Courtyard House: From Deputy Division Commander to Civilian, Progressing All the Way

The winter of 1960 was colder than any other year.

The wind swept across the city walls of Beijing, emitting a mournful wail like that of a dying wild beast.

This year marks the most brutal and devastating peak of the nationwide famine.

Walking down the street, you can hardly see a single person with a rosy complexion. Everyone who passes by looks like a skeleton wrapped in a tattered cotton coat, with sunken eyes and unsteady steps.

The once thunderous slogans of the Great Leap Forward have long been replaced by a deathly silence.

The disastrous consequences of the Great Leap Forward's steel production campaign finally came to this land this winter, demanding a price in the coldest and most ruthless way.

Two years ago, in order to achieve that vague steel production target, almost all the young and middle-aged laborers in rural areas across the country were mobilized.

They put down their hoes, left the farmland they had cultivated for generations, and were driven to the hillsides and threshing grounds to build those makeshift blast furnaces that were completely contrary to scientific principles.

The trees on the mountain were all cut down to make charcoal. Iron pots, farm tools, and even iron bolts on doors from every household were smashed and thrown into the stove.

What is most heartbreaking is the sight of those heavy, ripe crops growing in the fields.

The wheat was ripe, the rice was golden, but no one came to harvest it. After a storm, vast tracts of grain rotted in the fields, turning into mud.

What they got in return were piles of scrap iron, "cow dung" with excessive sulfur and phosphorus content, so brittle that they wouldn't even be good for making a kitchen knife.

What followed was the farcical "public canteen" during the "People's Commune" movement.

In the early days, the loudspeaker would announce every day, "Eat your fill!"

The common people thought they had truly reached communism, so they ate whatever they wanted, eating white flour buns and fatty meat day and night.

In just a few months, the grain reserves that the country and the collective had painstakingly accumulated were completely swallowed up by a bottomless pit.

People only realized what was happening when the granaries were empty.

However, the fire in the public canteen went out.

Because there was no food to cook.

When ordinary people returned home and wanted to cook for themselves, they discovered that even the iron pots used for cooking porridge had been smashed during the Great Leap Forward's steel production campaign. Famine thus erupted without warning, yet predictably so.

In the vast rural areas, the number of unnatural deaths reached a chilling peak. Tree bark was stripped bare, grass roots were dug up, and even clay became a life-saving food source. Edema and various epidemic diseases caused by malnutrition broke out on a large scale.

Although the situation in Beijing, the capital, was somewhat better than in other parts of the country, with the nation allocating its last reserves to defend the city, the lives of ordinary people remained extremely miserable. Food rations were repeatedly reduced, and even cornbread mixed with sand became a rare commodity.

No. 95, Nanluoguxiang.

The lively, bustling atmosphere of the past, filled with the chatter of everyday life, is long gone. The shadows of death and hunger hang heavy over everyone.

Yan Bugui, who lives in the front yard, now needs to hold onto the wall to walk.

His already thin body was now strangely swollen.

That was edema caused by severe malnutrition. If you pressed your finger on his leg, it would leave a deep indentation that wouldn't bounce back for a long time.

The three women lay in bed, too weak to even get out of bed.

The two brothers, Yan Jiecheng and Yan Jiefang, were starving. They were using a rusty kitchen knife to scrape bark off a dead tree in their yard. They planned to take the bark home, wash it clean, dry-fry it in a pan, grind it into powder, and mix it into their meager monthly ration of cornmeal. The two brothers almost came to blows over scraping just a little more bark.

Zhongyuan, Yi Zhonghai's house.

Yi Zhonghai's proud five hundred yuan retirement savings have now become a pile of worthless paper.

On the black market, a pound of cornmeal has been sold for an exorbitant price, and there's no market for it. Even if you had gold bars, you couldn't buy a single bite of food to save your life.

Yi Zhonghai's hair was completely white. He held a broken porcelain bowl, half-filled with water containing a few rotten vegetable leaves. He looked at the elderly woman opposite him; the two of them were speechless, only letting out a desperate sigh.

He regretted it.

If they hadn't offended the Lin family back then, if they had taken He Yuzhu as their apprentice, the old couple wouldn't be reduced to this bloated, dying state, even if they were begging for scraps.

Liu Haizhong's family is in an even worse situation.

Liu Haizhong served as a shock brigade leader during the Great Leap Forward's steel production campaign, which offended many people. Now that famine has struck, he has no one in the factory to speak up for him.

He had long since lost all his fat, and was now as thin as a bamboo pole.

The two brothers, Liu Guangtian and Liu Guangfu, were so hungry that they even started rummaging through the garbage in the yard, looking for anything they could put in their mouths.

Liu Haizhong no longer had the strength to lift the fire poker to beat his son. Every day, he could only slump on the threshold, staring blankly at the sky.

The Jia family, in particular, became a living hell.

Due to long-term overeating and lack of exercise, Jia Zhangshi suffered the most severe edema. She lay on the kang (a heated brick bed) all day groaning, barely able to turn over, while constantly cursing God for being blind.

Jia Dongxu almost got caught in a machine while working at the steel rolling mill due to physical exhaustion. Now he can only take sick leave at home and is even losing his meager quota.

Qin Huairu held the newborn Huaihua in her arms; she was pale and thin.

Banggeng and Xiaodang were crying from hunger, so Qin Huairu could only put a finger into Huaihua's mouth and let her suck on it, while she hid in a corner and silently shed tears, regretting that she had been blind to marry into this hellhole.

The entire courtyard house resembled a giant tomb, exuding an aura of decay and despair.

However, at the heart of this tomb lies a warm, spring-like, and indestructible isolated island.

That's the main house where Lin Fan lives.

The doors and windows of the main house were tightly closed, and thick cotton curtains completely shut out the cold wind and deathly silence outside.

Inside, the heating was scorching hot.

Ding Qiunan, wearing a clean sweater, was feeding five-year-old Lin Jianguo at the octagonal table.

In the white porcelain bowl was a bowl of crystal-clear white rice porridge, with a small dish of finely chopped braised pork and a plate of golden scrambled eggs on the side.

Lin Fan sat opposite him, holding a rice bowl filled with real white steamed buns.

In 1960, when famine was rampant, such a meal was more luxurious than the emperor's royal cuisine!

All of this is thanks to Lin Yang, who is far away in the Northwest, and He Yuzhu, who works in the Beijing Public Security Bureau.

Although Lin Yang was in a top-secret base, he held the highest-level authority over the allocation of national resources.

With the help of founding generals like Li Yunlong and Zhao Gang, every month a special person would secretly deliver specially supplied grain coupons, meat coupons, and even bags of rice, flour, and high-grade military canned goods to Lin Fan through top-secret channels.

As the head of the criminal investigation team of the Dongcheng Branch, He Yuzhu has both guns and power, and has connections in both the legal and illegal worlds.

Every week, he would personally drive his sidecar tricycle, loaded with charcoal and fresh vegetables, and openly park it at the entrance of the courtyard house, carrying them to the Lin family's house time and time again.