Yenching

On May 31, about a week after the discussions began, the terms of the agreement signed at Tangku were made public. Known as the Tangku Truce, this agreement provided that China immediately withdraw all her troops to districts south and west of a line connecting Yenching, Changping, and Kaoliying, and not advance beyond this line.

The poor and lower middle peasants are delighted with the new arrangements for enrolling college students. The difference can be seen in the example of hilly Yenching County on the outskirts of Peking, with a population of 220,000. There were only three primary schools and not a single middle school in this county before 1949.

Li Sze-kuang (fourth from right) on an observation tour in Peking district’s Yenching county.

In 1966 [four years after her marriage to Sicheng] I was sent to Yenching County on the outskirts of Peking. Along with other students and teachers from Tsinghua University, I joined a work team carrying out the “Four Purifications Campaign” in the countryside. In June we received an order to return to the university to join the Cultural Revolution.