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The criticisms of Mao had now begun. But they were too oblique to be understood.

Zhou Xiaozhou, first party secretary of Hunan province and still under fire from Mao for his caution about pushing agricultural production, was the first to criticize Mao. We left Wuhan in mid-December, stopping briefly in Changsha, where Zhou Xiaozhou invited Mao to a Hunan opera—Sheng Si Pai?(“The Board of Life or Death”). It was a complicated tale about a young woman falsely accused of murder. Hai Rui (1513–1587), an upright Ming dynasty (1368–1644) official in the court of the Jiajing emperor, was the hero, arriving just in time to prevent the young woman's execution. Peng Dehuai, China's honest, outspoken minister of defense, who had so often dared to criticize Mao, had seen the opera during his November visit to Changsha and had enjoyed it immensely. Hai Rui, renowned for his fairness, integrity, and commitment to reform, was the hero of several local folk operas, all extolling the courage and honesty of the official who had risked his life for the good of the country and the people and who dared to challenge the vainglorious and misdirected emperor. Zhou Xiaozhou's choice of opera could not have been accidental. Surely he regarded himself as an upright official with the good of the country at heart, under siege from a foolhardy emperor.

If Mao caught the implicit criticism of him, he gave no indication. He loved the opera and was fascinated with the character of Hai Rui. That same night, in Changsha, he asked Lin Ke to get him some Mingdynasty histories with more examples of Hai Rui's courage and integrity. Within months, he was encouraging party leaders to study Hai Rui's example.

We did not stay in Changsha. Jiang Qing was waiting in Guangzhou. Mao continued to talk excitedly about the latest production statistics. He had become curious about the works of the Soviet economist Leontief, wanting to compare economic organization in the Soviet Union with the new economic structures in China, and asked Chen Boda, Tian Jiaying, and Deng Liqun to join him in Guangzhou to study Leontief's book on political economy.

In Guangzhou, Tian Jiaying reported on the situation he had seen in Henan. I did not have a chance to talk to him then and knew only that Henan had problems and that people there were hungry. In my nighttime meetings with the Chairman, I noted a new measure of concern. He wondered occasionally whether land really could produce ten thousand pounds permu and was also suspicious about the quality of steel being produced in the backyard steel furnaces. “Is that steel really useful?” he would wonder out loud. I could not answer him because I knew no better than he. But feeding knives and shovels and pots and pans into small steel furnaces in order to make new knives and shovels and pots and pans did not make sense. In the frenzy of production, nothing was being done with the so-called steel that was being produced.

Whatever Mao's doubts, they were overridden by the rationale of his Great Leap Forward, which had stirred the creative enthusiasm of the Chinese masses. He did not want to throw cold water on it. Mao stood on the side of the masses, and he represented their interests. His leadership lay in his capacity to motivate people to action, to unleash their great creative force, and his policy of the Great Leap Forward, he believed, did precisely that. His faith in his own leadership, in the Great Leap, and in the Chinese masses continued undiminished.

We were in Guangzhou on December 26, 1958, for Mao's sixty-fifth birthday. When Tao Zhu, the first party secretary of Guangdong province, threw an elaborate banquet in Mao's honor, the Chairman refused to attend. “When I was young, I was happy to celebrate my birthday,” he said, “but now every birthday means I have aged a year, matured a year, and have one less year to live.” It was polite talk. Mao was in his prime. He did not believe that he was headed toward death. His aversion to banquets had recurred, I think, because he was beginning to lose face. The Great Leap Forward was not going as he wanted, and he was reconnoitering, trying to understand why.

Mao spent the night of his sixty-fifth birthday in bed, sending me and others from Group One to the banquet Tao Zhu had arranged. He asked me to report to him as usual when it was over. The banquet was sumptuous, and the toasts to the Chairman's health were as extravagant as the food. I was so drained by the wine that I went to bed immediately after the banquet without making my usual report to Mao.

Li Yinqiao woke me in the middle of the night. We were leaving immediately for Beijing.

Jiang Qing had wakened earlier in the night wanting a glass of water and another sleeping pill. When her nurse failed to respond to her call, Jiang Qing looked for her in the duty room, and when the nurse was not there, the Chairman's already suspicious wife stormed into Mao's bedroom and discovered her nurse with Mao.

Li Yinqiao told me what had happened. For the first time since I had met her, Jiang Qing lost her temper with Mao. As her fury spilled forth, other suspicions came pouring out, too. There was a recent visit from the daughter of a former servant of Mao. Mao had stayed in contact with the servant and had encouraged her daughter's education, sending her three hundred yuan to enroll in school. The young woman visited Mao in his bedchamber during her winter break in 1958. She had paid a similar visit to the Chairman during his November-December stay in Wuhan. Jiang Qing had found out and suspected her husband of having affairs not only with her nurse and the young girl but with the young girl's mother, the former servant, as well. All this came out during the couple's late-night quarrel.

Mao's response to his wife's fury was to leave. He returned to Beijing immediately, leaving the fuming Jiang Qing behind.

We left in the middle of the night, so quickly I had only minutes to dress, grab my things, and rush to the train.

Jiang Qing quickly regretted her outburst. Her apology arrived shortly after our return, in the form of a simple note quoting a line from Journey to the West, the most beloved of China's folk stories. When Xuan Zang, the Chinese monk who goes to India in search of Buddhist scriptures, and hence in a quest for truth, leaves Monkey behind at the Water Curtain Cave in a pique of anger, Monkey is bitterly disappointed and lonely. “My body is in Water Curtain Cave,” Monkey says to Xuan Zang, “but my heart is following you.” Mao was delighted to read the same words from Jiang Qing. Mao was the modern-day Xuan Zang, on a dangerous mission in a quest for truth in the form of communism. His women were trivial when compared to the perils on the journey to communism. Mao now had Jiang Qing's implicit permission to carry on his affairs.