The case is an extreme example of the country's unevenly-enforced funeral policy, which tries to encourage cremation rather than interment given the wide range of alternative uses for land.
But traditional Chinese belief holds that an intact corpse buried in the earth allows the dead person's soul to live in peace. Confucian edicts say that ensuring one's body, hair and skin are not damaged is the most basic way to show respect to one's parents since they are gifts from them.
When they learnt of the burial, local officials demanded that the family dig up Cheng's body and cremate it, the paper reported. Relatives ignored the order and the officials, along with police and firefighters, dug up Cheng's coffin, poured petrol on it and ignited it.
"They wouldn't let us get near," Cheng's daughter Cheng Yinzhu told Anhui TV station, which also aired footage of police and villagers confronting each other after the forced cremation.
Also Read
Some cities have also begun offering bonuses for families who scatter their loved ones' ashes at sea.
Earlier this month the State Council, or cabinet, and the Communist Party's Central Committee ordered party members and officials to "set an example with simple, civilised funerals" and choose cremation whenever possible.
Yet traditional burials remain popular among many Chinese, with land in some cemeteries reaching tens of thousands of US dollars per half-metre plot.
The State Council last year abolished a rule allowing for forced cremation but did not replace it with any other policy.