Chapter 26 25. Liu Zhuang breaks the ice: the vision to create a new world

Both Liuzhuang in 1953 and 1972 have shined in the 60-year history of the People's Republic of China. The former is because Mao Zedong presided over the drafting of the "Constitution of the People's Republic of China (Draft)" here, and the latter is because of Nixon, Zhou Enlai and Key Here Singer argues how to normalize relations between the two great powers.Liuzhuang is located on the bank of Xili Lake in the southwest of West Lake in Hangzhou, south of Dingjia Mountain.It is one of the famous gardens in Hangzhou in history. Later, it was used as a state guesthouse to receive many important guests, and it is now open to the public.Liuzhuang covers an area of ​​540 mu, consisting of "Shuizhuju", "Kangzhuang", "Jiaoshi Mingqin" and Dingjia Mountain.It was also the Hangzhou residence favored by Mao Zedong and some political leaders because of its scenic beauty.

If you drive around the West Lake, you can always see familiar place names on the road signs, such as Leifeng Tower, Lingyin Temple, Yuefei Temple, Louwailou, West Lake Academy. People always walk leisurely along the lake. There are cafes and teahouses, lush trees, and pedestrians.When night comes, the water is misty, and the stone steps without railings pass through the lake and extend to the feet of people, and the lamps embedded in the stone road on both sides emit a dark yellow light.You seem to have come to a place full of temptation and confusion in Chinese legends: you can faintly see lights in front of you, and there are bursts of laughter and talking in the air, but in the night and fog, you can only see the two sides The weeping willows and the steaming lake under your feet.

This is almost the most beautiful city in China. Poets do not hesitate to use words to praise it. Its highest leader was once a poet; What should be enjoyed by everyone.In a story by Scott Fitzgerald called "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz Hotel," the Jazz Age novelist described a mountain of diamonds owned by Washington's heirs; but no one ever I thought about it, and the private ownership of West Lake has never appeared in fictional works.It is so beautiful that anyone who possesses it would feel ashamed. The most they can do is to build their own courtyard by the West Lake.Therefore, when you go to a certain place, the scenery is still pleasant, the trees are still lush, but the number of pedestrians suddenly decreases, a long and narrow road leads to the extremely deep inner court, and there are even armed policemen standing tall at a certain doorway. At the sentry post, you have reached the Underdark.They may have been the mansions of wealthy businessmen and nobles, and now they are the sanatoriums of the Communist government and the army, or special hotels named "state guesthouses".Liuzhuang is exactly such a place.

This 540-acre courtyard was originally purchased by the giant Liu Xuexun during the Guangxu period.Liu Xuexun, whose ancestral home is in Guangdong, was seduced by the West Lake. On his way back home from Nanjing, he visited the famous West Lake—West Lake and Hangzhou are one of the few scenic spots that people can never get tired of. Good lake and mountain".Later, it also hosted Kang Youwei, Liu Xuexun's famous fellow countryman and intellectual mentor to Emperor Guangxu, with his own unique philosophical thinking.Kang Youwei built his own residence "One Day Garden" near Liu Xuexun's manor.It was later incorporated into Liuzhuang's residence, and it was not fully built until the philosopher's death.

After that period of extreme turmoil, Liuzhuang once played the role of a vacation center for Communist Party elites.It is built near the lake, quiet and beautiful, located in a beautiful lake and mountains, and has its own garden inside, it is really an ideal place for vacation and self-cultivation. On December 17, 1953, Mao Zedong came to Hangzhou for the second time.The last time was in 1921. At that time, Mao Zedong was still an excited young man. He went to Jiaxing to attend the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and went to Hangzhou on the way.And this time, he is no longer the penniless young man in the past, all he can do is walk around the West Lake, and now he is the master of all these.He is the founder of another regime in this country and the founding father of the People's Republic of China.This time, his place of residence was Liuzhuang.

The purpose of Mao Zedong's visit to Liuzhuang, Hangzhou in 1953 was to preside over the drafting of the first draft of the "Constitution of the People's Republic of China (Draft)".This "Constitution of the People's Republic of China", adopted by the First National People's Congress in 1954, stipulates the "general tasks and general program" of the People's Republic of China during the transitional period, and "provides that the People's Republic of China relies on state organs and social forces to pass the socialist Industrialization and socialist transformation ensure the gradual elimination of the system of exploitation and the establishment of a socialist society."

"He works in Building 30, No. 84, Beishan Road almost every day. His desk is filled with various books, materials and documents, including the translations of the constitutions of the Soviet Union and some countries in Eastern Europe, as well as the constitutions of some capitalist countries. The translation. These are the contents of the chairman’s reading and research at that time, and the reference materials for drafting the new constitution. The chairman’s energy is very concentrated when he works, thinking and researching problems to the point of ecstasy. There are wisps of smoke from the window of his office all day long. At the end of the day, he The ashtray on the desk was full of cigarette butts. These cigarette butts could not be shorter, because the chairman’s habit of smoking was to burn his fingers, and the rest continued to smoke with the cigarette holder until the cigarette was extinguished. Dig it into the ashtray. Also, the chairman’s teacup is always empty after get off work. After he drank the tea, he even took out the tea leaves. He said the tea leaves are nutritious, but it’s a pity.” The receptionist and accompanied him Wang Fang, a staff member of Mao Zedong, said in his memoirs.

We have never been able to know Mao Zedong's true attitude towards the Constitution, and you can interpret this statement as merely doubts about whether the giant respected the "Constitution."He personally drafted the first draft of the constitution, but his attitude of "monk holding an umbrella and lawlessness" is well-known; But it only brought more merciless mockery and insults. Another of Liu Zhuang's distinguished guests brought a far more practical gift.Nixon's trip to China in 1972 was a well-deserved "ice-breaking" trip. Today, when the media misuses this term, no one can imagine what kind of courage Nixon needed to make such a move, and what kind of preparation was needed in advance. Careful layout.

He has already sent his national security aide, Dr. Henry Kissinger, to China twice to pave the way for his trip.Later, when Nixon visited Mao Zedong, he spoke wryly of how hard the visit had come. He recalled how Kissinger had feigned a stomach ache when he visited Pakistan in 1971 so that the Pakistani prime minister would invite him to a secret Kissinger took advantage of this weekend to fly to Red China - Kissinger said that an attentive White House security guard went so far as to scout out the fabled weekend spot beforehand, and then strongly suggested to Kissinger that The place wasn't suitable for a national security adviser's rest, so much so that Kissinger had to isolate the security guard.

Kissinger also had to deal with Nixon's own jealousy, "he was a complex person whose noble motives often contradicted some less noble considerations. He desperately wanted to be the first American leader to visit Beijing." Therefore, he repeatedly asked me to change the location of my visit to any place other than Beijing. Nixon also had a wish that my name should not be mentioned in the communiqué announcing my visit; he hoped that he and Zhou Enlai Nixon also wanted the Chinese to guarantee that before he went to China, he would not invite any American politicians to visit China."

When the president finally arrived in Beijing, he was promptly received by Mao Zedong—in "The Days That Changed the World" by Mao Zedong's granddaughter Kong Dongmei, Kong Dongmei quotes Wu Xujun, Mao's head nurse, as saying: "Before Nixon arrived in Beijing, , She read the foreign telegram comments to her grandfather, one of which said: Nixon came to Beijing with a white flag. This means that Nixon surrendered, and it represented opposition to the views of the visitors. After hearing this news, my grandfather laughed. He said, 'I'm here to relieve Nixon.'" Mao Zedong, who had "rarely got up and sat for a long time for seven or eight days," told Wu Xujun that he hoped to see Nixon immediately.At this time, Nixon and his entourage had just finished their sumptuous lunch.Later, Kissinger discovered that this conversation, which lasted 65 minutes, was constantly cited by Chinese politicians, including Zhou Enlai, as a guideline for guiding negotiations. This not-so-long negotiation started from the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing and the Jin Jiang Hotel in Shanghai (Secretary of State Rogers was annoyed because he was placed on the 13th floor of the Jin Jiang Hotel, the Chinese did not take into account the Western taboo on 13; and Rogers has also been chagrin that he was left out of this historic breakthrough) all the way to Liuzhuang in Hangzhou.Their protagonists are Mao Zedong, Nixon, Zhou Enlai, and the two main negotiating opponents: Kissinger and Qiao Guanhua.The final product is the famous "Shanghai Bulletin". For the first time, two countries that once viewed each other as adversaries began to show mutual understanding. "I have to admit, when the Chinese Premier first toasted the official U.S. delegation along every banquet table, while the army band that fought with us 20 years ago played "America the Beautiful," I I am deeply moved. Anyway, on George Washington's birthday, Richard Nixon could quote Mao Zedong in support of American foreign policy," Kissinger said. Also worth quoting is Nixon's answer to the banquet at the Great Hall of the People: "What legacy shall we leave our children? Are they destined to die for the hatred that plagued the old world, or To live because we have the vision to create a new world? We have no reason to be enemies. Neither of us seeks the other's territory; neither of us seeks to dominate the other; neither of us seeks to reach out and rule world." To this day, we still need a "vision of creating a new world" because despite the many complex changes in the outside world, the relationship between these two countries still troubles many Americans and Chinese.