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1976 at 0:10 on September 9, 1976, Chairman Mao passed away in Zhongnanhai, Beijing.
In the ceremony hall of Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, the white marble wall on the front of the hall is inlaid with gilt official script big characters:
"The great leader and mentor Chairman Mao Zedong will live forever."
In the middle of the hall, crystals are placed in the flowers. Coffin , Chairman Mao in the crystal coffin, his face was rosy and his expression was as peaceful as if he was asleep, as if Chairman Mao was still by our side, and he was still guiding us to move forward at all times.
Chairman Mao’s body is still vivid today. So what method was used to preserve it so well?
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After Chairman Mao passed away, it was very controversial whether his body was cremated or preserved.
According to historical records, Chairman Mao advocated cremation and hoped that he would also cremate after his death.
1954, when Chairman Mao saw cemeteries of all sizes in West Lake, Hangzhou, he worriedly said: "It is not good for dead people to compete with living people for land."
1956, Chairman Mao took the lead in signing the "Initiative to implement cremation".
In his later years, Chairman Mao told Wu Xujun, then the head health nurse of Chairman Mao, that his body would be cremated after his death, and then scattered the ashes into Yangtze River to feed the fish. I ate fish before I die, and after I die, I ate fish myself. After I eat fish, I can continue to go to to serve the people . This is called Law of Immortality of Materials .
The above three things are enough to show Chairman Mao’s attitude towards handling his own body after his death, and also make the people deeply feel that Chairman Mao has been thinking about the masses.
However, Chairman Mao's body was not cremated according to his advocacy during his lifetime, but was lying safely in his memorial hall for the world to admire.
On the day of Chairman Mao’s death, Hua Guofeng, then the first vice chairman of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, held a meeting on Chairman Mao’s funeral in Zhongnanhai .
people argued endlessly, and in the end, the two national leaders Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying decided to protect the bodies first to ensure subsequent funerals and condolences.
body protection time is initially set to 15 days.
Medical personnel who protect the body should be instructed by superiors that the protection of the body is only to meet the needs of the 15-day memorial activities, so the body is only treated in general, and only some drugs such as glycerol , alcohol, formalin and other drugs are injected. To prevent the remains from rotting.
1976 was a sad year. On January 8 that year, Premier Zhou Enlai died in Beijing.
On July 6, Commander Zhu De also passed away in Beijing. Both of them were cremated, and the people lost their beloved Prime Minister Zhou and Commander Zhu De this year.
Before their grief could be relieved, they heard about Chairman Mao’s death.
Chairman Mao is like the sky of the people. Chairman Mao left, causing the faith of countless people to collapse. They do not want Chairman Mao to leave like this.
So they didn't want Chairman Mao's body to be cremated. Once cremated, they would no longer "see" Chairman Mao.
On September 10, after the meeting discussion, Hua Guofeng finally decided to preserve Chairman Mao’s body for permanent preservation and establish a Chairman Mao Memorial Hall for permanent admiration by the world.
Although this goes against Chairman Mao’s last wish, Chairman Mao’s body is our great legacy, just like his thoughts. It is not only the opinions of the national leaders, but also the thousands of Chinese people. The wishes of thousands of people.
But this has posed a big problem for the body protection working group. How should the body be preserved permanently?
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It is actually not difficult to protect the remains from rotting for a long time, because there are already mature scientific methods.
However, the difficulty is to achieve the purpose of admiration, because this not only requires the body's facial color, appearance and expression to meet the requirements, but also requires the body to be able to accept the influence of light, temperature, humidity, etc.
Moreover, the body has passed the best treatment time.
Generally speaking, permanent preservation is required. The body protection work must be dissected 2 hours after death, the internal organs are removed, and the blood vessels throughout the body, including the finest capillaries are rinsed with rinsing solution, and finally formalin is injected, coagulant , etc.
This is another major political task. Although there are many difficulties, the body protection team still took it.
On September 11, Chairman Mao's body was moved to Great Hall of the People , where a mass condolence activity was held.
In order to protect the body, all the refrigeration equipment in the hall room was turned on. The people participating in the mourning were wearing thick clothes. Although they felt that it was very cold, the temperature was still not enough to protect the body. Normal people cannot bear the low temperature like
, not to mention that there are many elderly and weak people who come to pay their respects.
And people will also bring heat, and the vocal music and light of condolences will have a very adverse impact on the body protection work.
Long-term anti-corrosion protection of the remains, drugs only play a temporary role, but in fact, the environment where the remains are stored is the crucial role.
In response to this, leaders and experts decided to add a coffin cover and ensure low temperature and oxygen isolation in the coffin.
What kind of coffin cover should be made?
According to the instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, a world-class crystal coffin should be developed as soon as possible to accommodate Chairman Mao’s body.
However, before 1976, there was no precedent for the preservation of the remains of crystal coffins in our country.
Internationally, the bodies of outstanding national leaders are placed in crystal coffins.
However, the manufacturing of crystal coffins is confidential. my country does not have this technology, and there is no information for reference and use.
How to create a crystal coffin that can meet the protection of the body and the appreciation of the body has posed a big problem for the staff of the temporary crystal coffin development team in our country.
The staff remembered that when Sun Yat-sen passed away, the Soviet government gave him a crystal coffin, but it was not used at that time and stored it in Biyun Temple for people to visit.
Time is tight, can this crystal coffin be used to place Chairman Mao’s body?
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However, this crystal coffin is only about 1.75 meters long and 0.5 meters high, and the lid is glass. In addition, the cracks generated during international transportation at that time make it impossible to guarantee its sealing and thermal insulation.
Therefore, this crystal coffin cannot be used for the body of Chairman Mao.
Condolences are imminent, but the crystal coffin cannot be developed in a moment.
Crystal coffin development team members and relevant national leaders decided to use glass coffin for the time being for condolences and worship activities to proceed smoothly.
At that time, there was only one factory in Beijing able to produce plexiglass that meets the requirements.
However, the maximum glass that this factory can produce is only 1.6 meters, which is still 0.6 meters away from the required 2.2 meters.
Crystal coffin development team members and workers were working together in the factory, constantly experimenting with connecting the glass plates to one piece.
finally successfully completed the splicing of the glass plate after more than ten hours.
During these ten hours, the development team and the workers ate and lived in the factory. The production and processing temperature of the factory was high. They looked red and sweated profusely, but none of them complained about being tired. The smooth splicing of
glass plates means that a closed environment can be realized.
Next, inert gas should be filled into the coffin and oxygen should be removed to prevent bacteria and other microorganisms in the coffin from growing, causing damage to the body.
In addition, the staff also strictly controlled the temperature, sound and light in the hall, which ensured that the body of the great man was not seriously damaged during the condolences and worship activities.
Condolences and worship activities lasted until September 17. More than 300,000 people came to the Great Hall of the People to pay their respects, and the whole country fell into sorrow.
It will take about 1 year from the end of the condolences to the completion of Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall.
Where should Chairman Mao’s body be placed during this period? How to continue to protect the body?
The memorial service ended on September 18, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to transfer Chairman Mao’s body to a place code-named “769” for protection.
htmlOn September 20, Chairman Mao’s body was successfully transferred to the “769” protection room. The formula for soaking the remains ofis also special. It is prepared by experts based on past experience and even on the recipe for preserving Mawangdui ancient corpses.
Glass coffin has completed its mission, and the development of the crystal coffin is still underway.
What difficulties will the development of the crystal coffin encounter?
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According to the instructions of the superior, the crystal coffin must be completed before the completion of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, which means that the production of the crystal coffin is required to be completed within 1 year.
It is reported that the East China Sea crystal raw material used to make Chairman Mao’s crystal coffin weighs 32.2 tons.
At that time, National Geological Administration was responsible for the collection of raw materials for crystal coffins. When the masses heard that the crystal raw materials were insufficient, they spontaneously collected them. With the unity of the people, sufficient crystal raw materials were collected in a short period of time.
According to later data records, there was no real crystal coffin at that time. Even the crystal coffins of Lenin, Stalin , and Ho Chi Minh were all made of air glass, which is not a real crystal coffin.
has no precedent, and there is no information for reference and use.
In my country, each piece of natural high-quality crystal material is only 30~40cm at most. Therefore, it is impossible to make crystal coffin boards with natural crystals.
A master in Beijing suggested using small to make the big ones, which is to splice small pieces of crystal blanks melted from crystal raw materials into a piece of crystal bricks , then weld them into small crystal panels, and finally the small crystal panels are welded again. To form a large crystal board.
The crystal panel that forms the crystal coffin is about 2 meters long, 1 meter wide, and 0.08 meters thick. This large panel is welded from small crystal panels according to the above method.
The melting point of the crystal exceeds 2000℃, so the welding work must be completed at the moment the crystal melts.
Crystal welding is done by an old technician. He is wearing a heavy metal protective suit, and hot smoke is constantly emitting from the protective suit. He must keep watering him. Even the old technician's feet are all the same. Soaked in water.
Hard work pays off. After everyone's efforts, we finally completed the production of the crystal coffin board. The purity of quartz powder reached 99.9999%. The purity of these 6 9s has been produced by no one in the world so far.
crystal board has been made, and the next step is grinding, polishing, assembly and other processing work.
Technicians also conducted an magnitude 8 earthquake crisis test on the crystal coffin, which lived up to expectations. There was no abnormality in this crystal coffin.
On November 25, 1976, this world-class crystal coffin was officially released. It embodies the hard work of the people across the country and carries the infinite nostalgia and admiration of Chairman Mao by countless people.
However, it is still not possible to have a crystal coffin, because the environment inside the crystal coffin is also an important factor. In the preservation environment of the remains, oxygen isolation, low temperature and light protection are the key.
Chairman Mao’s body is not only a matter of ensuring non-corrosion, but also requires the color and face of the skin to be as vivid as possible.
The inner lighting and optical plastic surgery of the crystal coffin are used to let the people see the lifelike Chairman Mao.
In addition, experts have found a more advanced method of preserving remains after research and demonstration.
This is the method of preserving the body that combines gaseous and liquid states. It is selected whether the body is from a gaseous environment or a liquid environment according to different time periods.
For example, during the admiration period, the body is stored in the gas state, and during the non-admiration period, it is turned into the liquid state.
It’s like this. With the people’s unremitting hardships and continuous efforts to innovate, Chairman Mao’s body is still vivid and accompanied us generations through countless spring, summer, autumn and winter in the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall.
Chairman Mao accompanied the people in another attitude and witnessed the beautiful mountains and rivers of the motherland.
The preservation of Chairman Mao’s body and the development of the crystal coffin reflect that the people are real heroes.
Under the leadership of the Party and the country, the wisdom and creativity of the people are endless. They are self-reliant, work hard, unite, dare to challenge difficulties, and create unexpected miracles for people.
We respect Chairman Mao and all the predecessors who have contributed to this country and the people.
We firmly believe that the brave, hardworking and never admit defeat will overcome the next difficulties and create miracles after miracles.
The spirit of the great man will always guide us toward one glory after another.
