Global Lords: I Have Information System

From that moment, Ren Jilan made a secret determination: to become a person like Grandpa Li in the future. After graduating from university, Ren Jilan returned to her hometown in Yiyuan, passed the teacher recruitment exam, and came to Fuluping Primary School where Li Zhenhua had worked. Influenced by Grandpa Li, from her first year as a teacher, she started setting aside money from her salary to support two financially disadvantaged students, realizing her initial promise through practical action.

Li Zhenhua tutoring students in their coursework. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

From the city to the deep mountains of Yiyuan for educational aid

In 1953, the material living standards in Nanjing and Yiyuan were vastly different. During his university years, Li Zhenhua often heard his teachers recount the revolutionary stories of the Yimeng Red Sister-in-law and the Six Sisters of Yimeng, from which he determined to contribute to the Party and the people.

At the time, the country was calling for young people to ”go to the most arduous places for the revolution, to the greatest places of the motherland.” Inspired by the spirit of Yimeng Old Area, the 17-year-old Li Zhenhua heeded the call, leaving the gates of Nanjing Normal University to teach in the remote and impoverished Yimeng Old Area.

Before entering Yiyuan, there was an interlude. Because he grew up in the city and was young, the authorities feared that Li Zhenhua wouldn’t adapt to the hardships of the area and allocated him to Weifang instead. But with the vigor and recklessness of youth, Li Zhenhua pointed at the map and proposed to teach at the most mountainous and difficult area, Hanwang Primary School in the deep mountains of Yiyuan. Li Zhenhua told the reporter:

”When he finally reached Hanwang Village, he found the place was extremely poor. Not a single red-tiled house could be found, nor even a square meter of cement ground.”

After staying in the county town for a day, Li Zhenhua set off for Hanwang Village, 110 miles away, the next day with luggage in hand. There were no roads, no cars, so he climbed mountains and crossed ridges, walking mountain paths for an entire day until he was too tired to continue. On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, when Li Zhenhua arrived in Hanwang, the village’s old party secretary led the entire village to welcome him at the village entrance.

Entering the converted classroom inside a ruined temple, Li Zhenhua was stunned. The windows were missing glass, the door half hanging, the walls let in wind and air freely, and various sizes of stones were scattered across the floor. ”The village is poor; big stones are the desks, small stones are the stools,” the old secretary sighed, saying they couldn’t find a teacher, and the students hadn’t had classes for half a year.

Because there had been no teacher for half a year, come the next day, all the students wanted to attend class. As soon as the sun climbed over the mountain top, the classroom quickly filled with 38 students, the oldest being a mother of three, the youngest only 7 years old, and villagers surrounded the classroom windows.

Before heading to teach, Li Zhenhua’s mother specially made him a Zhongshan suit. The villagers had never seen machine-made fabric before, so when Li Zhenhua stepped in, he was said to be a foreigner. Anxious and unsettled, he gathered the courage to teach, but as soon as he spoke with his Southern accent, it elicited bursts of laughter and discussion. After the failed lesson, Li Zhenhua felt very upset. At night, he stayed in the classroom with its loose door, listening to the howling wolves, homesick and shedding tears. On his first time away from home, sometimes he napped and happily dreamed of his old mother visiting. But upon awakening, he realized he was all alone.

”Looking back now, I wonder how I got through those times.”

Immersed in sorrow, Li Zhenhua was awakened by villagers delivering food. It was pancakes made of sweet potato flour mixed with tree leaves and bran, the outer color resembled kraft paper. He marveled at the villagers’ ”extravagance,” unwrapped to see there was nothing inside, just felt its warmth, knowing this was the meal.

Li Zhenhua tore it piece by piece, unable to swallow or bite, finally dunking it in bitter bean soup to force down one. ”After finishing one, I said I was full, but in truth, I thought I really didn’t want to eat it.” At that time, Li Zhenhua felt like needles in his heart; he didn’t know how to face the upcoming teaching, nor how to swallow the unfamiliar black sweet potato pancakes and bran buns.

Li Zhenhua with the children. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Never again could he move the legs to return to the city

Ideal and reality are like twin sisters; to realize an ideal requires countless trials. Without spiritual support, even the best ideals can’t be achieved.

Confronting language and living difficulties, Li Zhenhua who arrived with enthusiasm in the poor mountain village was shaken inside: ”I cannot stay in this place; I cannot stay even for a day.”

When first arriving in the Yimeng Mountain Area, Li Zhenhua hadn’t considered staying for a lifetime. Initially, he thought about returning after three to five years. If he returned, he felt difficult to answer when asked by others. ”At the time, I came up with a compromise; if I could stay five days instead of three, then maybe my embarrassment upon returning would be lighter.”

In the next half year, out of more than 40 university students from the same school volunteering in Yiyuan, 37 gradually returned, yet Li Zhenhua couldn’t leave the Yimeng Mountain Area. Among the welcoming crowd upon entering the village, an elderly woman noticed his thin clothes, thought deeply, then went home wearing reading glasses, using a spinning wheel to spin cotton into thread, weave it into fabric on a wooden loom, and made a cotton jacket, cotton pants, also long socks, wrapping hay and reed flowers in the shoes to warm his feet.

”When the elderly woman brought the clothes, I cried. I felt like I saw my old mother.”

Li Zhenhua recalled, learning he couldn’t chew the pancakes, villagers themselves eating bran and leaves, yet they’d provide him with good meals. Whoever’s old hen laid eggs initially intended for trading for matches and salt would instead slip them into their pocket and bring them to him.

”Each time receiving eggs warm from body temperature, I felt indescribable gratitude.”

”I came as an aide to deliver culture; I cannot leave.”

Li Zhenhua recalled that during the Battle of Menglianggu, the entire village sent out 72 young people to carry wounded soldiers, and those remaining made pancakes and stitched cloth shoes to deliver to the front lines, committed completely to the revolution. ”They sacrificed their precious lives for the revolution, can these difficulties frighten me?” The spirit of Yimeng and the villagers’ simplicity touched Li Zhenhua, he couldn’t take a step to return home, he knew he couldn’t leave.

Devoting himself wholly to students out of love

Li Zhenhua determined to use knowledge to change the impoverished mountain area’s outlook. Therefore, throughout 68 years he’s been steadfast on one thing: teaching with determination and effort. Since then, he taught in the daytime, and walked five to six miles in the evenings to tutor students. To improve teaching conditions, he fashioned a globe from a basketball bladder and old newspapers, marked longitudes and latitudes, showing students where the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean are, where Europe and Asia; he made a model of three spheres with large balls, small balls, and ping pong balls to teach solar and lunar eclipses.

Hanwang Primary School was set on the mountain; sometimes students suddenly fell ill, Li Zhenhua would carry them down to receive treatment; when the river swelled, he’d wait early by the riverside, carrying each student across, again after class carrying them back to the other shore.

With wholehearted dedication, students’ scores soared. In 1955, while the advancement rate at other schools in Yiyuan County was 10:1, all of the 8 students he taught graduated and entered junior high, sparking excitement across the county.

In 1982, Li Zhenhua was transferred to work in Yiyuan County town. It was a newly established special school, with enrollment consisting of county students who failed junior high entrance exams. Under these circumstances, Li Zhenhua proposed a slogan—”Love directed at students,” and teachers worked enthusiastically for the students. Among the first students, Liu Yang (alias) was extremely mischievous; even local police were accustomed to his troubles. Once during class, Li Zhenhua noticed Liu Yang suffering from a severe cold, promptly went home to cook a bowl of egg noodles, the student was moved to tears, never misbehaving again, eventually entered university.

No one would have anticipated the 108 students with an average score of 28.6 points, three years later 78 would enter key high schools, 26 would advance to their first year, a result causing a sensation in society. Immediately, the county renamed Chengguan Second Middle School to Yiyuan County Experimental Middle School. Since then, the Experimental Middle School has been the best in Yiyuan.

At that time, students could fill in just three college application options, influenced by Li Zhenhua, sixty to seventy percent of them chose normal universities, ultimately becoming