I'm reading a book about peasants in the village of long bow
In north china after the end of the second world war
If you think you're life is hard man you haven't got a fucking clue
The lives people lived not so long ago and not so far from you

They dealt with droughts and floods
and questionable grain-weighting
Sadistic landlords, brutal religious leaders
and cruel administrating
Every possible way a person could be squeezed
they were, and painfully so
And violence that would shock most people
was regularly doled out in long bow

The name long bow is an english translation of changchuang
A reminder that the crisis of chinese feudalism was premised upon
Foreign interventions that had torn apart the fabric of chinese society
Like the opium wars where british killed chinese
For the right to get them hooked on drugs

"Three Pillars of Heaven

A man is poor,
Ever thinner, ever blacker,
Goes to borrow fifty coins,
Is asked a hundred in return,
Turns to go,
Knows he's taken for a thief;

A man is rich,
Ever fatter, ever whiter,
Goes to borrow fifty pieces,
Has a hundred pressed upon him,
Turns to go,
Is urged to stay and drink"

So it’s the height of the Second World War and Japan has occupied North China but they can’t contain the communist resistance, which has bases in the mountains. Long Bow has a large detachment of a hundred Japanese soldiers but the village is still run by the local gentry. These collaborators rule the village even more brutally than normal, doling out wanton cruelty and violence to anyone that crosses them. The village head is named Shang Shih-t'ou and he is widely but quietly despised. One day he finds a note tied to a stone in his courtyard, it’s from the communist commander in the mountains. It lists several of his most heinous acts of cruelty but offers him an opportunity to meet and turn against the Japanese occupation and redeem himself. Shang knows that working with the communist resistance means foregoing his luxury and power in Long Bow, so he refuses to meet, but he knows the communists are watching him, so he grows nervous at nights. He increasingly refuses to stay in his own house at night and almost never stays in the same place two nights in a row. His wife, knowing his history of bad behaviour with other women, publicly scolds him for staying out every night and Shang is forced to stay home to protect his honour. On the third night in his house, the communists capture him and he is killed. The village silently rejoices, suddenly aware that there must be underground resistance in the village right under the nose of the Japanese soldiers. It is the beginning of the liberation of Long Bow.

Liberation didn’t come easy but eventually it came
And upon the landlords and collaborators revenge would be taken
People were scared at first, cos there was no way of knowing
If the aristocracy would rebound and regain a hold

Of power in long bow and the surrounding region
The nationalists were well equipped but the peasantry was legion
And despite the American and Japanese troops helping to contain revolution
It was clear that the process in motion would keep moving

Retribution against collaborators in long bow gained steam
Their crimes were denounced in the public
Square and they were beaten
And centuries of utter domination were challenged and overturned
The wealth that for so long had been stolen was being returned.

"As the meeting progressed, Father Sun was brought from the lockup and made to stand before the crowd. One after another his own parishioners accused him to his face.

'You preach suffering and hardship for the people' shouted Cheng-k'uan. 'You say the poor should eat plain food and endure cold, never get angry and never do bad things. Then why should you eat meat and white flour every day? And if the taste doesn't suit you, you order the cook to make it over again. And every night you sleep with the nuns. It's suffering and virtue for others but for yourself it is comfort and sin.'

Father Sun did not deign to answer this. He stood before them defiantly and kept his mouth shut.

'And as for the mass,' continued Cheng k'uan. "If anyone gave you a lot of money, you said it for him very quickly. If anyone gave you a little money you said did the mass after awhile. But if anyone had no money at all, there was no mass at all either. Is your mass a service to the people or is it just a business to earn some money?'

This brought the peasant Hsiao-su to his feet. 'You told us a lot of lies,' he said, walking straight up to the priest and shaking his fist in his face. 'You said that no one must bite the wafer you handed out. You said that if we bit it with our teeth blood would flow it and we would be punished by god. But I didn't believe it. One morning I took the wafer to the privy behind the church and I broke it with my teeth and crumbled it up. I found nothing but wheat flour. Not a drop of blood flowed out of it. Your words are nothing but lies. All you do is deceive people.'

'That's right, all you do is deceive,' said Cheng k'uang, joining Hsaio-su in front of the priest. 'The Carry-On Society is supposed to help people, but the best land is farmed by the head of the Society and the landlord Fan Pu-tzu. When the Japanese came, we all asked for shelter in the church. You found room for the landlords, but we poor Catholics could only wander about the yard until we were finally driven back into the street. And of everything we brought to you for protection, you took 20 percent. Is that the way you help people?'

'Help people? Help people? They never help people,' said Wang Ch'eng-yu. 'I have been a Catholic all my life and all I ever got for it was beatings.' The words poured from him in a torrent as he told of how his little sister was taken into the orphanage and how he himself was beaten for joining the Buddhist rites. 'When the Japanese came I was a match peddler,' he sobbed. 'I was afraid they would seize my stock. I brought 70 boxes of matches to the church for safe-keeping. Society Chairman Wang put them in a drawer, but three days later wheen I returned there were only three boxes left. When I asked him what became of the matches he said 'better ask the drawer.' When I asked him again, he beat me up.'"

"Men revolted in earlier ages too,
There's nothing rare about such an ado,
Strange things pass on earth, as in the sky,
How else can the Heavenly Dog eat the moon on high?
In it goes at one side, and out it pop again,
Brightly as ever the moon shines then,
It's always the good who come out on top,
The devil's disciples soon have to stop" (landlord Ts'ui)

For as long as anyone in Long Bow remembered the women were bought and sold
They were valuable as wives and workers and mothers until they got too old
They were subject to the tyranny and beatings of landlords, husbands and older women of the house
And the indignities they bore every day and every night were just part of life in the town

But revolution has a way of shaking the very ground beneath our shoes
And as the landlords and the rich would face a reckoning, so the fathers and husbands would too
The new women’s association was created to give voice to long-standing injustice
And a growing number of women in longbow would periodically meet to discuss this

But the men didn’t like it, and one evening Man-Ts'ang’s wife came home from a meeting
And Man-Ts'ang said “I’ll teach you to stay home, I’ll mend your rascal ways” as he delivered a beating
But Man-Ts'ang’s wife wasn’t cowed and she woke up the very next day and went to the women’s association
And denounced Man-Ts'ang and asked the women for support, so they amassed the women of the village to demand Man-Ts'ang’s explanation

Man-Ts'ang was arrogant and defiant and stood behind his actions
He said women only go to meetings to get away from their husbands and have a free hand for flirtation and seduction
At this the women lost their tempers and began beating Man-Ts'ang black and blue
They said “beat her will you? Beat her and slander us all? Well this will teach you”

Man-Ts'ang was punched and kicked and scratched and pummeled until he could hardly breathe
Gasping for air, he solemnly promised that never again would his wife be beaten
And they allowed him to stand and go and but made it known this was his only warning
And Man-Ts'ang’s wife was no longer called Man-Ts'ang’s wife but forever after used her own name Ch'eng Ai-lien

And in some cases the women didn’t need to beat the men in this way
Sometimes they sent delegations to go to the peasant husbands and to them explain
That everything was changing and they were settling accounts and men and women together
Needed to put their combined energy and strength and industry into building a new long bow for the better

"One night in April, T'ien-ming, the former underground worker now in charge of the public security, and Kuei-ts'ai, the vice-leader of the village, stood guard together on the road that led south out of Long Bow toward the walled town of Changchih. Under the soft light of a full moon they walked up and down in silence. Several times during the first hour, T'ien-ming slowed down his pace and turned toward Kuei-ts'ai as if prepared to say something, but apparently he thought better of it and walked on briskly as before. Finally, he did speak.

'Comrade,' he said, looking Kuei-ts'ai straight in the eye. 'In regard to the Eighth Route Army, what are your thoughts?'

Kuei-ts'ai was a little taken aback.

'What are my thoughts?' he exclaimed, hoisting his rifle onto his other shoulder. 'What should my thoughts be? In the past I had nothing. I had an empty bowl. Now I have fanshened. Everything I have, the Eighth Route Army gave to me. Wherever the Eighth Route Army goes, I will follow.'

'And the Communist Party?' asked T'ien-ming.

'The Communist Party?' said Kuei-ts'ai, drawing his heavy brows together so that a crease ran up the middle of his forehead. 'The Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army - it's all the same, isn't it?'

'No, not exactly,' said T'ien-ming. 'The Communist Party organized the army. In the army there are Communist Party members. The Communist Party directs the army, but there are many soldiers in the army who are not in the Communist Party. And it is the Communist Party, not the Eighth Route Army, that leads us in the battle against the landlords. It is the Communist Party that leads our fanshen.'

'I understand,' said Kuei-ts'ai, still not too clear as to what the Communist Party was.

'If only we follow the Communist Party the working people will certainly win victory. We will overthrow the old capital holders and we will become masters of the house,' said T'ien-ming starting to walk again, this time very slowly.

'Where is the party then?' asked Kuei-ts'ai. 'I want to see it.'

'It's far away but there are party members in the army and also in the countryside. I too would like to see the party. Will you go with me to find it?'

'Yes' answered Kuei-ts'ai without a moment's hesitation. 'Let's go as soon as possible.'

After that, every time Kuei-ts'ai found T'ien-ming alone, he asked him when they would start out, but T'ien-ming put him off several times. Finally, T'ien-ming said 'why are you so anxious? Don't you know it is a long journey, and a very difficult and dangerous one?'

'Never mind how difficult or dangerous it is,' said Kuei-ts'ai impatiently. 'You say the Communist Party leads us to fanshen. There is no other way out for us except with the Communist Party, so let's go find it.'

'Think it over some more,' said T'ien-ming. 'Are you willing to risk your life for the party? In the future there will be many dangers, many hardhips. You must be willing to sacrifice even your life, maybe ever the safety of your family.'

'I have already made up my mind,' said Kuei-ts'ai. 'Why do you keep talking about the dangers, as if we weren't in danger already?'

'In that case, your journey is over,' said T'ien-ming, smiling broadly. 'The party is right before your eyes. I am a member of the Communist Party.'"