Audience friends, hello everyone! Welcome to “A Hundred Years of Truth!”
In January 1968, in a meeting room in Beijing’s DiaoyuTai, the atmosphere was as tense as ice. Jiang Qing’s face was grim, as she slammed a lengthy letter of ten thousand words onto the table in front of Qi Benyu and Yao Wenyuan, roaring, “Why was this letter sent to me? What is the purpose?”
The 31-year-old secretary Yan Changgui’s legs went weak as he stuttered, “I was afraid that she was related to you…”
Jiang Qing sneered, “Ignorance! Ignorance leads to crime!”
A few days later, Yan Changgui was escorted to Qin Cheng Prison by armed soldiers.
From Jiang Qing’s secretary to a solitary cell, all because of one sentence.
It all started a year ago…
Yan Changgui was born in 1937 in Liaocheng, Shandong. After graduating from the Philosophy Department of Renmin University of China in 1961, he was assigned to work at the Red Flag magazine.
In June 1966, the Cultural Revolution erupted, and he was transferred to the Secretariat of the Central Office and the Central Cultural Revolution Briefing Group.
Before the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing had no official position within the CCP or the government, sharing a secretary with Mao Zedong – Qi Benyu, the Deputy Director of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Office and a member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group.
After the start of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing was appointed by Mao Zedong to the position of Deputy Head of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. The letters received by Jiang Qing increased day by day, hundreds or even thousands a day. Thus, a letter processing group was established to assist Jiang Qing in handling the letters, led by Yan Changgui and under the supervision of Qi Benyu.
In the winter of 1966, Qi Benyu informed Yan Changgui that Jiang Qing needed a secretary, and he recommended Yan Changgui to her.
And so, on January 9, 1967, Yan Changgui became Jiang Qing’s first dedicated secretary.
Being Jiang Qing’s secretary was no easy task!
Initially, Yan Changgui sorted and selected documents every day, but he couldn’t hand them directly to Jiang Qing; everything had to go through the security guards. Strangely, Jiang Qing, who used to chat and shake hands with him, now ignored him as if he didn’t exist, cold as ice.
Yan Changgui couldn’t understand and secretly asked the security guards, only to find out that Jiang Qing was “testing” him and testing his loyalty! At that time, there was a saying: “University students become rustic in the first year, foreign in the second year, and disown their parents in the third year.” Jiang Qing was worried that he had “lost” the essence of working people.
Yan Changgui persisted, and after a month, he finally passed the test. Jiang Qing nodded, saying, “You still have a bit of the essence of a worker; you haven’t completely ‘lost’ it.” However, his mentor, and Central Cultural Revolution member Guan Feng, privately warned him, “You are not politically astute, not suitable to be Jiang Qing’s secretary.”
Who knew that this sentence would come true?
After passing the test, Jiang Qing gave Yan Changgui a life-and-death order: “As my secretary, you must maintain absolute confidentiality! What you need to know, I will tell you; what you don’t need to know, don’t even ask!”
Every day, the documents Yan Changgui handled – tens or even hundreds, stacked half a foot high with hundreds of thousands of words! He had to categorize them into “must read,” “refer to,” and “browse.” Before Jiang Qing woke up in the morning, he prepared the files, clipped with small notes detailing the date and schedule.
Jiang Qing’s office, bedroom, dining room, everywhere was equipped with electric bells: one ring for the secretary, two for the nurse, and three for the guards. Unless Jiang Qing was resting during lunch or sleeping at night, Yan Changgui could not leave for a moment, no days off – if the bell rang and he was not there, he would face criticism!
Despite Yan Changgui’s dedicated work, he still attracted great trouble.
In late 1967 or early 1968, Yan Changgui received a lengthy letter from the Central Cultural Revolution Briefing Group – over ten thousand words!
The sender of the letter was an actress from a Beijing film studio. She recounted her acting career, revealing that she was once called “Jiang Qing” and had changed her name after 1949, expressing her desire to turn over some savings as party dues and mentioning the impact she experienced during the Cultural Revolution. She praised Jiang Qing and finally asked for Jiang Qing’s help to alleviate the pressure.
In between his busy schedule, Yan Changgui managed to intermittently read the entire letter, mistakenly believing there was a connection between this actress and Jiang Qing. He attached a small note to the letter and sent it up.
The next day, in the meeting room, Jiang Qing, in front of Qi Benyu and Yao Wenyuan, threw the letter onto the table, shouting, “Why was this letter sent to me? What is the purpose?”
Yan Changgui was petrified and stuttered, “I was afraid she was related to you…” Jiang Qing furiously exclaimed, “Ignorance! Ignorance leads to mistakes, leads to crimes!”
Though harshly rebuked, Yan Changgui didn’t dwell on the incident and continued to work as usual. But from that day on, Jiang Qing’s attitude changed drastically; she didn’t call for him or let him deliver documents for a whole week.
Coincidentally, his colleague Yang Yinlu returned from his hometown for a funeral. On January 9, exactly one year since Yan Changgui had been Jiang Qing’s secretary, she coldly remarked, “He’s back, why are you still here? Quickly hand over the documents to Yang Yinlu!” Yan Changgui left in disappointment, finishing all the paperwork that day.
In the late evening, Central Cultural Revolution Chief Chen Boda and Central Office Director Wang Dongxing sought to speak with him. Chen Boda said, “You deal with text; you should return to the letter processing group.” Wang Dongxing added, “No rush, let’s follow the regular procedure.”
Thinking nothing was wrong, Yan Changgui packed his things and followed them to the Central Guard Regiment for “routine procedures.” Wang Dongxing even reassured him, saying, “I’ve looked at your file, no problem, I handpicked you.”
Little did he know, this “routine procedure” meant being under guard at the Central Guard Regiment and undergoing a departure investigation!
On the evening of January 23, 1967, Chen Boda, Xie Fuzhi, Yang Chengwu, and Yao Wenyuan came together to talk to Yan Changgui.
At that time, Yao Wenyuan was a member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. Chen Boda was the fourth most important figure in the party, a member of the Central Political Bureau Standing Committee. Xie Fuzhi was the Vice Premier of the State Council and Minister of Public Security. Yang Chengwu was the acting Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
These high-ranking individuals indicated that Yan Changgui’s troubles were significant.
Xie Fuzhi said, “Jiang Qing treats you well, if you have any problem, just confess.” Yan Changgui nodded repeatedly. What followed chilled him.
Chen Boda requested Yan Changgui to write a letter to his wife, as instructed, pretending to go on a business trip, leaving the documents at home, and arranging for people to come and go, even instructing his wife to move to a certain place as per the plan.
At that time, Yan Changgui’s wife had come from a village in Shandong to Beijing for medical treatment and was staying at a temporary residence.
Chen Boda wanted Yan Changgui to write that letter to facilitate a search of their temporary residence.
The next night, Yan Changgui was taken by two armed soldiers in a jeep straight to Qin Cheng Prison. He was locked in a single cell measuring only six or seven square meters, and from then on, his name became a code: 6820. He spent seven and a half years there.
Many years later, Yan Changgui recalled his experience in Qin Cheng, saying that although he didn’t endure much physical pain, being forced to stand for a whole morning was nothing compared to the mental torment that could drive a person to the brink of collapse.
He said, “In prison, I deeply realized two things: first, ‘man is a social creature,’ isolation is not feasible, and solitary confinement is the most deadly and cruel torture for a person; second, ‘the brain is an organ of thought,’ it never stops thinking, and the more you think, the more you can’t figure things out, leading to an endless vicious cycle of discomfort.”
He added, “Lenin wrote books in the Tsar’s prison; Communists could also write in Kuomintang prisons… and here I was locked up, not allowed to read, magazines or books, just sitting dully every day. To pass the time, I counted the holes on the bed headboard over and over.”
Later, he started repeatedly reciting familiar Mao Zedong poems and Tang and Song dynasty poetry, as well as crafting his own nursery rhymes. In total, he wrote over 12,000 words of nursery rhymes.
He expressed that in Qin Cheng, he most desired to be interrogated. Why? Because that would give him a chance to talk to someone. However, such opportunities were rare; during the entire seven and a half years, he was only interrogated two or three times, with no substantial questions asked.
Yan Changgui’s unexpected arrest at Qin Cheng Prison was followed by an equally unexpected release.
In May 1975, a special task force arrived at Qin Cheng, announcing suddenly to him, “The Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao have decided to release you and send you to labor on a farm in Hunan, awaiting further conclusions.”
Yan Changgui was overjoyed. His only thought at the time was, as long as he could leave Qin Cheng, “even if I had to do the most arduous and tiring work, it would still be better than being in a cell.”
Upon arriving at the farm, Yan Changgui’s first task was to write a letter to his family. For seven and a half years, he had no idea about his family’s situation, and his family didn’t know if he was alive or dead.
Ten days after sending the letter, he received a letter from his son. Subsequently, his parents, wife, and son came to the farm, three generations meeting tearfully. Seeing him alive, his family was elated. After a brief reunion, his parents went back to their home in Shandong, while his wife and son stayed with him at the farm.
In November 1975, people from Beijing came. The conclusions on his case mainly involved two aspects: that he attempted to frame central leadership with false materials and harbored “May 16 elements” Wu Chuanqi and Lin Yushi. His punishment was one year of probation within the Party.
The special task force required him to sign the decision of the punishment. He believed neither of these accusations was true, so he refused to sign. At that moment, they brought up Jiang Qing, saying, “This decision was made by the leader.”
Knowing that arguing was pointless, and with Jiang Qing present, Yan Changgui reluctantly signed the document.
With the conclusion of Yan Changgui’s case, the farm arranged for him to work as a teacher at an agricultural school. Eventually, he became the principal of that school.
In October 1976, Jiang Qing and the “Gang of Four” were arrested, and the Cultural Revolution ended. In 1978, Yan Changgui was transferred to the propaganda department of the farm, where under the support from the farm leadership, he was finally exonerated and able to return to Beijing.
Why did Jiang Qing unleash such fury on Yan Changgui because of one misplaced letter?
At that time, there was a significant shift in the political winds of the Cultural Revolution. In the summer of 1967, Mao’s Cultural Revolution sparked strong resistance within the military system. Mao couldn’t afford to lose the support of the military and decided to sacrifice three scapegoats – Wang Li, Guan Feng, and Qi Benyu.
These three individuals were the pen-holders relied upon by Mao at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, known as “political thugs” and members of the Central Culture Revolution Group.
Suddenly, Mao decided to sacrifice these three individuals. To distance herself from them, Jiang Qing sought to find scapegoats in her midst, and Yan Changgui, recommended by Qi Benyu to be her secretary, became the “spy” she had “appointed” by her side.
After spending over seven years in prison and on the farm as an innocent victim of false accusations, Yan Changgui returned to Beijing in 1980, back to his first workplace after graduating from university, where the Red Flag magazine had been renamed to “Seeking Truth.” He worked there until his retirement.
Audience friends, how do you view Yan Changgui’s life? All of his best years, from the age of 31 to 43, were wasted in prison and on the farm because of one word from a top CCP leader. Do you believe this is a mistake of individual CCP leaders, or is it a result of the CCP’s system? Feel free to leave us your thoughts.
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– Production Team of “A Hundred Years of Truth”