Shocking Rumor: Hu Jintao Brings Three Veteran Generals to Jingxi Hotel! Xi Jinping Loses All Political Support, Angrily Scolds Officials for 'Spinelessness'! Hu Chunhua and Li Zuocheng Rumored to Join New CMC Team; Liu Yandong Suddenly Passes Away on the Third Day of the Plenary Session! [Jiang Feng Vision 20261029 Episode 526]

This episode discusses the intense political maneuvering during the Fifth Plenary Session in October 2026. Rumors circulated that Hu Jintao, accompanied by three veteran generals—Chi Haotian, Cao Gangchuan, and Fan Changlong—appeared at the Jingxi Hotel, handed over a note demanding that Xi Jinping serve as acting Chairman of the Central Military Commission until the 21st National Congress, and called for a reshuffle of the CMC leadership. It also analyzes the power struggles behind events such as Xi Jinping's stern speech before the meeting, the successive downfall of senior military generals, the sudden passing of Liu Yandong, and the overseas visits of the Foreign Minister and other high-ranking officials.

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Hello friends, welcome to Jiang Feng Horizon. On the morning of the second day of the Fifth Plenary Session, as the doors to the venue at the Jingxi Hotel opened, a cold wind swept through the corridor. An 83-year-old elder walked step by step to the front row unaided, followed by three veteran generals: one a former Chief of the General Staff and Minister of National Defense, one a Vice Chairman of the CMC from his own era, and another who sat right beside the person at the very peak a decade ago, serving as his CMC Vice Chairman. Over three hundred people in the hall froze for a second or two, and the first person to take the lead in applauding was none other than the one at the peak himself. After taking his seat, the elder put on his reading glasses, pulled a small slip of paper from his jacket pocket, and read just one line: the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission shall be held by me in an acting capacity until the 21st National Congress. This is the version that has been circulating most fiercely overseas over the past two days. In this version, the last gun in the hands of that person was forcibly taken away right in front of more than three hundred people by a small slip of paper. Yet this was not the only fatal blow during those four days. The day before, the boss slammed the table three times on stage until his voice went hoarse; the next day at 2:53 PM, a senior sisterly figure who had worked with the elder at the Communist Youth League Central Committee passed away in Beijing—some say her life support was unplugged. Three rounds over four days, every stroke drawing blood, each round fiercer than the last. Let us break them down round by round.

Just a moment ago, the communique of the Fifth Plenary Session was released. Please keep three things in mind first: First, the number of Central Committee members with voting rights who attended was only 162. Counting alternate members as well, that is 36 fewer people than at the Fourth Plenary Session last year. Second, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, along with 14 other individuals from the military, were all confirmed to have been expelled from the Party. Third, in the section on the CMC, not a single new name appeared; Zhang Shengmin was merely given the additional title of Political Bureau member. The CMC went from seven members down to two, and today it remains at two. Please remember this point first, and shortly you will understand that this was precisely the most ruthless part of that small slip of paper.

First, let's talk about the three men standing behind the elder statesman, because their presence right there was more terrifying than that slip of paper. Walking at the very front was Chi Haotian, now 97 years old. From 1987 to 1992, he served as the Chief of the General Staff of the PLA, and later served as Minister of National Defense for a decade until 2003. Among living retired senior generals, in terms of seniority and status, you could count on one hand the few who could be considered his peers. There is also one thing you should keep in mind: back in 1989 when Deng Xiaoping handed over the Military Commission, the Chief of the General Staff of the PLA was none other than him. The second person is Cao Gangchuan, who served as Vice Chairman of the Military Commission and Minister of National Defense during the elder statesman's own ruling years. With these two standing behind him, one represents the older generation of the military, and the other represents the military of the elder statesman's own decade. What cuts deepest is the third person, Fan Changlong. In 2012, when the person at the very peak just took over the Military Commission, the number one ranking Vice Chairman of the Military Commission by his side was Fan Changlong, who sat in that position for five years. Just ponder this image: your once most heavily relied-upon top deputy has been retired for all these years, and today he directly stands behind that elder statesman on the opposite side. In the words of ordinary folk, the watchdog in your own courtyard personally opened the door for your rival.

After sitting down, the elder statesman did not utter a single pleasantry. According to overseas reports, he first tossed out a sweetener: over these years, the general direction of anti-corruption has been correct. Just as some people in the audience let out a sigh of relief, the second sentence struck down: but when it comes to personnel, the people you promoted are getting into trouble one after another. He did not need to elaborate on this; everyone in the audience had a clear ledger in their hearts. To speak only of the military: on May 7 this year, two former Ministers of National Defense, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, were sentenced on the same day—both given suspended death sentences with lifetime imprisonment, prohibiting any sentence reduction or parole. Vice Chairman of the Military Commission He Weidong was expelled from the Party last year. The First Vice Chairman, Zhang Youxia, and the Chief of the Joint Staff Department, Liu Zhenli, vanished from the footage of the Central Party School seminar in January this year, and their cases were announced to be registered for investigation four days later. The positions these people sat in—who gave them out in the first place?

After these two sentences came that opening scene: the slip of paper, the reading glasses, and that single sentence. Why do you suppose he took the lead in applauding? That single round of applause was the hardest to clap in the entire room, yet it was an applause one simply had to give. Not clapping would mean openly falling out with the elder statesman right in front of a full room of members of the Central Committee. In case nobody in the audience followed his lead, he wouldn't be able to step down with dignity. Clapping was equivalent to bowing the head and acknowledging the reality. In CCP meeting halls, applause has never signified joy; it signifies obedience. The person on the podium understood this rule better than anyone, because for the past 14 years, everyone else had to look at his expression to know when to applaud. Today, it was finally his turn to clap that single time.

Now regarding that slip of paper: when the elder statesman lowered his head to read the manuscript, it certainly wasn't because of a bad memory; it was clearly because not a single character in that passage could be wrong. The first few words on the slip were "determined after study by the CCP Central Committee," meaning very clearly that this matter was not something he, the old man, had temporarily initiated today; it was already vetted by the Political Bureau. You surely remember what we discussed a few days ago: before the plenary session opened, the top leader had already conceded defeat at the Political Bureau hurdle. What did he concede to? Today's slip of paper spells it out. The most ruthless part is the word "acting." Why not call it "succeeding," but instead call it "acting"? First, "acting" does not require a vote to replace the Chairman of the Military Commission. According to the rules, that must be decided by the Central Committee. If a sea of hands were raised and ended up looking sparse and scattered, nobody's face would look good; "acting" is merely temporarily looking after things for you, so nobody needs to make an on-the-spot public stance. Second, "acting" does not go into the communiqué. You can flip through the communiqué until it falls apart, and you won't find those two words, yet the guns have already changed hands. Third, "acting" has no term limit, only a single endpoint: the 21st National Congress. Once this endpoint is written down, it is equivalent to locking the door to the top leader's fourth term completely from the outside. With the Military Commission no longer in your hands, what do you have left to secure consecutive terms? Even if the official media's long article the next day still chants "core" at every turn.

There wasn't even half a photograph of the elder entering the venue, but everyone inside Zhongnanhai knows clearly that titles printed in newspapers and guns held in hands are two completely different things. The question arises: what exactly did the elder see in the meeting hall the day before? Let's turn the clock back one day. On October 26, the plenary session opened. The leader delivered a work report on behalf of the Political Bureau and gave an explanation on the draft decision regarding several major issues of comprehensive and strict party governance. The official press release describes this section clearly, but what it doesn't mention is the commotion on the red carpet at the Jingxi Hotel. Another version circulating overseas is as follows: the report lasted from 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM, a full two hours, with two breaks in between. The leader became increasingly agitated on stage and slammed the table three times in public. His usual unhurried bass voice eventually broke down, turning into shouting at the top of his lungs. By the end of the report, his voice was hoarse, and he didn't even appear at the group discussions in the afternoon, claiming he went to get an IV drip. It is said that when he slammed the table the hardest, the leader shouted, 'Offend thousands to not fail the 1.4 billion.' It is not surprising for an elderly person to lose their voice from shouting. What is surprising is why the Emperor, who has delivered reports on stage for fourteen years and always prided himself on being awe-inspiring without anger, had to shout and slam the table in front of his own people this time. Who exactly was he shouting at? The answer was provided by the state media itself. This phrase was not an impromptu remark. Early that morning, at around 6:00 AM, the People’s Daily published a nearly 10,000-word article by Ren Zhongping on its front page, which contained this exact sentence in black and white: 'With the mission and responsibility of offending thousands to not fail the 1.4 billion, we will advance the unprecedented anti-corruption struggle.' Late that night, at 11:20 PM, Xinhua News Agency issued a commentator's article overnight titled 'Rely on Tenacious Struggle to Win New Great Victories.' It was nearly 2,000 words long—I counted every single word—and the word 'struggle' appeared 42 times, including the title. One sentence used it seven times in one breath: 'Grasp the historical characteristics of the new great struggle, carry forward the spirit of struggle, grasp the direction of the struggle, grasp the initiative of the struggle, firm up the will of the struggle, master the laws of the struggle, and enhance the skills of the struggle.' After reading this sentence, I felt my own throat go a bit hoarse. This wasn't even the harshest part. The harshest part was this: I will read the original text to you: 'In the face of major risks and powerful opponents, always wanting to live a peaceful life and not wanting to struggle is unrealistic; having rickets or phobia is of no avail.' You tell me, who is this scolding? Is it scolding the common people? Is it wrong for the common people to want to live a peaceful life? Is it scolding the Americans? Whether the Americans have rickets is not something he needs to worry about. This article was published on the opening day of the plenary session. The readers in the front row were sitting in the Jingxi Hotel—more than 300 Central Committee members and alternate members. Those who were calculating how to land safely and just wanted to survive until the 21st Party Congress to retire peacefully were given a new name in this article: 'rickets.' The article also said that one must 'dare to take hard measures' in comprehensive and strict party governance. Take hard measures against whom? The agenda of the plenary session was comprehensive and strict party governance. Those sitting below were the very people to be 'strictly governed.' This was equivalent to the host slamming a knife on the table on the first day of the meeting. Looking back at the phrase 'offend thousands to not fail the 1.4 billion,' the number 'thousands' is an understatement. Xinhua News Agency itself announced on the 27th that in the first half of this year, discipline inspection and supervision organs nationwide filed 538,000 cases and punished 412,000 people, including 74 at the provincial and ministerial level or above. Punishing over 400,000 people in half a year—this is not 'thousands'; this is the population of a medium-sized city. Who among these people doesn't have superiors, fellow villagers, classmates, or old subordinates? Translated into plain language, this means: 'I have already offended everyone within the Party. I don't care; I have the 1.4 billion common people standing behind me.' But think about it with your conscience: what does it mean when a leader has to bring out 1.4 billion people to bolster his own courage? It means that the few hundred people he can count on around him can no longer be counted on at all. The common people will not walk into the Jingxi Hotel to raise their hands; those who raise their hands are the ones sitting below, whom he pointed at and scolded as having 'rickets.' We have heard this tone before. On the last day of 1975, December 31, Mao Zedong met with Nixon's daughter Julie and son-in-law David in Zhongnanhai. The old man was already struggling to speak at that time, but he still dropped the line: 'With a population of 800 million, can we not struggle?' The next day, New Year's Day, the People's Daily front page published the meeting. Fifty years have passed, 800 million has become 1.4 billion, and the tone is exactly the same. But you know what happened later: less than nine months after saying this, Mao Zedong passed away. Less than a month after that, the few people closest to him were wiped out in one fell swoop in Zhongnanhai. The year one shouts the loudest is often the year before one can no longer shout. Therefore, the situation on the first day was this: the leader threw the first punch and declared war on his own Central Committee members. The punch was thrown, and the person who caught it arrived the next morning—the elder mentioned at the beginning. But how could an 83-year-old man catch this punch? How many guns does he actually have in his hands?

To calculate how many guns the old men still have in their hands, one must first calculate how many the boss has left in the meeting hall. Let me give you the answer first: three. Among the Central Committee members elected at the 20th National Congress in 2022, there were 44 in military uniform. At the Third Plenary Session the year before last, 42 out of the 44 attended, with only Li Shangfu and Li Yuchao missing. At the Fourth Plenary Session last year, an overseas account specializing in personnel matters counted that only 15 military Central Committee members attended. By this Fifth Plenary Session, only three are certain to be sitting in the hall: Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Zhang Shengmin, Defense Minister Dong Jun, and the former President of the Academy of Military Sciences, Yang Xuejun. Even if you count everyone whose whereabouts are unknown and uncertain, there are at most nine. There was a detail during the replacement of Central Committee members at the Fourth Plenary Session last year: according to the vote ranking, there should have been four alternate members from the military to be promoted, but they were all skipped. The people in front were purged, and the military personnel waiting in line could not even fill the vacancies. 44, 40, 15, 3—if you look at this line, doesn't it look like an ECG of a patient in critical condition? The list for the CMC is even cleaner. Of the seven people elected at the 20th National Congress, the Chairman is the boss himself, the Vice Chairmen are Zhang Youxia and He Weidong, and the members are Li Shangfu, Liu Zhenli, Miao Hua, and Zhang Shengmin. Today, only two remain in their positions: the boss and Zhang Shengmin, who was later promoted to Vice Chairman. And there is one more thing to be done on this closing day of the plenary session: raising hands. On September 21, the Politburo had already reviewed the Central Military Commission's report on the handling of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. Expulsion from the Party requires ratification by the Central Plenary Session. In other words, today, of the more than 300 hands raised in the Jingxi Hotel, the ones they are personally expelling are the First Vice Chairman of the CMC and the Chief of the Joint Staff Department who manages the entire military's combat operations. And among those in uniform, you can count the hands on one hand. This is the pit the boss dug for himself. Who has he been purging in the military these years? He has been purging the very people who were supposed to raise their hands for him in the hall, the people who were supposed to hold the fort for him. Those 40-plus votes from the military in the Central Committee were originally his most solid base, and now he has torn them away one by one. But even if the uniforms are gone from the hall, the military has not disappeared. The military's voice has just moved to a different place—from inside the hall to outside. Speaking outside the hall is a group of retired old generals. A claim has been circulating overseas these days that a group of old generals jointly submitted a note before the plenary session. The words on the note are very blunt: Since the 20th National Congress, the military has been in such chaos, with only two generals left out of the seven in the CMC, and they are falling one after another. Even during the Cultural Revolution, the military was not this chaotic. The CMC implements a chairman responsibility system, so the Chairman must take full responsibility. Either resign voluntarily or be removed by the plenary session. As for what to do next, the note also wrote: Please have that old man act as the CMC Chairman for two years, let Hu Chunhua serve as the CMC Vice Chairman first to get familiar with military affairs, and then invite an old general who has fought in wars, Li Zuocheng, to act as the CMC Vice Chairman in charge of the entire military's command. You should remember the name Li Zuocheng. In 1979, during the Sino-Vietnamese War, he was a combat hero. Later, he served as the Commander of the Chengdu Military Region, the first Commander of the PLA Army, and then as the Chief of the Joint Staff Department—the very position from which Liu Zhenli was removed today. The meaning of the note is very clear: the position in charge of combat is vacant, so let someone who has actually fought in wars come back to sit in it. The note also named four people to be added to the CMC as members. These four names were not written casually. The first is Han Shengyan, Commander of the Central Theater Command; the Central Theater Command's headquarters is in Beijing, and the capital is within its jurisdiction. The second is Yang Zhibin, Commander of the Eastern Theater Command, who manages the Taiwan Strait direction. These two were promoted to general on the same day, December 22 last year. The third is Wang Gang, Commander of the Air Force, and the fourth is Zhang Shuguang, Secretary of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection—in plain terms, the person specifically in charge of arresting generals. These two were promoted to general together on July 3 this year. If you put these four positions together—the one in charge of the capital, the one in charge of the Taiwan Strait, the one in charge of the skies, and the one in charge of arrests—all four keys are there. What's even more fatal is that all four of these people are newcomers who just received their general's stars within this year. They were promoted one moment, and their names were written into the old generals' ultimatum the next. Everyone knows in their hearts that the blood of Li Shangfu and He Weidong is not yet dry; following the boss will sooner or later lead to Qin Cheng Prison. Accepting the old man's note is the only talisman for survival. Let's do the math again: there are only two people in the current CMC, the boss has one vote and Zhang Shengmin has one vote; the boss alone accounts for half. If these four people are added, the CMC will go from two people to six, and the boss will go from accounting for half to one-sixth. Moreover, the person sitting at the very top in the acting chairman's seat is not him. The other person left in the CMC, Zhang Shengmin, is in the most delicate situation right now. He comes from a political work background, and his previous position was Secretary of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection. Many of the cases of arresting generals over the years passed through his hands. Zhang Shuguang, who was named in the note, is the one who is now continuing as the Secretary of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection. At today's closing meeting, when raising hands to expel Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, how will Zhang Shengmin raise his hand? If he raises it, he is helping the boss nail down the last two major cases, but he also knows clearly that once the CMC expands to six people, he, as Vice Chairman, will no longer be the only person by the boss's side.

The veterans passing notes still follow some rules, but on the other side, things have been laid out openly. News released by another overseas blogger states that someone in the military directly issued a harsh warning: as long as they move against Hu Chunwah, it will lead straight to civil war, and everyone will perish together. Speaking of Hu Chunwah, over the past few days, there have been at least four different versions circulating overseas regarding him. One says that on the day of the Long March commemoration meeting, he was taken away by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection along with his wife. Another says that a company of soldiers forcibly snatched him away from the hands of the CCDI and sent him to Yunnan overnight. A third says he was sitting safely inside the conference hall, and the fourth is the one written on the note just mentioned—that he is going to become Vice Chairman of the Military Commission. These four versions are fiercely contradicting one another, but if you notice, all four versions share one common point: they all revolve around the exact same thing, which is the gun. Those who want to arrest him must see if the guns agree; those who snatch him rely on guns; those who protect him issue harsh warnings of civil war; and those who elevate him are elevating him into the Military Commission. The more chaotic the versions, the more it proves one thing: the guns have not been settled yet. When all is said and done, the ultimate showdown in this battle comes down to who can endure. Ordinary people like us don't need to fight for positions inside the Red Wall, but as autumn turns to winter, building a solid physical foundation is better than anything else. Before the guns inside the conference hall could be fought to a result, on the afternoon of the third day, a human life was lost outside the venue. Why did this life happen to be lost at this exact hour? Let's first look at a sponsor message, and we'll break it down right after.

Well, let's continue talking about that human life. On October 28, as the plenary session reached its third day, at 2:53 PM, former State Council Vice Premier Liu Yandong passed away in Beijing at the age of 81. The official obituary stated she died of illness, describing her as a time-tested and loyal communist fighter, an outstanding leader in the United front, education, science, technology, health, and women's and children's work, giving her a very high standard of recognition. Who was Liu Yandong? Her father, Liu Ruilong, was one of the founders of the Red 14th Army and a genuine veteran of the Red Army. She herself was admitted to the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University in 1964, making her an alumna of that senior leader. Starting in 1982, she worked in the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League for nine years, serving alongside that senior leader in the Secretariat of the Youth League Central Committee. Later, when that senior leader became the General Secretary, she served as the Head of the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee. During the five years Li Keqiang served as Premier, she was a Vice Premier of the State Council. Among the Youth League faction, she was the elder sister. For an 81-year-old retired elder who had stepped down eight years ago to pass away would not be unusual under normal circumstances, but it happened to hit right at this precise moment. On the second day of the plenary session, the elder handed over his power, and on the afternoon of the third day, his old partner from the Youth League Central Committee stopped breathing. Overseas rumors were rampant, claiming she was taken off life support. True or false, no one could produce a medical record, but this timeline was far too exact. Events within the Red Wall have always been a game of give-and-take; was this a coincidence, or was someone returning a courtesy?

Even more remarkable was that on the very same afternoon, just as the elder sister of the Youth League faction had passed away, someone in a Beijing reception room was busy putting on a smiling face. Xinhua News Agency published an article at 5:30 PM: Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau and Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, met with Bernd Lange, Chair of the Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament, in Beijing on the 28th. Who is Li Hongzhong? On September 27, 2016, just after arriving in Tianjin as the Municipal Party Secretary, he uttered a phrase at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee that later became famous nationwide: Absolute loyalty is absolute unloyalty. Based on this single phrase, he achieved instant fame before the big boss. In recent years, if you want to find someone who expressed their loyalty the loudest, Li Hongzhong ranks right at the top. The schedule for this European delegation had been set days in advance. With the plenary session at its height, on the 27th, Minister of Commerce and Central Committee member Wang Wentao was first sent to meet the same Lange, and on the 28th, Political Bureau member Li Hongzhong was pushed to the front stage. The fiercer the fight inside the venue, the louder someone outside the venue had to scream to sing this play of unity and stability. Sending a minister one day and a Political Bureau member the next told Europeans that all those rumors of swordplay you heard are just rumors, and we are doing just fine. And they were not the only two singing this play. On October 26 and 27, Zheng Jianbang, Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, was in New Delhi, India, attending the BRICS Parliamentary Forum and delivered a keynote speech. The moment he opened his mouth, he recited the four pioneers mentioned by the big boss at the BRICS summit. Zheng Jianbang is the Chairperson of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang and not a Central Committee member of the Communist Party; he never had a chair in Jingxi Hotel, nor a seat inside the meeting hall, so he ran off to New Delhi on behalf of the big boss to read the speech. The big boss himself had just gone to India in September to attend the BRICS summit; wouldn't you say this picture is ironic?

Inside Jingxi Hotel, someone was seizing his power, and in New Delhi, someone was reciting his words. The most awkward part fell on those in military uniforms. Minister of National Defense Dong Jun is a Central Committee member and had to stay in Beijing to raise his hand. The ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus in Cebu, Philippines, only dispatched a defense attaché from the embassy in the Philippines, which even Global Times itself admitted was the lowest-level delegation sent by the Chinese side since 2010. That same week, the People's Liberation Army also sent a strategic consultation delegation to France and Germany. The Ministry of National Defense released the news, but as for who the head of the delegation was, what his name was, and what his rank was, not a single word was written. This is what this military looks like outwardly today: those who should go cannot go, and those who go dare not report their names. Power was seized inside the country, and outside, not even someone who could sign a document dared to be put forward.

By the fourth day, which is today, the final vote of the plenary session took place. However, there is one person's intentions in this game of chess that we have yet to decipher: why did that old man insist on a two-year transition period? Let's turn the clock back to November 2002. After the 16th National Congress concluded, Hu Jintao became General Secretary, but Jiang Zemin did not relinquish the chair of the Central Military Commission, holding onto it for another two years. It wasn't until the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee in September 2004 that he handed it over, and he dragged out the handover of the State Military Commission chair until March 2005. What was it like for Hu Jintao during those two years? He held the title of General Secretary, but the gun was in someone else's hands. At major meetings, he sat in the center, but when it came to the military's personnel and affairs, he had to wait for the other old man to nod first. The CCP talks every day about the Party commanding the gun, but for those two years, it was the other way around: the gun was commanding the Party's General Secretary. He swallowed that bitterness for two full years. Looking back further, at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee in November 1989, Deng Xiaoping resigned as Chairman of the Central Military Commission and handed the gun to Jiang Zemin. So, in the history of the CCP, there is a precedent for handing over the gun at a Fifth Plenary Session. Do you remember Chi Haotian, who was walking at the very front at the beginning? When Deng Xiaoping handed over the gun in November 1989, he was the Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army. Thirty-seven years later, he stood at the scene of another handover of the gun, only this time, the person handing over the gun did not do so willingly. The person at the top of the pyramid knows these two pieces of history better than anyone. In recent years, what he has most wanted to copy is Jiang Zemin's playbook: let the General Secretary position go but hold onto the Military Commission chair for two more years. Yield the position but not the gun; as long as the gun is still in his hand, the successor is merely a caretaker, and no one can settle scores with him. But that little slip of paper completely reversed this playbook: the gun is taken away first, and the position is negotiated slowly. And the one who took away this gun is precisely the person who had his gun held by Jiang Zemin for two years twenty-two years ago. Back then, he waited for two years; today, it is his turn to hold the gun for someone else for two years. What do the Chinese call this? They call it retribution.

The Fifth Plenary Session has concluded, but this battle has not dispersed. There are two paths ahead. The first path: the plenary session gave the boss a narrative of reappointment. But remember, what is written on the paper is reappointment, while the gun is in someone else's hands. With one year left until the 21st National Congress, holding the title on one side and the gun on the other, this year will only be more fiercely contested than these past four days. The Two Sessions next March, Beidaihe next summer, and the 21st National Congress next autumn—each hurdle follows another, and none can bypass the same question: who does the gun actually listen to? The second path: the plenary session remained non-committal on the reappointment. By neither saying he will be reappointed nor that he won't, it means neither side has completely devoured the other. This decisive battle has been pushed back by a full year. Every meeting, every appointment and removal order, and every funeral before the 21st National Congress will be the next bloody battlefield. The nearest battlefield is at Babaoshan. On the day of Liu Yandong's funeral, will that old man attend? Three years ago, at Li Keqiang's funeral, he did not go and only sent a wreath. This time, an old partner from the Communist Youth League Central Committee has passed away at the critical moment of the power struggle at the plenary session, and he has just stepped from behind the scenes to the front. Will he go to Babaoshan in person to see him off? Will the boss go? If both of them go, how many people will stand between them, who will reach out first, and who will avoid looking at whom? The standing arrangement that day will be clearer than any communiqué. Alright, that's all for today. Please follow Jiang Feng Vision, like and share, and I'll see you in the next episode.