When Peiping was peacefully liberated in January 1949, I participated in the work of taking over Zhongnanhai. At that time, I was doing united front liaison work at the Communication Office of the North China People's Government, and accompanied Qi Yanming, Shen Bochun, Jin Cheng, Zhou Zijian, and others from Xibaipo to Beiping to fight for the central organs to enter Beiping. After arriving in Beiping, according to Zhou Enlai's instructions, we first received Zhongnanhai and made a preliminary survey of some buildings in Zhongnanhai. Although more than 60 years have passed, it is a personal experience that is still fresh in my mind. It is recorded so that future generations can understand this history.
Rush to Beiping
On October 1, 1948, at the moment when the People's Liberation War entered the strategic decisive battle of winning the national victory, and in the rumbling artillery fire of the Liaoshen Campaign, I was transferred from the direct subordinate class of the Party School of the North China Bureau of the CPC in Pingshan County, Hebei Province, to the Communication Office of the North China People's Government located in the Shijiazhuang Garden Hotel to do united front liaison work. At that time, Shen Bochun, director of the Communications Department, had been working in the United Front Work Department of the Lijiazhuang Central Committee located near Xibaipo, and the deputy director of the Communications Department was Gao Tieying, who presided over the daily work of the Communications Department.
In mid-January 1949, with the successive liberation of large and medium-sized cities such as Zhangjiakou, Tianjin, and Tanggu, the negotiation process for the peaceful liberation of Peiping was also coming to an end. In accordance with the spirit of the instructions of his superiors, Gao Tieying asked all the comrades in the communication office to immediately devote themselves to the preparations for receiving Peking. He also asked everyone to clean up their personal hygiene and belongings, and to seize the time to remove and wash cotton clothes and quilts when they were conditional. He told everyone: "After 28 years of bloody struggle, our party has finally come out of the jungle ravine, is going to enter the city, and is going to the big city to take over the old government and establish a new political power. "I was a hairy young man at that time, and I couldn't do anything about removing the laundry quilt, so I had to wipe the smudges on my cotton clothes and pants with a towel dipped in soapy water.
On January 31, the People's Liberation Army took over the defense of Beiping City in an all-round way, and Peiping was peacefully liberated. On the evening of the same day, Vice Chairman Zhou Enlai summoned Qi Yanming, secretary general of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, and Shen Bochun, Jin Cheng, and Zhou Zijian, three division chiefs, in Xibaipo, and asked them to act immediately and set off overnight to Beiping to make a front station for the central organs to enter Beijing. Vice Chairman Zhou sent Qi Yanming and others to Beiping to fight in front of the station, which was after careful consideration. Qi Yanming lived in Beijing in his early years, graduated from China University, was a researcher at the Yan'an Academia Sinica during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and was one of the few Hongda Boya talents in the party. In July 1945, he served as deputy secretary-general during the preparation of the People's Congress of the Liberated Areas, and after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he served as secretary general of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee and deputy secretary general of the Preparatory Committee of the New Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Zhou Zijian, a native of Anhui, went to Beiping in 1930 to study, and went to Yan'an in 1937 to study at the Kang Da And the Central Party School. Since 1940, he has successively served as the section chief and director of the Xi'an Office of the Eighth Route Army, and the deputy director and director of the Secretariat of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee. Shen Bochun, a native of Beijing, joined Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army in his early years, and after the revolution, he actively promoted Yang Hucheng to unite with the communists against Chiang Kai-shek. In 1941, he was elected chairman of the Senate of the Jin-Hebei Luyu Border Region, and served as the director of the Eighth Route Army's office in Beiping in the early days of the Liberation War. Jincheng was a native of Zhejiang and went to Yan'an Anti-Japanese Military and Political University in 1937 to study. After graduating, he stayed in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government to work. In the following ten years, he served as the chief of the communication section and the director of the department of the government of the Border Region, engaged in united front work for a long time, and was an outstanding united front worker.
On the same day, Shen Bochun accepted the task and rushed back to Shijiazhuang to arrange the work. On the morning of February 1, he led our starting team to Beiping in a truck with the following team members: Guo Xi (personnel secretary), Chen Qunhai (security officer), Zhong Nong, Liu Guang, Zheng Liang and me. In addition, the two children of Shen Bochun and Guo Xi were also in the same car as us. Other comrades in the Communication Department took the train into Beijing in batches under the leadership of Gao Tieying. Driving through Zhengding, Hebei Province, we went to North China University with 15 new young students such as Sha Li, Chang Jie, Wu Zhiping, Wu Regeneration, and Guo Yuan. As soon as they got on the bus, they brought the passion and active atmosphere of youth to the car, singing revolutionary songs all the way and marching towards Beiping. Overnight stay in Baoding. Knowing that the road ahead was not good, the next day had to change to three horse-drawn carriages to continue to advance, and rested late at the Beiping Fengtai Railway Station. On the morning of February 3, the Beiping Military Control Commission sent a truck to pick us up into the city.
Zhou Enlai's telegram
On the day we entered the city, the People's Liberation Army held an entrance ceremony on Qianmen Avenue. The truck that picked us up into town stopped at a small hotel in Qianmen Avenue's grinding mill alley, and after getting off the bus, we met some of the people who arrived first by train. After Director Shen Bochun's approval, everyone washed up a little and rushed to the street to watch the entrance ceremony.
A sanding factory alley is the Qianmen Arrow Tower, which has been simply arranged as a parade platform, and the surrounding area of the city tower and on both sides of Qianmen Street are crowded with welcoming people. The PLA troops who participated in the entrance style poured into the city from the direction of Yongdingmen, and in front of them were armored vehicles, tanks, cars, and mules and horses, followed by cavalry units riding high-headed horses, and then teams of infantry carrying various firearms. After the paraded troops entered the city, they passed on the right side of the Qianmen Arrow Tower and immediately turned into Dongjiaomin Lane. Dongjiaomin Lane was once the embassy district of some foreign powers in China, and the Pingjin Frontline Command deliberately arranged for the People's Liberation Army to take a walk in Dongjiaomin Lane, with profound intentions. The people's liberation army entry ceremony held in Beiping not only shocked the whole of China, but also shocked the whole world. This exciting scene is like a mobilization order to carry the revolution through to the end, which deeply inspires us and strengthens our ideals, convictions and determination to work hard for the construction of a new China and a new regime.
In the early morning of February 3, Qi Yanming, Zhou Zijian, Jin Cheng, and a dozen or so democrats accompanying them also rushed from Xibaipo to Beiping. As soon as they got out of the car, they were breathless, and Zhou Enlai's telegram chased after Beiping. At the Beiping City Military Control Commission, Ye Jianying conveyed Vice Chairman Zhou's instructions to him as soon as he saw Qi Yanming, and Zhou Enlai asked Qi Yanming to take over Zhongnanhai and the Beijing Hotel first. Zhongnanhai later became the site of the preparatory and formal meetings of the New CppcC, and the Beijing Hotel was the place where the delegates to the meeting stayed.
After receiving Zhou Enlai's instructions, Qi Yanming immediately contacted the Military Control Commission and the Beiping Picket Corps to prepare to take over Zhongnanhai. At that time, Peiping had just been liberated, the replacement of the old and new regimes was very unstable, there were many local units and troops on our side entering the city, the relationship of subordination was complicated, and the phenomenon of paving stalls to occupy the land after entering the city was extremely common. In order to prevent accidents, after Qi Yanming learned that Shen Bochun had arrived in Beiping with the people from the communication office, he immediately informed Shen Bochun to go to the Six Nations Hotel to accept the task and immediately arranged to go to Zhongnanhai in the afternoon to handle the handover procedures.
The first night in Zhongnanhai
At 3 p.m. on February 3, after we watched the People's Liberation Army's entry ceremony, we were eating at the North China Restaurant on the west side of the archway on Qianmen Avenue, and Shen Bochun, who had returned from Qi Yanming, said to me and Chen Qunhai: "You two will immediately go to the hotel to get your luggage and follow me into Zhongnanhai." Chen Qunhai and I immediately took our luggage, got into the jeep that Shen Bochun had brought from the military control, and headed for Zhongnanhai.
When I arrived at Xinhua Gate, I saw that the gate was open and there were no military police guards. We headed north along the west bank of the South China Sea and headed straight to the gate of Fortress Garden. After getting off the bus, you will see the sign "Zhongnanhai Park Management Office" hanging on the porch pillar of Fortress Park. We followed Shen Bochun directly into the hall of the Summer Hall in Fortress Garden. At this time, Qi Yanming had already arrived first, and after everyone met, Qi Yanming asked Shen Bochun to immediately talk to the person in charge of the park. Shen Bochun did not go out for a long time, and brought in a gentleman who was about 50 years old, and when he came in, he nodded respectfully to the people in the room. Shen Bochun announced to him in a loud voice: "We are the military control group sent by the Beiping Military Control Commission to receive Zhongnanhai, my name is Shen Bochun, I am a military representative, these two are Comrades Chen Qunhai and Xia Jie, and the other comrades will come later." The two of them are not leaving today, please find them two pairs of bed boards, and they will sleep here. After saying that, Shen Bochun handed over the official document stamped with the big red seal of the Beiping Military Control Commission to the man. After quietly listening to Shen Bochun's announcement, the man immediately nodded his head and said yes, and went outside the house to ask someone to find a bed board, and then invited Shen Bochun to the back room to talk and go through the handover procedures. After a while, someone brought us a bed board and bench, and Chen Qunhai and I set up two beds on the west wall of the hall, and then opened our respective luggage. The acceptance procedures were soon completed, and Shen Bochun and Qi Yanming were about to leave. Before leaving, Shen Bochun said to us: "You have worked hard tonight, and tomorrow we will send Comrades Guo Xi and Guo Yuan." You are the first person of the central authorities to stay in Zhongnanhai, and your responsibility is of great significance and significance. After staying, first preliminarily touch the situation in Zhongnanhai, the situation in the courtyard is complicated, pay attention to safety at night! After saying that, he glanced at the pistol that the security officer Chen Qunhai was carrying around his waist.
After sending the two leaders away, Chen Qunhai and I returned to the house. Before going to bed at night we decided to go outside for a walk. Out of the gate of Fortress Garden, opposite is the Yingtai Island, The February night in Beiping comes quickly, and it is already dark at 5 p.m., and the shadows can only see the silhouettes of the towering ancient trees and ancient buildings on the island. Not far in front of the gate of Fortress Garden, there is a diversion ditch with a high parapet wall, and we strolled west along a narrow road under the parapet, vigilantly observing the strange and mysterious courtyards around us. Suddenly, there was a noise on the roof of a house not far in front of it, and when I looked up, I saw a black shadow flash by. Chen Qunhai quickly pulled out the pistol in his waist and put it on top of the bore fire, raised the gun in one hand and lit the flashlight in the other, shouting loudly: "What person?" Hold it! The dark shadow on the room ran along the roof ridge in panic and flew over the wall not far away. Later, we learned that outside the wall was the site of the "Sicun Middle School" (which became the office area of the Central Confidential Bureau when Zhongnanhai was rebuilt in 1957). The thief ran away, and we were not in a position to chase, so we immediately went into the house with the door wide open to inspect it. Under the illumination of the flashlight, I saw that there were many books piled up in a disorderly manner in the house, and I looked at it carefully to find that it was some progressive publications confiscated by the Kuomintang authorities. I inadvertently picked up a lithographed pamphlet from the ground, and several eye-catching characters of "Mao Zedong on Dialectics" came into view, and it was difficult for grassroots cadres like me in the revolutionary war years to read such a precious work. With Chen Qunhai's consent, I took this book back to read. Later, the book was read in the social office, but unfortunately it was passed on to whom and never returned.
Back at the residence, since there was no fire in the house, the number nine cold winter could only lie with clothes. I lay in bed for a long time and couldn't sleep, thinking about the experience of going from Shijiazhuang to Zhongnanhai in the past three days; thinking about watching the grand scene of the People's Liberation Army entering the city in the morning; and thinking about the Zhongnanhai in front of me. According to historical records, in history, this place was once the imperial garden of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and it was called Xiyuan in history. In 1885, the 50-year-old Empress Dowager Cixi instructed the Guangxu Emperor to rebuild the Western Garden as a place for her to recuperate after she removed the curtain and returned to the government. In 1898, a hundred days after the Penghu Rebellion, Cixi staged a coup d'état and summoned the Guangxu Emperor to the Yiluan Palace in Zhongnanhai, stripped him of imperial power and put him under house arrest on Yingtai Island. In 1915, Yuan Shikai restored the throne and claimed that the emperor had Zhongnanhai as his palace; after the victory of the War of Resistance, Li Zongren established the "Northern Parallel Yuan" here; after Fu Zuoyi entered the government of Beiping, he changed the "Xingyuan" to "The Headquarters of the Suppression of Bandits". Zhongnanhai, which has endured many vicissitudes, has been devastated and dilapidated in the devastation of internal and external troubles. At present, this historical military and political stronghold is actually an undefended city gate, no wonder mao thieves are rampant. It seems that our reception mission will face many difficulties. In this way, Chen Qunhai and I spent our first night in Beijing in the cold and strange Zhongnanhai with great thoughts.
——Excerpt from "Centennial Tide", No. 11, 2010
Author:Xia Jie (dictated) Gong Xiyue (collation)
Editor: Jiang Chuting
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