 After the Sino-Japanese War Zheng began to focus his efforts on directing, most notably with "The Spring River Flows East" (co-directed with Cai Chusheng) (1947) and his anti-Kuomintang polemic "Crows and Sparrows" (1948).In 1957, the latter was awarded Excellent Movie Award first-class (1949-1955) by the Minister of Culture of the PRC.Zheng welcomed the establishment of the new government of CPC.