Under the Eaves

When word came that Cao Cao was moving east, Sun Quan discussed it with his officers. All of them urged him to welcome Cao Cao. Lu Su alone said nothing. When Sun Quan rose to change his clothes, Lu Su followed him out under the eaves. Sun Quan took his hand and asked: “What do you want to say?”

Lu Su told him that the others’ advice would ruin him. Lu Su himself could submit to Cao Cao and still keep an official post. Sun Quan could not. “Settle the great plan early, and do not use the advice of the many.” (Records of the Three Kingdoms)

Their first conversation had gone the same way. After the other guests left, Sun Quan called Lu Su back alone. They sat on the same couch, drank, and “discussed in secret.”

The Work Conference Before the Plenum

The Third Plenum of December 1978 is remembered as the start of reform. Before it, the Central Work Conference met in Beijing from November 10 to December 15, 1978. On December 13, Deng Xiaoping gave his speech “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts, Unite and Look Forward” at the closing session of the work conference.

The plenum itself met from December 18 to 22. A Party website calls Deng’s speech “in fact the keynote report of the Third Plenum.” It adds: “Without the Central Work Conference before it, there would have been no Third Plenum.”

Summers at Beidaihe

In the autumn of 1953, the Central Committee decided to work at the seaside resort of Beidaihe every summer. In practice, the arrangement was “half rest and half work.” Formal meetings were held there too, such as the enlarged Politburo meeting of August 1958. The summer office continued until 2002, with a break during the Cultural Revolution. It was abolished soon after Hu Jintao became general secretary.

According to Chinese Wikipedia, gatherings and even informal meetings still took place at Beidaihe in summer after 2012.

Secret Memorials

Under the Kangxi Emperor, a new kind of report came into use, the palace memorial (奏折). An official could send it secretly and directly to the emperor. It went around the cabinet and did not pass through the Office of Transmission.

In the later years of the Kangxi reign, the circle of officials allowed to send them widened step by step. Through these secret reports, Chinese Wikipedia writes, the emperor kept control of the whole picture.

Huang Wanli and the Sanmenxia Dam

In 1957, a meeting discussed a dam at Sanmenxia on the Yellow River. According to a 2000 account by the writer Zhao Cheng, “only Huang Wanli firmly opposed building a dam at Sanmenxia.” Most of those present said nothing.

The dam was built. According to the same account, in September 1960, the reservoir began to store water. Silt built up behind it and raised the riverbed at Tongguan by 4.5 meters. From 1965, the dam was rebuilt, with openings cut through it to flush out the silt.

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