The Four Books Read Online Free PDF

intervene and remove my name from the list. The higher-ups immediately wrote me a response, saying, “Your literary accomplishments are very impressive, making you perfectly suited to go to Re-Ed to write a real revolutionary book.”
    The day I left the provincial seat, all of the work unit comrades who had voted for me came to see me off. They all said, You are the only one among us who can use your accomplishments, reputation, and public acclaim to resist the reformers. After you leave we will help look after your family, your children, and your friends.
    2. Old Course , pp. 7–10
    The ninety-ninth was located in the central plains region about forty kilometers south of the Yellow River. This stretch of terrain was full of silt that the Yellow River had left behind after repeatedly changing course. Because the Yellow River had flooded over the course of millennia, the quality of the soil was very poor. Most of the peasants had already moved away, leaving only sand, wild grass, and an endless expanse of wasteland interspersed with a handful of villages. This was a perfect place to build prisons to house criminals. From the Ming dynasty to the post-Liberation period, prisons had flourished here. The number of prisoners peaked at more than thirty-five thousand, including those sentenced to death as well as others sentenced to labor reform. The primary labor involved reinforcing the embankments along the Yellow River—dredging mud out of the old riverbed, then taking the upper layer of yellow silt and burying it beneath the mud. In this way, it was possible to transform barren wasteland into fertile soil. Reclaiming these thousands of mu of sandy terrain was the work of political criminals engaging in labor reform, planting grain and cotton. Several years after the founding of the People’s Republic, this ceased to be a labor reform colony, and instead became a Re-Ed region.
    Re-Ed retained the same architecture and distribution networks from when it had served as a prison, but now it had a new headquarters and subdivisions. The headquarters was located in town, and it was surrounded by housing areas and fields, which ranged in size from several thousand mu to nearly ten thousand. No one knew for sure precisely how many criminals and how much land belonged to this Re-Ed region. Some claimed there were more than 18,700 criminals in Re-Ed, while others claimed there were more than 23,300. In any event, of these approximately 20,000 criminals, 90 percent were professors, scholars, teachers, writers, and intellectuals from a variety of different fields. The remaining 10 percent were national cadres and high officials. In our ninety-ninth alone, there were 127 criminals, of whom 95 percent were intellectuals.
    The ninety-ninth was located farthest from the headquarters and closest to the Yellow River, and consequently there was no need to fear that anyone would flee. If someone were to proceed to the left, right, or straight ahead, for the first ten or twenty li they would be hard-pressed to find anyone other than other groups of criminals undergoing Re-Ed. Finally emerging from the wilderness, they would see plowed fields and might assume that they’d made it back to society, though in reality these would actually be farms cultivated by criminals from other Re-Ed districts. These would be criminals in need of re-education. According to Re-Ed regulations, criminals who report one of their own with the intent to flee will be rewarded with a monthlong visit home, and if they apprehend a criminal in the process of escaping, they will be rewarded with a three-month visit home. If they catch three criminals attempting to flee, they will earn the right to return permanently to their hometown and their original work unit. In Re-Ed, everyone is waiting for an opportunity to report someone or catch someone trying to escape. Of course, those attempting to flee could always head north, crossing the Yellow River and proceeding to the