The eccentric monk is called Li Guojian, but that is not his real name. Only he knows what his real name is.
According to the older generation, the eccentric monk is not a local. Some people say he is from Zhongjiang County, where he got into trouble in the Nationalist Army and escaped in the middle of the night. Afraid to return to his hometown in Zhongjiang for fear of being captured and executed by the Nationalist government, he changed his name and came to the ancient Buddhist temple to become a monk.
The eccentric monk does not meditate or chant scriptures, nor does he recite Amitabha Buddha. He is strong and robust, only doing chores in the temple like fetching water, chopping wood, sweeping the floor, and cooking.
During the land reform, the rural areas classified people’s social status. The monks in the temple were seen as living off the fat of the land and were all classified as landlords.
The eccentric monk refused to accept this and argued with the work team. He said he worked every day chopping wood, fetching water, and doing chores, so how could he be labeled as someone who lived off the fat of the land? Why was he classified as a landlord? He felt oppressed by the Nationalists and lamented that he had nowhere to go back to. Did the Communist Party also want to bully him?
This stirred up trouble for him, and the armed team tied him up and hung him from a big tree. Instead of admitting fault, he lashed out. He threatened to go to Beijing to complain to Chairman Mao and have him send people to deal with those who hurt him. He claimed to have saved Chairman Mao before! When the work team investigated his old family and found out they were all poor farmers, only then did they release him.
The eccentric monk is a peculiar person. The village’s teacher said that every year after the Lunar New Year, he would ask the teacher to help him write a letter to Chairman Mao. He claimed he was wronged and asked Chairman Mao to save him. Even though the letters he sent were ignored every time, he persisted in writing them year after year, never losing hope. He believed that Chairman Mao was too busy, but as long as he kept writing, one day Chairman Mao would see his letters.
Most people in the village thought he was talking nonsense. How could a monk living in a remote temple in the countryside have any connection to Chairman Mao?
One day, while he was fetching water down the mountain, he encountered several young women washing clothes by the well. They surrounded him and taunted him:
“Eccentric monk, we heard you saved Chairman Mao, is it true?”
“You claim to have saved Chairman Mao, why should we believe you?”
“If Chairman Mao had bodyguards, why would he need you to save him?”
“Eccentric monk, stop bragging, watch out for disaster!”
Facing these sharp-tongued village women, the eccentric monk couldn’t handle it and ran off with his water. As he walked half a mile away, he figured the women wouldn’t catch up, so he turned back and shouted, “Wait until I get to Beijing, see which lady dare speak to me like that!”
In 1967, the “Eight Points for Public Security” were announced, stating that anyone listening to foreign broadcasts, stealing collective property, butchering collective hogs privately, or criticizing Chairman Mao and his close comrade Vice Chairman Lin was a current counterrevolutionary.
At that time, there were many people committing counterrevolutionary crimes. One day they would target one person, and the next day another. The prisons of the Public Security Bureau were overcrowded, so a new prison was built.
In our commune’s Sixth Brigade, a member named Li Anyuan liked to boast. While working in the fields, he explained that the character “彪” in Lin Biao’s name meant “three tigers in the forest.” Someone reported him for slandering Vice Chairman Lin, and he was sentenced to three years in prison.
The eccentric monk’s crime was even more significant. He dared to directly target the great leader and publicly slandered Chairman Mao, saying he was captured by Nationalist soldiers, which was an extremely heinous crime, even more counterrevolutionary than being a counterrevolutionary.
The Red Guards captured him, hung him on a yellow jujube tree, and demanded he admit his wrongdoing, acknowledge his malicious attack on the great leader, and repent and apologize to Chairman Mao. But he remained steadfast, refusing to admit guilt and never changing his story. He said he would find Chairman Mao to seek justice and have those who attacked him punished.
The rebels beat him until he spat blood, crying out for parents. When he couldn’t endure it any longer, he reluctantly called Mao the “greatest person in the world.”
The brigade leaders reported the situation to the commune. The Revolutionary Committee of the commune considered this a serious political event and immediately reported it to the district. A public security officer named Liu was sent from the district to investigate the matter.
The brigade leader asked me to assist Officer Liu in handling the case. I went to the Fifth Brigade to have the eccentric monk come to the brigade headquarters for questioning. Along the way, I cautioned him, saying, “The Public Security Bureau is involved, so you must be careful with your words. This is the Cultural Revolution; you must understand the situation and not speak recklessly, or the revolutionary masses will not spare you!”
To everyone’s surprise, the monk, instead of being cautious, confidently declared, “I did not speak falsely. I remember his face; I will never mistake him.” With growing indignation, he said, “Does being the greatest person in the world mean being untruthful and unreliable?”
According to the account provided by the eccentric monk, his hometown was in Zhongjiang County, and he was a sergeant in the Nationalist Central Army. When the Red Army passed through Guizhou during the Long March, he was stationed there. One foggy morning, visibility was so poor that you couldn’t see beyond five steps. They were ordered to capture a high-ranking official among the “Wu Lao Er” (the Nationalist Army’s term for the Red Army).
He and his Nationalist soldiers apprehended this official in a latrine. They tied him up, intending to take him back for commendation. The official, tall and speaking with a strong Hunanese accent, showed no fear after being caught. He inquired about Li Guojian (later the eccentric monk), his background, and learned that Li Guojian also came from a poor family. The official then preached about the unity of all poor people in the world. Li Guojian and his soldiers were moved and decided to let him go.
Before leaving, the official took out five silver coins and promised that if they released him, he would repay them generously once he gained power and authority. As he was leaving, Li Guojian even gave him his military uniform and advised him to escape in the chaos.
However, the incident of releasing the Nationalist official was reported, and Li Guojian was arrested and imprisoned by the military judicial department. Luckily, his guard was a fellow Sichuan native who quietly released him in the middle of the night when no one was around. He escaped the military camp, changed his clothes with the help of local villagers, and embarked on a fugitive journey.
He traveled day and night, begging for food, enduring for over a month before returning to Sichuan. Afraid to return to his hometown in Zhongjiang, he settled in Shehong, at the ancient temple in Yangxi Town, where he became a monk.
After Liberation, seeing the people he saved truly rise to power and prominence, he was overjoyed. He sent letters to Beijing to request the fulfillment of the promise made years ago. Every year, he wrote a letter, never stopping.
Officer Liu asked me to truthfully record his confession and read it out loud to the eccentric monk. I asked if there were any discrepancies, but when he confirmed everything was accurate, Officer Liu had him fingerprint the document and reported it to the county public security department.
After the report was filed, we waited for the public security department to arrest him. In the Cultural Revolution, even wrapping things with newspapers featuring Chairman Mao’s image was considered counterrevolutionary. Speaking against the revolution like he did, deserved not just imprisonment but cruel death.
However, to everyone’s confusion, a month passed, and no one came to arrest him; two months passed, and still no one came. Whether the county authorities feared the repercussions or for some other reason, we never found out.
In 1978, the eccentric monk died at the age of seventy-six in a small house next to the storage room of the Fifth Production Team of the Wuxin Brigade in Xinsheng Commune, Shehong County. The brigade members sympathized with him, made a simple coffin, and buried him on the mountainside next to the reservoir.
To be continued@
Check out the “Red Sichuan Memories” series for more articles.