Will the Boat Sink the Water?: The Life of China's Peasants (9 page)

the village tyrant

Four Killed in a Matter of Minutes

With the swelling tide of commercialism, the number eight,
ba
, has been growing in favor, as in Chinese, its pronunciation rhymes with the term
fa
, “to make it.”

Under normal circumstances, the date February 18, 1998, which includes two eights, would be considered an auspicious date. But in Zhang Village, Tangnan Township, Guzhen County, Anhui Province, that date would be forever remembered as a day of mourning.

Zhang Village was situated in the lowlands on the banks of the Huai River. Prone to droughts to begin with, and burdened by the village leaders’ excessive fines and taxes, the people dragged out their days from one year’s end to another. This is not to say that everyone in the village took things lying down. For instance, there were four men with backbone—Zhang Jiaquan, Zhang Jiayu, Zhang Hongchuan, and Zhang Guimao—who had repeatedly gone to the village cadres and the township Party committee to demand an audit of the village finances.

One of the village officials, Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan, was seething in anger and gnashing his teeth at the

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unending stream of complaints and accusations, which he knew targeted him, among others; he was accused of embezzling pub-lic funds. But with backing at the township level, Deputy Village Chief Zhang could afford to snap his fingers at the villagers, whom he treated as dirt anyway. As to the villagers, they steered clear of him, knowing that he was totally unscrupulous when the chips were down.

One day, Deputy Village Chief Zhang summoned over to his home two members of the township security force. Then he sent word to Zhang Hongchuan, one of the hotheads who had been making accusations against him, to come over so that they could go over the village finances together. Zhang, not suspecting any mischief and conscious that right was on his side, was not at all intimidated by the prospect of facing Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan. He went over cheerfully, expecting to do some checking of the books. But the minute he stepped into the deputy village chief’s house, the two township security flunkies and two of Zhang Guiquan’s own sons sprang on him and pounded him to within an inch of his life. If not for the poor man’s nephew, who was alerted and ran to his uncle’s rescue, it was hard to say what would have been left of Zhang Hongchuan after the attack.

This show of violence on the part of Zhang Guiquan was meant as a preliminary warning, but instead of intimidating the villagers it only served to mobilize them. Veteran village cadres, Party members, and the eighty-seven households of the village banded together and went twice to the township office and five times to the home of the village Party head, Zhang Dianfeng, to demand an inquiry into Deputy Village Chief Zhang’s outrageous behavior and to conduct an audit of the village books.

Badgered by these repeated appeals, the Party apparatus of Tangnan Township finally decided that something must be done. Just then it happened that their superiors at Guzhen County directed all the townships to conduct a general audit of

the village tyrant

the villages under their own supervision. The township Party head, Zuo Peiyu, announced to some of the peasants from Zhang Village, who happened to be there, presenting another of their petitions, “What luck! The county is launching a general auditing, and we have decided to start with your village! The head of our township’s Party disciplinary committee, Comrade Wang, will lead a work team, including three accountants from the township financial office. They will be heading for your village right away.”

This news threw Zhang Village into a fever of excitement.

On February 9, led by Wang and three accountants and reinforced with the addition of Xue, a township officer in charge of supervising Zhang Village, the work team deployed in the village to carry out their mission.

On the same day, with Wang presiding, the eighty-seven households held earnest consultations and elected twelve representatives from among themselves to join the work team to conduct an auditing of the village books. Among the twelve selected were Zhang Hongchuan, who had already suffered an attack at the hands of Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan, and three others who had always championed peasants’ rights—Zhang Jiayu, Zhang Guiyu, and Zhang Guimao—were among the twelve elected. Knowing Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan through and through for the kind of bully he was, the group did not expect things to go smoothly. They laid out strict rules and guidelines for conducting the auditing. Moreover, as a precau-tion, the twelve representatives made a private pact that in case Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan got tough with any one of them, the rest would rally around whoever it was, to prevent anything untoward from happening.

As expected, Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan reached into his bag of tricks to throw dust into people’s eyes to

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obstruct the auditing. For instance, he spread rumors that someone had tried to poison one of his sons. When all his tricks failed, he swore publicly during a meeting of the village cadres, “Twelve fucking representatives, actually trying to check on me! They must be dreaming! Even if they do get rid of me, their own lives will be over. If they are lucky enough to come out alive, I’ll make them lose an arm or a leg at the very least!”

On February 14, the audit group decided to go through the record of the “village cash reserves.” The village deputy Party boss, Zhang Dianhu, who was in charge of finances, tried to fob the group off by turning over some obsolete records. This was really a ploy to cover up for Zhang Guiquan, but the lat-ter, in his mad rage, could not tell friend from foe and started abusing his colleague, blaming him for digging up old scores. On February 15, Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan’s daughter-in-law put out the word that her father-in-law was itching to stick a knife into someone. Neither the township nor the village leadership paid attention to these warnings. The work group, too, thought it was just more of Zhang Guiquan’s bluster. Nobody imagined that on the morning of February 18, nine days after the start of the auditing, Deputy Village Chief Zhang would actually launch a killing spree.

February 18 fell on the twenty-second day of the first month in the lunar calendar, and this meant that rain was expected the next day, but a light spring shower arrived early. Starting the previous night, the rain pattered on and on with no sign of letting up. When February 18 dawned, most of the villagers were still curled up in their bedrolls.

Fifty-eight-year-old Wei Surong, however, was already up and busying herself at the stove. Although she did not involve herself in public affairs as her husband did, she knew exactly what was going on in the village. Her husband, Zhang Guiyu, was one of the twelve representatives charged with the auditing and he had been carrying out his task every day, rain or shine.

the village tyrant

Obviously their fellow villagers trusted her husband, as the auditing closely concerned the interests of the community. Wei Surong knew it wouldn’t do to let her husband be late for work, so she got out of bed early every morning to get his breakfast ready.

The spring rain was still pattering away, and a gray mist hung outside the window. Wei Surong set the table, and her husband and their son, Pine, sat down to eat. The clock’s hands pointed to ten minutes past seven. Just then Deputy Village Chief Zhang Guiquan showed up at their doorstep, followed by his sons number five, Zhang Yuliang, and number seven, Zhang Leyi, and the village accountant, Zhang Jiahui and his son, Zhang Jie, right behind them.*

Deputy Village Chief Zhang’s showing up at that hour with two of his sons and the accountant, who was obviously hostile to the auditing, was a clear sign that he was bent on mischief. The only thing missing was an excuse to act. The village accountant’s son, naturally displeased by the auditing of his father’s books, began by taunting Zhang Guiyu: “Well, what have you dug up? Do we get a share of the spoils?”

Zhang Guiyu got the drift of the group’s intentions. He got up from the table and said coldly, “The people have chosen me for the audit. How can I refuse?”

At this, Deputy Village Chief Zhang’s son number seven broke in with an obscenity: “Mother-fucker! Who are you to audit anything?!”

Zhang Guiyu was shocked at the language of the young man, who was a generation younger than he. He retorted, “How dare you? Would you use the same language to your own father?”

The father broke in, saying, “Curse you! It’s no more than

*Since all the sons were knife-wielding adults, they would have been born before the one-child policy came into force. But, cadres were often able to violate the policy with impunity.

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what you deserve!” as he signaled to his two sons to let him have it.

The attack came so suddenly that Zhang Guiyu was stunned for a moment, unable to take in the situation. His wife, Wei Surong, rushed over and tried to drag him into the inner room, shouting at Deputy Village Chief Zhang, “How dare you crash into our own home to attack us! What do you want, anyway?” Meanwhile, son number seven picked up a club leaning against the door, and son number five picked up a scythe lying on the floor. The accountant held Zhang Guiyu by the waist while son number seven sprang forward with the club to hit him. Zhang Guiyu managed to struggle out of the accountant’s grip and, seeing that they were out for his blood, picked up a brick on the floor. Wei Surong picked up a kitchen knife lying