Among historians, the People's Party's promotion of simplified characters has always been a debatable topic. Why exactly did the People's Party want to promote simplified characters? On the 120th anniversary of Chen Ke's birth, the overseas website Boxun published a series of articles with the theme "Who Destroyed Chinese History".

"Chen Ke, the master of 450 million people, in order to maintain his ruling status, or more precisely to maintain the status of the People's Party ruling clique he single-handedly created, did not hesitate to destroy China's culture and destroy China's written language. What does distant and ancient China have that is worth being proud of? Is it not its splendid and great culture? Is it not the spirit it has passed down continuously? Yet the People's Party adopted a policy of removing the firewood from under the pot, destroying the tool that carried this culture, replacing traditional characters with crippled characters, and replacing connotation and depth with rude simplicity. Is this not the greatest destruction of history?"

"The famous Professor of Chinese Culture at Harvard University, Dr. Chelfman, once frankly stated, 'I went to China a few years ago, but what disappointed me was that in China, you can no longer see orthodox Chinese culture. Everywhere there are high-rise buildings and cars. It is hard for you to find that aesthetic sense carrying history, those ancient architectures, and the few that remain have become scenic spots and parks. Without the Chinese people living within them, they have lost their soul. For all of this, Chen Ke must be held responsible.' This is the evil consequence of the People's Party promoting crippled characters for decades, the evil consequence caused by the fascist implementation of the policy of cultural destruction by the People's Party over the decades."

"Famous public intellectual and social activist, Mr. Mao Zhiche, when talking about the People's Party's cultural policy, once said with indignation, 'The People's Party's promotion of simplified characters is intended to exterminate the roots of my Chinese culture. Now, if you want to find Han Dynasty culture, you have to go to Korea; if you want to find Tang Dynasty culture, you have to go to Japan; if you want to find Late Qing and Republic culture, you have to go to Southeast Asia. What does China have? China has nothing.' Mr. Mao's words clearly indicate the attitude of the Chinese people towards the People's Party's policies, and even more so reflect the thinking and conscience of a contemporary intellectual."

This series of articles on Boxun soon aroused great repercussions overseas. With the rise of the People's Party's China, people increasingly noticed this ancient nation, and more and more people developed a strong interest in this Red China. Boxun's articles caused the eyes of the whole world to focus on China.

However, the People's Party made no response. If these articles wanted to spread in China, they first had to be translated into simplified characters, and then break through China's internet blockade. Neither of these two things was difficult. Simplified characters were very simple; even an illiterate old woman could master more than 500 characters in a short time, and that would be enough. Breaking through China's internet blockade was also not difficult; China's Great Firewall was incredibly fragile. Baidu it, or Google it, and you could easily run out of a country's computer network protection. These articles were soon uploaded to China's internet by people with intentions... ah... no... by volunteers.

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Liu Laohan was an authentic Chinese peasant, with only a junior high school education level. Of course, he only knew simplified characters. Liu Laohan had dug for food in the fields all his life and had never left the county seat. What he was most proud of was marrying a wife from the city. Liu Laohan's original name was Liu Yuguang. This name was given to him by his wife when he was in his twenties. His wife was also just a junior high school graduate, but in those days, a junior high student was very valuable. There were not many literate people in the whole county. Someone with a primary school education could be a teacher, and a slightly smarter one could mix in the county government as a clerk, getting a bag of rice every month.

At that time, the People's Party had just conquered the world, and simplified characters were brought over from the People's Party's old base areas. At that time, Liu Laohan was young, right at the time when he was a good hand at working in the fields. The People's Party came, and Liu Laohan didn't care. He didn't believe in gods anyway, nor did he believe in any government. He himself was an old crop master; under whoever's rule, farming was still farming. Could the People's Party make the wheat grow by itself in the fields?

Liu Laohan was a peasant, and Liu Laohan's parents were also peasants, not knowing a single big character. This was nothing strange; there were few literate people in the whole county anyway. The literate ones were the Xiucai masters; how could there be a share for these poor suffering people? Therefore, Liu Laohan didn't have a name either. He ranked third at home, so people called him Liu Laosan (Old Three Liu). When called often, the word "Lao" was omitted, and everyone directly called him Liu San. Liu Laohan had lived for 20 years with the title of Liu San.

Later, the People's Party came. Originally, the People's Party coming didn't mean much either. As the private school teacher in the neighboring village said, could they turn the sky upside down? Farmers, just do your work and plant your land; what's the fuss? But later the sky did flip. The People's Party didn't allow rent payment anymore. Originally, farming land and paying rent was perfectly justified; Liu San thought so too. If I farm for someone else, and they don't provide me with food or give me wages, then I have to ask for an explanation. But they provided food and gave money, so what was I fussing about? The cadres in the village came down to mobilize. Liu San thought that not paying rent now was a good thing, but if he had money in the future and bought a few acres of land, wouldn't it mean others wouldn't pay him rent either? Besides, who knew how long the People's Party could fight?

Later, the People's Party organized the Peasant Association. According to the People's Party's classification, the Liu family were middle peasants, and were also in the scope of those to be won over for membership. Liu San watched those poor peasants stop paying rent one by one, and some were even distributed land. He also heard that the People's Party had defeated the foreigners. Saying nothing else, if the People's Party distributed land to his own family, that would be incredible. Liu San joined the association, also to make it convenient to fish for news.

In the Peasant Association, a cadre calculated an account for everyone. What is a cadre? Roughly the same level as a Xiucai master. The People's Party didn't allow calling them "master", but asked to call them "comrade". Call them whatever, anyway, they were all literate people. Liu San always felt that literate people were the Stars of Wisdom descended from heaven; otherwise, how could they recognize characters and manage affairs? Liu San really felt that cadres were different. Once that account was calculated—how much grain was harvested each year, how much was given to the landlord, how much to the temple, how much the yamen collected, and this didn't even count the usury—in the end, not even ten percent was left for oneself. Liu San didn't want to pay rent anymore. Why should I? I work hard all year round, and in the end, it's all given away. We people are poor, but we aren't stupid.

Distributing land took a whole year before those old accounts were cleared up. The harvest this year was not good, but no one starved to death. If it were in previous years, even if the harvest was double, a few people would still have to starve to death. However, these matters had nothing to do with Liu San. The Peasant Association didn't distribute land to his family, nor did it distribute his family's land. He was classified as a middle peasant; this was something he had known for a long time.

Later, the Peasant Association wanted to run a peasant night school, saying they wanted to teach peasants to read, so they requisitioned that temple. The temple was one dedicated to the Earth God. Peasants ate by relying on the land, so this temple had some incense offerings. When the People's Party came, everyone was busy distributing land and farming, and no one paid money to the temple anymore. When the People's Party requisitioned the temple, Liu San took the lead. He led a group of young people and smashed the Earth God statue in the temple. Offering incense to the temple for a few years was not as good as the People's Party distributing land for one year. Young people naturally didn't believe in this anymore, and Liu San hadn't believed in it originally. This temple thus became the night school.

However, smashing statues was one thing, and literacy was another. How could peasants become literate? Liu San recalled the yamen notices he had seen before; they seemed very complicated. The private school teacher in the neighboring village also said that literacy required talent, and what talent did peasants have? Liu San didn't want to go to night school. With that time, he might as well think carefully about how to serve those few acres of land.

The gentlemen from the night school and the cadres in the village came to the village in person to do the work, patting their chests and guaranteeing that it would not affect farming. "If it affects it, we wouldn't come," Liu San thought. Liu San went anyway. A new female teacher came from the city. She wasn't much older than Liu San. Liu San's eyes went straight when he saw her. Being in one's 20s is the most beautiful age in life. Although most of Liu San's most beautiful age was given to the fields, for the remaining small part, Liu San got used to going to the temple to listen to the female teacher's lecture with a dozen other people. Later, Liu San found out that the female teacher was a junior high school student from the city. What is a junior high student? Probably someone like the Xiucai masters and Comrade Cadres. Liu San never thought that he could also become a junior high student.

The first lesson was to choose names. Rural people mostly didn't have good names. People believed that a cheap name made a child easy to raise. Liu San's later name, Liu Yaoguang, was chosen at this time. It meant bringing glory to one's ancestors, which wasn't a name with any deep connotation either.

The private school teacher in the neighboring village was disdainful of such names. Literati and refined scholars not only had to have a name but also a style name and pseudonym. There were special particularities between name, style, and pseudonym, which upstarts like the People's Party would not understand. However, when had peasants ever heard of style names? Liu San thought about asking the private school teacher to pick one for him too. The private school teacher was unhappy about it, so Liu San went to find the night school's female teacher.

This was the first time Liu San went to find the female teacher alone, and also the first time Liu San knew that there were things the female teacher didn't know, and that the female teacher didn't have a style name herself either. The female teacher told him that what she taught was different from what the private school teacher taught. Most of the Comrade Cadres and teachers did not have style names. The female teacher also said she taught simplified characters. What are simplified characters? The female teacher couldn't explain clearly either; anyway, they were different from the characters written by the Xiucais. What was the difference? Liu San didn't know, and the female teacher didn't know either. The female teacher was originally illiterate too, but the People's Party ran education in the city earlier and it was easier. The female teacher was taught by teachers in the city. The teachers in the city were all brought by the People's Party from the old base areas, and many of them were said to be peasants. The female teacher told Liu San that they all used simplified characters too, and they had also studied in the People's Party's schools. Could peasants also be teachers? More than that, the female teacher said with great certainty, she had seen many comrades who were of peasant origin, and they did things many times better than the Xiucai masters. The People's Party used to use Xiucai masters to teach, but now they didn't use them anymore.

That conversation left a deep impression on Liu San. It turned out the female teacher wasn't a Star of Wisdom descended from heaven who was born literate either; it turned out peasants could also be teachers. Liu San thought, if I could also be a teacher, would I be able to get a little closer to the female teacher? That day, for the first time in history, Liu San forgot to go to the fields.

There were more and more literate people. Although most people only knew a few dozen characters, or even just a few characters, fortunately, the county's announcements were also very simple. When they reached the village, they became slogans that anyone could recognize. The teachers' night school also turned into a full-day primary school in the winter. Even Liu San's parents, two people who hadn't known a single character in their lives, could write a few simple characters and recognize a few simple characters.

The private school teacher's days became harder and harder, so much so that he had to leave his big village and come to Liu San's small village. The private school teacher also set up a small school in the village, just a few li from the Earth God Temple. The private school teacher's small school charged fees.

There weren't many people in the small school, and the private school teacher's fees weren't high. Peasants no longer regarded literacy as something difficult. Those who learned quickly could already take newspapers from the People's Party teachers to read. Liu San was one of them.

The private school teacher came to find Liu San, wanting him to come to the small school to learn characters, saying he would choose a style name and pseudonym for him. Liu San thought about it and decided to go and see, giving the private school teacher two bags of millet. However, Liu San only went once and never went to that school again. Having become accustomed to simple characters, he always had a strange feeling when writing those complex strokes. The private school teacher's small school finally ended without a result; it was said he went to a school in the city. And Liu San felt heartache for his two bags of millet.

The night school finally had its day of ending. Most of the peasants had become literate. Naturally, they didn't know many characters, but they could barely read newspapers. There was someone in the Peasant Association specifically assigned to pick up newspapers from the city. There were ones published by the People's Party, and ones published by others; there were simplified ones and traditional ones. However, the Peasant Association never bought traditional newspapers because no one could understand them.

The female teacher was leaving too; it was said she was going back to the city to continue being a teacher. Liu San went to find the female teacher again. It was unknown how many times Liu San had gone to find the female teacher. Among the students with him, some had become Comrade Cadres, and some had joined the Party. Liu San himself was also working in the Peasant Association and started teaching others some simple characters. Liu San felt he had also become a Xiucai master, and then felt he was still a peasant. Actually, Xiucai masters were nothing special; they were just like peasants. Thinking this way, Liu San felt at ease; there was nothing bad about being a peasant.

Liu San couldn't bear to let the female teacher go, and the people in the village couldn't bear to let the night school teachers go either, but they were passers-by in the village after all. When leaving, the female teacher told Liu San that the middle school in the city was expanding enrollment, and she was teaching there. Liu San wanted to go to middle school, but he was already in his 20s. The fields relied entirely on him for work. His parents were getting old. If he left, what about the work in the fields? What would the family eat?

The old people in the village were all experienced. Who could the mind of a young lad in his 20s be hidden from? His two older brothers were already married, and Liu Da had even joined the army. Only he was still unmarried in his 20s, which was very rare in the countryside. Liu San went to the village cadres and also found the night school teachers. However, sympathy was sympathy; everyone had got land, and they couldn't even finish the work in their own fields, so where would they have the energy to support someone else's parents for free?

Liu San wanted to go to school, but he couldn't leave his parents and go by himself, leaving a brother to drag up the whole family. Liu San couldn't do such a thing; if he really did it, how could he face people in the future? The matter seemed to end like this. Liu San continued to be his peasant, teaching the village children and elderly to read when he was free. This was voluntary on his part; how could people not be literate? He seemed to have forgotten the matters of the Star of Wisdom and the private school teacher. Liu San himself had also become the children's teacher.

Things suddenly took a turn. The People's Party lacked cadres, lacked teachers, and lacked literate people. Liu San went into the city once to see the female teacher who taught him. The female teacher told him that the primary school in the county lacked teachers, the county government lacked literate clerks, and lacked accountants who could calculate. These positions couldn't be filled by just knowing a few characters; one had to have at least a primary school education and know arithmetic. Soon the county issued a document asking villages to recommend people who were good at literacy to go to the city to study. The People's Party would support them and give them Renminbi (RMB). With RMB, one could buy rice for the family, so the family wouldn't starve. The village cadres knew Liu San's mind, plus Liu San really counted as a cultured person in the village now. He taught the children to read, and the children loved to listen. Liu San thus changed from a teacher back to a student, and became the village's most outstanding and praiseworthy student. The cadres reported his name up, in black and white. The worry about the rear was solved, so he signed his name, his full name, Liu Yaoguang. Entering the city, people only recognized the name on the paper; who knew who Liu San was?

Liu Yaoguang entered the city. This wasn't his first time entering the city, yet he still was like a child just entering the city. He seemed to feel that everywhere there were things he needed to learn, and people everywhere were looking at him. He wished he could stick out his chest and tell people he was literate, and he was going to learn even more things. Liu San entered the training class in the city, which was specifically organized for them. The ages of the outstanding students from various villages were uneven. Although they all had a certain foundation, they couldn't compare with the primary school students in the city after all, so everything had to be simplified and accelerated. Taking classes with them were also some people from the city. Their teachers were teachers from various schools serving concurrently.

The process of literacy had nothing much to say; it was just an upgraded version of night school. The characters were very simple, without any special connotation or taboos. Copy a character a few more times, the teacher explains the meaning simply, and one learns it. The novel thing was arithmetic. Accounting was also a branch of learning. Liu Yaoguang felt he could calculate accounts; one load of grain plus one load of grain was two loads. That wasn't necessarily true; Liu Yaoguang thought again, that depended on what grain it was. Arithmetic didn't need to consider what grain it was; just adding up was enough. This wasn't hard. What was hard was multiplication and division. Liu Yaoguang spent a lot of effort to memorize the multiplication table, just like reciting some mysterious spell. Besides these two subjects, there were social studies and nature studies. Liu Yaoguang met his private school teacher in this class; the private school teacher had now also become a student.

The private school teacher seemed to be having a hard time in the city. After teaching in a school for a few days, the school didn't want him anymore. In these times, no one was interested in how many ways "hui" could be written anymore, nor was anyone willing to learn what symbol a radical evolved from, let alone study what that stroke or that line symbolized. People had been hungry for thousands of years and uncultured for thousands of years. Now that there was finally hope to be full, would they not turn this hope into reality as soon as possible, but instead go talk about some "connotation"?

The private school teacher finally completely lost his job. People didn't need him to read announcements or write letters. The private school teacher didn't know what to do either, until the People's Party started a "Great Cleanup" movement. What exactly this movement was about, Liu Yaoguang couldn't figure out at all, and even the female teacher couldn't figure it out? It was just that overnight, the fortune-telling stalls, beggars, brothels, and casinos all over the streets seemed to disappear. Even the petty thieves and unemployed vagrants were all taken in by the People's Party. The private school teacher knew a bit more. He was counted as an unemployed vagrant by the People's Party. Actually, being taken in was good. The private school teacher was literate after all and had taught for most of his life. As long as he restudied a bit, he could still work when released. The private school teacher still sighed sometimes, saying things like "people's hearts are not what they used to be", but when it was really his turn to do things, he was quite active. Liu Yaoguang felt that the private school teacher was also different from before.

People always change. Didn't Liu San himself turn into Liu Yaoguang?

When the study class graduated, the County Party Secretary came to give a speech. Liu Yaoguang knew the County Party Secretary. Before, when the county was conducting rural surveys, the Secretary came down riding a broken bicycle that clanked. Later, he ate a meal at Liu's house; it was nothing big.

What the Secretary said at that time, Liu San couldn't remember clearly. He just remembered "Seek truth from facts", "Serve the people" or something. These words were spoken by the teachers every day in social studies class. Later, Liu San submitted his party membership application, and someone came specifically to talk to him, also talking about this every day, until Liu Yaoguang's ears grew calluses. Liu Yaoguang was still a bit indignant; don't I know such things? Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't. Anyway, the People's Party never expected anyone to know by themselves. Chairman Chen himself said that sometimes he wouldn't know either.

The study class ended, and the students each got a gift, a simplified character edition of "General History of China". This was a big generous act in the past; that much paper was worth a lot of money.

After the study class ended, Liu Yaoguang was assigned to teach in a primary school in the city, and at the same time, he studied as a student in the middle school in the city. Liu Yaoguang never thought there would be such a thing; it turned out teachers and students weren't much different either.

Later, Liu Yaoguang got married. He himself didn't know how it happened; it seemed everything was so confused yet logical. He himself was a primary school teacher, and his wife was a middle school teacher. No one said words like "I love you", but the matter just strangely succeeded like this.

The wedding was held in the village. Back in the countryside, Liu Yaoguang became Liu San again, but a Liu San who could write. The invitations were all written by Liu San himself. He wasn't afraid that anyone wouldn't recognize them. Paper was cheap too. Liu San also became more and more used to using RMB to calculate accounts, instead of using rice. At the wedding, Liu San seemed to have really brought glory to his ancestors. No one expected he could marry a wife from the city. However, people are always changing. Before, who could have thought that he could recognize characters? Yet Liu San didn't feel he had brought glory to his ancestors. He told everyone that his wife was his teacher for a lifetime.

Boxun's articles did not have any big reaction in China. Those who should work worked, those who should go to school went to school. Everyone had their own business and was fighting for their own future. Instead, it was a large group of idle people—they might not necessarily recognize many traditional characters, but whenever something touched on culture and conscience, they always had to come out and say a couple of sentences.

The People's Daily finally reacted. It published an article titled "The People's History" in its overseas edition.

"If old China had any culture, it was merely the culture of a few million old literati, the culture of less than one percent of the population, the culture of the landlord class and their accomplices. This is not the people's culture. The people couldn't even understand the writing that carried this culture, nor could they afford the books that carried this culture. The people's culture had to rely on word of mouth, or the great benevolence of a few idle people. Our People's Party will absolutely not allow this situation to continue in New China."

"They accuse us of destroying Chinese culture. Perhaps in their eyes, Chinese culture is just that set of old things. Chinese people should live in the legacy left by the small-peasant society, allowing the gentry to shed a few tears and shout 'bravo' a few times to satisfy the gentry's so-called aesthetic feelings. They are wrong. China has always been progressive. We selectively keep some old things to warn future generations; we will absolutely not allow ourselves to regress into these old things."

"If everyone can read books and newspapers, if everyone can use written tools to express their views, if everyone can see history through text—if this is called destroying culture, then yes, that is exactly what we are doing. We intend to destroy the old culture of those few million old literati who ruled China for thousands of years, and hand the tool of cultural creation to the people, letting them create their own new culture."

The People's Daily article, like the Boxun articles, did not cause any sensation in China. In the eyes of most Chinese people, this was no longer a topic that needed discussion; perhaps in the future in the hearts of most foreigners, this will also no longer be something that needs discussion.