Peng made regular inspection tours of the Chinese provinces after becoming Defense Minister in 1953. In a tour on Guangzhou in April 1958, he openly criticized Mao, saying "The Chairman talks all the time about more, faster, better, and more economical results. That is annoying. What does he want with chanting these liturgies all the time?" On an inspection tour through Gansu in October 1958, Peng observed many of the problems associated with the Great Leap Forward. Mature crops were left to die in the field because all of the young men had been drafted to operate primitive backyard furnaces. When Peng asked an old peasant why no one was collecting the harvest, he received the answer: "unless the centre sends down a great comrade, one cannot stand up against this storm." On the same tour Peng heard complaints that household utensils were being melted down for "steel", and that houses and orchards were cut and torn down in order to provide fuel for the backyard furnaces. In a subsequent tour through his native province of Hunan, later in 1958, Peng observed the same problems associated everywhere with the Great Leap Forward: serious food shortages; hungry children and babies; elders who expressed bitterness and anger; and arrogant, boasting Party cadres who administered local economic reforms. During his inspection tours through China in the fall of 1958, Peng composed a poem that summarized his attitude towards the Great Leap Forward: