article | Documentary in the movie
edited | Documentary in the movie
Preface
At 0:10 on September 9, 1976, the great leader Chairman Mao passed away, the fall of the superstar and the mountains and rivers were sad.
At that time, Hua Guofeng, who was receiving foreign guests at Great Hall of the People, hurriedly bid farewell to the people at the banquet after receiving the message and immediately rushed to Zhongnanhai .
Before he stepped into Chairman Mao's ward, he heard the crying of the guards and medical staff, and his nose immediately felt sore and tears fell from his eyes.
However, Hua Guofeng did not care about sadness at this time, because Chairman Mao’s funeral arrangements were the primary matter that urgently needed to be resolved.
He immediately decided to hold an emergency meeting, mainly discussing and negotiating three issues, namely:
How should Chairman Mao’s funeral be arranged? How should the Chairman’s body be handled? Are foreign delegations invited to Beijing to pay their respects?
Hua Guofeng
Body protection work
The night when Chairman Mao passed away was destined to be a sleepless night for everyone.
After discussions by all members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee in Beijing, everyone agreed that the funeral committee should be established immediately, and all the procedures for the arrangement of Chairman Mao's funeral are coordinated and the entire funeral will be held grandly and solemnly.
In order to stabilize the domestic situation, all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee finally decided under the concerns that they would not intend to invite foreign governments, brotherly parties and friendly people to send delegations or representatives to China for condolences.
At the same time, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued an order that the People's Liberation Army entered a first-level combat readiness state, and all officers and soldiers strengthened their combat readiness duty to prevent any possible occurrence.
Among these three questions, the most intense discussion is the issue of how Chairman Mao’s body should be dealt with.
As early as 1956, Chairman Mao advocated the implementation of cremation and took the lead in signing the initiative of "Initiative to implement cremation".
In the last few years before his death, he also talked to Dr. Wu Xujun about his major events, saying that he liked to eat fish, and then he asked someone to scatter his ashes in Yangtze River , which was considered as apologizing for the fish.
Implementing cremation was Chairman Mao’s wish during his lifetime. Hua Guofeng, Wang Dongxing and others also wanted to follow Chairman Mao’s ideas at first.
However, the accompanying staff around Chairman Mao and many members of the Standing Committee said:
Chairman Mao is the great leader of New China and the spiritual pillar in the hearts of the people. Chairman Mao’s body should be properly preserved for the people to express their condolences and for future generations to admire.
The final meeting decided to keep Chairman Mao’s body forever.
Just after making this decision, the task of protecting Chairman Mao’s body was immediately started.
On the basis of the original eight offices, the State Council urgently added the Ninth Office (hereinafter referred to as the "Nine Office"), and established a leading group to protect Chairman Mao's body here.
At around 4 a.m. that day, Minister of Health Liu Xiangping and His 10th Deputy Doctor of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Xu Jing came to Zhongnanhai.
At that time, the two of them only received a notice from the "Nine Office" and did not know anything that happened in Zhongnanhai.
It was not until Wang Dongxing cried and announced the bad news of Chairman Mao's death with them that the two understood why the news was posted so suddenly, and they could not hide their sadness and burst into tears.
After several people tried to calm down, Wang Dongxing gave Xu Jing a task to protect Chairman Mao’s body and asked her what she had to ask for.
Wang Dongxing
After thinking for a while, Xu Jing proposed to see Chairman Mao’s body with his own eyes, and work with his peers to study the plan and the equipment and medicines that need to be fully prepared.
After the central government passed the body protection plan proposed by Xu Jing, Xu Jing and others immediately devoted themselves to this glorious and arduous task.
They first treated Chairman Mao’s body with anti-corrosion, then replaced Chairman Mao with light gray Zhongshan clothing , and found a professional to carefully take care of the Chairman’s appearance.
After doing all this, Xu Jing and others began to take turns to take care of Chairman Mao’s body.
They are waiting for the Party Central Committee to issue relevant matters related to the activities of the masses to pay condolences and pay tribute to Chairman Mao’s body.
The whole country is mourning
At 4 pm on September 9, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the National People's Congress, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission jointly issued the "Hidelines to the Whole Party, the Whole Army, the People of All Ethnicities of the Country", and finally announced the bad news of Chairman Mao's death to all Chinese people.
As early as an hour before the announcement of the news, the Central Radio reminded the public that there will be important broadcasts at four o'clock.
The Chinese people at that time were still in a state of ignorance and were still working and living in an orderly manner.
However, when the sad and sorrowful music sounded on the radio and the news of Chairman Mao’s death spread throughout the country, all the Chinese people were trapped in pain and sorrow as if the sky had fallen and the earth had fallen.
For a moment, the whole country mourned and the mountains and rivers cried together. All entertainment and celebrations were stopped. People gathered together and cried with their heads. No one could accept the death of the great leader Chairman Mao.
After learning the bad news, the people of the country had no choice but to cry, and time seemed to have stopped.
Then, mourning activities were organized spontaneously across the country, and people wore black veils to commemorate Chairman Mao.
Although the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has decided not to invite foreign governments to China for condolences.
However, within the ten days of Chairman Mao's death, governments and heads of 123 countries still called the Chinese government, including leaders or representatives of 105 countries who came to the Chinese embassy to pay condolences, and 53 countries lowered the flag at half-mast to mourn.
After receiving this bad news, North Korea immediately ordered: September 10 to 18th to be the national mourning period of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, during which all entertainment and sports activities will be stopped nationwide.
The United States, France, Pakistan and Myanmar also held a march to express their condolences and high respect for Chairman Mao.
As soon as the news was received, media from various countries reported on the death of Chairman Mao, and wrote articles to commemorate Chairman Mao. The lines were filled with admiration and appreciation for Chairman Mao.
Among them, the Japanese media said in the report:
"In the magnificent modern history of China, Chairman Mao Zedong has always been a sun radiating strong light."
The United States " New York Times " evaluated Chairman Mao Zedong as "a revolutionary giant of the century."
From September 11 to 18, the guards transferred Chairman Mao’s body from Zhongnanhai to the mourning hall arranged in the Great Hall of the People.
During this period, more than 300,000 people came to pay their respects. The long queues formed endless sadness, and the crying in the team became louder and louder and never stopped.
Mrs. Zhu De's wife Kang Keqing, Peng Dehuai's wife Wu Xiuquan and others burst into tears in the team.
Li Min and Li Na stood in front of the chairman's coffin for a moment, not daring to stay for too long, and could only suppress the sadness in their hearts and slowly leave.
In order to protect Chairman Mao’s body, the temperature of the mourning hall must always be kept below 15 degrees Celsius.
However, because there are too many people coming to pay their respects, the indoor lighting equipment is also working continuously. Even if all the air-cooling equipment in the conference hall is running at full load, the room temperature remains high.
This made Wang Dongxing and others very anxious, and everyone's hearts trembled nervously with the fluctuations of room temperature.
In order to reduce the temperature, they removed the band playing live and replaced it with audio equipment . At the same time, the indoor lighting was appropriately reduced, and the body was also covered with a rush-made plexiglass cover.
Yu Shuji proposed to inject argon gas cooled with liquid nitrogen into the glass cover to drive away the oxygen in the cover, thus playing a better protective role on the body. The method
was immediately adopted and was successful.
On September 18, Chairman Mao Zedong's memorial service was held at Tiananmen Square .
Millions of Chinese people gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and the team extended to the east and west Chang'an Street , and even filled the two major areas of Dongdan and Xidan.
All radio and television stations broadcast the memorial service in real time, and 800 million people across the country mourn Chairman Mao together.
Vice Chairman Hua Guofeng delivered a eulogy. When he read "turning grief into strength" and "carrying the proletarian revolutionary cause pioneered by Chairman Mao to the end", the sadness of the entire memorial meeting reached a climax.
All the people were unable to suppress their sadness in the end, and the originally quiet Tiananmen Square burst into earth-shaking crying.
More than 3,000 people in the entire venue cried until they fainted, and the medical preparations deployed in advance were almost impossible to deal with.
In addition, there were also people crying and fainting in the "sub-venues" across the country.
This memorial service fully reflects the people's love and support for the great leader Chairman Mao. Since then, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has also begun to prepare for the preparations for the construction of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall.
The construction of the memorial hall and the creation of the crystal coffin
Since the central government decided to keep Chairman Mao’s body forever, the construction of the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall was immediately put on the agenda.
To this end, the "Nine Office" established the "Chairman Mao Memorial Hall Design Group", led by Zhao Pengfei, then director of the Beijing Municipal Construction Committee, and Sun Youyu, deputy director of the First Department of Machinery.
The first step in building Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall is to choose a site. After on-site investigation and consultation, the
design team finally designed more than 30 sets of plans and handed over to the central government for ruling.
Some people believe that Chairman Mao has fought all his life and worked day and night for the motherland. After his death, he should rest in a place with beautiful mountains and rivers and beautiful environment. Therefore, he proposed several plans such as Yingtai Island in Zhongnanhai, Beihai, Jingshan and Summer Palace .
However, these places are not places for the state office or places for people to relax and entertain, and it is not appropriate to build Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall in these places.
The plan to choose the site in Xiangshan was once optimistic, but Xiangshan is far away from Beijing, and it is not convenient for the people to follow up at Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall for worship and remembrance, so this plan was eventually rejected.
Finally, the design team focused their attention on Tiananmen Square.
As early in the liberation, Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou proposed to "build Tiananmen Square into the people's favorite place."
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tiananmen Square has been expanded three times and has become the national political and cultural center.
Finally, the central government decided to build the memorial hall in the south of Tiananmen Square, between the monument of the People's Heroes and the Zhengyangmen , and between the two major buildings of the Great Hall of the People and the Revolutionary History Museum, forming a trend of "stars holding the moon".
After the site selection of the Great Hall of the People was clear, the design team immediately began to design the shape of the Memorial Hall .
After several design modifications, the memorial hall was finally designed as a square, with a length and width of 105.5 meters and a height of 33.6 meters. It uses glazed eaves as the roof, white marble as the column, and granite as the cornerstone. The design of
not only maintains the traditional form of Chinese architecture, but also demonstrates solemnity, beauty and generosity, and was finally adopted by the central government.
While tens of thousands of workers and peasants and soldiers worked together to build Chairman Mao’s memorial hall with spontaneous masses, the task of creating a crystal coffin that stores Chairman Mao’s body is also underway.
The entire crystal coffin must be clear and beautiful, and must also take into account the performance of earthquake resistance, water resistance, moisture resistance, constant temperature and dust resistance. The construction time given is only one year, which can be said to be tight and time is heavy.
Because countries around the world have not created a precedent for a crystal coffin in the true sense, the design team can only design and develop an optical glass -like coffin first.
However, what everyone did not expect was that even creating an optical glass-like coffin was difficult.
Crystal coffin team first went through hard work and found an imported equipment to make optical components in Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Factory .
Then the entire group carried out coarse grinding, fine grinding, polishing and processing of the plate surface, tightly clamping the entire coffin body, and finally formed a vacuum state.
Although this coffin has passed a series of performance tests such as earthquake, sealing, and cooling.
However, the center suggests that the entire sample coffin has reflection, which is not clear enough to transmit light.
Then the design team began the development of the No. 2 coffin.
First, we changed the inclination angle of the coffin wall and plated a layer of anti-permeability film on the side wall to eliminate the reflected image.
However, this No. 2 sample coffin is still not fully qualified.
Because Chairman Mao has been immersed in the medicine liquid for a long time, his face is somewhat not rosy and bright enough.
At this time, the central government asked the crystal coffin design team if there was any way to improve the Chairman's face.
After learning this news, the members of the design team immediately began to study optical beauty technology, that is, by changing the angle and color of light projection, Chairman Mao looked rosy and his remains were lifelike.
Finally, the No. 3 sample coffin finally passed the central inspection, and the real crystal coffin creation work began.
Since it is the crystal coffin that creates Chairman Mao’s crystal, then the purity of the crystal must be passed.
For this reason, by inspecting the selected 105 crystal mine in Donghai County, Jiangsu Province, it provided about 52 tons of first-class smelted crystal for the development of crystal coffins.
After that, the craftsmen finally completed the creation of the crystal coffin after a series of processes such as rigorous smelting, welding, grinding, re-welding, polishing, re-grinding and re-polishing.
After the final inspection of optical projection, this crystal coffin completely met the standard.
ending
On August 20, 1977, Chairman Mao's body was transported to the memorial hall from Room 769, Zhongnanhai under the escort of four guards.
When everyone carefully placed Chairman Mao’s body in the crystal coffin, they found that the Chairman’s face was rosy, kind and solemn, as if he was asleep in the coffin.
At this time, when everyone saw this scene, they couldn't help but shed tears again, and the tears were filled with longing and admiration for Chairman Mao.
On September 9, 1977, Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall was officially opened to the public.
The people came all over the country to pay tribute to and commemorate this great leader.
The death of Chairman Mao is an immeasurable loss to the country and the people, and even the international community as a whole.
However, although Chairman Mao has passed away, his great spirit of seeking the welfare of the people and creating a future for the country will always inspire us to move forward without fear of hardships, strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Chairman Mao will always live in the hearts of every Chinese.
The great leader and mentor Chairman Mao Zedong will be immortal!
