92

V The Aftermath

The power struggle began immediately.

I moved to the Great Hall of the People while Mao's body lay there in state, maintaining an office in the Henan room. As deputy head of the task force responsible for the permanent preservation of Mao's body, I had to supervise its care. Wang Dongxing was also staying in the Great Hall, responsible for security. Outside of Zhongnanhai, I was cut off from my direct sources of information, and so was Wang Dongxing, but Hua Guofeng was keeping Wang informed, and he in turn came often to report to me.

I learned that politburo opinion had turned quickly against Jiang Qing and her associates. While Mao was alive, Jiang Qing had been accorded the greatest respect. When she walked into a meeting, everyone would stand and the room would fall silent. She would be offered the best seat, and people hung on her every word. No one dared argue with her. As the politburo began meeting after Mao's death, however, the deference stopped. No one paid any attention when she came into the room. People continued chatting or reading documents, and no one bothered to stand or offer her a chair. When she spoke, no one listened, and the other leaders often talked among themselves while Jiang Qing tried to get their attention. The atmosphere within the politburo had been transformed.

My own situation was still precarious. Jiang Qing had heard that I did not believe Mao's body could be permanently preserved, and both she and Mao Yuanxin withdrew themselves from involvement in the funeral arrangements and efforts at preservation. If Mao's body could not be preserved, she could claim not to have been involved and could turn against those who were. Wang Dongxing was convinced this was part of Jiang's plot against Hua Guofeng. She would hold him responsible if the preservation did not work.

But she would hold me responsible, too. I was the deputy chairman of the preservation committee, but Liu Xiangping, the minister of public health and chairman of the committee, was a close associate of Jiang Qing's. Jiang Qing's wrath would be directed at me. My own fate had not yet been decided, and I remained tense.

At midnight on September 23, and again at four o'clock in the afternoon of September 25, Jiang Qing visited the medical team in Zhongnanhai. Mao's funeral had been held a week before, but his doctors and nurses had still not been allowed to return to their hospitals. Jiang Qing wanted to invite us all to join her in studying the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, claiming that most of his post-World War Two writings were actually hers.

Jiang Qing was aware that politburo opinion was turning against her. She talked about Zhang Xueliang, the general who had kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 and forced the wartime reconciliation between the nationalists and communists. Chiang had put Zhang Xueliang under house arrest after his own release and had taken the general with him to Taiwan, where his house arrest continued. The general, Jiang Qing said, was allowed to go to restaurants, movies, and church, but the only person to whom he was allowed to talk was his lifelong female companion, Miss Zhao Si. “What kind of life is that?” Jiang Qing wondered, claiming already to have prepared herself for exile.

But Jiang Qing claimed to have a way of handling the “revisionists” within the highest ranks of the party. “I have found a way to knock them down,” she told the doctors. “It's just that I can't tell you about it.”

That night, September 25, I told Wang Dongxing what Jiang Qing had said.

He was concerned. He knew that Jiang Qing's supporters were distributing guns and ammunition to the militia in Shanghai, and the party secretary of Qinghua University, Chi Qun, was working closely with Mao Yuanxin. Chi Qun was a member of Wang Dongxing's Central Garrison Corps—Qinghua University was under military rule—and he was organizing the Beijing militia. Wang had received word that Mao Yuanxin, as political commissar of the Shenyang Military Region, was organizing an armored troop division to move on Beijing. “This may be Jiang Qing's way of knocking down her opponents,” Wang said. He feared a coup d'état and thought Jiang Qing's allies were likely to move soon.

Wang Dongxing was prepared to launch a countercoup. Hua Guofeng had wanted to move slowly against Jiang Qing and her faction, Wang told me, fearing that he did not yet have enough power within the party and knowing that he did not control the army. But when reports began coming in that the militia in Shanghai and Beijing were being armed and Mao Yuanxin was preparing to move in troops from the northeast, Wang persuaded Mao's successor that they could not wait much longer. Hua had raised the issue with Marshal Ye Jianying. He agreed to take control of the military. The arrests would take place inside Zhongnanhai by Wang Dongxing's Central Garrison Corps, and Ye Jianying would enlist the support of Beijing garrison commander Wu Zhong shortly before the arrests began. Yao Wenyuan's bodyguards came from the Beijing garrison rather than Wang Dongxing's 8341 Corps, so their cooperation would be necessary in Yao's arrest.

Wang warned me that I was to tell no one, be extremely careful, and make every effort to behave normally. “If Jiang Qing asks you to do anything, do it,” he said. He warned me not to visit his office. If he had anything more to communicate, he would find me.

I was nervous about the impending showdown, but I knew it would succeed. Wang Dongxing's forces had complete control over Zhongnanhai. No other troops were allowed entrance. Wang was smart and decisive, and I knew he would carry it off.

The members of the medical staff were preparing to return to their own hospitals, but permission for their release had still not been granted. Before they left, they wanted to have their picture taken with Hua Guofeng, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Wang Dongxing—the four politburo members who had kept watch over Mao in the last months of his life and with whom they had worked closely. Wang Dongxing agreed, but was still not ready to release them and asked them to stand by.

Several days passed, and my tension was growing. At eleven o'clock on the morning of October 4, Zhang Yufeng came to Building H, where the medical staff was staying, and told us to meet Jiang Qing after lunch at Coal Hill, just north of the Forbidden City. Coal Hill had been closed to ordinary people during the Cultural Revolution, but Jiang Qing went there often. We were going to pick apples and then go to the famous Fangshan Restaurant in Beihai Park to study the Selected Works of Mao.

In half an hour, we had collected a dozen baskets of fruit. Jiang Qing did not join us until later, in time to enjoy our apples and invite us to join her at the restaurant to study Chairman Mao. She had originally thought of holding the meeting on October 9, she said, but she had heard the medical team was about to be dispersed and wanted to get us together before we left. She was still trying to decide whom to choose for her medical team and wanted the doctors and nurses to talk, but no one knew what to say. She accused us of being too reserved and told us about her meeting the day before at the February 7 Truck Factory. The workers there had been so talkative they wanted to keep going even after their shifts. “The revisionists could never get the workers so excited, could they?” she asked. We still did not know what to say.

She began by comparing Deng Xiaoping to the Ming dynasty's Wu Sangui (1612–1678), who had turned China over to the control of the Manchus. Deng had also sold out to foreign countries, she said, citing the export of oil and textiles. Deng, it seemed, had allowed the sale of plain cotton cloth. Jiang Qing thought there was a lot more money to be made by selling textiles that had already been dyed. Then she accused the deposed vice-premier of torturing Mao while he was ill, sending him documents to read when his eyesight was bad. She also said that Deng had accused Mao of behaving like the aging Stalin. “There are still a few clowns hopping around now,” she said. “Let them hop. Their days are numbered.”

I suspected that Jiang Qing and her allies were on the verge of attempting a coup.

After we returned to Zhongnanhai, Wang Dongxing asked us to gather at the Purple Light (Ziguang) Pavilion for the group photo he had promised. Hua Guofeng invited Jiang Qing to join us and told her the politburo would be meeting afterward. Jiang Qing had been irritated about the meeting, wondering why she had not been informed earlier and complaining that Hua had not even told her what would be on the agenda.

We had our group photo taken. The entire medical team, the staff of Group One, and Mao's security guards stood with Hua Guofeng, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing, and Wang Dongxing. Wang Dongxing took me aside immediately after and asked me to visit him that night.

I went to his home at 11:00 P.M. and briefed him on our afternoon conversation with Jiang Qing. He was convinced that Jiang Qing and her allies were getting ready to move and that his countermove could not be delayed. The longer Wang and his forces waited, the greater the possibility of a leak. By then it was early on the morning of October 5. Hua Guofeng had called a meeting of the politburo for ten o'clock on the night of October 6. They would convene at Jade Spring Hills, in the northwest suburbs. The politburo still had not been informed that Wang Dongxing, Hua Guofeng, and Ye Jianying planned to arrest Jiang Qing and her closest associates. The arrests would take place shortly before the politburo meeting was scheduled to begin. After the arrests, Wang, Hua Guofeng, and Ye Jianying would go to Jade Spring Hills and present the waiting politburo with a fait accompli and ask for their approval. Whoever did not agree would also be put under arrest. Wang asked me to send the medical team members back to their hospitals. Only three or four doctors were to remain. When the arrests occurred, he wanted as few people in Zhongnanhai as possible.

It was already three o'clock in the morning when our meeting concluded, and the medical staff had already turned in for the night. I would send them back the next day.

But at nine the next morning, before I had a chance to meet with them, Zhang Yufeng came to tell us that Jiang Qing wanted to go apple picking again. We were to go at once to Coal Hill.

We went immediately and had been picking apples for two hours when Jiang Qing arrived. She picked a few apples, too, before inviting us to join her for lunch at the Fangshan Restaurant, renowned for its imperial-style cuisine. Then she led us again in studying Mao's works.

Wang Dongxing called me, annoyed, in the middle of our study session, and I had to explain that Jiang Qing had ordered us to join her before I had a chance to send the medical staff away. He ordered me to send the nurses back to their hospitals immediately. The doctors and Jiang Qing were to report immediately to the State Council building, where we would again report on the events leading to Mao's death. The report we had made to the entire politburo on September 22 had been interrupted. Now the four politburo members overseeing Mao's care, plus Jiang Qing, would listen to the report again. The meeting, I am convinced, was a ruse, an attempt by Hua Guofeng to maintain an air of normalcy and feigned respect for the very people he was about to arrest.

As the meeting at the State Council began, Jiang Qing wondered why she had not been notified earlier. Hua explained that he wanted the assembled politburo members to hear the report about Mao's death before presenting it formally to the full politburo again. The meeting proceeded under strictest security. None of the secretarial staff, the security guards, or the attendants were permitted into the room.

Hua began the meeting by pointing out that twenty-six days had passed since the Chairman's death but the politburo had still not heard the formal report of the events leading to his death and the measures taken to prevent it. He wanted the five politburo members who had been most closely involved with Mao's medical care to hear the doctors' briefing. The five politburo members would then write their own report, sign it, and present it for approval to the full politburo.

I read from the same report I had tried to present on September 22. Before I was finished, Jiang Qing interrupted. “Comrade Guofeng, I don't feel well,” she said. “Fortunately, the four of you who were on duty at the swimming pool are here. I have to leave.”

She began walking unsteadily toward the door, as though drunk, and I called the attendants outside to assist her. But they had strict instructions not to enter. As I stood up to help her out, I saw Wang Dongxing look at me and shake his head. By then it was too late. Jiang Qing was faking illness, and Wang was irritated with me for assisting her. Later he told me Hua Guofeng suspected that I was still courting favor with Jiang Qing, and both men were irritated with me for helping her. I convinced Wang Dongxing that I was merely acting “normally,” just as he had instructed, and he finally agreed that I had behaved properly, giving her no cause for suspicion.

I finished reading my report, and no questions were raised.

Zhang Yufeng arrived just as the meeting was concluding. Jiang Qing wanted the doctors to return to the Fangshan Restaurant. We had not finished studying Chairman Mao's works. The meeting was adjourned.

On the morning of October 6, I and the remaining doctors on the medical team were reviewing Mao's medical records, preparing to revise our report to the politburo, when Zhang Yaoci interrupted. Jiang Qing wanted her picture taken with the entire medical team. I was reluctant to comply. The nurses had returned to their hospitals, and the few doctors remaining behind were busy. I asked Zhang to check with Wang Dongxing, but Wang was still asleep. I suggested that he contact the nurses himself, but he refused. I contacted the Ministry of Public Health, who arranged for the nurses to return to Zhongnanhai. We had our picture taken with Jiang Qing, and the nurses were sent back again. Later, the picture was taken as evidence that the nurses were Jiang Qing's supporters, and Zhang Yaoci refused to admit that he had ordered the photograph. Only when Wang Dongxing intervened were the nurses cleared.

That night Hua Guofeng called an eight o'clock meeting for the politburo members most closely associated with the publication of Mao's works—Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, and Jiang Qing. The meeting was to be held in Zhongnanhai's Huairen Hall. The members were told that they would first discuss plans for publishing the fifth volume of the Chairman's works and then join the entire politburo at Jade Spring Hills to present their proposal to them.

Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying arrived in Huairen Hall well before the meeting was scheduled, together with Wang Dongxing and officers from the Central Garrison Corps. Wang hid in an adjacent room.

Zhang Chunqiao was the first to arrive. His security guards and secretaries were ordered to stay outside. When he walked into the conference room, Hua Guofeng announced his arrest. Zhang Chunqiao did not resist.

Wang Hongwen arrived shortly thereafter. When Hua announced his arrest, Wang struggled briefly and was quickly subdued by Wang Dongxing's officers. When the brief fight was over, Wang Hongwen nearly collapsed and had to be held up.

By ten o'clock, when Yao Wenyuan had still not arrived, Wang Dongxing ordered a combined force of officers from the Central Garrison Corps and the Beijing garrison command to arrest him in his home.

Jiang Qing did not come, either. She was still in her quarters in the Spring Lotus Chamber. Zhang Yaoci led a squadron of Central Garrison Corps soldiers to arrest her in her home. When Zhang announced the arrest, she said, “You too! I have long anticipated this day.”

I was in my room in Building H when the arrests were carried out. Zhongnanhai was quiet, and there were no obvious signs that anything was amiss. Only the next morning did one of my friends in the Central Garrison Corps inform me that the arrests had taken place. Mao Yuanxin was also arrested, as well as Qinghua first secretary of the revolutionary committee Chi Qun, deputy secretary Xie Jingyi, and many other supporters of Jiang Qing.

Wang Dongxing's forces took the Gang of Four to the same underground complex where Mao's body lay, where they were put in isolation and guarded by soldiers of the 8341 Corps. As soon as the arrests were carried out, Hua Guofeng, Wang Dongxing, and Ye Jianying went to Jade Spring Hills to inform the waiting politburo. They all agreed.

The news was still secret, but I returned home the next day. It was the first time in over a year that I had slept in my own bed. When I told Lillian that Jiang Qing and her faction were under arrest, she was stunned but delighted. She thought our long ordeal was over and that our life could begin again.

But I could still not relax. The woman I had long despised was in prison, but other members of the politburo, like Xu Shiyou, were still convinced that Mao had been murdered, and our medical report had not been approved. I had made other powerful enemies, too. Zhang Yaoci had told me clearly that if not for Mao, he would get rid of me. Now Mao was dead. Although Wang Dongxing had taken me into his confidence to tell me that the arrest of Jiang Qing and her allies was imminent, my relations with him, too, had become strained. With the Chairman dead and the Gang of Four under arrest, Wang's power had increased. He no longer needed me. Lillian and I and our two sons celebrated the overthrow of the Gang of Four with a Beijing duck dinner in the famous Hongbin Restaurant on Changan Avenue. But I still feared for my safety.

A year later, toward the end of 1977, a new campaign was launched. Leading cadres were being sent for reform to May 7 Cadre Schools. I was still president of the 305 Hospital and hence its leading cadre. Zhang Yaoci got his revenge. When he suggested that the hospital's leading cadre should be reformed through hard labor, I had no way to refuse, and Wang Dongxing did not intervene on my behalf. I was sent to the countryside of Jiangxi to do heavy labor. I was fifty-seven years old.

I stayed for more than a year, living and working as a peasant.

In Beijing, the power struggle continued. In December 1978, after Deng Xiaoping's return to power, Zhang Yaoci and Wang Dongxing were purged. Deng had never forgiven the Central Garrison Corps for not protecting him during the Cultural Revolution, and he never returned to live in Zhongnanhai. With the purge of Zhang and Wang, the way was clear for my return to Beijing. I went home in January 1979 and resumed my position as president of the 305 Hospital.

But there were rumors. I had been too close to Wang Dongxing. I was pressured to denounce him, to tell what I knew of his past. If Wang Dongxing had been guilty of political crimes, so was I.

Then Mao's role in Chinese history grew controversial, and I had been too close to Mao. If Mao had made mistakes, so had I. Some people said his doctor had had too great an influence on Mao. Mao's detractors could accuse the doctors of doing too much to save the Chairman, and his supporters could accuse us of doing too little.

The power struggles continued and the questions surrounding Mao's death remained unsettled. The leaders who had supervised the medical team—Hua Guofeng, Wang Dongxing, Wang Hongwen, and Zhang Chunqiao—were purged, and no one was left to vouch for our efforts. In December 1979, I wrote a letter to Deng Xiaoping asking to be relieved of my duties at the 305 Hospital. I could do nothing there, and I was very unhappy. I was given a sinecure. I became the deputy vice-president of the Chinese Medical Association.

With Deng's new “open door” policy, I was given several opportunities to travel abroad. Thus there was nothing very unusual in the summer of 1988 when I requested permission to visit my two sons in the United States. Zhao Ziyang was general secretary of the Communist party then, and China had never been more open. But, really, my permission to leave was a fluke. Had the proper authorities been informed, my request would not have been granted.

I came to the United States for Lillian. Our years of tribulation had taken their toll. In February 1988, her health had begun to fail, and the treatment she was receiving in China was doing little good. That August, I brought her and our granddaughter, Lili, to join our two sons and their wives in Chicago. We hoped that with advanced medical care in the United States, Lillian's life could be saved. But the medical treatment failed. Lillian died on January 12, 1989, of chronic renal failure.

Friends in China had often suggested that I write about my life with Mao. Tian Jiaying, knowing that I kept a diary, had suggested it as early as 1960. In 1977, when Ye Jianying visited me at the 305 Hospital, he too encouraged me to write. He thought that after twenty-two years at Mao's side, I had a contribution to make to our understanding of history. After that, many newspaper and magazine editors urged me to write. Always, I refused. I could not write the truth in China, and I did not want to tell lies.

Lillian finally convinced me to write. In her last days in the hospital, before she slipped into a coma, she urged me to write this book as a record for our children, grandchildren, and the generations to follow and as a history of life in Mao's imperial court. I have paid for this book with my life. My dream of becoming a neurosurgeon never came to pass, and my hopes for a new China were dashed. My family life was destroyed, and now Lillian is dead. In 1990, when the Central Bureau of Guards wrote requesting to take over my apartment, I did not agree. In 1992, they did confiscate my home, however. I wrote letters of protest to Yang Shangkun (then president of the republic), Yang Dezhong (director of the Central Bureau of Guards), Chen Mingzhang (the minister of health), and Jiang Zemin (head of the Communist party). I have received no answer. I devoted my professional life to Mao and China, but now I am stateless and homeless, unwelcome in my own country. I write this book in great sorrow for Lillian and for everyone who cherishes freedom. I want it to serve as a reminder of the terrible human consequences of Mao's dictatorship and of how good and talented people living under his regime were forced to violate their consciences and sacrifice their ideals in order to survive.