Chairman Mao's health had been very good before the 1970s, and at the age of 73, he swam happily on the Yangtze River for more than an hour, without the aging state of an old man. However, Chairman Mao fell seriously ill in 1971 and was in a coma for several hours, which made Premier Zhou worry that he would stay in front of his bed and refuse to leave.
In 1972, Chairman Mao contracted pneumonia again, and although he recovered his health under the treatment of doctors, he left many hidden dangers for his body. In the years that followed, Chairman Mao's health deteriorated, and when Premier Zhou died, he was too ill to walk or attend the memorial service of his revolutionary comrades-in-arms, and could only silently watch the pictures broadcast on television and cry.
The death of Premier Zhou seemed to herald the sadness of the year, and the eight months of catastrophic events in China that followed were one after another of national grief, each of which made Chairman Mao heartbroken.
Premier Zhou passed away
Therefore, chairman Mao left two secret orders to Hua Guofeng, premier of the State Council, and Xu Xiangqian, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, before his death, which led to Xu Shuai shed tears at the first sight of the contents of the secret orders. What was the secret order left by Chairman Mao? Why did it provoke xu Shuai to have such a big emotional fluctuation?
In June 1976, Chairman Mao, who had always hoped that his own immunity could survive various diseases, suddenly suffered a myocardial infarction, and after being rescued by doctors, he had to hang up a hanging bottle for infusion according to the doctor's instructions. Concerned about Chairman Mao's health, the Politburo Standing Committee set up a special medical team to take care of his illness and daily protection.
Chairman Mao and medical personnel
In addition, several members of the Politburo also set up a duty schedule, taking turns with medical personnel to take care of Chairman Mao's body, maintaining a high state of tension and a quiet environment at ordinary times, and trying their best to ensure that Chairman Mao did not affect his emotions or body because of external affairs.
However, Chairman Mao has always maintained the habit of reading newspapers and is very concerned about the development of the people of the country and the world political situation. Even though Chairman Mao's hand could no longer write, and the doctor instructed Chairman Mao, who had just undergone cataract surgery, not to read a book for more than fifteen minutes each time, Chairman Mao still held a magnifying glass in one hand and a pen in the other hand to slowly mark the paper.
On the evening of July 6, the staff hesitated to tell Chairman Mao, who had just been rescued, about Zhu De's death. Even though it was clear that Mr. Zhu was a few years older than himself, Chairman Mao still could not accept the news of the sudden death of his comrade-in-arms of nearly 50 years, and murmured to the staff: "What illness did Mr. Zhu get, and why did he suddenly go?" ”
Chairman Mao and President Zhu
The loss of two revolutionary partners who have been friends for half a century in half a year, or the "iron triangle" that has been together since joining the revolution, Chairman Mao's inner sadness can be imagined. However, the sad mood has not yet subsided, and a natural disaster suddenly descended on Tangshan in Hebei Province.
July 27 was an uneventful summer, and Chairman Mao, who had taken sleeping pills, slept for three or four hours without waking up. Meng Jinyun, the nurse on duty, also took sleeping pills to sleep peacefully. However, the violent tremors and noises in the middle of the night woke her up, and Zhang Yufeng and Wang Dongxing, who were on duty together, ran over to say that the earthquake had occurred, and Zhongnanhai was panicked for a while.
At the same time, the situation in Tangshan was reduced from hell in an instant. In the half-minute of just 3:42 a.m., Tangshan, a large city of more than a million people, was reduced to rubble, and hundreds of thousands of people were crushed under collapsed houses.
Ruins of Tangshan Railway Station
Along with the people who were submerged in the rubble, all water and power systems in Tangshan were cut off, and the people of Tangshan experienced the darkest hour before dawn. When the people in the ruins of the broken wall sat on the ground and could see the sunrise and light rising in the sky, no one was excited and happy.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake felt as far as Beijing and Tianjin, and even Chairman Mao's sleeping room in Zhongnanhai trembled, and the facilities in the house fell to the ground. At that moment, from Heilongjiang in the north to Chongqing, Guangxi and other places in the south, all of them subtly felt the power of this wave of earthquakes.
Chairman Mao, who woke up from the earthquake, did not have the slightest fear of the earthquake, but when he learned that the source of the earthquake was Tangshan, he immediately became nervous and demanded that Hua Guofeng quickly participate in the earthquake relief work and must save the people of Tangshan from the disaster.
You can see Tangshan at a glance
When Li Yulin, secretary of the party branch at the Tangshan Kailuan Coal Mine, was pulled to Beijing by a roaring ambulance, his naked body was covered with blood and muddy water. When Vice Premier Ji Dengkui of the State Council hugged him and asked for news with concern, this prime-aged man could not help but cry bitterly, and the whole of Tangshan was razed to the ground, and the sleeping people were directly crushed under the rubble.
When Hua Guofeng reported the preliminary statistics on the earthquake situation, Chairman Mao sternly urged him to go all out to grab the people in the disaster relief area and handle the follow-up treatment arrangements.
With the continuous issuance of instructions and news from the central authorities, the People's Liberation Army, medical groups and disaster relief materials from all over the country flocked to areas where there were still aftershocks, and the State Council also sorted out the general situation of the earthquake and handed it over to Hua Guofeng.
Tangshan disaster relief site
Chen Xilian had already taken the leadership of the Beijing Military Region to the disaster area by plane to inspect the situation, and the People's Liberation Army of Shenyang and other urban areas in Hebei, which is closer to Tangshan, was the first to rush to the disaster area to rescue the people.
The road to Tangshan was crowded with rescue workers who cared about the disaster, and the Platon Army, with a shovel in hand and maintaining a neat queue, launched a cross-country run targeting Tangshan, which was the first unit to arrive in the disaster area except for the Air Force.
The People's Liberation Army saves people
The crane was still driving on the congested road, and the People's Liberation Army, which arrived first, raced against time to dig and rescue. Due to the insufficient prediction of the disaster situation, some troops did not even bring any tools, but could only rely on simple tools and iron rods at the scene to pull the ruins in the tangshan area of more than 10,000 square kilometers, regardless of the aftershocks and crumbling dangerous buildings, as soon as they heard the cry for help, they immediately rushed over.
The PLA, which is responsible for communications, is always standing by the machine, briefing on new disaster relief situations every once in a while. Hua Guofeng read the detailed reports compiled by the State Council and hurried with them to Chairman Mao's residence at the swimming pool, because he knew that Chairman Mao, who could not act at the moment, was bound to be impatient and eager to know the situation of the people in the disaster area.
Tangshan Airport receiving supplies
After hearing that more than 240,000 people in Tangshan alone had been killed by the earthquake, Chairman Mao, who had always regarded the masses of the people as his relatives, rolled down two lines of tears, took the document from the staff, read it word by word, and finally couldn't help but cry, and the cry shocked many Zhongnanhai staff, who had never seen Chairman Mao so sad.
On August 3, Hua Guofeng submitted to Chairman Mao the "Circular on Earthquake Relief in Tangshan and Fengnan Areas", asking him to personally go to Tangshan to participate in the disaster relief operation. Chairman Mao personally circled the document and urged Hua Guofeng to appease the people in the disaster-stricken areas on his behalf and convey his concern.
During this time, Chairman Mao had been in a coma more than when he was awake, but he still kept an eye on all major events at home and abroad, lying in bed and insisting on reading political and historical books with a magnifying glass, while paying attention to newspapers that reported on the situation in various countries in the world, and the situation of the Tangshan earthquake was undoubtedly chairman Mao's most reassuring.
Chairman Mao read the newspaper
Whenever Hua Guofeng, Ji Dengkui, and other members of the State Council came to report on their work, Chairman Mao always looked at them earnestly and instructed them to go all out to provide disaster relief and to ensure the safety of the lives and property of Tangshan and all the people in the disaster-stricken areas.
For the second time, he issued a secret order to Hua Guofeng, who approved the documents of the Tangshan and Fengnan earthquakes, asking him to do his utmost to save the lives of the people in the disaster area and save all the people affected by the disaster at any cost.
The day was August 18, just 21 days after Chairman Mao's death. Even though Chairman Mao already needed nasal feeding to keep him alive, he insisted that the staff read the earthquake newsletter published by Xinhua News Agency every day.
Chairman Mao in his later years
After entering September, Chairman Mao seemed to have a feeling in his heart, and asked people to draw up a top-secret telegram, telling the staff to wait until he died before handing it over to Marshal Xu Qianqian to open.
In the early morning of September 8, Chairman Mao began to have arrhythmias, medical staff helped him stabilize his blood pressure by means of abdominal assisted breathing, and Meng Jinyun, a nurse who took leave to go home in the morning, was also urgently recalled to Zhongnanhai, and many people invariably expected that Chairman Mao's situation might not be good.
When Chairman Mao opened his eyes at 8 p.m., he found that there were not only weekday staff in the ward, but also all the leaders of the Politburo. Ye Jianying rushed to Chairman Mao's side, only to see his mouth open and closed, no one knew whether he had made a sound or not, Ye Jianying said a sentence before he said, "You can rest assured, I know."
Soon after Ye Jianying left, Chairman Mao said his last words to the medical staff: "I am very uncomfortable, call the doctor to come." However, the doctor's all-out rescue failed to wake Chairman Mao from his coma, and at 00:10 on September 9, several attending doctors announced in a daze that they would stop the rescue, and Chairman Mao would leave the people he loved forever, and a generation of superstars would fall.
Chairman Mao passed away, and the cries of a billion compatriots shook the whole land of China. Xu Xiangqian received a top-secret document issued by Chairman Mao, which contained only 16 short words: "The whole country and the whole army have entered a state of first-level alert and maintain stability!" Let Xu Qianqian burst into tears.
Chairman Mao and Xu Xiangqian
1976 was a very unhappy year for China, when three pillars of the Republic in government, military, and party organizations died one after another, and when a particularly large earthquake struck Tangshan, Chairman Mao feared that certain countries would take advantage of the opportunity to be unfavorable to New China, and left a suicide note before his death that would put the whole country into a state of first-class combat readiness.
Xu Xiangqian immediately took this telegram to find Ye Jianying and other revolutionary leaders of the older generation, and while sad, he was still able to methodically deploy the actions of the whole country and the whole army. Fortunately, Chairman Mao's worries did not occur, and all countries in the world were shocked and lamented by his death, and there was no time to have other thoughts.
When the great leader Chairman Mao passed away, 100,000 people cried in unison! After the Central Committee announced the news of Chairman Mao's death at four o'clock in the afternoon, the United Nations, which had stipulated that the flag that was raised on the same day, lowered its flag to half-mast as quickly as possible to mourn, and the leaders of 123 countries sent condolences to the Chinese government.
Chairman Mao's memorial service
In the first five years of the founding of New China, there were less than 20 countries that established diplomatic relations with China. Chairman Mao brought a weak China, which was originally at the bottom of the world, into one of the five permanent members of the United Nations, and almost supported the position of New China before the entire international community with his personal prestige.
As the head of state, Chairman Mao has rarely received praise and affirmation from many leaders of different social systems and positions, and is also a rare head of state in the world who wears patched clothes all his life, never pays attention to food and clothing, and does not allow his sons and daughters and people around him to enjoy any special treatment.
Foreigners miss Chairman Mao
Although people in later generations can no longer have access to the real Chairman Mao, his deeds and spirit will always live in people's hearts. Seeing chairman Mao's image through books, films and televisions makes people feel like they are smiling and smiling whenever they remember Chairman Mao.