Chapter 16 15. Lankao: Jiao Yulu's county seat

Lankao was the most famous county in China in 1965 because of Jiao Yulu, a "good example of county party secretary".Lankao County is located in the northeast of Henan Province, east of Kaifeng City.Like most cities close to the Yellow River, Lankao has a long history.It is the hometown of Chen Ping, the prime minister of the Western Han Dynasty, and Jiang Yan, a talented scholar of the Southern Dynasty.But Lankao can be remembered in the 60-year history of the People's Republic of China, more because of a county party secretary: Jiao Yulu. In December 1962, Jiao Yulu was transferred to Lankao County and served as the secretary of the county party committee.At that time, Jiao Yulu led the Lankao people to plant a large number of paulownia trees to keep out the wind and fix sand, and at the same time improve the local economy.After Jiao Yulu died of illness, Jiao Yulu and Lankao became famous all over the world because of an article by Xinhua News Agency reporter Mu Qing.The tung oil planted by Jiao Yulu himself is still protected to commemorate him - Lankao oil has also become one of the pillar industries of Lankao.Since then, Jiao Yulu and Lankao will be brought up again almost every time the government feels the need for clear and bright officials.

In 1965, Mu Qing, vice president of Xinhua News Agency, passed by Zhengzhou on his way to Xi'an.Reporters from Xinhua's Henan bureau reported to the 45-year-old vice president of the official news agency on the bureau's work.The reporter told Mu Qing that the cadres and masses in the disaster-stricken areas in eastern Henan had many stories of self-rescue and self-rescue, which were also very touching.Mu Qing confessed to reporter Zhou Yuan in the tone of a senior that he wanted to go to the disaster area to share the same fate with the people and to be a competent and good reporter.He said that a good interviewee should be found within 10 days.

Mu Qing, who was born in Qixian County, Henan Province in 1921, was one of the most famous red journalists in China at that time. At the age of 16, Mu Qing joined the Eighth Route Army in Linfen, Shanxi. Two years later, he joined the Communist Party of China.Like many red writers and journalists later, Mu Qing also graduated from Yan'an Lu Xun Academy of Arts and Letters.The well-known Lu Yi was the holy land of Chinese leftist literature at that time, and Lu Yi's teachers included well-known writers Zhou Libo, He Qifang and Zhou Yang.Subsequently, in 1942, Mu Qing entered the "Liberation Daily", the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Since then, Mu Qing has been working for the Communist Party of China as a reporter. In 1959, he had become the vice president of the official news agency Xinhua News Agency. .Mao Zedong once wrote an inscription to Xinhua News Agency saying: Xinhua News Agency must manage the earth.Mao Zedong, who has always attached great importance to propaganda, attached great importance to Xinhua News Agency, the official mouthpiece. An article by a Xinhua News Agency reporter can even affect the position of a local government official, determine whether he is punished or promoted, or let an unknown person overnight. Be famous all over the world.Articles written by Xinhua News Agency reporters often have special channels to reach China’s upper-level political figures; even if this is not considered, its dissemination effect is very amazing. At that time, most newspapers would publish the same article written by Xinhua News Agency reporters. Manuscripts, especially major news events.As the vice president of Xinhua News Agency, Mu Qing was also in high position at the time.

Reporter Zhou Yuan, under the assignment of the old leader, searched for ideal people who could meet this kind of propaganda needs in various parts of Henan.Zhou Yuan came to Lankao, the hardest-hit area at that time.According to the interview habits of Xinhua News Agency reporters, they first went to government departments to understand the situation.Zhou Yuan met Liu Junsheng, the press secretary of the Lankao County Party Committee, in the compound of the Lankao County Party Committee.Liu Junsheng introduced to Zhou Yuan the deeds of Jiao Yulu, secretary of the Lankao County Party Committee who had just died of illness.Later records said that Liu Junsheng began to cry when he talked about the emotion.Another person interviewed by Zhou Yuan, Zhang Qinli, deputy secretary of the Lankao County Party Committee, also told this reporter about Jiao Yulu for 18 hours.

When Zhou Yuan returned to Zhengzhou, he discovered that Jiao Yulu's deeds had been reported by Henan Daily half a year ago.His colleagues suggested that he wait until Jiao Yulu moved his grave before writing.But Zhou Yuan thought that he had found the good person and interviewee that Mu Qing asked for.He brought Mu Qing and another Xinhua reporter, Feng Jian, to Lankao.Later, Feng Jian wrote in an article recalling Mu Qing: "In the winter of 1965, Mu Qing, Zhou Yuan and our party went to Lankao, the old disaster-hit area in eastern Henan, and nearby Qixian, Suixian, Ningling, and Minquan counties to interview and investigate. The shadow of three years of economic difficulties is still hanging over this large disaster area. The scene of peasants tightening their belts to fight the disaster and resolutely declaring war on poverty greatly shocked Mu Qing's heart; On the day when birds and birds disappeared, he carried food into the chaimen of the five-guarantee households suffering from hunger and cold, and led the 360,000 people in Lankao to fight to the death with a seriously ill body against sandstorms, waterlogging, and salinity. A wordless monument. What he couldn’t help but think of was the blood-and-blood connection with the masses during the harsh anti-Japanese war years; in the severe winter of minus ten degrees in the Northeast Liberated Area, an old farmer who had never known each other took Mu Qing and his pair to extremes. Putting his frostbitten feet in his arms, he used body heat to save his legs that might have been amputated. All of this, in Mu Qing's heart, finally condensed into four big words: Don't forget the people."

The people are connected with Jiao Yulu in Mu Qing's heart.Later, when Zhang Qinli introduced Jiao Yulu's deeds, Mu Qing also cried. "The reporters cried so much that they couldn't eat their lunch. When they continued to listen in the afternoon, they were so sad that they couldn't even hold their pens. The next morning, the reporters continued to cry, and they were forced to adjourn the meeting." A later article reported. Mu Qing asked Zhou Yuan to write this report immediately.Later, Mu Qing brought Zhou Yuan's 12,000-word draft back to Beijing to revise it himself.Then Zhou Yuan brought the report to Lankao for verification.

This report was published on February 6, 1966 in the "People's Daily", a long-form character newsletter "A Good Example of County Party Secretary-Jiao Yulu". Comrade Learning".The next day, the Central People's Broadcasting Station broadcast this long newsletter. During the recording, the famous announcer Qi Yue broke down in tears several times, and the recording was interrupted one after another.Then even the recording editor started crying. Mu Qing's article and Qi Yue's broadcast made Jiao Yulu and Lankao famous all over the country for a while.Jiao Yulu has become a new role model and model figure found by this huge country.Later, even Ho Chi Minh, the chairman of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, also participated in the worship of the hero Jiao Yulu.He used the pseudonym "Le Nong" to publish the article "Chinese Experience" introducing and praising Jiao Yulu in the Vietnamese "People's Daily".

Today I re-read Duo Muqing's "Jiao Yulu", at least in terms of the text, it can no longer give people any surprises.This classic of news writing is destined to become a classic only in that special era. Looking at it today, the brushwork, narrative methods and language he used are outdated, full of clichés and exaggerated emotions before China opened up. and too much political jargon.Like any hero produced by the Chinese Communist Party's vast propaganda machine, Jiao Yulu is written as politically correct, with the moral high ground, while "serving the people" wholeheartedly, using Mao Zedong's writings as a source of wisdom for his own management people.He has almost no shortcomings, the only shortcoming is that he does not cherish himself.The language used by Mu Qing also feels too exaggerated, so that people feel that the emotion he wants to convey is too unreal.

But it caused a huge repercussions in that era.A later article analyzed the risks when Mu Qing wrote "Jiao Yulu", saying: "Chinese society has been emphasizing class struggle since 1957...but (Mu Qing) they found that when writing Jiao Yulu, they can no longer do this Emphasis, because this does not conform to the reality of the subject of this interview." "It was not easy to make this determination at the time. Otherwise, there would be no such character as Jiao Yulu. You still write about class struggle, right? Jiao Yulu didn't do that. He started from the reality of Lankao, from the At that time, the 300,000 people of Lankao needed to leave, and it was called the people’s urgency. At that time, they needed to eat and fill their stomachs, so they needed disaster relief, distributed relief food, and developed production.” "Jiao Yulu" Feng Jian, another signed author, said.

Another risk is "dare to tell the truth, dare to speak of disaster".Mu Qing said in his interview notes that what he learned about the situation in Lankao from 1962 to 1965 was "a tragic picture of refugees".Later, at the beginning of his article, there was a description of the disaster, and he buried his pen for Jiao Yulu's visit to Lankao: "The winter of 1962 was the time when Lankao County in eastern Henan suffered the most serious disasters of waterlogging, sandstorm, and salinity. In this year, the sandstorm in spring 200,000 mu of wheat were destroyed, more than 30 mu of crops were flooded in autumn, and 100,000 mu of grass seedlings died of alkali on the saline-alkali land, and the grain output of the whole county fell to the lowest level in the past.” The next paragraph reads: “That is At such a juncture, the party faction Jiao Yulu came to Lankao".

Next is the description of Lankao: "The land of Lankao unfolded in front of Jiao Yulu is such a scene of severe famine! The two old courses of the Yellow River running across the whole area are yellow sand that can't be seen at a glance; patches of waterlogging In the dimples, there are blue icicles; on the white saline-alkali land, the withered grass trembles in the cold wind." Mu Qing's narration also adopts the simplest technique when shaping heroes, first exaggerating how harsh the environment is, and then highlighting the greatness of the people fighting against the harsh environment. "In this way, under pressure, Mu Qing not only truly described the disaster situation in Lankao in "The Example of the County Party Secretary-Jiao Yulu", but also did not mention class struggle throughout the article." However, several months after the publication of the influential newsletter, Mu Qing was still defeated by the rebels.In "Jiao Yulu" published by Xinhua Publishing House in 1979, the editor wrote in the preface: "Thus, while the work has won enthusiastic sympathy from readers, it will inevitably be opposed by some people. During the rampant period of Lin Biao and the 'Gang of Four' , this work about Jiao Yulu was labeled as a 'big poisonous weed', and its author was criticized... The different reactions from two sides all show that these works have touched the pulse of the times and expressed the wishes of the people." .This also shows that Mu Qing and his "Jiao Yulu" finally did not jump out of the two-polar world of good and bad and black and white. The end of this character newsletter is almost entirely a moral judgment, rather than a report tone: "Comrade Jiao Yulu, you have lived up to the party's hopes. You have accomplished the tasks entrusted to you by the party brilliantly. The people of Lankao will never forget it." You. You are worthy of being a good party member nurtured by Mao Zedong Thought, a good cadre of the party, and a good son of the people! You are the representative of the heroic image of thousands of Communist Party members standing tall in the face of severe natural disasters. You are not dead, you will live forever in the hearts of millions of people!" But the combination of this catchphrase-style writing, a massive propaganda machine, and the government's need for heroes did make Jiao Yulu and Lankao part of the Chinese memory. This demand is huge, whether it is the public's yearning demand for Jiao Yulu-style cadres, or the ruling party's demand for his officials' political morality.Therefore, every time Jiao Yulu is mentioned again, many people will respond.He has become a symbol.He almost replaced Chen Ping, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty, and Jiang Lang and Jiang Yan in "Jiang Lang Cai Exhausted" as the symbol of Lankao. In 2007, a news report said that the Lankao government even hoped to use Jiao Yulu's attractiveness to develop Lankao's tourism industry.Here, Jiao Yulu is distinct, while Lankao becomes a blurred background.