rain, everyone heard a galloping sound and next a Horse appeared on the shore. But a Snake had hidden itself in the Horse’s hoof, and frightened upon seeing it, the Horse fell back. So the Emperor gave the next position, the sixth, to the Snake.
Though obviously cunning, intelligent and wise, snakes are not particularly well-liked by the Chinese. And so in China, the Year of the Snake is often referred to as the Year of the Small Dragon. By way of association, the Snake is thus granted positive attributes of the beloved Dragon and can match any powerful animal, including the Tiger. Enigmatic in its camouflage, self-confident, coiled and poised to strike if need be, the patient Snake can read complex situations quickly, relying on its own instincts and endurance for survival. Twenty-five years later, defying the conventional wisdom of the Chinese zodiac regarding incompatibility, this Small Dragon boy would match up with the Tiger girl to create a most powerful liaison with consequences far beyond their private life together.
To the outside world in China, and certainly compared with Peng Longkun’s humble family in rural Shandong province, the Small Dragon’s family was living the high life in Beijing. The head of the family, Xi Zhongxun, was then Vice-premier of the People’s Republic of China enjoying all the power and privilege of such a high position. The Xi home and household played host to a constant stream of A-list celebrities, among them politicians, scientists, intellectuals, religious leaders as well as the top actors and singers of the time. By the time he was ten years old, the Little Dragon certainly had considerable exposure to what power and position could provide in this seemingly secure and stimulating environment.
But as it turned out, this first Year of the Tiger in his young lifetime didn’t bring any good luck to the Xi family. In fact, all of the family’s glory vanished overnight. The trouble started with just one book, The Biography of Liu Zhidan.
Liu Zhidan had been one of the Chinese Communist revolutionary veterans who was active in the northern province of Shaanxi. This was the terminus of Mao Zedong’s well-known Long March from the south during the civil war with the Nationalists. Thanks to the strong base of local support built up in Shaanxi by Liu Zhidan over many years, the Chinese Communist Party obtained its chance to secure its stronghold in northern China and escape the pursuit of the Nationalists. The People’s Republic owed much to Liu Zhidan and he was accorded the title of a “Founding Hero”. Since Liu had died in combat with the Nationalist forces in 1936, sufficient time seemed to have passed to understandably write his biography. Yet not everyone shared this understanding.
In his capacity as Vice-premier, Xi Zhongxun approved the writing of such a book. But someone or perhaps more than one in the inner circle of Communist Party power, for reasons not entirely clear, were most unhappy about it. Like hounds in the hunt, they smelled blood, and reported their concerns directly to Chairman Mao. Mao Zedong, already smarting from his disastrous Great Leap Forward campaign, was vulnerable and feared a conspiracy.
To this simple biography of his old and faithful comrade, Mao uttered one powerful sentence: “Using novels to be anti-Party is a new invention”.
Actually Mao never read the book. His pointed and poisoned sentence was based entirely on his presumption that somebody was against him behind his back. In Mao’s mind Xi Zhongxun could be that person. He had harbored this feeling since the late 1950s, and it became stronger and stronger with the knowledge that Xi had approved publication of this book seemingly praising someone else other than the great Mao without his knowledge or consent.
This cryptic remark about a book eerily preceded the publication of another influential Chinese book, the famous Little Red Book, more properly known as The Quotations of Mao Zedong in which 427 remarks, many as short as his condemnation of Liu Zhidan’s biography and those who arranged it, were to guide the dark forces of the impending Cultural Revolution that was waiting to unfold a few years later.
Mao’s sentence was like a thunderbolt that startled first the Party and then the whole country. Most of the Chinese Communist Party high position-holders were speechless. No one knew what to say or how unsafe it might be to say anything, and accordingly no one stood up to defend Xi Zhongxun. Was it true that the Chinese Vice-premier was anti-Party? Was an anti-revolutionary really in their midst?
Up to this point, Mao had done nothing but publicly praise Xi Zhongxun as a person “down-to earth, a living Marxist.” No Chinese could hope to get a more favorable appraisal than this, particularly from the great leader Mao himself. If Mao had said that Xi Zhongxun was a Marxist, then he must be a very good one, indeed. As far back as 1951 Mao had nominated Xi Zhongxun as the Director of the Party Propaganda Department, one of the key positions of the CCP. The Director of the Party Propaganda Department has the power to decide what to say and what not to say in the entire country. Yet suddenly such a living Marxist was not a Marxist any more. Was he a conspirator? It sounded weird and surreal. Or did Mao really believe that his close and long-standing colleague was anti-Party?
Perhaps he didn’t. Literally Mao said later that “Xi Zhongxun is a good comrade, how could he be a trouble?” Mao seemed to back-peddle, saying that he was not targeting the Liu biography specifically and that what he had said was just a general statement. Still the suspicion generated in Xi’s direction was allowed to foment. Why didn’t Mao release Xi Zhongxun from all suspicion? Mao never gave an answer up until his death in 1976.
The opportunists took full advantage of this ambiguous situation. Xi Zhongxun was put under suspension from all his official positions and duties despite Mao’s past high praise. He was just forty-nine years old and at the peak of his political career. But this one sentence from Mao was sufficient for him to be placed under house arrest and confined to the Central Party Academy in the west of Beijing. For his part, Xi Zhongxun could do nothing but wait for further resolution.
If patience is a virtue, then Xi Zhongxun was most certainly a virtuous man. He could go nowhere and had nothing to do. He spent the time reading and growing vegetables and corn. As the seasons passed, he made his harvest and gave half away. He was waiting, hoping maybe one day the situation would change and he would be allowed to work in Party politics again.
If this misfortune had happened to any other officer, they would rightly feel devastated, but not Xi Zhongxun. He was a true veteran of Party politics and had been there 27 years before. That was in 1935 when the revolution was still young and the outcome uncertain. Once the left-wing of the Party thought he was a traitor and decided to execute him in Yenan. It was Mao and his current Premier Zhou Enlai who rescued him then, believing the young man was a committed Communist. Coincidently, the same fate had been suffered by Liu Zhidan in that same year and it was Mao himself who likewise saved Liu from execution as well. Perhaps this had some effect on Mao’s thinking towards Xi Zhongxun and Liu Zhidan’s biography as he was certainly prone to paranoia that could be easily exploited by others. As for Xi Zhongxun, he was deeply indebted to Mao and Zhou Enlai for saving his life. He had no reason to start any conspiracy against either of them. He knew that, Zhou knew that, and when thinking straight, Mao knew that.
The trouble was that Xi Zhongxun definitely said too much. A man with a down-to-earth attitude always speaks too much for his own good. This was especially true concerning Mao’s catastrophic policies started in 1958 when the Great Leap Forward caused millions to die of starvation. This ambitious industrialization campaign designed to catch up with England and the U.S.A. sought to raise steel production to an unrealistic level. Each village built a small furnace. Since they had no iron ore to smelt, they collected any metal from households, including bowls and cooking pots. The peasants were fooled into believing that in the future they wouldn’t need any cooking pots since they all would eat in free canteens. How lovely! Unfortunately in the end, they didn’t produce any steel but lost all their basic cooking materials.
With this kind of nonsense taking place behind the grand slogans of the Great Leap Forward, Xi Zhongxun was one of a few honest persons who stood up and pointed it out. As Mao said he was down-to-earth and had the
