Chinese Literature

picul borrowed now would mean three piculs to be returned in less than a fortnight.

It was better to tighten one’s belt and get over this fortnight or so without borrowing.

“Tt’s all the doings of landlords! They live by exploiting us. When

we were practically starving, they wouldn’t lend us a bit of grain even though we kowtowed to them. Now, when the crops in the fields are a certainty, they look all over the place for people to lend their stuff to. For something over ten days they want three piculs for every picul borrowed. If these dogs don’t die an early, painful death, Heaven has no eyes... .”

“Uncle Big Nose, didn’t you borrow grain from him too? Yes, Heaven has no eyes. The more wicked these people, the more prosperous they are.”

“You're right! Heaven will not punish them. If we wish to get them punished, we must depend on ourselves to do it.”

“How do we depend on ourselves? When you say that, Li-chiu, you must have something up your sleeve. Come, tell us what’s on your mind.”

“ve nothing up my sleeve. But my way of thinking is like this. The grain we reap from the harvest, we'll eat ourselves; we won't let these parasites have one grain of rent. Nor will we pay back what we borrowed. Really, what right do they have to demand things of us?”

“That’s child’s talk. After all, the land belongs to them,’ Erh Lai Tze said grandiosely, as if lecturing him.

“Belong to them? Why don’t they cultivate their own land then? What sort of land would it be if other people didn’t cultivate it for them? Erh Lai Tze, you are so dumb! Do you really think the land is theirs?”

“Then whose land is it?”

“Yours and mine. The land belongs to whoever tills it.”

“Ha, ha, Li-ehiu, this is the kind of thing they said when there was the Peasants’ Association in 1926-1927. You fool, ha, ha... .”

“What are you laughing at, Uncle Big Nose? Are you saying the Peasants’ Association was no good?”

“Tt was good, but they’ll chop your head off for saying so. Aren’t you scared?”

“What is there to be scared of? As long as we are united and work together, we are stronger than they. Don’t you know how it is i Kiangsi Province?”*

““Unite and work together’-—what you say is right. But... hase e

“Referring to the revolutionary base in Kiangsi Province, where, under the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, the peasants rose against the landlords and distributed the land.

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