In The Name Of The People

A terrific television drama, and this post shares the novel version that it was adapted from.

Synopsis

In the Name of the People begins with a department project chief at a national ministry being reported for taking bribes worth tens of millions. When Hou Liangping, director of investigations at the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, arrives to search the suspect’s home, what he sees is not an elegant official but an honest-looking “old peasant” eating noodles in a shabby house. Just as the mask of that corrupt official is torn away, Ding Yizhen, deputy mayor of Jingzhou in H Province and another key figure tied to the case, escapes overseas with covert help and anti-surveillance measures. The case eventually leads to a struggle over shares in Dafeng Garment Factory, a state-owned enterprise linked to the Guangming Lake project in Jingzhou. Political factions throughout H Province are entangled in the affair. Chen Hai, director of the provincial anti-corruption bureau, is severely injured in a mysterious car crash. In order to finish the work left incomplete by his old classmate, the sharp and capable Hou Liangping is sent to H Province. There, two long-standing political factions have battled one another for years: the “politics and law faction” represented by Gao Yuliang, deputy party secretary and head of the political-legal committee, and the “secretary faction” represented by Li Dakang, member of the provincial standing committee and party secretary of Jingzhou. The arrival of the new provincial party secretary Sha Ruijin is destined to break the balance and bring a new atmosphere to reform in H Province.

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Book title: In the Name of the People

Author: Zhou Meisen

Publisher: Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House

ISBN: 978-7-5302-1619-4

Publication date: 2017-01-01

Category: Fiction > Society / Contemporary Chinese Fiction

Editorial Recommendation

To fully present the central leadership’s anti-corruption spirit of “punishing corruption with zero tolerance” and to reflect the tremendous force of the current anti-corruption campaign, the noted writer and screenwriter Zhou Meisen, long praised as “China’s number one political novelist”, spent eight years crafting another major realist epic in 2017: In the Name of the People. It paints a sweeping picture of Chinese politics and officialdom under anti-corruption pressure. The novel tells the story of Hou Liangping, a senior anti-corruption investigator from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, who is transferred to a local procuratorate to investigate a major corruption case and enters a life-and-death struggle with powerful corrupt figures. Artistically, it recreates the thrill and danger of the country’s anti-corruption drive in a new era, praises the faith and courage of anti-corruption fighters, and raises the larger political question of how party officials should form a proper understanding of power.

The television adaptation of the same title was jointly produced by the Film and Television Center of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and other official studios. Zhou Meisen wrote the script, Li Lu directed it, and the cast included Lu Yi, Zhang Fengyi, Wu Gang, Xu Yajun, Ke Lan, Hu Jing, Zhang Zhijian, Zhang Kaili, Zhao Ziqi, Feng Lei, Ding Haifeng, Li Jianyi, Li Guangfu and more than forty other strong performers. Hunan TV launched it as a major 2017 domestic drama, and it was widely praised as a landmark in Chinese political television.

About the Author

Zhou Meisen, born in 1956 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, is a professional writer and a member of the seventh, eighth, and ninth national committees of the China Writers Association, as well as a member of its presidium and vice-chairman of the Jiangsu Writers Association. His publications include Collected Works of Zhou Meisen in twelve volumes, Reader of Zhou Meisen’s Political Fiction in three volumes, Reader of Zhou Meisen in seven volumes, Classic Anti-Corruption Novels of Zhou Meisen in six volumes, and many other novellas and novels such as Dreams and Madness, Black Grave, The General Trend of the World, Great Victory, Military Song, and The Fallen Land. Television dramas adapted from his fiction include The Right Path of the Human World, Made in China, Highest Interests, Absolute Power, National Prosecution, My Lord Rises and Falls, I Am the Hero, and In the Name of the People. He has repeatedly won national awards for literature, television, and screenwriting.

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Opening Excerpt

I

When Hou Liangping learned that his flight had been delayed indefinitely, he nearly jumped up in anger. He had planned to catch the last flight to H Province so he could coordinate the arrest of Ding Yizhen, deputy mayor of Jingzhou. Now the whole plan was ruined. Over and over again the female announcer apologized in both Chinese and English, explaining that there was a thunderstorm system above the airport and that, for passenger safety, flights could not take off. A fine layer of sweat formed on Hou Liangping’s forehead. He already knew what it felt like to be trapped at an airport, and now he had to taste it again.

The giant television screens were showing weather graphics. Thick clouds swirled in dangerous spirals. Captions explained how thunderstorms endangered flight safety and how entering such a region could cause air disasters. Yet none of that calmed the passengers. The entire waiting hall seemed to have turned into a giant beehive, buzzing and noisy. Clusters of travelers surrounded the airline counters, asking the staff when flights would depart, what compensation might be offered, and so on. Hou Liangping did not need to squeeze forward to grasp the main point: as long as the storm sat over their heads, no flight was going anywhere.

He strode out of the waiting hall and found a quiet place where he began dialing number after number. Ji Changming, chief procurator of H Province, had his phone switched off. Chen Hai, director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, also had his phone off. At the very moment they were most needed, everyone had vanished. Of course Hou knew they had not literally disappeared. They were attending an emergency meeting, reporting the Ding Yizhen case to Gao Yuliang, the deputy party secretary in charge of legal affairs, and in such meetings participants usually turned off their phones. Even so, Hou would rather believe that they were hiding from him on purpose. As head of investigations at the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, he had repeatedly emphasized one thing to his counterparts in H Province, even pleaded with them: arrest first, hold meetings later. Deputy Mayor Ding was too important. He was a crucial link in the bribery case of Zhao Dehan, which had just been cracked. If Ding got wind of anything and ran, countless secrets of H Province’s political world might sink to the bottom forever. Hou was especially dissatisfied with Chen Hai, his old university classmate. He had specifically told Chen not to report upward first, but to place Ding under control immediately. Chen was too timid. He hesitated a few times, then reported the case anyway. Hou had rushed to catch a night flight to H Province right after the Zhao Dehan arrest precisely because he feared delay, but now he too was trapped by the thunderstorm.

Suddenly Hou noticed that outside there was no wind and no rain. Everything was calm and still. Even the usual airport traffic noise had disappeared. Where exactly was the thunderstorm? He ran to the doors of the terminal and looked up into the night sky. It was overcast, yes, and the moon and stars were dim, but there was no lightning and no thunder. The claim that no plane could take off almost felt absurd. By chance an airport employee walked past, and Hou stopped him to ask. The older worker gave him a meaningful look and replied philosophically: you cannot judge things only by what appears on the surface. Can you see the world above the clouds? Calm often hides thunder behind it. Hou stared at the old man’s back as he walked away, as if hearing a metaphor rather than an explanation.

Hou Liangping had graduated from H University’s political and law department, and his teachers and classmates were scattered all over the officialdom of H Province. That gave him a special attachment to the place. Anti-corruption storms were raging in many provinces, while H Province remained strangely calm. Rumors had surfaced there for years, only to vanish again. Hou understood perfectly well that the calm was false. Just as the eye cannot see the world above the clouds, it cannot see the darkness hidden beneath the sunlight. Ding Yizhen’s case had only surfaced by accident. Without Zhao Dehan’s shocking corruption case drawing him out, solid evidence would still have been hard to obtain. Hou understood timing. The final kick at the goal often decides the entire match. He was anxious, but anxiety could do nothing while thunder blocked the sky.

He went back through security and returned to the waiting hall, which was still chaotic. Forcing himself to calm down, he took a few drinks of water and sat in an empty seat with his eyes closed. The image of Zhao Dehan, already under arrest, appeared in his mind. Unable to help himself, Hou sank back into the memory of the previous night, when Zhao had been eating noodles from a large bowl and an old wooden door creaked open. Hou had gone to knock on the door as the embodiment of fate itself.

Zhao Dehan looked plain and honest. At first glance he did not resemble an official at all, but rather a peasant just returned from the fields. That was exactly why the later search at his luxury apartment in the Dijingyuan complex became so shocking.

Zhao was brought into his own apartment by two officers after fully breaking down. Inside, the place was completely empty. No sofa, no table, no bed, no cupboards, no kitchenware. Heavy curtains blocked all outside light, and a fine layer of dust covered the floor. It was obvious that no one had ever lived there. Zhao had rather cramped himself into a shabby old house than spend even one day enjoying this place. So what was it for? Hou looked toward a long row of huge metal cabinets lining the wall. Zhao handed over a string of keys. One by one, the officers opened the doors, and suddenly the climax appeared before everyone.

Bundles of banknotes, some newer and some older, were stacked neatly in dense layers and filled the entire row of cabinets, forming a solid wall of cash. Such a sight belonged in a major bank vault, or perhaps in the fantasies of a low-grade television drama. Gathered together in that quantity, cash had a violent visual impact. It felt like a storm you simply could not resist. Every officer present, including Hou Liangping himself, was stunned.

“My God, Zhao Dehan. I knew you were corrupt, but I never imagined you could be this corrupt. I really admire you for that. How on earth did a little department chief get hold of this much money?” Hou crouched down in front of Zhao and asked almost sincerely.

Only then did Zhao begin to cry. It was not only fear. It was grief too. “Director Hou, I never even spent any of it. I couldn’t bear to. I was afraid of being exposed. I only… came here to look at it.”

Hou found the psychology fascinating. “You came here just to look at it? Is it that beautiful?”

Zhao stared at the cabinets dreamily. “Beautiful. Too beautiful. When I was a child in the countryside, I loved looking at fields after harvest. I’d crouch by the edge of the field and stare all morning. I loved noodles, but I loved looking at wheat even more. The sprouts, the growing stalks, the ripe golden ears. Just watching them filled my stomach. I’m a farmer’s son. Generations of farmers. We were poor for too long. Looking at money is like looking at wheat. It makes me feel secure. It satisfies me spiritually. If you look at it long enough, it becomes a sea of golden grain.”

Hou could only think that this man had somehow elevated greed into pastoral poetry.

He suddenly remembered that Zhao seemed to have an eighty-year-old mother living alone in the countryside. So he asked whether Zhao at least sent money home. Zhao said yes, three hundred yuan a month. He and his wife argued about even that amount. His wife did not know the truth about his fortune. He had wanted to bring his mother to the city but dared not expose the Dijingyuan apartment, because this was his vault. The apartment where he actually lived was too small. Zhao tried to console himself by saying that three hundred yuan a month was enough for his mother.

At that point Hou really became furious. “You sit beside all this money and only send your mother three hundred yuan a month? You keep an entire luxury apartment empty and still won’t bring her here to live? She worked herself half to death to raise you, and this is how you repay her? You keep saying you’re the son of farmers. Why are farmers cursed to raise sons with no conscience like you?”

Zhao burst into tears again and apologized over and over, saying that he had failed the Party, failed the people, and failed the trust placed in him.

“Stop. Did the Party train you to rake in money?” Hou snapped. “Tell me how you got this much.”

Zhao shook his head and said he could hardly remember anymore. Once there had been a first time, he could never stop. He had held this position for four years. Whenever money came, he accepted it. Like picking wheat ears, he said, it all felt dreamlike, as if he were lost in a haze of golden grain.

Hou pointed at the cabinets. “Do you at least know roughly how much there is?”

Zhao replied, “I remember that exactly. A total of 239,554,600 yuan.”

Hou patted him on the shoulder. “You can remember down to the hundreds place. Your memory is excellent.”

Zhao answered, “Good memory isn’t as reliable as a bad pen. Director Hou, I like keeping accounts. Who gave me how much, when, and where. I wrote every transaction down clearly.”

Hou’s eyes lit up. “Where is the ledger?”

Zhao hesitated, then pointed upward. “Above the suspended ceiling in the master bedroom.”

An officer quickly retrieved a stack of ledgers wrapped in plastic. Hou flipped through them in astonishment. “My God. Were you trained as an accountant?”

Zhao answered through tears, “No. Mining. I taught myself accounting.”

“You’re practically a professional. Honestly, Zhao, I almost want to thank you.”

Zhao asked pitifully, “Director Hou, does that count as confession and meritorious service?”

“The court will decide that. Tell me something first. How did you become like this?”

Zhao suddenly grew animated. “I want to report someone. I report Ding Yizhen, deputy mayor of Jingzhou. He bribed me in person six times, for a total of 15,326,000 yuan. If he hadn’t given me that first bank card with five hundred thousand yuan on it, I would never have ended up like this. Director Hou, get me paper and a pen, and I’ll write out all the painful lessons in full. Let it be a warning bell forever, so other comrades never repeat this kind of mistake. No, no, this kind of crime…”

“You’ll have plenty of time to write in prison,” Hou said. He closed the ledger, pulled out the detention papers, and told his subordinates, “All right. Arrest this man who loves picking wheat ears.”

The officers pulled Zhao up, got his signature, and locked handcuffs around his wrists. He collapsed back down, pale as a corpse.

Hou ordered the team to clear out the cabinets. In an instant a mountain of money rose in the living room. He walked around it in circles, took out his phone, arranged for duty procurators to rotate in, and told them to contact the banks and bring more counting machines. Later the bank delivered twelve note-counting machines, and six of them burned out.

The replacement officers soon arrived. Hou ordered Xiao Han and the others to escort Zhao away.

As Zhao staggered toward the door, he suddenly turned around and said pitifully, “Director Hou… can I… can I take one last look around this place? Once I leave, I know I won’t ever come back.”

Hou froze for a moment, then shook his head and smiled bitterly. “Fine. One last look.”

Still in handcuffs, Zhao wandered around the apartment as though trying to carve every detail into his memory. At last he threw himself onto the mountain of money in the middle of the room, perhaps imagining it as a golden stack of wheat, and began to sob loudly. His cuffed hands stroked the bundles of notes, old and new, while his body trembled violently. Such is a failed life: to lose everything one once held, after sacrificing morality, conscience, and dignity to get it, only to end up with nothing. Zhao’s miserable crying echoed through the empty luxury apartment and left everyone horrified.

At four in the morning, the broadcast finally brought good news. The storm over Beijing had moved away, and planes could take off again. Hou Liangping moved with the crowd toward the gate and let out a long breath.

What should pass will pass, and what should come will come. The storm had moved away from Beijing, but perhaps H Province was about to erupt into thunder and lightning of its own. Hou had a feeling that the anti-corruption storm in H Province was coming, and it might sweep in some of his old teachers and classmates along with it. Starting with Ding Yizhen, perhaps the rumors that had risen and fallen so many times in H Province would no longer remain mere rumors.

Download The Rest

For the later chapters, please download them here.