2026年1月14日，在位于中国西南的云南镇雄县林口乡风岩村。 数千名农民自发涌入该村田坝组，他们并非赶赴集市，也非欢度节日，而是为一位素不相识的老人送最后一程。送葬队伍蜿蜒数公里，鞭炮齐鸣，鼓乐震天，响彻山谷。这究竟是一位怎样的老人？为何她的葬礼能牵动数千人心弦？ 答案，要从13个月前说起。
时间回到2024年12月20日凌晨。天还未亮，镇雄县林口乡风岩村田坝组以及周边多个村民组突然同时断电，村庄陷入黑暗，村民安装的监控系统也全部失效。随后，一支由县政法委牵头，集结公务员、警察及相关人员共两百余人的队伍，悄然进入村庄。他们此行的目标只有一个——挖坟，抢尸。
被掘出的，是一位已下葬18天的老人。她来自田坝组最贫困的家庭，生前居住的老屋，曾被村、乡两级政府强制拆除。2024年冬天，老人去世后。村、乡政府多次上门，要求家属将遗体送往县城火化。但火化意味着交通费用、人力费用以及火化本身的支出，这对这个本就一贫如洗的家庭来说，根本无法承担。家属甚至无奈地对工作人员表示：“如果一定要火化，你们自己把人拉走吧。”然而，政府拒绝承担任何费用。最终，家属按照当地传统习俗，将老人土葬。
下葬之后，派出所与乡政府人员多次上门，反复劝说家属交出遗体，甚至提出给予“补偿”。但家属始终拒绝——他们下不了这个手。
18天后，抢尸行动正式展开。新坟被挖开，老人遗体被强行带走。整个过程中，工作人员未向家属出示任何法律文书。期间，警察控制住家中的老人和孩子，将家属像押解犯人一样带离。而当村民试图用手机记录现场时，手机立即被抢走，数名村民因此被带往派出所。
这件事，原本也可以像许多类似事件一样，在恐惧和沉默中结束。但这一次，家属没有屈服。他们开始在网络上发声，向外界控诉此事，不断上访、申诉、抗议。这一坚持，持续了一年多。
与此同时，自2025年11月起，数十公里外的中屯镇，村民们也开始了声势浩大的”反强制火葬“运动。最终，持续两个多月，多起大规模的抗争行动，迫使中屯镇政府取消了强制火葬政策。2026年1月初，林口乡也传来消息——强制火葬政策被取消。那位老人的骨灰，最终被返还给家属。一年多后，终于得以重新下葬。
消息传开，整个林口乡都震动了。村民们心里都很清楚：如果没有田坝组这户人家一年多的坚持，这项政策，很可能还会继续执行下去。
在他们眼中，这不再是一户普通人家，而是整个林口乡的英雄，他们争回来的，是做人的尊严。那一眼望不到尽头的送葬队伍，和漫山遍野、震彻山谷的鞭炮声，正是对这场持续一年之久的不屈抗争，献上的最庄重、也最沉重的致敬。
After a Year of Resistance, Justice Won: Thousands of Yunnan Farmers Escort the Elder Whose Body Was Seized (2026.01.14)
On January 14, 2026, in Fengyan Village of Linkou Township, Zhenxiong County, southwestern China’s Yunnan Province, thousands of farmers spontaneously poured into the village’s Tianba hamlet. They were not heading to a market, nor celebrating a festival, but seeing off an elderly woman they had never met, accompanying her on her final journey. The funeral procession stretched for several kilometers; firecrackers erupted in unison, drums and music thundered, echoing through the mountain valleys. What kind of elder was she, to move the hearts of so many? The answer begins thirteen months earlier.
In the early hours of December 20, 2024, before dawn had broken, Tianba hamlet in Fengyan Village—and several surrounding hamlets—suddenly lost power. The village was plunged into darkness, and residents’ surveillance systems all failed at once. Soon after, a team led by the county Political and Legal Affairs Committee—more than two hundred people including civil servants, police, and other personnel—quietly entered the village. They had a single objective: to dig up a grave and seize a body.
The body exhumed belonged to an elderly woman who had been buried for eighteen days. She came from the poorest family in Tianba hamlet. The old house she had lived in during her lifetime had previously been forcibly demolished by village- and township-level authorities. When she passed away in the winter of 2024, officials from the village and township repeatedly visited the family, demanding that the body be transported to the county seat for cremation. But cremation meant transportation costs, labor costs, and cremation fees—expenses the destitute family simply could not afford. In despair, the family even told officials, “If it must be cremated, then you take her yourselves.” The government, however, refused to cover any costs. In the end, the family buried her according to local custom.
After the burial, police station and township officials came to the home many times, repeatedly urging the family to hand over the remains and even offering “compensation.” The family consistently refused—they could not bring themselves to do it.
Eighteen days later, the body-seizure operation was carried out. The new grave was dug up, and the elderly woman’s remains were forcibly taken away. Throughout the process, officials presented no legal documents to the family. Police restrained the elderly and children in the household and escorted the family away as if they were criminals. When villagers tried to record the scene on their phones, the devices were immediately confiscated, and several villagers were taken to the police station.
This incident could have ended, like so many others, in fear and silence. But this time, the family did not yield. They began speaking out online, reporting what had happened, and persistently filing petitions, appeals, and protests. Their persistence lasted more than a year.
Meanwhile, beginning in November 2025, villagers in Zhongtun Town—dozens of kilometers away—launched a large-scale movement against forced cremation. After more than two months and multiple mass actions, the Zhongtun town government was compelled to abolish its forced cremation policy. In early January 2026, news arrived from Linkou Township as well: the forced cremation policy had been canceled. The elderly woman’s ashes were finally returned to her family. More than a year later, she was at last laid to rest again.
When the news spread, the entire Linkou Township was shaken. Villagers understood clearly that without the Tianba family’s year-long persistence, the policy would likely have continued. In their eyes, this was no longer just an ordinary household, but the heroes of the entire township. What they reclaimed was human dignity itself. The funeral procession that stretched beyond sight, and the firecrackers that blanketed the mountains and shook the valleys, were the most solemn—and the heaviest—tribute to a year-long, unyielding struggle.