Zhang Shuguang: The Life and Legacy of a Village Party Secretary
"Being alive doesn't have to be dazzling, but you must have your own color." This is a sentence written by Zhang Shuguang, village Party secretary of Chuanyan Village, Yinjiang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, Guizhou Province, before his death. In the golden autumn season, the rice harvest is abundant. Row upon row of houses with dark tiles and white walls stand amid lush forests swaying in the wind. Only now, beside the village ring road that is being paved, there is a new grave.
Counting from when he became village accountant in 1996, Zhang Shuguang had served as a village cadre for 20 consecutive years, including three consecutive terms as village Party secretary. On September 4, while helping a poor household along the roadbed of the hardened road connect electrical wiring for their dilapidated house renovation, he accidentally fell from a ladder and never woke up again.
Spending a lifetime building roads, finding every way to pull out the roots of poverty
Standing at the village committee location, one can just see the entirety of Chuanyan Village. In this rocky desertification area surrounded by mountains, there is a rare stretch of flatland for farming, and the village ring road under construction coils around the mountainside.
In 1989, Zhang Shuguang, having graduated from high school, gave up further studies because of his family's poverty and went south to Guangdong to work. When he returned home in 1996, under the guidance of former Party secretary Tian Ruzu, he became village accountant and submitted an application to join the Party.
If you want to get rich, build roads first. As early as the autumn of 1987, construction began on the road connecting to the village. Villagers pooled more than 30,000 yuan, and carrying loads on their shoulders and backs, they filled embankments, laid stones, and drilled blast holes together. By 1994, the road into the village was finally open.
In 1998, Zhang Shuguang set out to build an economic fruit forest industry belt. At that time, he obtained 50,000 southern apple seedlings, and the villagers all planted them, but due to the variety, sales became a problem, and they were instead discouraged.
Facing failure, Zhang Shuguang was more anxious than anyone, and specifically invited county agricultural technicians to diagnose the problem. In 2003, he again mobilized the villagers to plant pomelos and citrus, intercrop corn and peanuts, and develop pig farming, increasing each household's annual income by several thousand yuan.
But new problems emerged: the roads could not keep up with the pace of industrial development. Because they were built early, the roads were narrow and had never been hardened; crushed by large and small vehicles, the surface grew worse and worse. In 2004, despite a shortage of labor in the village, Zhang Shuguang led everyone to conjure a cement road into existence.
At that time, Zhang Shuguang had long been planning the village's development blueprint. In 2002, he explored every cave in the mountains and wrote a research report on cave development, which included a distribution map he had drawn by hand. For this reason, he suggested building a village ring road to connect several village groups and create a rural tourism site.
In the blink of an eye, seven or eight years passed, and this idea remained shelved. As roads connecting village groups and household paths sprang up, Zhang Shuguang knew the opportunity had come. In 2012, he began seeking funding from higher levels for hardening 4.7 km of the village ring road, running to the transportation bureau, land bureau, and other departments countless times. It was not until June of this year that this hardened road broke ground.
In the early stage, he coordinated a large amount of mass work involving land occupation, grave relocation, and house demolition. Tian Rufeng is a poor household in the village, with one earthen house and one pigsty; the road needed to pass behind her home, requiring the demolition of one corner. Zhang Shuguang discussed it with her: demolish the house first and move it inward, so that the road could be widened and the dilapidated house renovation funds could be used to rebuild a new home.
Under Zhang Shuguang's persuasion, Tian Rufeng agreed. The house was demolished, and she and her son rented a place outside. But just as the foundation for the new house had been dug, while helping her family connect the electrical wiring, Zhang Shuguang accidentally fell from the ladder and never woke up again.
The villagers remember his kindness and voluntarily help thresh the rice
Arriving at Zhang Shuguang's home, his 76-year-old father Zhang Yusong had just come back from the fields carrying pumpkins. After catching his breath, he said: "Early this morning, before I got out of bed, I heard the roar of rice threshing on the flat ground. When I got up to look, I realized someone was helping our family thresh rice."
Under the blazing sun, villager Tian Xianmei brought her two sons and, together with several other villagers who came voluntarily, went to Zhang Shuguang's rice paddy. Some swung sickles, some busied themselves beside the threshing machine, and some carried sack after sack of rice in baskets to the eaves of Zhang Shuguang's house.
"He did so many things for my family. No matter how busy the factory is, I'm harvesting his family's rice before I go back out," said Zhang Yuhong, Tian Xianmei's son, standing barefoot in the mud. "That day, when I heard something had happened to him, I flew from Wenzhou to Guiyang, then hired a private car to come back, and made it home before dark."
Zhang Yuhong, who works away from home year-round, has 3 children, all studying in town. After this year's floods, Zhang Shuguang rode his motorcycle through pouring rain to the school to pick up the village's left-behind children one by one and bring them home. "Not just picking them up and dropping them off. Sometimes applying for documents and school registration all required troubling him." Zhang Yuhong had only said a few words before choking up. "I feel terrible inside."
Sweat stuck rice husks to Zhang Yuhong's face. He did not bother to wipe them, and haltingly continued, telling how when he came home for Chinese New Year this year, Secretary Zhang had said to him: "I'll keep at it for 5 more years, and all of you working outside will want to come back."
Ren Mingjun, over 70 years old, did not go to the fields, but came to Secretary Zhang's house to sit for a while every day. "I'm old and can't help much, so I come to chat with his wife and comfort her when she cries." Only after talking did it become clear that when her second son had once fallen ill and was hospitalized in the county seat, she wanted to bring him home. There was no vehicle to pick him up then, so Zhang Shuguang found people to carry him. This year her third son had surgery again, and every time Zhang Shuguang helped process the medical insurance reimbursement...
She could not continue, tears streaming across her deeply wrinkled face. "He was the backbone of this village. When the sky was falling, he held it up..." In the eyes of many villagers like Ren Mingjun, Zhang Shuguang was like an old ox that never knew fatigue, and now everyone no longer knows whom to turn to.
"The name Chuanyan Village doesn't sound good. It should be changed to Xingfu Village." Village director Wang Zhenghong, looking haggard, said while sitting on a stool that Shuguang had always had this wish while alive. He introduced that the whole village has 226 households and 935 people, including 94 poor households and 226 poor people.
In Zhang Shuguang's home are 4 motorcycles ridden to pieces, and certificates of honor are piled on the cabinet. Wang Zhenghong carried them out and spread them across an entire table: 7 collective awards and 21 individual awards in total!
"2016 is the year our village exits poverty and implements infrastructure. I feel the heavy responsibility and the glorious mission. Through carrying out 'Two Studies, One Action' education, the key lies in doing." Opening Zhang Shuguang's work notebook from this year, it says inside.
Cadres are moved and help him fulfill his wish
At noon, sitting in the shade of the camphor tree in the courtyard, Zhang Yusong pulled out a notebook from a pile and read aloud: Do not let official business be delayed in my hands, do not let mistakes happen in my hands, do not let work be interrupted in my hands, do not let the people handling matters be neglected in my hands, do not let various policies be affected in my hands...