Guangfu took a gulp of beer, fixing his eyes on me as he spoke.
Guangfu had reason to be regretful, of course. It was just those two short days that changed the fates of Ma Wenjie and his hundred or so followers, and that changed Guangfu's fate, too. Instead of finding the Communists, Wang Laoxuan was later introduced at Yueyang by the boss of a theater troupe to the aide-de-camp of a GMD Section B warlord. The Section B warlord offered Ma Wenjie amnesty and enlistment, for which arrangements began at that meeting.
By this time, it was nearing the end of 1948, exactly when the GMD's political power was beginning to collapse completely in the Mainland- but country-dwellers cut off by winter conditions didn't know this. I'd guess that the Section B warlord knew then that the game was already up, that amnesties and weapon handovers were happening everywhere, but wanted to make things just a little more stressful and difficult for the Communist Army as it prepared to head south. Or, as historical documents later made clear, it so happened that the Hunan Provincial Government Army belonged at the time to Section H of the GMD, between whom and Section B there was a rift; strife was both open and covert, but the friction never ceased. Section B was trying to enlist itinerant bandits on Section H's territory to increase their own power and contain Section H. Either way, the amnesty and generous support offered by Section B pleasantly surprised Bandit Ma, who, as a simple country bumpkin, was overjoyed to receive a certificate of appointment from his opposite number, as well as eighty guns and the assurance of a period of peace on both banks of the Luo River. He knew nothing of the factional struggle within the GMD, nor of the motives of the Section B commanding officer (even now, we can't be entirely sure of all this); he just thought that as long as they wore a uniform they were government troops, that they were to be feared by him, that he should sue for peace from them.
When he and his followers went out drinking to celebrate, he didn't know that the very step he had taken would drag him down into hell.
On the dry, exposed sandbank of the Luo River, 1948 slipped by, quietly bringing with it a swathe of enormous historical changes to the south. But for Bandit Ma and his followers, the 1948 they spent in their isolated, mountainous area was very different from the 1948 that appears in the official documents of the GMD Section B or Section H warlords. And again, when in later years the red county militia recalled a 1948 of overwhelming victory for the revolution, in which they launched a sudden machine-gun assault on Bandit Ma's few dozen "failed insurgents," their 1948 was very different from the 1948 that passed in Bandit Ma's isolated, mountainous area.
This is a dislocation of time.
*Daoist Ritual
: The bandits on either side of the Luo River each did things their own way. In relative terms, though, Bandit Ma stood out as the figure of greatest authority amongst these gangs: not only because his soldiers and horses were tough and strong, but also because he possessed mystical powers. He was a believer in the Blue Teachings, a sect of popular Daoism, and every day he'd perform the Daoist rituals, pay reverence at the incense table to the bodisattva Guanyin, make his subordinates sit cross-legged on mats and mumble incantations. Sitting like this for long periods would, apparently, pacify your heart, purify your spirit, deepen your understanding of the Dao, increase your strength. It was sitting like this that had cured him of his ten-year-long coughing trouble. And beyond this, there were regulations for sitting and standing wherever his cohort of followers found themselves; they'd abstain from food and drink for two days, then run, as if on winged feet, onto the battlefield to fight. Some told tales more incredible still of their fighting, that with their own eyes they'd seen them not bleed when cut, their flag resist piercing by bullets-all of which, of course, was thanks to their sitting on mats. There was one more special thing about Bandit Ma's troops: they never wore shoes while on the march or in battle, and were exceptionally fleet of foot when climbing mountains or fleeing across ravines; nothing-neither sharp rocks nor iron nails-could hurt their feet. Ordinary people called them the "Barefoot Army" and said that every evening they had to chant the secret spells and incantations of the Thirteen Guanbao spirits before perfecting such art. This, Guangfu later told me, was exaggeration, of course. They went barefoot simply in order to be quicker on their feet: paper-mulberry juice and tung sapling were ground together into a paste, spread over the sole of the foot, reapplied after hardening and repeated several times over, until a crust tougher than the sole of any shoe had formed on the sole of the foot; his father had learnt this technique from the Miao people of Xiangxi, while traveling around in the army.
People marveled at this barefoot army. Wherever it went, there would be children or old women wanting to study their Daoist rituals and how to sit on mats. Naturally, some didn't sit in the right way and went insane after walking over fire or going into a trance. Bandit Ma urged ordinary people not to study from him, not to practice Daoism casually.
He said that a clear mind and temperate spirit were the most important elements in practicing Daoism, that you should follow the way of righteousness. At that time, grain was in critically short supply and everywhere gang members were turning to thievery. As soon as Ma Wenjie entered the city, he was waylaid by both men and women, young and old, all crying and complaining about injustices; some had had their money stolen, some had had their women stolen, and all looked to Boss Ma for justice.
In Changle, Ma Wenjie convened a meeting of the ringleaders of each gang; he'd let movable property go, he said, but human booty should be released, and grain and oxen had to be returned. When all the gang members saw this solitary figure tramp up in straw sandals to convene the meeting, without even a single soldier as bodyguard, not even a gun or a bullet on him, they were immediately struck by his aura of overpowering righteousness and had lost a good third of their nerve even before he'd started to speak. Some just stared until their vision clouded over, until a halo of white light appeared above his head, a purple cloud floating on top of that. Soon, everyone was nodding like idiots. Everyone sat at one table to drink, carved off a corner of the table as a pledge, then parted company and went home to enforce the agreement.
Bandit Ma also went by the name of Clear-Sky Ma. People said that Bandit Ma's troops asked for grain, not money, and didn't take anything away after they'd eaten their fill. In other words, wherever they went his followers were allowed to ask for food from ordinary people when they were hungry, but only for one meal; anything else they seized was viewed as harassment of the populace and would be punished once discovered. Once, having rubbed handfuls of tobacco ashes over their faces to avoid being recognized, two of his followers broke into the house of the head of the county middle school at night and robbed the head teacher's wife of two gold bracelets from around her wrist. A quick-thinking housekeeper in the head teacher's household scattered outside the threshold a bowl of wood ashes in which they left their footprints as they left; the next day, she asked Bandit Ma over to inspect the scene. Returning to examine soles of feet, Bandit Ma very quickly uncovered the two robber bandits and immediately imprisoned them in a cage. Both were locked in the metal cage for three days, their collarbones threaded through with metal wire, as an example to all, during which time the holes in their flesh where the wire had passed through rotted and began to smell foul. After this, one was burned alive, his body blazing yellow smoke, his skin crackling noisily. The other, who hadn't been the ringleader, received more lenient treatment: he was stabbed to death with a dagger, his corpse left intact-the daggers went straight in and out, without twisting. The blood spurted several feet high out of the hole the dagger made, dyeing red a large expanse of plaster wall nearby.
The two dead wrong-doers never begged for mercy, never cried out; not even a single groan.
That really was something! No one who witnessed it failed to be moved to admiration.
Even when the soldiers under Bandit Ma were avaricious, they were unflinchingly avaricious, and because of this, other gangs couldn't help viewing them diff
erently.
From that time on, other gangs would never make trouble on whichever road Bandit Ma's soldiers took. If they guarded goods in transit, they wouldn't carry any arms, just walk alongside empty-handed. This was called "the guard of righteousness." When they came across members of other gangs, they'd exchange handshakes, mention the great name of Ma Wenjie, throwing in a bit of nomadic vernacular as they went, and thus turn bad luck into good, continuing peacefully on their way. Sometimes, people would be kind enough to leave food, to make a gift of a leg of beef or a couple of bottles of good wine, to establish friendship.
*On the Take
: The Modern Chinese Dictionary of Dialects (Jiangsu Educational Press, 1993) defines this term as follows: 1. Petty thievery: in times of famine or flight from armies, people go on the take in abandoned cities.
2. Pulling a fast one: he's a sharp one, don't think about going on the take with him (don't think about pulling a fast one on him). Also: sponging off people is done overtly, while going on the take is a covert activity.
For Maqiao people, this term also implied a sense of something hugely diverting or enjoyable. It was specifically used in reference to the year Bandit Ma's troops drove Donkey Peng of GMD Section H out of town; as they broke into the county capital of Pingjiang, they were accompanied by a throng of more than ten thousand peasants drawn from a dozen or so of the surrounding villages in the Luo region, who ruthlessly set about finding themselves fortunes. Some stole salt, some stole rice, some put on something like a dozen women's gowns at once, ballooning ludicrously, overheating so much their faces ran with sweat. There were others who weren't so lucky and who didn't get a thing, save for a bucket or a wooden door they managed to carry off home. Benyi's dad, Ma Ziyuan, did quite the most incredible thing of all, hauling one hundred tiles out of the city, which exhausted him so much that, gasping for breath, he lagged behind everyone else. His fellow villagers laughed at how "awakened" he was: why didn't he haul a load of mud back while he was about it? Hadn't he seen there was mud at home? His family had no lack of salt or rice, nor clothes, he said complacently; all he needed was a few dozen tiles to finish off the pigsty. These fine Maozhou tiles he'd spotted were just the thing!
He didn't feel he'd lost out in the slightest.
He knew even less about those things they called electric lamps. Some young men had cut down light bulbs in the city, intending to take them back to hang on the roof beams of their own houses; this handy little thing lit up at night, they said, didn't go dark even when the wind blew. Totally mad, Ma Ziyuan thought they were; there was no way such a treasure could possibly exist the world over.
Going "on the take" was later listed as one of Ma Wenjie's "crimes." He hadn't foreseen that so many would follow him into the city, and in order to bring the chaos under control he ordered his followers to suppress the looters. Among those wounded was Benyi's dad: because the tiles on his shoulder were too heavy, he was right at the back of those leaving the city and the soldiers caught up with him.
Before he'd had time to turn round, he felt a cold wind whistle past him and half his head, including one eye and one ear, flew into the air, dispatched in the wake of a silver-white sword blade. Propped up by his shoulders, the remaining half bounced along for another ten steps or so. His body and limbs flailed and his carrying pole bobbed up and down until, only quite some while later, his body finally lay dejectedly prostrate. His assassin, standing beside him, was shocked speechless for some time.
When the corpse was being cleaned, Maqiao's elders said, someone luckily noticed that Benyi's dad's foot was still stirring, and after giving it a rub discovered his hand was still warm and there was still a puff of life coming from his mouth. When Ma Wenjie came over and recognized an acquaintance from his own village, he hurriedly found a doctor to save him, who mixed up a bowl of paste, applied it to the wound, and stopped the bleeding, as if tightly sealing the mouth of an earthen jar. The doctor also poured a little rice broth into his mouth, and seeing that, after a short wait, the rice soup had actually been swallowed down, pronounced, "he won't die."
After Benyi's dad was sent back to Maqiao, he lived another five or so years; although he only had half a head left and couldn't work in the fields or say anything, he could still sit under the eaves making grass shoes and chopping up pig fodder.
The man with half a head never went where there were a lot of people, so as to avoid frightening everybody, in particular to avoid frightening children. Hiding away in his house all day, he got a bit restless, so he had to find things to do. And so, in this way, he managed to get done more than most normal people.
I find all this very hard to believe, and the idea of a man with half a head bustling around everywhere is even more fantastic, but this was how all the old people told it, insisting they'd all worn straw sandals sewn by Benyi's half-headed old dad. I just let them talk on.
*Bandit Ma (continued)
: One rainy evening, a staff member from the Liberation Army sent out as an advance guard met with County Leader Ma Wenjie under an oil lamp, explained to him the national situation and Communist Party policy, and urged him to give up his rebellion. Ma Wenjie demonstrated his consent, accepted the post of deputy director of the "Advisory Committee," and agreed to begin persuading the armies of the enemy, the puppet regime, and every gang member to submit. Ma Wenjie had been County Leader for a few months but had never sat in office; he didn't even know where his office was. He'd never received any salary, didn't even know where he should go to receive his salary. He still liked wearing straw sandals; he could write a little but didn't have any great fondness for writing letters: whenever he dispatched messengers to the gangs, he'd make them carry an arrow-shaped bamboo token with three of his blood-red fingerprints on the top as guarantee. The gang members usually recognized his fingerprints and complied with his orders. Generally speaking, wherever the fingerprints went, guns would be handed over. The Baima Group from Baini Bow handed over thirty-odd great swords, which were carried clatteringly all the way to the county seat.
Little did Ma Wenjie know that Baima Group's Big Brother "Dragon's Head," whom he himself had persuaded to surrender, would find himself in prison two months later, and in chains.
Astounded, he went looking for the County Military Team-leader, whom he subjected to a spluttering interrogation, only to be rendered speechless when the man brought out a great heap of irrefutable evidence drawn from case investigations. He discovered that the Baima Group had in fact only feigned surrender, while secretly storing up guns and gunpowder, and preparing to flee. Then there was a Xu Someone, whom he'd also persuaded to surrender, who had gallons of blood on his hands, who'd tyrannized the local area, raped countless local girls. Finally, his own chief of staff was interrogated by the new regime and discovered to be a military spy sent in by the GMD on a secret mission to control Ma Wenjie, or even to carry out assassinations. Should someone like this just be set free to operate free and undisturbed outside the law?
Ma Wenjie was in a cold sweat, incapable of doing anything except nod continuously.
The streets were plastered with slogans demanding the suppression of counterrevolutionaries. The peasants on the outskirts of the city, it was said, were sending grass ropes into the county seat, in preparation for tying people up. Every day, it was said, people were being dragged out of the county prison to be shot; large cells, containing several dozen men, could be emptied in a night, without anyone knowing whether they'd been sent elsewhere or killed. Rumors both true and false finally converged on Ma Wenjie himself: that his "Advisory Committee" was a hotbed of phoney surrenderers and that he was the ringleader of the "Advisory Gang." He waited for his superiors to send people to seize him, waited several days without anything happening; quite the opposite, his superiors behaved entirely as usual, inviting him to come to meetings here and there, sending someone over with his khaki Liberation Army uniform. He wore this uniform when he went out into the streets; when people who knew him saw how anxi
ous he looked, they kept to the other side of the road, gave him a wide berth.
It's hard to give a clear account of how things worked out, partly because there were so few parties involved and because they weren't willing to talk, but also because what little the parties involved did manage to say was so dubious, in so many places, and differed so enormously from one version to the next. Some said that Bandit Ma's old enemy Donkey Peng had also surrendered and gotten himself an official position higher than Bandit Ma's. Keen to make a show of loyalty to the new regime, Peng found the easiest method was to denounce lots of people for having falsely surrendered. There were also those who said that Section B and Section H in the GMD had never gotten along; when the Japanese devils had been there, each had played the Japanese against their opponent; now that the CCP had come, they were making use of the CCP to elbow out their adversaries. Seeing as Section B had used Bandit Ma to contain the H section, Section H could, of course, make use of the CCP to deal with Bandit Ma. How could Bandit Ma, a local yokel, possibly keep up with all these underhanded dealings and secret summonses?
Of course, there were also those who said this wasn't how things were. They believed that a lot of bandits only surrendered half-heartedly, that Bandit Ma was an incorrigible brigand and had secretly planned several defections and rebellions, that he was guilty of the most heinous crimes. It was only because he was already dead that the government later forgave him his past.
I have no way of distinguishing the true from the false amongst these accounts, so I'll have to sidestep them all and just tell briefly how the story ended. I can't necessarily even give a proper account of how it ended, all I can do is try my best to piece together the fragmented sources available. It would probably have been one day a couple of months later, when Ma Wenjie was on his way back home from a meeting at the prefectural commissioner's office, and he heard a terrible commotion of weeping coming from inside his house. When he pushed open the door, he was confronted by a gang of women who threw themselves upon him at this very same instant, their eyes glittering with tears, their mouths open wide. The sound of crying came to an abrupt halt. But it stopped only for a moment, before violently re-erupting. The few children present followed suit, their faces twisting with sobs.
Shaogong, han - A Dictionary of Maqiao.html Page 15
