Chairman Mao was a first-class master of languages.
He speaks, writes, and does things, and likes to make analogies.
There are two main functions of metaphor: first, the complex, abstract, not easy to explain things, through the metaphor, you can make it simple, concrete, visual; second, the meaning of the direct expression of your own inconvenience, from the metaphor to a euphemism, clever statement, so as to achieve a state of subject and object, that is, we often say metaphor.
In the summer of 1959, Chairman Mao met with Ho Chi Minh, chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam, in Lushan, and when talking about his personality, he made an analogy: In my person, there is half of the "monkey qi" and half of the "tiger qi".
See, Chairman Mao used the two metaphors of "tiger qi" and "monkey qi" to simply and vividly express his domineering, bold, harsh, solemn, and changeable, romantic, gentle, casual, and other personality characteristics.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Chairman Mao wrote on August 13, 1945, an article entitled "The Situation After the Victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan and Our Policy." In order to clarify the question of the attribution of the fruits of the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, he made an analogy: We planted peach trees and watered them every day, "Chiang Kai-shek squatted on the mountain and did not pick a single load of water." Now that the peach trees have produced peaches, "he has the old man with his hand outstretched to pick peaches for a long time."
Such a vivid image, but also makes people can't help but be amused, and implies the metaphor of the great truth of the revolution, and people who have to have "tiger qi" and "monkey qi" in one cannot write it.
When our army won the victory in the Liaoshen Campaign, Chairman Mao wrote for the Xinhua News Agency a report entitled "The Northeast People's Liberation Army Is Launching a Full-Line Offensive," in which chiang kai-shek wrote that he lived in Beiping and "opened his eyes every day to look to the northeast."
This kind of boldness and this kind of handwriting is rare in the world.
The most amazing thing is that he wrote "Farewell, Situ Leiden" on August 18, 1949, in just a few strokes, he vividly painted Situ Leiden's "standing alone, hanging from each other", "picking up the bag and walking".
The United States wore colored glasses at the beginning to treat both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
When Japan announced its surrender, U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the Japanese army to surrender only to Chiang Kai-shek's government.
After the kuomintang-communist civil war broke out in full swing, the United States openly paid money and shots to help Chiang Kai-shek fight the civil war.
According to the White Paper on U.S.-China Relations, released in August 1949, the United States provided economic and military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek's government after the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression amounted to $2.25 billion!
With the total rout of the Kuomintang army, Stuart Layden left, and the personnel of the U.S. Embassy in China and consulates around the country followed, and the United States began a twenty-year-long isolation and blockade of New China.
With regard to this policy of the Americans, Chairman Mao predicted in his speech at the Eighth Party Congress in September 1956: "In another 12 years, Britain, the United States, West Germany, and Japan will all compete to deal with us." ”
More than three months later, at the national meeting of provincial, municipal and autonomous regional party secretaries held on January 27, 1957, he talked about Sino-US relations and revised the time for establishing diplomatic relations with the United States, saying: "After 18 years or more. ”
The 18 years after 1956 were 1974.
In fact, richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, officially visited China on February 21, 1972.
Less than 3 hours after arriving in Beijing, Nixon arrived at Chairman Mao and experienced Chairman Mao's "monkey qi" and "tiger qi" of Chairman Mao.
Manifestation of "monkey gas": Chairman Mao said to him: "In your election, I voted for you. ”
Regarding Chairman Mao's words, Nixon said that he could not take it.
Chairman Mao then said, "People say, you are a rightist, you are ideologically right-leaning, and I like the rightists." ”
Nixon understood the translation and said happily: "In America, the left belongs to the talkers, and the right is the doer." ”
Nixon carefully prepared four personal gifts for Chairman Mao, namely: porcelain swans, crystal glass vases, exquisitely printed business cards and goblets.
One of the porcelain swans was broken during transport and glued with glue.
Nixon was a little embarrassed when he gave this gift to Chairman Mao, and repeatedly apologized.
Chairman Mao showed a "tiger spirit" side, and he said very generously: "It doesn't matter, I have confidence in your bonding method." Look, didn't the Sino-US relationship also make you bonded? ”
Nixon was able to appreciate it well, and at once he understood Chairman Mao's analogy and was deeply impressed by Chairman Mao's generosity and humor.
In return, Chairman Mao also gave Nixon four things: four or two "big red robe" tea leaves, and three banners.
The three banners are separated, and four words are written in them, in order: "Lao Shu Sits on the Stool", "Chang'e Runs to the Moon", and "Walking Horses and Flowers".
What is the meaning of these 12 words?
Chairman Mao did not say.
Nixon didn't know Chinese characters, and the translator could only explain to him literally in the 12 words, "saying that an old man was sitting on a stool", "a woman in ancient Chinese mythology took a fairy medicine and flew to the moon", "riding on a horse to enjoy the flowers", and so on.
Nixon was inexplicable, but he was embarrassed to ask Chairman Mao for advice.
In fact, these three banners are three metaphors.
Lao Qin has already said at the beginning of this article that metaphorically, it is inconvenient to directly say what he means.
Therefore, it is estimated that Nixon asked Chairman Mao for advice, and Chairman Mao would not say it.
This can only be slowly pondered by Nixon himself.
Some metaphors can be explained; some metaphors are inconvenient to interpret.
For example, in June 1965, Zhang Shizhao sent a copy of his newly published sample book "Liu Wen Zhi" to Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao then gave him back 10 pounds of peaches and apricots.
Giving back 10 pounds of peaches and apricots is a metaphor.
For this metaphor, Chairman Mao was worried that Zhang Shizhao would not understand it, so he attached a letter in which he said: The ancients said: Cast me with a wooden peach, and repay it with Qiong Yao.
Zhang Shizhao smiled after reading the letter, like a spring breeze.
In December 1949, Chairman Mao personally visited Moscow and prepared to engage in a "beautiful and delicious thing" with the Soviet Union.
This "something that looks good and delicious" is a metaphor that Chairman Mao did not directly explain.
But we later learned that it referred to the "Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance" signed by China and the Soviet Union in the Kremlin.
Since this visit to the Soviet Union coincided with Stalin's seventieth birthday, Chairman Mao meticulously prepared two wagon gifts for Stalin: one wagon was a green onion from Shandong, and the other was a wagon of honey oranges from Jiangxi.
This sending scallions is also a metaphor.
Stalin should not have understood this metaphor.
Many people don't understand it either.
But Chairman Mao never explained.
Later, Yan Mingfu, head of the translation team of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, was inspired to give a plausible explanation.
Yan Mingfu happened to hear that the Shandong people were going to fight, and at this time, when he was given green onions, his anger subsided and he could not fight.
Yan Mingfu therefore explained that Chairman Mao had accumulated a lot of anger about the Soviet Union's imposition of the Wang Ming line on us in the Stalin era, and so on, and wanted to use the method of sending green onions to discourage it.
Is Yan Mingfu's explanation correct?
It can only be the benevolent who see the benevolent, and the wise see the wise.
Then again, Nixon got three banners from Chairman Mao's handwritten letter, and he wanted to break his head and not understand it, and handed it over to his subordinates for discussion, and the answer was also a variety of opinions, but it was rare to get the point.
Chairman Mao later said regretfully to a group of army cadres in Wuhan: "Nixon did not understand the meaning of the three banners, and wrote them in vain." ”