Dedicated to thousands of middle-aged and elderly friends who used to be "good children who can be educated".

(1) Chongxi

The Yangtze River Delta is a world-famous land of fish and rice. The surging river flows endlessly, carrying a huge amount of sediment from the upper and middle reaches, and precipitates and silts here before entering the sea, which has been growing day by day for hundreds of millions of years, giving this fertile soil to the descendants of China.

Jiang'an County, on the north wing of the delta, is surrounded by a network of rivers and rivers, and villages of all sizes are like stars. Millions of people grow rice, wheat, mulberry and silkworms, and it is a traditional agricultural county.

In the sixties of the last century, the population of the county was less than 10,000. A seven-mile long stone street in the form of a broken line runs through the east and west, and is called East, Middle and West Streets respectively. Dozens of alleys stretch along the street to both sides, and the skeleton of the small town resembles a large centipede.

The stone street is wide and paved with yellow-brown granite chips, and the potholes are uneven, but the soles of the pedestrians' shoes are polished and smooth. In the rainy season, it is wet like oil, and if you walk carefully, you will inevitably fall and fight.

The city is lined with blue-gray houses, interspersed with shops of various sizes. Every day, from early morning to dusk, the squeaking of wheelbarrows, the shouting of hawkers, and the crying and laughter of the courtyard of the deep house are combined into a sonata unique to the town.

The old city wall, which runs parallel to the stone street, has collapsed in many places. In the moat at the base of the city walls, the dark green water stenched. In 1958, the county people's committee mobilized the workers, residents, and primary and secondary school students to do voluntary labor, tear down the old city wall, fill in the moat, and build a gravel road on it, naming it "Renmin Road". The dusty unpaved asphalt pavement still attracts many institutions and businesses with its wide and bright surface, and its popularity gradually surpasses that of the cramped old stone street. The first two buildings in the county, the Great Hall and the County People's Committee, soon stood at both ends of Renmin Middle Road, and the south and north sides were like two giant lion statues, proud of the ancient city with blue and gray tones.

The campus of Jiang'an County Middle School is located in the northeast corner of the county. Before liberation, it was a well-known Buddhist temple in the east temple, and there were nearly 100 monks in the heyday of incense. Its core building, the Daxiong Treasure Hall, was built in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the hall enshrines the giant statue of the Buddha Guanyin Bodhisattva, and the Arhat King Kong is readily available. After 800 years of wind and rain, the green tile cornices carved beams and painting walls are intact, and on the 24 flat drum-shaped granite bases, the Optimus Giant Pillar is still more than three feet high, showing the extraordinary style of this classical building.

The predecessor of "Jiangzhong", the private Ziyu Junior High School, was founded in the years of the Anti-Japanese War and was the only middle school in the county at that time. President Cui Da and a group of patriotic intellectuals persisted in running the school under extremely difficult conditions, and cultivated batches of young talents with revolutionary consciousness. During the war years, the "Purple Central" migrated several times, and it was not until liberation that they settled in the East Temple after smashing the clay Buddha statue.

In 1956, Ziyu Junior High School was changed to a public school and a high school was added, renamed "Jiang'an County Middle School", and the county with a population of one million finally had the first completed middle school in history. Xu Yuanshao served as the president and secretary of the general branch, and Cui Datong was the vice president.

In the first two years after the promotion to the middle school, "Jiangzhong" only recruited two classes of freshmen every year, and these "top people" accounted for 1/10,000 of the county's total population.

Under the guidance of the educational policy of "serving the proletarian politics", President Xu is keen to organize students to participate in social activities, and it is common for classes to be suspended for three or four weeks per semester:

-- Soon after the fall of '57 began, the four classes of the high school began to show great vigour. Two rows of wooden stakes are buried on the east side of the playground, nailed to the reed mats to build a large-character poster corridor, and the couplet of Rong Zishan, a student of the first (first) class of high school at the entrance, is impressive: I don't wait to see who is more active than writing more than revealing the deep time, and the students are busy pasting big-character posters and have no intention of going to class. Two weeks later, the loud bang came to an abrupt end, followed by a big debate. The people who wrote a lot about it before have all become villains who attack the party.

-- In the spring of '58, he "changed customs and broke the old and established the new", suspended classes for a week, went to the countryside to demolish the land temple and smashed the ancestral plaque flat grave; Just one month after the resumption of classes, he made a surprise attack to "eliminate the four pests", digging rat holes during the day and digging out birds' nests at night, and fishing for maggots and catching mosquitoes and flies around the latrine.

-- Classes were suspended at the beginning of the new semester in the fall of '58, and all high school students devoted themselves to steelmaking. The earth blast furnace burned for half a month, refining a lump of non-ferrous black clots; Immediately after the autumn turn of the farm, people pushed the wire rope to pull the five ploughshares, and the deep plough could reach one foot five, and then it was too shallow to use a large plough to dig. Dig a layer of soil, spread a layer of straw and sprinkle lime water, then dig the soil and spread the grass and sprinkle lime water. The slogan of the placard at the head of the land is "deep turn one zhang five, and the yield per mu in the coming year is 15,000". Each class competes to release "satellites", and 24 hours of not sleeping are counted as small satellites, 36 hours are medium satellites, and two days and nights are called large satellites. This semester was suspended by more than one-third of the total teaching hours.

-- In the first half of '59, the Teaching Office arranged to make up for the late self-study raid to make up for the lessons that had been lost in the previous semester. In the autumn, the central government convened the Lushan Conference, and President Xu ordered the suspension of classes again, and went to the rural communes to preach the communiqué of the plenum, held a criticism meeting and staged a live newspaper drama, and swore to defend the three red flags to the death......

Classes have been suspended one after another. All courses could not be taught according to the syllabus, the whole unit was abandoned, the old lessons were not made up and the new lessons were left behind, as the local saying goes, "the straw is carried on a rainy day - the heavier the load".

The teaching task could not be completed, but the Jiang'an County Middle School successfully released a "political satellite" -- in 59, the school was established as a prominent political advanced model in the provincial education system, and Principal Xu himself wore red flowers and went to Beijing to attend the National Cultural and Educational Heroes Meeting on National Day.

The wheels of history have entered the sixties of the twentieth century. The class of '60 has been suspended repeatedly, but there is no major problem in the college entrance examination.

This year, colleges and universities across the country plan to enroll 250,000 students, but only 220,000 high school graduates will be enrolled. In order to complete the enrollment plan, all localities encourage former graduates and in-service personnel to apply for the examination. Principal Xu's old comrade-in-arms, who was the director of the education bureau in a county in Henan, called and said that there was a big gap in the source of students there, and he mobilized sophomore students for reference. Xu Yuanshao couldn't help but rejoice in his heart: My graduates have suspended a lot of classes, which is more than the class hours of the second year of high school!

Soon, the provincial recruitment office forwarded the document, and the college enrollment continued to implement the policy of administrative examination and admission. Exam results speak for themselves and don't matter, so why not suspend classes more?

At the graduation ceremony, President Xu said passionately: In the past, it was always emphasized that there were two kinds of preparation for a red heart, but this year, everyone only needs one kind of preparation - that is, to go to university!

"Students, the country is in a difficult period of natural disasters, but the party and the government still spend a lot of money on higher education. You enter the university gate to enjoy the full people's grant, and all meals are included. After graduation, he is a national cadre, and the carp jumps into the dragon gate and ascends to the sky in one step! You no longer have to repair the earth with your face to the loess and your back to the sky, and your destiny will be changed! My alma mater 'Jiangzhong' brings you a bright future, and I envy you and bless you even more! ”

The venue was boiling. Zuo Chunrong, the secretary of the third (first) class of high school, took the lead in shouting the slogan: pay tribute to his alma mater "Jiangzhong"! Never forget the kindness of your alma mater "Jiangzhong"! Salute to our beloved President Xu! A group of girls hugged each other and cried.

The admission results announced soon confirmed President Xu's prediction: 104 graduates in two classes, except for 2 who failed the physical examination, 102 people were admitted with reference to 98 people, and 70% entered key and undergraduate colleges and universities, and released a large "satellite"!

The four students who failed to make the list - Jiang Lesheng, Rong Zishan, Huang Xinguan, and Huang Can, the conclusion of the political examination was "not suitable for admission".

August 31 summer vacation ends, and the new school year starts tomorrow.

The campus that had been silent for a summer was noisy and full of festive atmosphere. "Warmly celebrate the great harvest of our school's college entrance examination" banner hung above the school gate, four watermelon-shaped red lanterns, and golden silk ears swayed in the wind. On the welcome cards on both sides of the school gate, the ten big characters of "Facing the New School Year" and "Winning New Victory" are inscribed by President Xu.

With such good results in the 60th college entrance examination, Xu Yuanshao reported to the county to hold a good news event. In the middle of the three-year disaster, the crisis of the withering of all industries was deep, and the people of the county were starving and unbearable.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Lu Xinming, secretary of the Youth League Committee of the school, led the team to the county party committee, and President Xu personally saw them off to the school gate. Two mighty basketball players served as flag bearers, holding their heads high and not squinting, holding the national flag and the school flag with blue characters on a white background with straight arms, stepping on the drum and walking in front of the team.

Further back is the marching band. Metal batons glitter in the sun, agitated drumbeats, and majestic trumpets echo alternately. Behind the palace of the waist drum team and the Yangge team, the light dance attracted many people to chase and watch.

The crowd of onlookers gathered more and more, and slowly moved forward with the Annunciation Team, forming a magnificent flow of people, filling the not wide stone street to the full. In people's memory, this fiery era was full of good news: iron was smelted in the earthen blast furnace, new factories were put into production, newly built irrigation canals were opened to release water, and there were even those high-yield "satellites" that were getting bigger and bigger: the wheat yield per mu of a certain commune was 8,000 catties, and the yield of rice per mu of a certain brigade exceeded 30,000 yuan...... As the boom cooled down, the Great Famine quietly came, and the county town did not see the Annunciation Team for more than a year. Today's noisy scene that Leng Ding broke out naturally caused a sensation all over the city.

Just as the announcer was full of passion to read the good news, and the county leaders dragged a long voice to congratulate the "Jiangzhong" college entrance examination harvest, in the corner of the Daxiong Treasure Palace, Principal Xu's office, Jiang Lesheng, one of the four unsuccessful students, was overwhelmed with grief and indignation, and shouted: Principal Xu, you, you are so ruthless! He slammed into the Optimus Pillar of the Mahavira Hall and fell in a pool of blood next to the granite base.