How to view the "escape from Hong Kong" incident in history

Why flee to Hong Kong? Chen Bingan has asked many people this question and received various answers. The main reasons are poverty and famine.

In 1957, rural collectivization was further upgraded. The Baoan County Party Committee passed the "Several Regulations on Restricting the Development of Rural Capitalism", which restricts members' private land and sideline income. Sideline income cannot exceed 30% of the family's total annual income; farmers outside the cooperative are not allowed to open up wasteland or abandon farming for business. Completely plug the loopholes of capitalism"; the "all-male labor force" must complete 260 working days a year; if farmers have gold and silver jewelry in their homes, they must report it to the government and then take it into state ownership.

Border wire fence

In 1959, there was a serious famine in Guangdong. One data shows that the province's total grain output that year was only 17.758 billion kilograms, a 15.71% decrease from 1958. 1960 was still a year of reduced production. Farmers actually harvested 6.125 billion kilograms less grain than usual, which was equivalent to eight months of grain rations. A refugee from Hong Kong told Chen Bingan that at that time, there was basically no meat or oil in the food, and even vegetables were rare. In order to relieve his hunger, he once ate banana residue, straw, papaya peels, sweet potato vines, and even Guanyin soil at one time. At that time, the average daily income of a farmer in Baoan was about 70 cents, while the average daily income of farmers in Hong Kong was 70 Hong Kong dollars, a gap of nearly 100 times. A local folk song goes: "Working hard for a year is not as good as paying 8 cents across the street" (referring to sending a letter to Hong Kong to ask relatives to remit money back).

Political persecution is also one of the main reasons for fleeing Hong Kong.

The famous musician Ma Sicong is the most typical representative. After the "Cultural Revolution" began in 1966, Ma Sicong, then president of the Central Conservatory of Music, suffered a lot of humiliation. In 1967, he took the opportunity to perform in Shenzhen, took a desperate risk, and fled to Hong Kong by boat. The day after he arrived in Hong Kong, newspapers and radio stations across Hong Kong reported the news, setting off a 10-year wave of escapes from Hong Kong, with intellectuals and educated youth as the main body.

Chen Bing'an once interviewed a militia captain. The reason why he fled Hong Kong sounds incredible today.

The militia captain found a balloon floating from Taiwan in the mountains. In the basket under the balloon, there were a lot of food and a white vest. In the era when the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were in a state of hostility, balloons like this were often found in Guangdong. The educated youth handed over the food, but he really couldn't bear to part with the white vest, so he secretly kept it. A few days later, he attended a basketball game wearing a white vest. Onlookers discovered that after the white vest was soaked with sweat, the words "Counterattack the Mainland" appeared on the back. As a result, this farmer who was originally a "rooted and prosperous" farmer was labeled as a "American and Chiang Kai-shek agent" and was severely persecuted and had to flee to Hong Kong.

In order to cope with the increasingly serious wave of people fleeing Hong Kong, the local government once thought of such a method. On Wutong Mountain, where people fled to Hong Kong, there was a village called Xikeng. Baoan County was determined to "launch a desperate struggle" here and build Xikeng Village into an "anti-smuggling red flag village."