Source: Tianjin Daily
Author: Wang Yin
Xing Yanzi in her youth Profile photo
Xing Yanzi, a once household name. She is a typical example of the new Chinese intellectual youth building a new socialist countryside - at the age of 17, she "went to the countryside" to become a zhiqing, established a "swallow commando team", led rural women to ask for grain from the barren depression, planted crops on saline and alkali land, and changed the poor appearance of the village. Her advanced deeds have aroused strong repercussions throughout the country and have become a well-known "model of knowledge and youth" throughout the country. She was received by Chairman Mao Zedong five times and Premier Zhou Enlai 13 times.
Xing Yanzi's deeds have inspired and inspired a generation. To this day, looking back on her story, it is still full of progressive significance and exudes positive energy that will never be outdated. On September 14, 2009, Xing Yanzi was named one of the "100 Chinese Objects That Touched Since the Founding of New China"; in September of the same year, she was commended as the "Most Beautiful Strivers" in New China.
Recent photo of Xing Yanzi Provided by Xing Yanzi's family
The "Swallow Commando" is famous throughout the country
Vowed to change the face of poverty in his hometown
In 1958, Xing Yanzi graduated from high school. At that time, her father was the deputy director of a factory in Tianjin, but Xing Yanzi did not choose to stay in the city to work. She missed her grandfather, who was very close to her, so she chose to return to Her hometown of Sijiazhuang Village to work as a farmer, which was her most direct and simple original intention of "going to the countryside" at that time. There, she deeply felt the backwardness of her hometown and was determined to "be the first generation of educated farmers in the motherland" and change the face of poverty with the people of her hometown.
Sijiazhuang Village is poor, most of the young men go out to support the construction, and many of the remaining are old and weak women and children. In the production team, Xing Yanzi actively liberated women's labor force, led rural women to smash open three-foot-thick ice caves in winter to form nets to fish, and at night to engage in self-help and reed curtains, creating a side income of more than 3,000 yuan in three months. In 1959, there was a food crisis in Sijiazhuang Village, and production self-help was imminent. Xing Yanzi also led the girls in the village to use various tools to carry water outside the puddle. After a few days, the water in the pit became less and less, and hundreds of pounds of fish and shrimp were shot out. That year, Xing Yanzi was 19 years old, and in the eyes of the villagers, she had become a simple and capable big girl. She was arranged to the production line, planted seedlings and sorghum with the villagers, and led the sisters to form a "swallow commando team" and worked tirelessly.
In the winter of 1960, in order to open up more wasteland, more grain, and let the villagers eat enough, Xing Yanzi led the members of the "Swallow Commando" to reclaim 560 acres of wasteland in a big way, preparing to plant wheat in the spring of the following year. In the middle of winter, fertilizer lumps freeze as hard as stones. Everyone worked together to crush the fertilizer lumps one by one, drying in the field full of ice ballast for more than 10 days, and rolling 560 acres of land 8 times. After the seeds are sown, more than 40,000 kilograms of grain are harvested in the autumn to help the villagers cope with the famine. It was with this vigor of "making the stones grow grain" that Xing Yanzi became a typical example of youth in that era who "became angry and strong, took root in the countryside, and ran agriculture on a large scale."
Being an official "grounded"
Lingering "Zhiqing Feelings"
In 1973, at the 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xing Yanzi was elected as a member of the 10th Central Committee. Since then, she has been elected as a member of the 11th and 12th Central Committees consecutively.
In the 1980s, Xing Yanzi held various leadership positions. When she was the deputy secretary of the party branch at a Zhiqing farm in Beichen District, she was still a model of labor. During working hours, she carried a large bucket of fat, helped the commissary salesman sell goods, worked fourteen or five hours a day, and where she was needed, she would go wherever she was needed. When she was the deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Beichen District People's Congress, she inspected a large number of literature, checked the sewage outlets along both sides of the Fengchan River, completed the "Report on the Water Pollution Problem of the Tianjin North Canal" and the "Report on protecting the water from pollution of the Fengchan River", and put forward her own views on protecting water quality and preventing pollution. Xing Yanzi also often visits female workers in grass-roots units, pays special attention to rural women, and encourages them to learn cultural knowledge and create a better life. After retirement, Xing Yanzi actively exerted her residual heat, cared about the growth of children and teenagers, was keen to participate in social activities, and also taught herself calligraphy and painting, and lived a simple and fulfilling life in her later years.
Time is like water, life is like song. Today' Xing Yanzi is over eighty years old, and although she speaks slower than when she was younger, she still remembers the past clearly. In her room, there are many precious old photographs and old newspapers. Whenever someone visits, Xing Yanzi is willing to take out these materials and chat about the past while looking at them, as if opening up a piece of dusty history. Although newspapers and photos have faded and yellowed, they can still feel the power of inspiring people to forge ahead, bringing people unlimited encouragement and touching.
After a lifetime of suffering and ups and downs, Xing Yanzi's original intention in his old age has not changed: "I am cultivated by the party and the people, listen to the party, feel the gratitude of the party, and always follow the party." The bitterness of the past is exchanged for the sweetness of today, and all the efforts of our generation are worthwhile and regretless. ”