Honghu
Encyclopedia
Honghu is a county-level city in the municipal region of Jingzhou
, in central China's Hubei
province. The city lies on the left bank of the Yangzi River, across from Hunan
Province and Xianning
, Hubei. It is named after the adjacent Honghu Lake, which since ancient times has periodically flooded (洪, hong).
The traditional Chinese holiday Duanwu Jie (端午节, Dragon Boat Festival
), celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, features boat races which are run on Honghu Lake.
By means of its famous lake, Honghu City produces forty kinds of fish and an abundance of plants, such as lotus, reed and a type of black algae.
As of 2000, Honghu City had a population of 335,618 or more people.
. Westerners know it for New Zealand communist Rewi Alley
's relief work and Gung-ho (共合, Gonghe) co-operative movement.
stronghold called the Hunan-Western Hubei Revolutionary Base Area (湘鄂西革命根据地, Xiang-Exi Geming Genjudi, also called the Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet, 湘鄂西苏维埃, Xiang-Exi Suweiai). The Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet was actually a collection of several isolated bases linked together by underground and guerrilla activities. The Honghu Base, the largest, was itself the object of four Encirclement Campaigns
, the last of which was strategised as one stage of the broadly successful Encirclement Campaign against Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet
.
The base area or soviet was under the leadership of communist general (later Field Marshal
) He Long
through most of its existence, and defended by his Second Army Group. Finally crushed by Chiang Kai-shek
's Chinese Army and various allied warlord forces
, co-ordinated in his Encirclement Campaigns
, the Soviet and its military force retreated westward to form the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou revolutionary base area, which in October 1934 refuged the retreating troops of the Sixth Army Group. Folding the men of the Sixth into his ranks, He Long formed the Second Front Red Army which was to take its own route on the Long March
.
carried out flood relief in Honghu 1932. Famous for the Gung Ho Cooperative movement that he founded during the Second Sino-Japanese War
(World War Two), Alley established half a dozen small-scale industrial co-operatives in Honghu under the revamped Gung-ho movement he led in the 1980s.
had a huge flood that only occurred once a century, and in order to save major cities including Wuhan
, Honghu was designated as the flooded area, resulting in nearly a million local residents becoming refugees after the entire county was flooded. As the flood subsided and refugees returned to begin rebuilding, another political disaster struck the county that was already devastated by the flood: on May 5, 1955, Mao Zedong
personally claimed that the time was critical for collectivization, and ordered the immediate start of collectivization, which must be completed within three years.
The local communist party secretary Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉)(1922 - October 8, 2002) was assigned to the area in 1955 and witnessed the devastation first hand. Li strongly opposed Mao's foolish policy and openly claimed that there must be pre-requisit conditions that must be met before collectivization and Honghu had not met any of them. Instead Li convinced his colleagues to adopt a totally different economic policy that was completely against Mao's wish - a de facto market economy (for political reasons the term could not be mentioned).
This proved to be a great success: not only the county was fully recovered from the total devastation within a year, the average industrial annual growth was 17.7% and average agricultural annual growth was 11.3%. In the era where most Chinese peasants were only able to eat meat once a year during the Chinese new year, the local peasantry students at all schools in Honghu county were guaranteed a meal of chicken, a meal of fish, and a meal of meat every week. However, the good times would not last long : Li and his colleagues as well as the local population would eventually pay a heavy price for going against Mao's will. Li, keenly aware of this, asked local populace to prepare by stocking grains and other foods at their homes.
, the communist party apparatus at prefecture level issued order on July 4, 1958 to produce forty thousand tons of steel, thirty-six thousand tons of iron, and over half a million people were mobilized for this effort. Another three thousand were mobilized to logging in order to meet the fuel demand of making steel and iron. Honghu, a county belong to the prefecture could be no exception and Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉)'s own son, Mr. Li Shutang (李树棠), a student at the time, was among those mobilized. After witnessing the furnance hastily built at his son's school, which was completely useless but still functioned due to the political reason, Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) only muttered one sentence:"This is a joke!", but he and his colleagues were powerless to stop the foolish policy that was issued by the Chinese paramount leader Mao Zedong
. Once his son Li Shutang (李树棠) excitedly told him that there average yield of a single hactre of rice reached 100 tons, Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) angrily shut his son up by telling the truth: that was the total production of twenty hactres of rice put into one, the propaganda had lied.
The consequence of Mao's distratrous policy soon appeared: since June, 1959, according to official records of the Chinese government, the death of local prefecture numbered 115,844 in 1960, which was more than the double of the average annual death of 50,000. The price at Honghu county sky rocketed and the number of people becoming ill due to starvation drastically increased. Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) and his colleague decided to save the local population totaling more than half a million from starvation, which ultimately would doom their fates.
prefecture forced the local cadres at prefecture level to gather as much grains as possible, and Honghu county, the only county in the prefecture without death caused by starvation, became their only target. The local communist party secretary of Jingzhou prefecture, Xue Tan (薛坦), asked Li Jinyu (李金玉) to leave only 13.5 kg of grains of monthly rations for each resident of Honghu, and give out the rest.
Li refused, arguing that it would at least take 15 kg of monthly ration to prevent death resulting from starvation. After much argument without any satisfactory result, Li decided to go against his superior's order and allow the local populace to have enough to eat. As a result, in an era when all other counties suffered tens of thousands of starvation deaths, Honghu county did not loose a single person to starvation, and the local population of Honghu county actually increased by 15.52‰ (or 1.552%).
, the local cadres were persecuted. In October, 1964, the communist apparatus at the Jingzhou
prefecture level decided that the communist organization of Honghu county was completely "rotten" and Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) and his colleagues were struggled in public trials in front of ten thousand people. In April, 1965, the charge became much more serious, the local communists of Honghu county headed by Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) was accused of (though accurately) being reestablishing capitalism. In February, 1966, the local communists of Honghu county were accused of establishing independent kingdoms, forming reactionary anti-communism
revisionist group, a serious political crime that was punishable by death. Finally, in 1966, a total of 341 cadres of Honghu county, or 90% of the county administrators and local communists in charge, including communist party scretary Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉), first deputy communist party scretary Mr. Xu Wei (徐伟), deputy communist party scretaries Han Yaohui (韩耀辉), Ma Xiangkui (马香魁), Gu Chengqi (辜呈清, also serving as Honghu County chief at the time) and Sun Keti (孙克惕, also serving as the deputy Honghu County chief at the time) were all arrested and sent directly to labor camps without trials or any other legal proceedings, and everyone received at least ten years jail terms, with Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) had the longest, a fifteen-year term. The persecution had such devastation on those suffered that many, including the former deputy communist party scretary Mr. Xu Wei (徐伟) refused to be interviewed about the experience, even in the 2000s, more than three decades later. The subject remain a taboo in official documents by the Chinese government until this day, but those local populace who survived the massive famine thanks to what Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) had done would remember him. After Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) had died on October 8, 2002, many of those who had experienced the famine went to his funeral to honor him, including many who could not go but insisted on being carried to the funeral.
" (洪湖赤卫队) which was based on a true story about the Red Army
and its struggle with the Kuomintang
(KMT) in the Chinese Civil War
.
A synopsis of this story which happened on Lake Honghu:
Jingzhou
Jingzhou is a prefecture-level city in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. The city is located on the banks of the Yangtze River.Its population is 5,691,707 at the 2010 census whom 1,154,086 in the built up area made of 3 urban districts.-Geography:Jingzhou occupies an area of...
, in central China's Hubei
Hubei
' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...
province. The city lies on the left bank of the Yangzi River, across from Hunan
Hunan
' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...
Province and Xianning
Xianning
Xianning is a prefecture-level city in China's Hubei province. It is known as the "City of Osmanthus".-Geography and climate:Xianning is located in southeastern Hubei province, just south of Wuhan, between the southern bank of the Yangtze River in the north and the Mufu Mountains in the south. It...
, Hubei. It is named after the adjacent Honghu Lake, which since ancient times has periodically flooded (洪, hong).
The traditional Chinese holiday Duanwu Jie (端午节, Dragon Boat Festival
Dragon Boat Festival
Duanwu Festival, also known as Dragon Boat Festival and the Double Fifth, is a traditional and statutory holiday originating in China and associated with a number of East Asian and Southeast Asian societies...
), celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, features boat races which are run on Honghu Lake.
By means of its famous lake, Honghu City produces forty kinds of fish and an abundance of plants, such as lotus, reed and a type of black algae.
As of 2000, Honghu City had a population of 335,618 or more people.
Revolutionary history
Honghu is celebrated as an important supporter of the Communist side during last century's Chinese Civil WarChinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. Westerners know it for New Zealand communist Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley, 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, QSO, , was a New Zealand-born writer, educator, social reformer, potter, and member of the Communist Party of China....
's relief work and Gung-ho (共合, Gonghe) co-operative movement.
Civil War
Honghu and other regions around its lake were part of an important communistCommunist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
stronghold called the Hunan-Western Hubei Revolutionary Base Area (湘鄂西革命根据地, Xiang-Exi Geming Genjudi, also called the Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet, 湘鄂西苏维埃, Xiang-Exi Suweiai). The Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet was actually a collection of several isolated bases linked together by underground and guerrilla activities. The Honghu Base, the largest, was itself the object of four Encirclement Campaigns
Encirclement Campaigns
Encirclement Campaigns is a term used to describe several different campaigns launched by forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government against forces of the Communist Party of China during the Chinese Civil War. The campaigns were launched between the late 1920s to the mid-1930s with the goal of...
, the last of which was strategised as one stage of the broadly successful Encirclement Campaign against Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet
Encirclement Campaign against Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet
The Encirclement Campaign against Hunan – western Hubei Soviet was an encirclement campaign launched by the Chinese Nationalist Government that was intended to destroy communist Hunan – western Hubei Soviet and its Chinese Red Army in the local region...
.
The base area or soviet was under the leadership of communist general (later Field Marshal
Field Marshal
Field Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...
) He Long
He Long
He Long was a Chinese military leader. He rose to the rank of Marshal and Vice Premier after the founding of the People's Republic of China.-Early life:He Long was a member of the Tujia ethnic group...
through most of its existence, and defended by his Second Army Group. Finally crushed by Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
's Chinese Army and various allied warlord forces
Warlord era
The Chinese Warlord Era was the period in the history of the Republic of China, from 1916 to 1928, when the country was divided among military cliques, a division that continued until the fall of the Nationalist government in the mainland China regions of Sichuan, Shanxi, Qinghai, Ningxia,...
, co-ordinated in his Encirclement Campaigns
Encirclement Campaigns
Encirclement Campaigns is a term used to describe several different campaigns launched by forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government against forces of the Communist Party of China during the Chinese Civil War. The campaigns were launched between the late 1920s to the mid-1930s with the goal of...
, the Soviet and its military force retreated westward to form the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou revolutionary base area, which in October 1934 refuged the retreating troops of the Sixth Army Group. Folding the men of the Sixth into his ranks, He Long formed the Second Front Red Army which was to take its own route on the Long March
Long March (disambiguation)
The Long March may refer to:* Long March, a massive military retreat undertaken in 1934 by the Red Armies of the Communist Party of China** the route on that retreat taken by the First Front Red Army with the CPC central leadership...
.
Gong-ho
Rewi AlleyRewi Alley
Rewi Alley, 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, QSO, , was a New Zealand-born writer, educator, social reformer, potter, and member of the Communist Party of China....
carried out flood relief in Honghu 1932. Famous for the Gung Ho Cooperative movement that he founded during the Second Sino-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
(World War Two), Alley established half a dozen small-scale industrial co-operatives in Honghu under the revamped Gung-ho movement he led in the 1980s.
Market Economy in the 1950s
In 1954, Yangtze RiverYangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
had a huge flood that only occurred once a century, and in order to save major cities including Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
, Honghu was designated as the flooded area, resulting in nearly a million local residents becoming refugees after the entire county was flooded. As the flood subsided and refugees returned to begin rebuilding, another political disaster struck the county that was already devastated by the flood: on May 5, 1955, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
personally claimed that the time was critical for collectivization, and ordered the immediate start of collectivization, which must be completed within three years.
The local communist party secretary Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉)(1922 - October 8, 2002) was assigned to the area in 1955 and witnessed the devastation first hand. Li strongly opposed Mao's foolish policy and openly claimed that there must be pre-requisit conditions that must be met before collectivization and Honghu had not met any of them. Instead Li convinced his colleagues to adopt a totally different economic policy that was completely against Mao's wish - a de facto market economy (for political reasons the term could not be mentioned).
This proved to be a great success: not only the county was fully recovered from the total devastation within a year, the average industrial annual growth was 17.7% and average agricultural annual growth was 11.3%. In the era where most Chinese peasants were only able to eat meat once a year during the Chinese new year, the local peasantry students at all schools in Honghu county were guaranteed a meal of chicken, a meal of fish, and a meal of meat every week. However, the good times would not last long : Li and his colleagues as well as the local population would eventually pay a heavy price for going against Mao's will. Li, keenly aware of this, asked local populace to prepare by stocking grains and other foods at their homes.
the Great Leap Forward
In accordance with Mao's Great Leap ForwardGreat Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...
, the communist party apparatus at prefecture level issued order on July 4, 1958 to produce forty thousand tons of steel, thirty-six thousand tons of iron, and over half a million people were mobilized for this effort. Another three thousand were mobilized to logging in order to meet the fuel demand of making steel and iron. Honghu, a county belong to the prefecture could be no exception and Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉)'s own son, Mr. Li Shutang (李树棠), a student at the time, was among those mobilized. After witnessing the furnance hastily built at his son's school, which was completely useless but still functioned due to the political reason, Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) only muttered one sentence:"This is a joke!", but he and his colleagues were powerless to stop the foolish policy that was issued by the Chinese paramount leader Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
. Once his son Li Shutang (李树棠) excitedly told him that there average yield of a single hactre of rice reached 100 tons, Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) angrily shut his son up by telling the truth: that was the total production of twenty hactres of rice put into one, the propaganda had lied.
The consequence of Mao's distratrous policy soon appeared: since June, 1959, according to official records of the Chinese government, the death of local prefecture numbered 115,844 in 1960, which was more than the double of the average annual death of 50,000. The price at Honghu county sky rocketed and the number of people becoming ill due to starvation drastically increased. Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) and his colleague decided to save the local population totaling more than half a million from starvation, which ultimately would doom their fates.
the Great Chinese Famine
Massive death in the local JingzhouJingzhou
Jingzhou is a prefecture-level city in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. The city is located on the banks of the Yangtze River.Its population is 5,691,707 at the 2010 census whom 1,154,086 in the built up area made of 3 urban districts.-Geography:Jingzhou occupies an area of...
prefecture forced the local cadres at prefecture level to gather as much grains as possible, and Honghu county, the only county in the prefecture without death caused by starvation, became their only target. The local communist party secretary of Jingzhou prefecture, Xue Tan (薛坦), asked Li Jinyu (李金玉) to leave only 13.5 kg of grains of monthly rations for each resident of Honghu, and give out the rest.
Li refused, arguing that it would at least take 15 kg of monthly ration to prevent death resulting from starvation. After much argument without any satisfactory result, Li decided to go against his superior's order and allow the local populace to have enough to eat. As a result, in an era when all other counties suffered tens of thousands of starvation deaths, Honghu county did not loose a single person to starvation, and the local population of Honghu county actually increased by 15.52‰ (or 1.552%).
Honghu county during Cultural Revolution
Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) and his colleagues soon paid their price for saving the local population. Even before the Cultural RevolutionCultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, the local cadres were persecuted. In October, 1964, the communist apparatus at the Jingzhou
Jingzhou
Jingzhou is a prefecture-level city in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. The city is located on the banks of the Yangtze River.Its population is 5,691,707 at the 2010 census whom 1,154,086 in the built up area made of 3 urban districts.-Geography:Jingzhou occupies an area of...
prefecture level decided that the communist organization of Honghu county was completely "rotten" and Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) and his colleagues were struggled in public trials in front of ten thousand people. In April, 1965, the charge became much more serious, the local communists of Honghu county headed by Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) was accused of (though accurately) being reestablishing capitalism. In February, 1966, the local communists of Honghu county were accused of establishing independent kingdoms, forming reactionary anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
revisionist group, a serious political crime that was punishable by death. Finally, in 1966, a total of 341 cadres of Honghu county, or 90% of the county administrators and local communists in charge, including communist party scretary Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉), first deputy communist party scretary Mr. Xu Wei (徐伟), deputy communist party scretaries Han Yaohui (韩耀辉), Ma Xiangkui (马香魁), Gu Chengqi (辜呈清, also serving as Honghu County chief at the time) and Sun Keti (孙克惕, also serving as the deputy Honghu County chief at the time) were all arrested and sent directly to labor camps without trials or any other legal proceedings, and everyone received at least ten years jail terms, with Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) had the longest, a fifteen-year term. The persecution had such devastation on those suffered that many, including the former deputy communist party scretary Mr. Xu Wei (徐伟) refused to be interviewed about the experience, even in the 2000s, more than three decades later. The subject remain a taboo in official documents by the Chinese government until this day, but those local populace who survived the massive famine thanks to what Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) had done would remember him. After Mr. Li Jinyu (李金玉) had died on October 8, 2002, many of those who had experienced the famine went to his funeral to honor him, including many who could not go but insisted on being carried to the funeral.
Revolutionary opera
The scenic Lake Honghu was the centerpiece of a revolutionary opera: "The Red Guards on Honghu LakeRed Guards on Honghu Lake
Red Guards on Honghu Lake is a Chinese modern opera in six acts. It was first performed in October 1956 in Wuhan, Hubei by the Hubei Experimental Theater Society . It is set in Honghu, Hubei. Its music was composed by Zhu Benhe, Zhang Jing'an, and Ouyang Qianshu.-Plot synopsis:The opera is based...
" (洪湖赤卫队) which was based on a true story about the Red Army
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...
and its struggle with the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
(KMT) in the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
.
A synopsis of this story which happened on Lake Honghu:
Noteworthy people born in Honghu
Further reading
- "Numerical simulations of nutrient transport changes in Honghu Lake Basin", Earth & Climate, Wednesday, August 20, 2008
- Jiaqi Yan, Kao Kao, Gao Gao, Danny Wynn Ye Kwok (Translator), "Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution", University of Hawaii Press, 1996. ISBN 0824816951. Cf. pp. 203, 546, 626.
- Han Zao Li, "The Water Lily Pond: A Village Girl's Journey in Maoist China", Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004. ISBN 0889204314. Cf. p.106.
- Mackerras, Colin, "The Performing Arts in Contemporary China", Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0415361621. Cf. p.109 on the Red Guards of Honghu Lake opera.
- Ye Sang, Sang Ye, Geremie Barmé, Miriam Lang, "China Candid: The People on the People's Republic", University of California Press, 2006. ISBN 0520245148. Cf. p.29 on Honghu.
External links
- The Chinanet network in JingzhouJingzhouJingzhou is a prefecture-level city in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. The city is located on the banks of the Yangtze River.Its population is 5,691,707 at the 2010 census whom 1,154,086 in the built up area made of 3 urban districts.-Geography:Jingzhou occupies an area of...
, Hubei province.