has two sides, both literary talent and greed.

A high-ranking scholar

Zhang Jian was born in 1955, his ancestral home is Henan, and he came to Hubei as a teenager. Therefore, in the Hubei officialdom, Zhang Jian was never regarded as an outsider.

In 1972, Zhang Jian, who had finished his career as a young intellectual, returned to the city to join the work force. According to a local person, Zhang Jian's first job on his resume was as a statistician in a machine tool factory, but the factory belongs to the prison system. That is to say, from the time he joined the work until his retirement, Zhang Jian never left the political and legal system.

After 25 years of deep cultivation in the Hubei prison system, Zhang Jian became the number one of the Hubei Provincial Prison Bureau and a member of the Party Committee of the Provincial Department of Justice.

Since then, Zhang Jian's career has been smooth. In 2003, at the age of 48, Zhang Jian became the head of the Hubei Provincial Department of Justice. In 2008, he was appointed vice president of the Hubei Provincial Higher People's Court, and in 2013, he was transferred to the president of the Anhui Provincial High Court, ranking among the ranks of provincial and ministerial high-ranking officials until his retirement.

Zhang Jian was a literary youth when he was young, and after he held a high position, he still liked to dance and ink, and there was a circle of literati gathered around him, and everyone wrote poems and lyrics, which was elegant for a while. Zhang Jian filled in the words late at night and then sent his works to Wenyou, and after he was transferred to Anhui, he also maintained close contact with Wenyou in Hubei.

A Hubei official said that Zhang Jian almost never liked his subordinates and colleagues on WeChat, but Wenyou had works published, or general life trivia sent a circle of friends, but Zhang Jian often liked.

Zhang Jian also likes to make journalist friends, which also makes him a good relationship in the media circle. When Zhang Jian was the president of the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court, he went to Beijing to attend the two sessions a year, specially ordered food on the high-speed railway, and let the conductor send it to the back carriage for reporters to use. During the meeting in Beijing, he also specially instructed his subordinates, saying that the reporters followed them into Beijing to conduct interviews, that the prices in Beijing were high, and that the media units did not have enough meals, so he asked his subordinates to organize more reporters to eat together and improve their food. Usually after the conclusion of the two sessions, he also pushed away other social gatherings and specially dined with reporters.

Reporters from Hubei and Anhui who contacted the political and legal mouths said that they rarely worried about the review of the draft, and even if the personnel of the Propaganda Department said that the leaders were busy and could not read the draft, they could call Zhang Jian directly. After Zhang Jian read the manuscript and revised it, he would politely say, "Everything is based on you, and my opinions are for reference only."

It is precisely because of years of friendship that after Zhang Jian retired in early 2018, many cultural people and media reporters in Hubei and Anhui published articles or poems on different platforms to recall their interactions with Zhang Jian.

For these articles or poems, Zhang Jian will respond, he also filled out a "drinking fire order", in which "let the autumn breeze cool, the universe is wide", "rare Chai Sang lonely", "Song Crane proud of the clouds" and other sentences, expressing the yearning for the retirement life that has unloaded the burden.

A cultural person in Hubei said that Zhang Jian has dabbled in calligraphy, prose and old style poetry. Objectively speaking, his prose is slightly inferior, his calligraphy is decent, and the old style poetry does have power.

According to a person who has intersected with Zhang Jian, Zhang Jian not only likes to dance and ink, but also collects more elegantly, and his collection is mainly calligraphy and painting. From Wuhan to Hefei, and back to Wuhan after retirement, trucks were used to transport collectibles. Zhang Jian once said that these calligraphy and paintings were all leaked or exchanged with his own words. But no one will believe that. If these calligraphy and paintings are genuine, it is far beyond Zhang Jian's reasonable income. ”

This is probably the side of the literati Zhang Jian. But he was by no means a man of letters, but also a high-ranking official with great power. Unfortunately, when he indulged his talents, he did not curb his greed.

Jiangcheng old case

In the past year, many people in Hubei's official and cultural circles have expressed "worry" about Zhang Jian. The news even reached the neighboring province of Anhui, where a writer from Anhui came to Wuhan to visit Zhang Jian after retirement and gently mentioned the matter. Zhang Jian had a relaxed face and said that he was a "person in the peach blossom garden".

In recent years, Hubei's political and legal system has been under constant turmoil, and many of the old cases involved have occurred during Zhang Jian's tenure. Last year, a number of senior officials in Wuhan's political and legal system fell from power, including Wang Chen, president of the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court, Sun Guangjun, chief procurator of the Wuhan Municipal Procuratorate, and Zhou Bin, executive deputy secretary of the Wuhan Municipal Political and Legal Committee. In May this year, Guo Tangyin, secretary of the party group and director of the Hubei Provincial Emergency Management Department, was dismissed, and Guo had worked in the public security system for a long time as executive deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Public Security Department.

According to an informed source, the shocks in the municipal law systems of Hubei Province and Wuhan and the fall of many officials were mainly involved in two cases, one being the Case of Lin Mingxue, known as the "Wuhan version of Sun Xiaoguo," and the other being the case of Shi Faliang, former director of the Transportation Department of Henan Province.

Lin Mingxue is a native of Huangpi, Wuhan, who was in business in his early years and became famous in Jiangcheng in the 1990s for running a Shermosha nightclub. After earning the first pot of gold, Lin Mingxue made a lot of powerful people. Later, Lin Mingxue turned to real estate and finance and became a famous rich man in Hubei.

Around 2000, Lin Mingxue suffered a crisis in Guangxi. In his early years, he gained de facto control of a county credit union in Guangxi and used various means to assure deposits. Later, the capital chain was broken, and the credit union experienced a run, and people in Guilin and other places were panicked. This incident alarmed the central authorities, and the Guangxi side arrested Lin Mingxue. In May 2001, Lin Mingxue was sentenced to death for illegal fund-raising fraud and letter of credit fraud, and confiscated all personal property.

However, Lin Mingxue did not die, he was sentenced in Guangxi, then returned to Hubei to serve his sentence, and then repeatedly commuted. Recently, some people in legal circles have questioned that Lin Mingxue was sentenced in Guangxi and should serve his sentence in Guangxi, and it is more strange to return to Hubei. At this time, Zhang Jian was serving as the head of the Hubei Provincial Prison Bureau, and his role in it was questionable.

In 2011, Lin Mingxue, who had been sentenced to death, was released on parole. During this period, Zhang Jianzheng served as the executive vice president of the Hubei Provincial High Court. The normal procedure for parole is recommended by the competent prison and reported to the court for adjudication. Lin Mingxue is back active in the Wuhan business community, investing heavily in real estate, building a number of real estate projects, and owning a number of sports clubs.

In the process of Lin Mingxue's parole, what role Zhang Jian played has yet to be further disclosed, but according to a person familiar with the matter, Zhang Jian and Lin Mingxue know each other and have a friendship. After Zhang Jian was transferred to the anhui high court, he sometimes returned to Wuhan for weekends and would come to Lin Mingxue's private villa in Huangpi. Moreover, in the process of investigating Lin Mingxue's case and the continuous dismissal of officials from the political and legal system, Zhang Jian was also called to talk many times.

Shi Faliang's experience is similar to Lin Mingxue's. The former director of the Henan Provincial Department of Transportation, who was sentenced to life, was supposed to serve a prison sentence in Hubei, but he was executed outside of prison for various reasons in the early years. In 2017, Shi Faliang was paroled for his meritorious performance.

Today, both cases have aroused strong doubts from the outside world. According to a person in the Hubei officialdom, the two cases involved many officials in Hubei's political and legal system. One of the triggers for Zhang Jian's fall should also be the Lin Mingxue case. According to a person familiar with local political conditions, in addition to the Lin Mingxue case, a large number of officials in Hubei's political and legal system have recently fallen, and these people are Zhang Jian's colleagues or old subordinates, and they are bound to involve a lot of Zhang Jian's affairs.

Official wrist

A person from Hubei's political and legal system introduced that Zhang Jian's two sides are not only reflected in talent and greed, but also in his elegance and domineering. Zhang Jian can be regarded as a literati, who has worked tirelessly, written and so on, and treated wenyou with courtesy, but in the official arena he is also known for his domineering power and quite skillful. When Zhang Jian first became the head of the Justice Department, the morale of the entire judicial system was low, and sometimes the Justice Department convened industry meetings, and the barristers who were somewhat famous did not come on leave. Zhang Jian went to the Department of Finance to ask for funds, and was pushed by the deputy director to the next director, who also said that he had no right to deal with it, which made Zhang Jian very angry.

According to informed sources, later, Zhang Jian successively engaged in the construction of Hubei lawyers for several years, saying that he wanted to rectify the ranks of lawyers and revoked the licenses of many people. Zhang Jian also used his power to hold hearings and administrative reconsideration to reverse the relatively weak image of the Department of Justice, so that the main leaders attach great importance to the work of the Department of Justice, and other units do not dare to neglect the Department of Justice. Zhang Jian once said triumphantly at a meeting: "In the past, I asked for money from others, but now when we need funds, people still come to the door to provide services." ”

A media reporter introduced that Zhang Jian likes to deal with literati and is good at using the media in his work. While in Hubei, Zhang Jian introduced several typical figures in the judicial system, writing articles by himself and publishing them in prominent positions in the mainstream media. By establishing typical figures, it plays a huge role in reversing the overall image of the judicial system.

Through media reports, Zhang Jian sometimes turns bad things into good things. On September 7, 2015, the Anhui Higher People's Court published an announcement in the Bozhou Evening News, the organ of the Bozhou Municipal Party Committee, to remove the influence of Qiu Chao and 19 other people convicted of the "Bozhou Xingbang Company Fund-raising Fraud Case", restore their reputations, and apologize to them.

The court's erroneous judgment has always been criticized, but Zhang Jian set a precedent in the whole country and let a provincial high court publicly publish an apology in the media. After that, he gave an interview, saying that "there is no question of shame." In the future, according to the circumstances of the case, consideration will be given to apologizing to the wronged person." This practice of the Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court has been continuously reported by the media and has received a lot of praise.

While receiving praise from public opinion, there have also been many negative information about Zhang Jian in recent years. In addition to the old hubei prison cases, there have also been businessmen in Wuhan and Hefei who have reported in real names, believing that Zhang Jian intervened in the judicial trial and sought benefits for specific people. A businessman in Anhui has recently reported that Zhang Jian had accepted money from a company and insisted on losing the case in the trial. Just before and after Zhang Jian's fall, a number of business owners in Hefei were taken away to assist in the investigation, which seems to confirm the rumors to some extent.

Zhang Jian's articles do have excellent works, and his official skills have once confused many people, but two-faced people are ultimately taboos for politicians, and his 46-year career in Hubei can only be sighed in the end.