One day in August, a peasant in Yuandu county in southern China's Jiangxi province came across a book called The Friend of the Farmers in a nearby town. It was a collection of essays in which Communist Party authors advocated reducing farmers' tax burdens.
Delighted at his find, he bought several copies and gave them to his fellow-villagers. The slim volume struck a chord with the peasants, who were simmering with fury at the imposition by county officials of a tax of 180 yuan (about £20) for every 666 square metres of land they tilled, a levy which left them practically destitute.
The bureaucrats heard about it and promptly banned the distribution of the book, calling it an "illegal publication". But they miscalculated the limits of tolerance of the peasants, who are being squeezed dry all over China by taxes which often maintain a lifestyle of banquets and Pajeros for officials.
On August 17th, about 2,000 farmers protested outside Yuan du government office and the anger boiled over into violence. The smashed every window with stones. Sections of the crowd attacked the homes of officials and rich Chinese, and smashed them up. The rioting spread to surrounding villages and soon 20,000 peasants were in revolt. It continued for five days before being put down by the People's Armed Police.
This was but the latest in a series of disturbances which have broken out in rural areas, where many of China's 900 million peasants are missing out on the economic reforms which are transforming the cities.
Significantly, Yuandu was a key recruiting ground for the Chinese Communist Party during its early days, and it was here Chairman Mao Zedong set up his first "revolutionary base" in the 1920s.
Not far away in Ba Tang village, near where Mao was born, there was a similar revolt some time ago. It occurred when a villager called Yan Youcai killed himself by drinking pesticide in despair because he couldn't pay his taxes. Villagers carried the body to party headquarters 10 miles away. Thousands of enraged peasants overturned cars and burned government buildings before the People's Armed Police arrived and opened fire to restore order.
More disturbances seem inevitable as peasant incomes slide because of falling crop prices and local officials lean more heavily on them, as rural enterprises - their main source of revenue - go bankrupt. Taxes have been levied for land, children, education, the militia and all kinds of services. The bureaucrats themselves complain at being given impossible demands by Beijing.
Two weeks ago the Nanfang Weekly newspaper published a letter from Li Changping (37), party secretary of Qipan Township in Hubei province. It was addressed to the State Council in Beijing, and its very appearance seems to indicate that someone at the top realises its value as a "wake-up" call.
"I often meet old people, grabbing my hands, saying they are wishing for an early death, and young children, running up to me, recounting the tragedy of not being able to afford elementary school," he wrote. It was extremely hard to exist as a local cadre who "didn't report fake numbers, speak contrary to his convictions and do things contrary to his conscience."
The number of officials living off the backs of peasants in Qipan had risen from 120 to 340 in a decade, he said and more relatives and friends were looking for government jobs each year. "When will the expansion stop? How can the peasants afford it?"
Government procurement agents often either refused to buy peasants' crops or paid less than the official price, and punished farmers who sold their produce on the open market. After Qipan local government raised taxes to pay wages and interest on its debts there was no money for new bridges or electricity cables.
"Local cadres mainly suck up to leaders, always falsifying statistics and saying everything is OK," he wrote. "If someone speaks the truth, immediately he's said to be politically immature and not reliable. The peasants were being forced to flee the land and trucks day and night take our itinerant workers to all four corners of the motherland; they say it's better to die in the city so they won't be peasants in the next life."
The Chinese government has for some time been talking about the need to reduce taxes on peasant, just as The Friend of the Farmers advocates, and it may be that more effort will be put into reining in local officials. The Central Council has sent a team to Qipan to investigate and in Yuandu county the party secretary and township chief have been sacked and other senior officials have fled. But the tax has not been revoked.