When it comes to the confidential secretary around Chairman Mao, the first thing that many people think of is Zhang Yufeng. At the beginning, she was a waiter on Chairman Mao’s special train. In 1970, she was transferred to Zhongnanhai . She first served as the secretary of life, and later she gradually became a confidential secretary. In fact, before Zhang Yufeng, Chairman Mao’s confidential secretary was Xie Jingyi. Xie Jingyi is from Shangqiu, Henan. Her father is a doctor, good at Western medicine and has excellent medical skills. When Xie Jingyi grew up, she did not follow her father to study medicine. Instead, she relied on her own efforts to be admitted to the 793rd Unit of the People's Liberation Army in Changchun and became a female soldier of the People's Liberation Army.
This army was the predecessor of the Central Military Commission Confidential Communications Cadre School. It was founded in 1949 and mainly cultivates communications, foreign languages and confidential engineering talents. In 1953, after Xie Jingyi graduated from school, she was assigned to work at the Central Confidential Bureau. Six years later, due to her outstanding performance, she was very lucky to come to Chairman Mao and serve as a confidential secretary. Xie Jingyi was both excited and nervous about this work, afraid that she would not be able to do it well. Seeing this, Chairman Mao smiled and encouraged her. Only then did Xie Jingyi relax and soon entered the work state.
A small incident that happened shortly afterwards made Chairman Mao deeply impress Xie Jingyi. Chairman Mao developed the habit of staying up late during the war, and this was still the case after the founding of New China. Generally speaking, Chairman Mao eats two meals a day. If he encounters attending meetings or foreign affairs activities, he may only eat one meal when he is busy. One day in 1959, because of foreign affairs activities, Chairman Mao asked for relevant information from Secretary Luo, and he looked at it and thought about it himself. Seeing the meal, Chairman Mao had no intention of eating at all. Li Yinqiao was very anxious and persuaded him several times, but Chairman Mao didn't listen.
Seeing this, Xie Jingyi said to Li Yinqiao, "Master Guardian, let me try it?" Li Yinqiao looked at her and said, "Okay, Xiao Xie, you go and persuade me again. As long as you can let the Chairman have a meal in the morning and take a nap in the afternoon, it is okay to meet anyone or any meeting in the afternoon." Xie Jingyi nodded, then gently walked into Chairman Mao's room and said, "Chairman, it's time for dinner, it's time for you to have a meal." Chairman Mao looked up at her and continued to work at the desk.
Xie Jingyi saw this and said, "How can you just eat one meal a day? I can't stand it. I'm still hungry when I eat four meals a day." Chairman Mao became interested in this sentence, put down the pen in his hand, and said to Xie Jingyi, "Are you still hungry when you eat four meals a day? What four meals are you talking about?" Xie Jingyi replied, "Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and you have to eat another bowl of noodles when you work at night. Chairman Mao laughed and said to her, "People are iron and rice. If you don't eat for a meal, you're hungry. Let's go and go." After this incident, Chairman Mao had a good impression of Xie Jingyi and thought she was very good at finding a solution when encountering problems. After that, Chairman Mao usually brought Xie Jingyi with him when he went out. One year, Chairman Mao went to Guangzhou for inspection and lived in the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee Guesthouse. At that time, Xie Jingyi's husband Su Yanxun was working on confidential work in a certain unit of the Guangzhou Military Region, which was very close to the guesthouse. To keep it confidential, Xie Jingyi did not meet her husband. After Chairman Mao learned about this, he sent his secretary to find Su Yanxun and invited the couple to have a meal. During the meal, they also picked up food for the two of them and chatted with each other.
Xie Jingyi later recalled: "Chairman Mao's care for us is not like the superficial care of superiors to subordinates, but more like the kindness of elders to younger generations, which is both meticulous and real." During his tenure as Chairman Mao’s confidential secretary, Xie Jingyi also visited Li Na on behalf of Chairman Mao. At that time, Li Negang and Xu Ning divorced shortly after they were divorced. They had to take care of their children and work. Li Ne's health was already weak. Chairman Mao was worried that she could not bear it, so he sent Xie Jingyi to visit him on his behalf.
Xie Jingyi is five years older than Li Na, and the relationship between the two is very good. Therefore, after she came to 57 cadre school , she did not alarm the school leaders and went directly to Li Na's residence. Li Ne was sick at that time and had not improved after taking a lot of medicines. She didn't even have the strength to take care of her son.Seeing this, Xie Jingyi felt very distressed and immediately sent a telegram to Chairman Mao about Li Na's situation and requested that Li Na be allowed to return to Beijing for treatment. Chairman Mao soon called back: "If you want to see a doctor, just go to Jiangxi. If the villages cannot go to the county, the county cannot go to the provincial capital. Is this condition not good? Can tens of millions of people in Jiangxi go to Beijing when they are sick? Li Na is also a member of the working people and should not be specialized."
This incident made Xie Jingyi have a deeper understanding of Chairman Mao and admire him more. During the Cultural Revolution, armed conflicts occurred in two universities, Tsinghua and Peking University, and there was still a growing trend. Chairman Mao sent Xie Jingyi to Tsinghua and Peking University, and the situation quickly improved. Later, Xie Jingyi served as secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee Secretariat and deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee. Wu De, then the first secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, later recalled: "Before Xie Jingyi was transferred, it was Premier Zhou's talk to me. Premier Zhou said that if Xie Jingyi was sent as secretary of the Municipal Party Committee Secretariat, she could report some situations to Chairman Mao and convey Chairman Mao's instructions."
At the beginning, Xie Jingyi did a good job, but later she slowly got together with the "Gang of Four" and had an unhappiness with Deng Xiaoping. At that time, Deng Xiaoping was the first vice premier of the State Council. Instead of Premier Zhou, who was seriously ill, he presided over the work of the State Council and carried out comprehensive rectification in the fields of economy, military, education, literature and art. The "Gang of Four" and his group were very dissatisfied with this and slandered Mr. Deng. When Deng was still in the open meeting, Xie Jingyi led people into the venue and spoke harshly to Deng Gong.
After the "Gang of Four" was smashed, Xie Jingyi was also arrested, removed from his post and under review. During the review, she took the initiative to explain many of the issues of the "Gang of Four" she knew. In the end, he became one of the few people who could escape from prosecution because he "was better off confessing and confessing guilty". In his later years, Xie Jingyi rarely appeared in public. She devoted herself to writing at home and wrote many books related to Chairman Mao. In 2017, Xie Jingyi died of illness at the age of 81.
