Becoming Madame Mao - Anchee Min [94]
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What? Does anybody dare not to listen to Chairman Mao? Chun-qiao's voice is filled with shock.
Jiang Ching rocks her chin as her tone becomes mysterious. I have Chairman Mao's full support to counterattack. She repeats the phrase as if she enjoys hearing the sound of it.
Full support! Chun-qiao exhales and claps his hands.
Here is my analysis of the situation, Jiang Ching goes on. Hairui Dismissed from Office is the key.
Chun-qiao sits back and combs his hair with his fingers. For you, Madame Mao, I'm willing to soak my pen with the juice of my brain.
She offers her hand for him to shake and then gently whispers into his ear: Soon the seats of the Politburo will be vacant and someone has to fill them up.
I don't drink, but today I want to show that I put my life in your hands. Come on, Chun-qiao, bottoms up.
We drink mai tais. It is past midnight. Our spirits are still high. We are finalizing the details of our plan. We are picking partners for the job.
Chun-qiao suggests his disciple Yiao Wen-yuan, who is the head of the Bureau of Propaganda in Shanghai. I have been paying attention to this man. He began to show his political talent during the antirightist movement. He is known for his criticism of Ba-jin's book Humanity. He is a heavy-duty weapon. People call him "the Golden Stick." His pen has put down many unshakable figures.
Good! We need golden sticks, I reply. Iron sticks and steel sticks. Our rivals are tigers with steel teeth.
Her next meeting with Mao sets history in motion.
November 10,1965. The curtain of the epic of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution lifts. It is quiet in the beginning, like the changing of the tides. The sound pushes in from a distance. After eight months of round-the-clock preparation, Jiang Ching, Chun-qiao and Yiao complete their draft entitled "On the Play Hairui Dismissed from Office."
Mao reviews and revises the draft. A week later it appears in the Shanghai Wen-hui.
No one, from the Politburo to the congress, takes the article seriously. No one talks about it. No other paper reprints it. Like a rock thrown in a dry well, there is not a sound.
Jiang Ching enters Mao's study the nineteenth day after the publication. She tries to hide her excitement.
The resistance is obvious, she begins. Her voice is tightly controlled. It is an organized silence.
My husband turns toward the window and looks out. Zhong-nan-hai Lake is bathed in bright moonlight. The sea of trees is draped with silver rays. The shadows are velvet black. Not far in the distance, among the mists of fog, stand the pavilions of Yintai and Phoenix where every bit of grass, wood, brick and tile tells a story.
It is here Emperor Guang-xu was held hostage by the empress dowager. Mao speaks suddenly as he always does. The first vice president of the republic of China, Li Hong-yuan, was under house arrest on the same spot. Do you think they would dare?
We are all set to go, Chairman. Your health is the nation's fortune.
Have you printed the article as a handbook? Mao asks.
I have, but the bookstores in Beijing are uninterested. Only three thousand copies have been reluctantly stocked—compared to Vice Chairman Liu's On a Communist's Self-Cultivation, which has sold six million.
Did you relay the situation to the head of the Cultural Bureau, Lu Din-yi?
I did. His comment was "It is an academic issue."
Mao gets up and spits tea leaves from his mouth. Down with the Cultural Bureau and the Beijing City Committee! Let's stir the country. Tell the masses to shake the enemy's boats. The revolution must be renewed.
Your order has been placed.
The first couple of China utilize their power to its full capacity. Through the media Mao launches the movement. Let the Cultural Revolution he a soul-purifying process, the papers quote Mao. The old order has to he abandoned. A foot worker should be able to enter