Please ask the Premier to assign someone to investigate and restore it.

July 15, 1973

[1] Liao Jingwen, wife of the famous painter Xu Beihong, wrote a letter to Mao Zedong on July 6, 1973, stating that in the summer of 1965, the Xu Beihong Memorial Hall was demolished due to the construction of the subway. Over 1,000 of Beihong’s works donated by the family, more than 2,000 art collections, and over 10,000 art prints were covered in dust and scattered in several locations. Beihong’s tombstone at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery was also destroyed. She had repeatedly requested the relevant departments to restore it, but to date no one had taken any notice. After reading the letter, Mao Zedong wrote this instruction. On July 16, Premier Zhou Enlai of the State Council wrote to Liao Jingwen, saying: “The letter you wrote to Chairman Mao was forwarded to me by the Chairman on July 15, with instructions to assign someone to investigate and restore it.” On the same day, Zhou Enlai also wrote to Wu Qingtong (then the principal responsible person of the State Council Office and deputy head of its core group) and Wu De (then head of the Cultural Group of the State Council), asking them to respectively investigate the circumstances described in Liao’s letter, formulate a restoration plan, and proceed with preparations.

In July 1973, Mao Zedong met with the American physicist Yang Chen-Ning in his study at Zhongnanhai.
In the study, from left: Zhou Enlai, Zhou Peiyuan, Mao Zedong, Yang Chen-Ning.