Hu Qien, also called Huyou and Huqi, was born in Chengdu in 1919 though his ancestral home was Chenjiagou in Jianyang, Sichuan Province. He went to school at 4, was admitted to Chengdu County Middle School at 10 and later went to Chengdu Lianli Middle School with outstanding academic records at 14. Just before his graduation from high school, Mr. Hu and other 20 schoolmates were expelled because they were strongly opposed to the commemoration meeting for a KMT official held by the school authority. Mr. Hu was allowed to graduate in the name of another low-ranking school after his parents made solemn representations.
Mr. Hu went to Sichuan University in 1939 and majored in agricultural economy. Two years later, he had to drop out of school because his family couldn’t afford his college education. Entering the society, he began to read the possessive books like Public Philosophy and Dialectical Materialism etc. He attended the first training class organized by Peasant Bank of China in Chongqing in the winter of 1941 and was assigned to Chengdu Peasant Bank in the spring of 1942. Meanwhile, he paid much attention to what was going on in his country, working hard on the works like Das Kapital and History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) in order to seek the truth and save the country and the people. He also subscribed to Xinhua Daily and read the works On Coalition Government by Mao Zedong. He called his dorm Liberated Area and invited the progressive young people to tune in to Yan’an radio station of the communist party of China and read progressive newspapers.
At the beginning of 1946, Mr. Hu joined the progressive Chengdu Vocational Association, attended the lectures on the domestic and international situation which were given by celebrities, and also attended the memorial meeting of the patriotic democratic fighters, Mr. Li Gongpu and Mr. Wen Yiduo. He took part in the Anti-Chiang Kai-shek and Anti-America activity, arranged by the teachers and students of Sichuan University and also took the lead to donate money to Yucai School run by Mr. Tao Xingzhi. At that time, the terror haunted Chongqing where spies ran amok and the military police were domineering. In that situation, he and his progressive friends mainly from Sichuan University in Chengdu kept close contact, supporting Chengdu students to fight against hunger and persecution and supporting students to fight for freedom and democracy.
Mr. Hu wrote a letter to console his victimized alumni schoolmates in 1948, but his letter was intercepted by the secret agent and his money orders used to buy progressive books in Hong Kong bookstores were found out, too. He was imprisoned in Zhazidong Prison on May 14, 1948. However, in prison he fought actively for clean drinking water, went on hunger strike with his cellmates and fought against secret agents who beat and cursed his cellmates at will. Facing the enemy’s order that political prisoners should not be allowed to whisper to each other and send any message, he still struggled against the information blackout. In prison, he only contacted another liasion person, transmitting messages to his cellmates and Yu Zusheng who was Yu Xinjiang in the novel entitled Red Rock. '' No worries. Everything is going to be okay, '' Hu Qien often said. In prison, he ground the handle of his toothbrush into a red heart in order to show his true love and eternal loyalty to the communist party. He conveyed the good news to his cellmates that the People's Liberation Army had launched the Huaihai Campaign and over one million PLA men had crossed the Yangtze river. He described the PLA men victory over the campaign by using the words that thousands of cannons thundered, which encouraged his cellmates a lot. He was killed by the KMT in Zhazidong Prison on November 27, 1949. Three days later, Chongqing was liberated.
