Document Submitted to the Presidential Office, the State Council, and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Agriculture, and Commerce.  Subject: Regarding a Corrupt Official’s Secret Agreement to Sell Off Mineral Resources; Requesting Severe Punishment to Deter Official Corruption and Safeguard Hunan’s Mines; For Your Kind Consideration:

It has come to our attention that Zhang Rongmei, Director of the Hunan Mining Bureau, is of base character and inherently greedy and venal. Through his patronage by Hunan Governor Zhang Jingyao, he was illegally appointed Director of the Provincial Political Affairs Hall, where he abetted wrongdoing and embezzlement, earning himself a notorious reputation. Subsequently, coveting the lucrative mineral wealth of Hunan, he schemed tirelessly to secure the directorship of the Mining Bureau so as to further his own selfish ends.

Earlier, while Governor Zhang was secretly negotiating with the British merchant Grant the sale of the province’s entire mining rights, Zhang Rongmei was the principal instigator, seeking substantial bribes. Fortunately, this plot was uncovered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce and vehemently opposed by all the people of Hunan, thereby bringing the matter to a halt.

Unexpectedly, however, Zhang Rongmei remained undeterred in his lust for profit, resorting to ever more devious machinations. He colluded behind the scenes with Wei Jiak, a German mining engineer at the Shuikoushan Mine under the bureau’s jurisdiction, who introduced American businessmen such as Ma Yier Bulujin, proposing to establish a joint venture to operate a Hunan white-lead smelting plant, to be financed through secured loans. According to reports, the loan agreement purportedly involved the Hunan provincial government contributing lead concentrate valued at US$800,000 as equity, while the American side would invest US$1.4 million. Zhang Rongmei allegedly signed a secret preliminary agreement with the American partners in Beijing on the afternoon of the eleventh day of this month, at one o’clock, for a term of five years, renewable for another ten; during that period, all lead concentrate discovered within Hunan province was to be exclusively purchased by the plant at a fixed rate of US$10 per ton. On the very day the preliminary agreement was executed, US$60,000 had already been handed over, with a further US$140,000 to be paid upon signing the formal contract. The formal document was to be printed within three weeks from the date of the preliminary agreement; otherwise, it would become null and void.

Investigation reveals that the Shuikoushan lead mine constitutes the sole lifeline of Hunan’s fiscal revenues, and the white-lead smelting plant represents the only avenue for the province’s mining industry to survive. Should these vital assets fall into foreign hands, not only would the people of Hunan forever lose any prospect of relief, but the provincial treasury would likewise be deprived of the means to recover and rebuild. Zhang Rongmei, utterly reckless and driven solely by personal gain, appears willing to sacrifice Hunan’s paramount interests and hand them over to foreigners merely to line his own pockets. Such conduct is nothing short of thievery—surely it merits the severest punishment!

Moreover, according to the Mining Regulations, any mining enterprise established as a joint venture between Chinese nationals and foreigners must ensure equal capital contributions to safeguard national ownership rights. Yet, under the terms of this agreement, the American side is effectively injecting US$600,000 more than its Chinese counterpart, willingly ceding majority control to foreign interests—a clear violation of the regulations. This is something the people of Hunan can never accept.

Furthermore, the Shuikoushan mine in southern Hunan has always been developed and operated independently by the province itself. Under the present agreement, however, exclusive purchasing rights are granted to the smelting plant, and a predetermined price is set, thereby binding the province regardless of future fluctuations in lead concentrate prices. We thus risk repeating the disastrous experience of Han Ye Ping’s earlier concession to Japanese interests, with losses that go without saying. Moreover, since the smelting plant now holds exclusive purchasing rights over Shuikoushan, it is tantamount to treating the mine as a mere appendage of the plant, effectively surrendering not only the smelting rights but also the exploration rights themselves—an outcome whose dire consequences defy imagination. This, too, is utterly unacceptable to the people of Hunan.

In addition, the agreement stipulates that the American side will remit US$110,000 directly to the Hunan provincial government, clearly diverting funds intended for joint mining operations toward purposes unrelated to mining. Why would the American partners willingly engage in such an arrangement? And what use did Governor Zhang intend to make of these funds? The sinister motives behind this scheme are readily apparent. Sacrificing the province’s most valuable mining asset to satiate the insatiable greed of a corrupt official, all while deliberately excluding the people of Hunan from any involvement—this is yet another reason why we cannot possibly endorse it.

In summary, the agreement brokered by Zhang Rongmei, though ostensibly framed as a joint venture, amounts in reality to a blatant sell-off of Hunan’s mining rights. Given Governor Zhang’s year-long tyrannical rule over Hunan, during which he has extracted every last drop of the province’s resources with ruthless thoroughness, it is hardly surprising that Zhang Rongmei, acting as his accomplice and motivated solely by self-interest, displays not the slightest concern for the public good or the plight of the common people. Who could possibly believe such a deceitful charade? The millions of citizens of Hunan, having endured countless hardships, regard this kind of perpetually harmful contract as fundamentally different from other short-term exploitations—they perceive it as a matter of life-and-death importance not only for themselves but also for their descendants, and for the province as a whole. Public sentiment is deeply alarmed, and they are resolved to resist it to the bitter end.

With the deadline fast approaching, there remains just enough time to annul the agreement before it takes legal effect and engenders irreversible external obligations. We therefore earnestly request that Your Excellency, together with the relevant authorities, kindly intervene: before the agreement is finalized and put into print, issue an urgent order to Governor Zhang to immediately rescind the preliminary agreement, return all funds received, and punish Zhang Rongmei severely as a deterrent against official corruption, thereby safeguarding the province’s mining administration.

We stand ready to act without delay.

Respectfully submitted to His Excellency the President, the State Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce.

Petitioners: Mao Zedong, Zhang Bailing, Wu Qilin, Chen Shaohui, Wang Yunjun, Zhao Xianpu, Liu Tianhui, Huang Duhu, Bin Zuoshi, and other ordinary citizens residing in Beijing.

Printed by the People’s News Agency on November 11, 1917.