He was imprisoned at the age of 20 and released at the age of 77, serving 57 years in prison, the longest ever recorded in China. What does 57 years represent, that is almost the length of everyone's life, and his whole life has been spent under high walls, so what sin did he commit and spend his life to atone for?
His name is Ou Shu, born in 1933 in Huangqichang Village, Midu County, Yunnan, the society at that time was not peaceful, coupled with the early death of his mother, Ou Shu almost became a child who no one cared about, and dropped out of school without receiving any education, and began to sell tofu with his father after dropping out of school. It wasn't until he was 20 years old that an organization called "Consistent Dao" came to the village, and Ou Shu's fate changed because of this.
That day, the father and son went to sell tofu as usual, and when they came back, they found a group of people around the entrance of the village, and they were curious, and the members of the crowd were talking about something, at first they couldn't understand it, but not long after, they were like a demon, the more they listened, the more fascinated they became, and then they listened every day, and over time they became faithful believers in the consistent way.
"Nominally called the Moral Charity Association, in fact it is a cult formed by the remnants of the Kuomintang to confuse the masses into carrying out counterrevolutionary activities." At that time, most of the people living in the village had little knowledge and low level of education, so they were easily seduced by lawbreakers, and Ou Shu and his father were one of the members who were successful by them.
Soon after, as the wave of suppression of counter-revolution gradually expanded across the country, the lawbreakers who were hiding in Ou Shu's hometown were also successfully arrested, followed by Ou Shu and his father, and after trial, Ou Shu and his father were sentenced to 4 years in prison. So how did the original 4-year sentence become 57 years?
After being imprisoned, most of them honestly accepted reform and obeyed management, but Ou Shu was a maverick, disobeyed discipline, often spoke ill of the guards, and also induced other prisoners to go on strike, and had no remorse during his sentence, and his attitude towards serving his sentence was extremely bad, and he was a typical diehard. In fact, he can't be blamed for this, just because he is too young and has no knowledge, he will be completely ** by the cult, and he will be so unrepentant.
The managers saw him so young, even if he did not obey the discipline, they did not give up on him, but patiently taught him, hoping that he could get lost, but the patience of the managers was exchanged for Ou Shu's intensification. One day, when Ou Shu was working on the farm, he deliberately approached the management during the break, and then took advantage of the management's inattention, and actually snatched the manager's gun and tried to escape with the gun, but then he was held down by the other personnel who rushed to him.
At this time, there were only four months left before Ou Shu's release from prison. After this incident, Ou Shu was also accused of resisting reform, adhering to a reactionary position, and being extremely hostile in thought. Therefore, in January 1958, before the completion of his sentence, the court sentenced him to an additional 15 years.
Even so, it still failed to make Ou Shu change his mind, he began to resist work even more, pretending to be crazy and stupid, stealing other prisoners' belongings, and even insulting female cadres and female prisoners, even the women passing by, he did not let go, and packed his belongings every day, ready to escape at any time, and after several failed attempts to escape from prison, in June 1959, the court again commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. In 1960 to prevent him from escaping again, Ou Shu was sent to the stricter Yunnan No. 2 Prison, which houses felons. It was also from here that Ou Shu completely lost contact with his family.
After Ou Shu came to Yunnan No. 2 Prison, he seemed to realize something, and began to become taciturn from the initial high-flying and domineering, to the later cooperation with discipline and obedience to management. In the blink of an eye, 48 years have passed, and the prisoners have been in and out like flowing water, and the prison guards have changed for three generations, but Ou Shu seems to have been forgotten and has stayed here.
In fact, in the decades that Ou Shu has been here, he has also applied for commutation or even release. He was diagnosed with mental illness twice, and in 1980, the prison applied for his removal and release on the grounds that he had been suffering from mental illness for a long time, but for unknown reasons, the authorities did not agree.
In 1997, a new penal code was promulgated, which included an article stating that life sentence convicts who had repented could have their sentence reduced to 13,20 years after serving two years. So in 1999, Yunnan No. 2 Prison again submitted an application for commutation of Ou Shu's sentence, recommending that Ou Shu's life imprisonment be commuted to 10 years in prison, and two months later, the Yunnan High Court reduced Ou Shu's sentence to 18 years. However, every two years after that, Nushu who performed well was able to get a commutation of his sentence, ranging from one year to two years.
On January 22, 2008, Ou Shu and hundreds of prisoners were transferred from the No. 2 Prison to Guandu Prison, which was the first time in his 48 years to feel the scenery outside.
After coming to Guandu Prison, Ou Shu was assigned to the seventh prison area, he was very uncomfortable when he entered the new environment, he was depressed all day long, and did not talk to others, for which the prison also specially declared him the old, sick and disabled prisoners, not long after, a middle-aged prisoner was arranged to live with Ou Shu, responsible for taking care of Ou Shu's daily life, so Ou Shu lived a pension-like life, and slowly his body and spirit have improved, and when he was in a good mood, he would tell stories to his fellow inmates, but the stories told were all before the founding of New China, in his memory, Chiang Kai-shek or"Chairman Chiang".
On June 18, 2010, Ou Shu's sentence was commuted again, nine days before he was released from prison, and he was asked if he was happy that he was about to be released from prison. He replied mechanically until he was happy, and then muttered in his mouth, I'm old, I don't know where home is, and I don't know how to get home. On June 27, Ou Shu put on the new clothes that the prison guards had bought for him, packed the few pitiful items into his bag, and then followed the officer into the police car. Nushu was released from prison after serving a full 57 years in prison.
The police officer sent Ou Shu to Xinjie Town, Midu County, Dali Prefecture, which used to be his hometown, but no information about him could be found here, Ou Shu's father died as early as 1990, and his relatives could not be found for a while, and finally after the discussion of the town, it was decided to arrange him in a nursing home in the town. After the police officer took him to a nursing home and settled everything, he told him that this is your home and that you should spend your old age here. After doing this, the police officer was about to leave, but at this time, Ou Shu grabbed the officer's hand and said, You better take me back to prison, I don't want to get out of prison.
Ou Shu, who was reborn, did not show great excitement, but his mental state was not as good as day by day, he often locked himself in the house and did not go out, and the kind old man who lived here asked him to go out to chat, but he just sat dullly and never spoke, and after a few times, no one called him again.
On the other side, after many efforts, he finally found one of Ou Shu's relatives, a cousin who was eighty years old, and learned from his cousin that Ou Shu actually had no relatives after his father's death, and later his cousin took his children to visit him twice, but none of her children expressed their willingness to take care of Ou Shu, and Ou Shu could only stay in a nursing home.
After that, Ou Shu either smoked silently alone, or lay on the bed staring at the ceiling in a daze, in early August, Ou Shu, who was released from prison for less than two months, quietly left this world. After receiving the notice of Ou Shu's death, the prison guards who had been in contact with him were a little surprised, because Ou Shu was in a good mental state and physical condition before leaving the prison, so how could he just leave. In fact, this is not difficult to understand, after all, Ou Shu is 77 years old, and he has no relatives, he has lost hope in life, and he dies depressed.
Serving 57 years in prison, I left before I could fully see this strange world, which is somewhat regrettable, but after learning about Ou Shu's past, I feel that poor people must have something to hate, what do you think?