The sent-down, rusticated, or "educated" youth (Chinese: 知識青年), also known as the zhiqing, were the young people who—beginning in the 1950s until the end of the Cultural Revolution, willingly or under coercion—left the urban districts of the
People's Republic of China to live and work in rural areas as part of the "Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement".

The vast majority of young people who went to the rural communities had received elementary to high school education, and only a small minority had matriculated to the post-secondary or university level.

Apart from the urban residents and the rural village officials’ ambivalent attitudes towards the sent-down youth movement, some local villagers were also unsure how to deal with the urban youth sent to their villages. In the Ganchazi commune in
Heilongjiang, eighty-six youth from Shanghai---many who had troubled records and served time in Shanghai’s juvenile detention---were sent there. Locals found it challenging to deal with these youth who reportedly fought among themselves, gambled, drank,
stole, and killed animals. Local villages in Anhui province that received youth from Shanghai who had criminal records encountered similar issues. The head of the Anhui Provincial Office of Sent-Down Youth reported that the local villagers “hated them,
but they were afraid to say anything.” (see also: people's commune).

Rustication did not end the Cultural Revolution in the minds of many sent-down youth. Many continued to organize study groups on social issues. Some even organized underground cells in case the opportunity for rebellion appeared again, although these
groups were the minority.

From 1962 to 1979, no fewer than 16 million youth were displaced (some sources set the minimum at 18 million). Although many were directed to distant provinces such as Inner Mongolia, the usual destinations for the sent-down youth were rural counties in
neighboring areas. Many of the Red Guards from Shanghai travelled no further than the nearby islands of Chongming and Hengsha at the mouth of the Yangtze.

In 1971, numerous problems with the movement began to come to light, at the same time as the Communist Party allocated jobs to the youth who were returning from the country. The majority of these re-urbanized youth had taken advantage of personal
relations (guanxi) to leave the countryside. Those involved with the "Project 571" coup denounced the entire movement as being disguised penal labor (laogai). In 1976, even Mao realized the severity of the rustication movement and decided to reexamine
the issue. But in the meantime, over a million youth continued to be rusticated every year. Many students could not deal with the harsh life and died in the process of reeducation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth

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