Xi Jinping Stripped of Military Power and Silenced! Hu and Wen Take Control, Zhang Shengmin Sits Alone in the CMC Central Chair! Why Was Xi Required to Read from a Script When Meeting Trump and Putin in Shenzhen? Peng Liyuan's Confidant and Beijing Garrison Commander Go Missing! [Jiang Feng Horizon 20261111 Episode 537]

This episode analyzes the latest developments in the Zhongnanhai political situation, pointing out that Xi Jinping is facing a situation where he has been comprehensively sidelined regarding military power and diplomatic speaking rights. Footage from a briefing recently released by the August 1st Building shows Zhang Shengmin sitting alone in the center position, indicating significant changes in the actual power structure of the Military Commission; meanwhile, foreign media revealed that during the trilateral meeting at the Shenzhen APEC, the Chinese side was required to strictly read from a script to prevent risks regarding nuclear weapons and European-related diplomacy. The episode also discusses the personnel changes in the Beijing Garrison Command, the downfall of Wang Ning, and the background of retired veteran generals like Li Zuocheng returning to the center of power.

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Hello friends, and welcome to Jiangfeng Perspective. Let us put our cards on the table first: that figure in Zhongnanhai has officially reached his Hua Guofeng moment. The three major hats of General Secretary, President, and Military Commission Chairman remain on his head, but the gun is no longer in his hands. Even the script he reads when meeting foreign guests abroad is no longer his own decision. The one behind the scenes taking away the gun is Hu Jintao and the veteran marshals in the military, and the one holding the pen and reviewing the draft at the table is Wen Jiabao. These two heavy blows came back-to-back, less than nine hours apart. On the evening of November 9, Xinhua News Agency and the CCTV National Defense and Military Channel broadcasted footage showing that in the exact center of the August 1st Building reception hall, a single chair was placed alone. Sitting upon it was neither the Military Commission Chairman nor a battle-hardened veteran general leading troops, but Zhang Shengmin, who has served as the secretary of the military discipline commission for nine years. At 4:37 AM on November 10, the Wall Street Journal dropped an exclusive report: at the Shenzhen APEC from November 18 to 19, facing Trump and Putin, Beijing's strict rule for the boss was only one—read from the script and do not go off-script. Exactly 46 years to the day, on November 10, 1980, Zhongnanhai closed its doors as the Political Bureau began nine consecutive meetings with only a single agenda item: asking Party Chairman and Military Commission Chairman Hua Guofeng to hand over his position. In this episode, we will peel back the layers to see who nodded to let Zhang Shengmin sit in that chair, how the armed police confidants sent by the boss to guard the nine gates of the capital were uprooted overnight, and the question that everyone is most puzzled about: since the gun has already been taken away, why doesn't the Senate simply arrest him?

On November 9, at the August 1st Building on Fuxing Road in Beijing, the chill of late autumn had already seeped into the very bones of Chang'an Avenue. Yet, the meeting hall inside the building was brightly lit. On the front wall hung that magnificent, massive painting of the Great Wall, and beneath one's feet lay that thick carpet embroidered with large floral patterns. On the beige sofas on either side, generals in the pine-branch green of the Army, the azure of the Air Force, and the navy blue of the Navy sat bolt upright, not even daring to let their teacup lids make a sound. But when the camera panned to the center of the hall, those who understood the implications all gasped. On the massive main guest dais, there was only one chair. A 68-year-old veteran general sat upon it, both hands resting on the white sofa cover, his body leaning back. To his right was a white porcelain teacup, and to his left, a pink-based nameplate with red characters: Zhang Shengmin. As soon as the photo reached the overseas internet, the Chinese-speaking world immediately exploded. Netizens gave him the nickname "Zhang Yizun" (Zhang the Supreme). Others saw it even more sharply: even if you gave Zhang Shengmin ten times the courage, he would not dare to strike such a pose of sitting alone in the commander's tent. If he dared to sit like this, it could only be because someone behind him was pressing on his shoulders to make him sit, and forcing the entire military to watch him sit. To understand the murderous intent of this chair, let us look at the old records. After every Central Committee plenary session, the August 1st Building holds a military-wide lecture report meeting. The Xinhua News Agency's official copy follows the same format every year, which provides us with a ruler. On November 22, 2021, just after the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, the two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Xu Qiliang and Zhang Youxia, sat in the center, accompanied by the four CMC members Wei Fenghe, Li Zuocheng, Miao Hua, and Zhang Shengmin—six chairs in total, neatly arranged. On November 3, 2025, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee concluded; Zhang Youxia sat in the center, with Liu Zhenli on one side and the newly promoted Vice Chairman Zhang Shengmin on the other—three chairs. On November 9, 2026, after the Fifth Plenary Session concluded, there was only one chair. Six became three, and three became one. Of those six people in 2021, Xu Qiliang passed away, Li Zuocheng retired, and Wei Fenghe and Miao Hua were expelled. Of those three in 2025, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were expelled. The only one left is the one in the center. The seat he is sitting on is the exact same one Zhang Youxia occupied a year ago. According to the conventions of the August 1st Building, the Chairman of the CMC never attends such report meetings; in previous years, the first-ranked Vice Chairman of the CMC presided. Looking at the official copy itself, the trickery is even greater. The 2025 report was grandly staged, with the August 1st Building as the main venue, over 11,000 officers and soldiers listening to the report simultaneously, and the lecture group divided into five teams to go to the grassroots level. In 2026, all of this was gone; even the title was abruptly cut, and the words "and listened to the report" were completely erased. Why stop listening to the report? On the same evening, another short message from Xinhua News Agency revealed the answer: after Zhang Shengmin met with this group, he turned around, took on the title of member of the Central Lecture Group, tucked his own speech under his arm, walked into the CMC organs, and went on stage to deliver the report himself. In the first half, he was the CMC leader receiving the lecture group; in the second half, he was the lecturer reading the script on stage. One person performed two roles in one day. Why? Because in the massive Central Military Commission, apart from the titular Chairman at the very top, he is the only "bare commander" left underneath; not even a second person can be sent out to appear. What is Zhang Shengmin's background? Born in 1958 in Shaanxi, he spent most of his life in political work in the Second Artillery Corps (the later Rocket Force) and never spent a day leading troops in battle. From 2017, he served as Secretary of the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission for nine years. In early 2026, the case files for Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli passed across his desk. In October 2025, he was promoted to Vice Chairman of the CMC, and it was not until July 2026 that he handed over the sword of the Military Discipline Inspection Commission to another general with a background in discipline inspection, Zhang Shuguang. On October 29, the Fifth Plenary Session closed, and he was exceptionally inserted into the Politburo midway through the session. But the problem lies right here: if the Fifth Plenary Session had the power to send Zhang Shengmin into the Politburo, why did it not fill the CMC, which had five empty chairs? If the person in Zhongnanhai is still the one calling the shots at the August 1st Building, could he tolerate the highest military institution becoming an empty shell that cannot even gather enough people for a game of mahjong? Promoting an old political worker with a background in discipline inspection is something all parties can compromise on, but trying to stuff his own cronies who lead troops into the CMC? Sorry, no way. Therefore, this photo was not taken for the common people to see. The official copy states clearly that the report meeting was held in the form of a television and telephone conference. At that moment, the signal was being transmitted via military-dedicated lines to the big screens at the branch venues of major theater commands, group armies, and fleets. Commanders, political commissars, army commanders, and brigade commanders were all staring at that lonely chair. Zhang Shengmin's mouth was still reciting the "Two Establishes" and the "CMC Chairman Responsibility System" flawlessly, but the generals knew clearly in their hearts: the words from his mouth were for that one person inside the Red Wall, while the chair under his butt was the official portrait displayed for the entire military. Looking ahead, who will sign the official documents at the August 1st Building? The chair is displayed for the whole military to see, but what about that table in Shenzhen?

Let's take a look at the script that left the White House stunned. Eight hours after the August 1st Building (Ministry of National Defense) released its official statement, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell exclusive. The headline was incredibly striking: Beijing demanded the trilateral summit follow the script strictly, and the U.S. backed out. The report laid bare the cards for the APEC meeting in Shenzhen from November 18 to 19. It turns out that Russian President Vladimir Putin had proactively proposed taking advantage of the APEC summit to bring in Trump and the man in Zhongnanhai for a historic trilateral meeting of the U.S., Chinese, and Russian heads of state. Putin's plan was well-calculated: taking advantage of Trump's warming attitude toward the Kremlin, he aimed to use Beijing's hand to end the Russia-Ukraine war on Moscow's terms while sidelining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. All three parties initially expressed interest; Trump even showed his cards directly, stating publicly on November 8 that if they met, they would discuss many things, including denuclearization. However, the conditions set by Beijing left the well-informed Washington officials stunned. First, the trilateral meeting had to strictly follow a script: each of the three leaders would hold a pre-written statement, read it in order, and then finish—leaving almost no time for free discussion. Second, the agenda had to be finalized in advance, and even the results to be announced after the meeting had to be predetermined before they even met. If the U.S. side did not accept this, then there would be no trilateral meeting, and it would be changed to separate bilateral meetings. Third, regarding nuclear disarmament, which Trump wanted to discuss most, a Chinese official slammed the door shut: Beijing would not participate. A senior official in the Trump administration was blunt: it seems the man in Zhongnanhai is simply unwilling to engage in any communication with foreign counterparts without a script. Was Beijing prepared for a direct dialogue? On the afternoon of November 10, an AFP reporter brought this up at the regular press conference of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The spokesperson stood on the podium and could only squeeze out one sentence: China is maintaining communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the heads of state of China, Russia, and the U.S., and there is no information to provide on specific issues. They dared not call The Wall Street Journal's report a fabrication, let alone deny a single word. If you put the three people at that table in Shenzhen together, the scene would be ridiculous. On one side is Trump, a deal-maker who naturally doesn't use a teleprompter and speaks his mind; on the other side is Putin, who, during a phone call with European leaders on October 28, was supposed to talk for half an hour but ended up giving a 90-minute history lesson off the cuff. With two veterans who naturally speak off-script sitting across from each other, the host demanded that no one speak, just look down and read the text, then take a photo and leave after finishing. Why does he not dare to say even half a sentence off-script to Trump and Putin? Think about that lonely chair in the August 1st Building, and the answer is plain to see: because what Trump specifically wanted to talk about is exactly the dead-end he cannot touch—nuclear weapons. The last U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control treaty, the New START, expires in February 2026. For the first time, the two largest nuclear arsenals are running naked. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have made it clear: to sign a new treaty, Beijing, which has the fastest-growing nuclear warhead stockpile, must be locked in. If, at the table in Shenzhen, Trump suddenly leaned forward, stared into his eyes, and asked, "How many nuclear warheads are actually in those silos in your northwestern desert? Do you dare to sign with us to stop construction?"—what would the man in Zhongnanhai have to answer? Let's do the math: the four successive commanders of the Rocket Force, which manages China's strategic nuclear missiles—Wei Fenghe, Zhou Yaning, Li Yuchao, and Wang Houbin—have all fallen. In the August 1st Building, only Zhang Shengmin remains, a man who spent his whole life in political work in the Second Artillery Corps and never touched a launch key. He sits at the table in Shenzhen with no one behind him. Who would dare to pass him a note on a life-or-death matter like nuclear disarmament? Who would dare to nod for him? The words printed on the script were pre-approved by the family; reading them won't cause mistakes. But for any word not on the script, if he utters even half a syllable more, he won't be able to answer for it when he returns to Beijing. Nuclear weapons are one landmine, and Ukraine is another. Putin traveled all the way to Shenzhen to get Beijing to nod to his ceasefire terms in front of Trump. But when German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Beijing on October 30, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said in the talks that this is a European conflict and Europeans must be at the negotiating table. The article's title was simply: "He doesn't want a new Yalta." Europe is a market that China cannot afford to lose. Before the 21st Party Congress, what Beijing fears most is further trouble abroad. If that man at the Shenzhen table were to get carried away and nod along with his old friend Putin, the hard-won relationship Beijing has been repairing with Europe would be smashed on the spot. Therefore, someone must keep his mouth shut for him.

So, who actually wrote this speech, where he wasn't even allowed to improvise a single punctuation mark? The Wall Street Journal revealed half the secret at the end of its article: the reason Beijing is deathly afraid of unscripted communication is that it is currently at a sensitive juncture of personnel purging and succession issues. The entire system is preparing for the 21st National Congress in the second half of 2027, and it cannot afford any variables brought about by going off-script. Note that the word "succession" was not said by Jiang Feng, but was written in black and white by the Wall Street Journal. What truly locked his mouth with institutional shackles was a document quietly nailed to the wall in the summer of 2025. China's major foreign policy originates from the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs. For years, the Big Boss served as its director and made unilateral decisions, resulting in wolf warrior diplomacy and "no limits" China-Russia cooperation. However, on June 30, 2025, the Political Bureau specially convened a meeting to review the working regulations for the Party Central Committee's decision-making, deliberating, and coordinating institutions, putting tight constraints on bodies like the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs and the Central Financial and Economic Commission, summarized in ten characters: coordinate without replacing, be in place without overstepping. Meanwhile, the 2018 document had already stated clearly that these institutions all work under the leadership of the Political Bureau and the Standing Committee. Translated into plain language, diplomatic speeches are no longer anyone's private talk; they are official documents reviewed and approved by that table jointly overseen by party elders and Standing Committee members. Behind that table, the person holding the pen to control the party and government personnel landscape for Hu Jintao and grasping the approval of delegates for the 21st National Congress is Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao's most trusted old partner. The breath Wen Jiabao has been holding in has been suppressed for a full 14 years. At his final premier's press conference on March 14, 2012, he warned the whole world that without the success of political structural reform, tragedies like the Cultural Revolution could happen again. Just after he retired, Zhongnanhai started turning history's wheel backward. In April 2021, he serialized a long article in the Macau Herald mourning his mother, ending with the note that the China in his heart should be a country full of fairness and justice, with everlasting respect for human hearts, humanism, and humanity. Yet such an article by a former premier mourning his deceased mother could not even be forwarded on WeChat. Thirty years in the east, thirty years in the west; the former premier whose article mourning his mother was once censored is now holding that pen once again. The tone set by the Senate for Shenzhen couldn't be clearer: the Big Boss loves pomp, so let him keep that face; on November 18, let him stand gracefully between Trump and Putin to shake hands and smile. But the moment he sits down to speak, he must lower his head and read those pre-approved pages from the first word to the last, and is not allowed to let a single extra word slip out.

The manuscript is settled, but what about the shot? In January 2026, the boss personally brought down Zhang Youxia. Logically, he should be swaggering around the August First Building, so how did he end up turning himself into a commander without an army at the end of all this tossing and turning, and how were the armed police confidants he sent to guard the nine gates of the capital uprooted from the bottom? Looking at this chess game in Zhongnanhai makes the eyes tired and the body weary. I personally take WiseQuest Black Ointment Concentrated Capsules every day. They are formulated with herbs such as American ginseng, astragalus, yam, and angelica, and produced in a US GMP-compliant factory, providing a gentle and solid herbal nutritional support for our daily physical strength. For friends who often look at mobile phone and computer screens to watch programs, I strongly recommend trying the WiseQuest Eye-Soothing Cold Compress Eye Patches. They contain borneol, chrysanthemum, and mint, which feel cool and refreshing when applied, and are particularly effective in soothing fatigue and dryness after using the eyes. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Jiangfeng Youpin has specially launched a Thanksgiving gift package. Buy two bottles of Black Ointment Concentrated Capsules and get Italian coffee, buy three and get a box of German vitamins, and buy five boxes of Eye-Soothing Patches and get one free. Please support Jiangfeng by clicking the link below the video or scanning the QR code on the screen to order. Capsules are dietary supplements and cannot replace medication, and experiences vary from person to person. Pregnant women should not use the eye patches. Welcome back. On January 24, 2026, that figure in Zhongnanhai suddenly made a move, placing both CMC First Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli under investigation, and officially announced their dual expulsion on September 21. Zhang Youxia was the last Red-Ered old military leader in the army qualified to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Uprooting this thorn in his eye should have been his most brilliant battle in over a decade, but it was precisely this shot that, while striking down Zhang Youxia, awakened a group of deep-hidden veteran marshals in the army and forced them to flip the table. After Zhang Youxia fell, the people who took the knife were closer to the boss than the last. In late October, the communique of the Fifth Plenary Session confirmed the expulsion of both former CMC General Office Directors Zhong Shaojun and Fang Yongxiang—the personal chief stewards of the CMC Chairman. Among them, Zhong Shaojun followed the boss all the way from Zhejiang and Shanghai into Zhongnanhai to carry his bags for more than 20 years. On November 3, Russian Defense Minister Dong Jun visited, but was nowhere to be seen, and on November 4, Armed Police Commander Wang Ning, who had been personally presented with a flag by the boss, was expelled from the CPPCC. These two things were explained in detail in the November 5 episode, so I won't reheat leftovers today; let's dig deeper into why the people around the boss collapsed one after another. The answer is hidden in the nine city gates of Beijing. On January 14, 2026, the Beijing Garrison held a full party committee meeting, and the next day, the end of the Beijing Daily report popped up with an unfamiliar name: Garrison leader Chen Yuan. What does the Beijing Garrison do? It defends the capital and guards the outskirts of Zhongnanhai, with the commander commonly known as the Commander of the Nine Gates. This position had been vacant for almost a year. The predecessor, Fu Wenwen, was an old subordinate of Zhang Youxia. After being transferred in March 2025, the official seal of the Commander of the Nine Gates had been left unclaimed. What is Chen Yuan's background? Born in 1972 in Dongtai, Jiangsu, he is a fellow townsman of He Weidong, spent his whole life in the armed police system, and before coming to Beijing, was the commander of the Shanghai Armed Police Corps. During the years Wang Ning served as armed police commander, Chen Yuan rose all the way from deputy commander of the Jiangsu Corps to president of the Armed Police Non-Commissioned Officer School, being precisely a soldier brought up under Wang Ning. There is also an even fiercer rumor circulating overseas: Chen Yuan was personally recommended to the Madam by Wang Ning as his own person. The Commander of the Nine Gates has always been held by army generals, making it extremely rare for an armed police major general to guard the capital. Ten days later, on January 24, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli fell. Now you see it clearly, right? The one at the top of the tower knew very well in his heart that field armies were full of old subordinates of Zhang Youxia and the old military leaders and could not be counted on; the armed police cultivated by the two successive commanders Wang Ning and Wang Chunning were whom he truly trusted. Therefore, he changed the city gates first and then moved the knife, first having the armed police weld the nine gates of Beijing shut before taking action against Zhang Youxia, calculating extremely precisely. Yet he never expected that he would hold this card for less than nine months. In September 2026, news spread in the overseas Chinese-language circle that Chen Yuan had been taken away while the boss was visiting abroad, and the keys to the city gates were plucked right out of his pocket before they even grew warm. The moment Chen Yuan fell, following the vine to the melon led straight to old Commander Wang Ning, who had brought him up and had been retired for a full six years, and on November 4, he was stripped of his CPPCC Standing Committee amulet and thrown into the liquidation pipeline.

Those in the know will notice an unusual detail here: Wang Ning was the old commander of the 31st Group Army, which was the original power base for the Big Boss (Xi Jinping) when he started his career in Fujian. From 2024 to 2025, Zhang Youxia, following the trail of Miao Hua and He Weidong, almost completely uprooted the active-duty generals who came from the 31st Group Army, yet he deliberately left the retired Wang Ning untouched. There is an old rule in the military: give some leeway to the second-generation military elites who have retired. Why was this rule smashed to pieces the moment Zhang Youxia fell? The contrast is even more striking: there is another former commander of the 31st Group Army who is more senior than Wang Ning, named Zhao Keshi. Born in 1947, he served as commander of the 31st Group Army and later rose to become commander of the Nanjing Military Region and director of the General Logistics Department. Both Miao Hua and He Weidong emerged from the line he commanded. Yet this time, while Wang Ning was being skinned and dismantled, Zhao Keshi hadn't lost a single hair as of November 10. Why target Wang Ning but not Zhao Keshi, both of whom are retired long-time commanders of the 31st Group Army? If you understand this multiple-choice question, you understand who is pulling the strings at the August First Building. The commander-in-chief pulling the strings has shifted from the 'princeling' Zhang Youxia to an old veteran from the common ranks who climbed up from the trenches; the name echoing loudest overseas is Li Zuocheng. Born in 1953 to a farming family in Anhua, Hunan, Li Zuocheng has no red background whatsoever. In the 1979 war against Vietnam, at the age of 25, he led his entire company in a charge and was awarded the title of 'Combat Hero' and a First-Class Merit by the Central Military Commission after the war. He later rose to become Chief of the Joint Staff Department and retired in 2022. Zhang Youxia is the son of founding General Zhang Zongxun and belongs to the same Beijing 'compound' circle as Wang Ning; when handling cases, one must always show some respect for the connections of the older generation. Li Zuocheng, however, owes no favors to the 'red second generation' and does not recognize any 'First Lady' route. In his eyes and those of the old military leaders, Zhao Keshi was a general promoted during the Jiang Zemin era and does not owe the Big Boss any personal gratitude. But what were Wang Ning and Chen Yuan doing? They were turning the nation's People's Armed Police into private retainers who only knew of the First Lady and the Big Boss, and knew nothing of the Central Military Commission. The Central Military Commission on the surface has effectively ceased to function. Zhang Shengmin, sitting in the center, can manage official documents, but if he really wanted to mobilize field troops, he couldn't even move a single regiment. Real military power lies in the hands of the commanders of the various theater commands, group armies, and combined arms brigades. And at the moment of life and death, the commanders and brigade leaders never recognize red-headed documents; they recognize the old superiors who led them and promoted them. It was 11:00 PM on a late autumn night in 2026. The headquarters building of a major northern group army had long since gone dark, with only the operations duty room lit. The red secure phone on the commander's desk suddenly rang urgently. In the receiver was an incredibly familiar, elderly voice with a thick local accent. The old superior, who had long since retired, just chatted like a neighbor about the troops' winter training, and finally whispered a stern instruction: 'The wind is strong outside, keep the troops steady. Without a word from us old bones, don't move on anyone's orders.' The commander stood at attention, replied 'Understood,' and hung up the phone. His palms were covered in sweat, but the stone in his heart had finally dropped. Such a late-night phone call is worth more than a hundred official telegrams from the CMC General Office. The stage has changed its scenery, but the rules of the play remain exactly the same. So, who has the prestige to invite these retired veterans like Li Zuocheng out of retirement one by one? Let's turn the calendar back to October 22, 2022, at the closing session of the 20th National Congress in the Great Hall of the People. A white-haired old man in the center of the first row of the rostrum reached out to take the red folder on the table. The person next to him pressed his hand down, and two staff members walked up, grabbed him by the arms from left and right, and hauled him from his seat. The cameras of the world captured this humiliating scene. Everyone thought Hu Jintao's political life had come to an end that day, but everyone miscalculated two key points. First, Hu Jintao was the successor personally designated by Deng Xiaoping across generations; all the old generals who had fought in wars recognized this brand. Second, he served as Chairman of the Central Military Commission for eight years; the theater commanders and group army commanders who now hold real power were promoted from regimental and divisional commanders during his tenure. He may not have a single soldier under his direct command, but he can get through to the secure phones in the homes of the old military leaders with a single call. The white-haired old man who was dragged out of the Great Hall in public four years ago has, four years later, quietly used the phone lines of the old marshals to take back the gun barrel inch by inch. The chair that Zhang Shengmin sits on is only there because Hu Jintao and the old military leaders gave their nod.

Many viewers watching this drama have the same question in mind: Jiang Feng, if as you say the guns have been taken away by Hu Jintao and the old military leaders, and the pens are in the hands of Wen Jiabao, and the person at the top of the pyramid is already a turtle in a jar, why go to all the trouble? Why not just send a squad of soldiers into Zhongnanhai and take him down to end it once and for all? This question hits exactly the most fatal weak point of the CCP's black-box politics: it is not that they cannot make the move, but that they cannot afford to smash this temple. In 1976, they dared to take direct action to arrest the Gang of Four because the Gang of Four had no roots in the military. Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao only had those few tens of thousands of militia in Shanghai. Once action was taken in Beijing, the Shanghai militia scattered without making a sound. Arresting a few scholars without military roots is called removing treacherous officials, and the Communist Party's regime remains unshaken. But the person sitting in the top seat today is a completely different story. He has sat in the highest position for a full fourteen years as the 'People's Leader,' worshipped by the propaganda machine with three sticks of incense every morning and evening. Over these fourteen years, thousands upon thousands of officials have been promoted under his banner, and countless unfinished projects and financial black holes bear his seal. Think about it: if Hu and Wen directly used the armed police to drag away the current top leader of the Party, government, and military like a fugitive, what would happen in China and the world the next day? It would be equivalent to the CCP itself using a loudspeaker to announce to 1.4 billion people that the core of our Party for the past fourteen years has been a bad person and everything done in those fourteen years was wrong. The common people would immediately ask the next question: then what does that make Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, who personally handed over the supreme power to him at the 18th National Congress in 2012? Does this system still have any legitimacy at all? This is what is called 'dismantling the temple without smashing the Buddha.' In August 1980, when Deng Xiaoping was interviewed by the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, she asked him if Mao Zedong's portrait on the Tiananmen Gate would still be hung. Deng Xiaoping said it would be preserved forever. Even though Mao Zedong had put them through life-and-death struggles, they did not dare to take down that portrait. By the same logic, when Deng Xiaoping removed Hua Guofeng, who held the 'With you in charge, I am at ease' mandate and three concurrent positions, he never sent troops to arrest him. He only followed the path of first taking the guns, then clipping his wings, and finally forcing him to step down and yield the position. Today, Hu, Wen, and the old military leaders are following this same old path, and they are walking it even more coldly and strictly. The two layers of gates outside Zhongnanhai—the armed police and the General Office of the Central Military Commission—have already had their locks changed, as mentioned before. Only the third layer, the Central Guard Bureau that guards him personally, remains. But it was at this very last gate that a strange incident occurred that left foreign media marveling. In mid-September 2026, at the BRICS summit in India, the leader sat down for talks with Modi. With ministers from both sides lined up on both sides of the long negotiation table, sharp-eyed reporters suddenly discovered that on the Chinese side sat someone who usually only stands two steps behind the leader: Zhou Hongxu, Director of the Central Guard Bureau, sitting upright in a crisp dark suit at the negotiation table. Immediately after, on September 24, in the list of Chinese attendees for the White House state dinner released by the U.S. side, two titles were clearly printed before Zhou Hongxu's name: Deputy Director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and Director of the Central Guard Bureau. When does a leader of a major power need to bring the Director of the Guard Bureau to the negotiation table? Only when all the civil and military officials around him have been hollowed out and there is no one left he can trust to bring along. But if you think deeper, the chill becomes even heavier. The new hat on Zhou Hongxu's head is under the jurisdiction of the General Office of the Central Committee. Is the person who never leaves his side, even sitting right next to him during international negotiations, blocking assassins from the outside, or is he watching his every move for that big table inside the Red Wall, preventing him from going off-script and speaking recklessly while abroad? The Red Wall remains, but the keys to the courtyard gate have long been in someone else's pocket. So don't ask again why the August 1st Building is still shouting about the 'Two Establishes' or why the CCTV News is still broadcasting his headlines. In the history of CCP power transitions, portraits and titles are always the last things to be removed. They won't arrest him, won't depose him, and won't smash the temple; they will just take away his tiger tally for mobilizing troops and seize the pen he uses to sign documents. As for those three empty hats, he will have to sit in the conference room and take them off one by one with dignity. On November 18, 2026, the curtain will rise on the APEC summit in Shenzhen. If Trump and Putin sit at that world-renowned three-party table as scheduled, the man in Zhongnanhai will surely walk to the center of the camera frame in a suit and tie to shake hands, exchange pleasantries, and take a historic group photo with the two strongmen from the U.S. and Russia. Forty-six years ago, on November 10, once the gates of Zhongnanhai closed, Hua Guofeng's chairmanship became a mere formality. The 20th Central Committee's Fifth Plenary Session has already passed, and there is only one year left until the 21st National Congress. After the puppet show in Shenzhen is over, when will that door inside the Red Wall close? Late autumn and early winter is the best time of the year for nourishing one's health. 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For friends who want peace of mind, you can also choose to subscribe to Puritans Pride, starting at $10 a day with regular home deliveries and gifts in every issue, upgrading the health of your whole family. Please support Jiang Feng by clicking the link below and entering the exclusive promo code JF to enjoy a discount. Black ginseng is a daily nutritional supplement and cannot replace medicine and regular medical treatment. Alright, that is all for this episode. If you like Jiang Feng's program, don't forget to click subscribe, like, and share this video with your friends around you who are still following the Zhongnanhai drama. Thank you for your support, and see you next time.