"The first thing about seeking truth from facts is to face what has already happened. You cannot speculate on the process. Just state the actual content of what you saw, what you heard, and what intelligence you collected." Li Shouxian said calmly to the comrades.

He Jinwu said loudly: "What actually happened is that a part of the masses in Western Zhejiang bought the land and property of the revolutionary masses that had been embezzled by the counter-revolutionaries from the counter-revolutionaries. And attempted to take it for themselves."

Li Shouxian smiled: "Comrade He Jinwu, the first part of what you said is basically correct, but the second part is not quite right. From the perspective of the masses, they have already taken this land for themselves. You saying 'attempted to take it for themselves' is far from a statement of seeking truth from facts."

"Heh heh!" He Jinwu laughed coldly, "Secretary Li is right, they really have already taken it for themselves now. But with our People's Party here, then this kind of action can never truly succeed."

Li Shouxian felt quite regretful about He Jinwu's speech, "Comrade He Jinwu, my following speech is not directed at what is going to happen in the future, I am now directing it at your train of thought in considering problems. Why do we want to implement land reform? This is our Party's policy. Many regions did not have counter-revolutionary incidents, do we not implement land reform all the same? The masses in some regions support land reform, the masses in some regions do not support land reform, this is the masses' own business. Our goal is that we must implement land reform. So implementing land reform is our business, what does it have to do with the masses?"

He Jinwu, like most comrades, was extremely dissatisfied with the Western Zhejiang masses who "took great advantage" during the counter-revolutionary atrocities, so thoughts of making things difficult for them arose in his heart. Hearing Li Shouxian criticize his own train of thought, He Jinwu also felt that Li Shouxian, this local cadre, was "gesticulating and issuing orders the moment he got off the horse", and was very unconvinced in his heart.

Li Shouxian smiled: "I feel that the comrades' thinking is very straightforward. Whoever dares to drink the blood of revolutionaries deserves to die. Even if they did not commit a capital crime, it is a case of 'death penalty is avoidable but living punishment cannot be spared'. We have guns and soldiers in our hands now. Wanting to punish these Western Zhejiang people... that is really the easiest thing. Confiscate their illegal land, impose fines on their actions, and carry out punitive measures against them in policy. I come from an administrative work background. If I want to make them unable to live or die, there are too many ways. I can think of several in the blink of an eye."

These words fit the comrades' thoughts quite well. The straightforward people among the comrades could not help but reveal smiles.

Li Shouxian also smiled. He said to He Jinwu: "Comrade He Jinwu, and other comrades, please sing 'Good Springtime in February'."

Seeing everyone's stunned appearance, Li Shouxian urged: "I heard this song was written when Chairman Chen Ke inspected the army farms. There is no reason the comrades in the army can't sing it. Don't be afraid of being shy, will a comrade please sing it."

The comrades also couldn't figure out what trick Li Shouxian was playing, and looked at each other in incomprehension. Finally, it was the Japanese Political Commissar Heidao Ren who sang.

Good springtime in February, every family is busy farming. Hoping for a good harvest this year, donating more grains to fill the army provisions.

Good springtime in February, every family is busy farming. You reap what you sow, you get beans if you plant beans, whoever plants hatred will suffer disaster himself!

……

After Heidao Ren finished singing once, Li Shouxian repeated one part of the lyrics, "'You reap what you sow, you get beans if you plant beans, whoever plants hatred will suffer disaster himself!' I have always felt this part of the lyrics is very good. I feel this part of the lyrics is extremely 'seeking truth from facts'. The counter-revolutionaries in Zhejiang, the counter-revolutionaries in Western Zhejiang, what they opposed was the land revolution policy proposed by our People's Party. They planted hatred, and now is the process of their blood debt being paid in blood. Similarly, I also want to ask, when these masses bought the land, was it to oppose our People's Party's land revolution policy? If any comrade thinks so, please stand up and state your own thoughts!"

Li Shouxian was effectively challenging them, and the participating comrades were very clear about this. But even if they were angry enough to have red faces and thick necks, still no one stood up to refute Li Shouxian's words. Everyone was very clear that Li Shouxian was right. The common people of Western Zhejiang did not buy the land to confront the People's Party; they did it purely for their own interests. The comrades' anger was precisely directed at this kind of selfish action.

Seeing no one stood up to oppose, Li Shouxian's expression returned to composure again. First scanning the comrades, Li Shouxian said steadily: "Chairman Chen also wrote an article called *Medicine*. Some comrades have read this article, some comrades probably haven't. It tells a story. In our Jiangnan, there is a saying that human blood buns can cure consumption, which is the pulmonary tuberculosis we learned about in medical class. The only son of a family of honest people got consumption, so they asked the executioner for help. At that time, people were being killed, and the one being killed was a revolutionary. The reason the revolutionary shed his head and blood to participate in the revolution was to save the Chinese common people. As a result, after the revolutionary was killed, the protagonist in the story got the human blood bun. The revolutionary failed to awaken the common people through his own death, and the common people did not save their son because of the revolutionary's human blood bun..."

This was a miserable story. Li Shouxian had an extremely deep impression of it. He happened to have this article in the luggage he carried with him. Li Shouxian simply took this article out and read it to the comrades once. The steady voice recited this novel with a gloomy style, and the entire conference room fell into a deathly silence.

"They had not walked twenty or thirty steps when they suddenly heard a loud 'Caw--' from behind; both of them looked back in horror, only to see that crow spread its two wings, brace itself, and fly straight towards the distant sky like an arrow."

When Li Shouxian finished reading the last paragraph, comrades from Western Zhejiang were already covering their mouths and crying woo-woo. Some comrades sobbed in low voices, constantly wiping tears with their cuffs. Other comrades had expressions mixed with anger and pain on their faces.

This piece *Medicine* touched everyone present. The revolutionaries flew into the fire like moths, disregarding their own safety to seek welfare and create a tomorrow for the people, but the people could not understand. They still lived firmly amidst various sufferings. The tragic state of Western Zhejiang matched the story told in this article completely. In order to live better, the surviving masses took out almost all their savings to buy the blood-stained land. They did not understand why those martyrs sacrificed themselves at all.

Li Shouxian wiped away the tears from the corners of his own eyes. Having done administrative work for so long, he knew the hardships and helplessness of construction work better than the army comrades galloping across the battlefield.

Sniffling and exhaling deeply, as if only in this way could the stone-like depression in his chest be dispersed a bit, Li Shouxian continued: "Whoever plants hatred suffers disaster himself. The masses of Western Zhejiang did not buy land because they opposed the land revolution. If we punish their behavior of buying land from our own standpoint, then we are planting hatred. No one will truly admit they are a bad person. Not only are the masses of Western Zhejiang like this, even those counter-revolutionaries are like this. Facing such a situation, we must adhere to the Party's Three Great Styles of Work, and must adhere to the principle of seeking truth from facts. We must adhere to the mass line, coming from the masses and going to the masses. Instead of simply and crudely thinking that we grasp the truth, so we can do whatever we want according to our own judgment standards and preferences! Just like in *Medicine*, the real murderer is not Hua Laoshuan. Do you think it is right to punish Hua Laoshuan because he got a human blood bun for his son?"

He Jinwu, the Commander of the 15th Army Group who had been the representative of the army comrades' thoughts, did not answer this time. He just kept wiping the tears rolling down. After quite a while, he choked with sobs and said: "I... I already understand... Secretary Li's meaning. Please, Secretary Li, state your train of thought."

Seeing the whole situation had been turned around, Li Shouxian said: "All land transactions during the counter-revolutionary period will be terminated after the grain harvest this year. Confiscation must be implemented for the property of counter-revolutionary elements. After confiscation, return the money the masses spent on buying land to the masses, and recover the land. Of course, this must be after the masses harvest. Since the masses grew grain through labor, we have to safeguard the fruits of their labor. Of course, after these end, we will start implementing land reform in Western Zhejiang."

Even if they felt Li Shouxian doing this was really a bit too benevolent, no comrade raised opposition or doubts again. Li Shouxian had already persuaded the comrades who were overflowing with vengeful emotions. A storm that was very likely to target the masses was finally curbed before it erupted.

Of course, Li Shouxian assuming the post of Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee was not solely to curb wrong trends. In the following days, Li Shouxian began to carry out the construction work of local militias. In order not to let the masses of Zhejiang develop a delusion that they were "the conquered", and to ensure the smooth execution of the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, it was necessary to win the masses over to their side more than ever at this time.

The tragic slaughter caused by class struggle in Western Zhejiang was considered a rather unique existence in Zhejiang. The April 12th counter-revolutionary massacre swept through the entire Zhejiang, but the true climax of the massacre was the slaughter of those new forces rising in the new era by the traditional old forces in the localities. Judging from the intelligence collected by the People's Party, in the great massacre of Zhejiang, the international students known as "Fake Foreign Devils", the youths educated in new-style schools, and those guys attempting to stand out in electoral politics, suffered a total counter-attack from the old forces. As long as they slapped the hat of "rebel party" on them, those old forces in the countryside could massacre these people with justifiable names. And these victims had no connection with the People's Party, and even less direct relation with the Western Zhejiang Branch. Many of those killed were even firm opponents of the reform policies promoted by the Western Zhejiang Branch.

The People's Party did not have many reasons to intervene in the internal massacre of the Zhejiang people, so it had to unite more closely with the masses and stand together with the masses to strike at these stubborn counter-revolutionaries. Because what these counter-revolutionaries actually opposed was not necessarily the People's Party; they firmly opposed all revolutionary actions. Against this part of people, Li Shouxian prepared to oppose them by organizing militias.

After the reorganization of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, there were many commanders and fighters in various places. The commanders and fighters from the Shandong Military Region were extremely experienced in assisting the masses to organize landlord militias.

The best way to deal with landlord militias was nothing better than people's militias. Historically, landlord militias were once the Party's main enemy. When Chen Ke had not studied deeply, he was quite apprehensive about this. Since Chen Ke was very apprehensive, he put great effort into understanding landlord militias. The Party established a specialized work department to engage in this aspect of work.

The landlord militia was a native local force, while the People's Party was an external force. On the surface, it had the flavor of a dragon crossing the river fighting a local snake. Without investigation, there is no right to speak. The People's Party gradually recognized the true face of the landlord militia during the revolutionary process.

The ravages of landlord militias on the base areas in history relied firstly on the enemy's regular army pinning down or even suppressing the revolutionary regular army. The People's Party encountered this problem in Shandong. Many Red Spear Societies and local landlord militias once used "how the Beiyang commanders will do such and such" as an excuse to intimidate the masses in the Shandong base area, using this excuse to extort property from the masses in the Shandong base area. The People's Party decisively implemented fierce strikes against those local organizations. As a result, the "Beiyang commanders" made no move at all. The masses of the people were a bit apprehensive at first, but after observing for a while, they found the landlord militias were simply bragging. From then on, the base area masses no longer submitted to the intimidation of those local forces. Whenever the landlord militias came to extort, the masses dared to challenge these people.

Of course, while challenging them, the masses would also hurriedly notify the nearby Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army garrison. The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army naturally dispatched troops immediately to strike those landlord militias like the autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves. After several such struggles, the masses in various places established their own militia organizations under the organization of the People's Party. Sometimes, before the troops arrived, the militia had already taken care of the landlord militia.

The characteristic of human society is that whoever is more organized can win. The masses who were originally a sheet of loose sand feared the landlord militia, but later it became the landlord militia fearing the organized masses. And the landlord militia organization was originally just a local force like bandits. When there were no other forces around, they would expand their territory, collect "protection fees", and promote their own order. Since the masses in various places were already organized, the landlord militia could only contract. As the saying goes, a rabbit does not eat the grass around its burrow; the landlord militia also dared not take extreme measures against locals. Without money to support them, the landlord militia naturally had to lower its revenue, which led to the peripheral attached personnel of the landlord militia running away one after another.

Without personnel, without revenue, the internal members of the landlord militia often would not unite sincerely, but would scheme against each other. The People's Party used this opportunity to expand the Supply and Marketing Cooperative trade, penetrate into the landlord militia, and easily disintegrated the Shandong local landlord militia organizations as outsiders.

Since the Shandong comrades had ample experience in this aspect, the Zhejiang Provincial Committee entrusted the work teams composed of these comrades to start work in Zhejiang.