Reading guide:At noon on September 30, 1959, Shen Bo, then director of the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau, suddenly hurried to the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square. After entering the Great Hall, Shen Bo went straight to the banquet hall and found Zheng Lianfu, the general person in charge of the state banquet for the 10th anniversary of the National Day.
Zheng Lianfu, a native of Tianjin, was born in 1918 in a poor family, because his father worked as a waiter at the Liuguo Hotel in Beijing, he was exposed to it since he was a child, and he developed a strong interest in cooking.
At the age of 17, Zheng Lianfu was introduced to the Beijing Hotel as an apprentice. In the decades that followed, he became not only a master chef who could cook Chinese and Western dishes, but also taught himself five foreign languages, mastered the arrangement and scheduling of large-scale banquets, and became the leading banquet designer in Beijing.
In 1949, the first state banquet held in New China was presided over by Zheng Lianfu, for which he also won the title of "banquet designer" for the first banquet of the founding of the country. In the following ten years, he presided over many state banquets and was respected by everyone as the "state banquet manager".
In 1959, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the party and state leaders decided to hold a grand state banquet at 7 p.m. on September 30 in the Great Hall, inviting leaders of more than 80 countries around the world and more than 4,000 representatives from all over the country to attend.
High-level banquets for thousands of people, from planning and arrangement to organization and implementation, every work is extremely arduous and difficult. To coordinate more than 200 chefs, more than 1,000 waiters, and countless staff on site to operate safely, efficiently, and in an orderly manner, it takes a person with great brains and command skills. In the end, the higher authorities handed over this glorious and arduous task to Zheng Lianfu again.
After receiving the task, Zheng Lianfu did not dare to slack off, and immediately went to the banquet hall of the Great Hall to prepare for the banquet. Before 1959, state banquets were held at the Beijing Hotel, and it was the first time that a state banquet was held in the Great Hall. In order to meet the needs of more than 4,000 people to dine at the same time, Zheng Lianfu decided to set up a kitchen team first.
To this end, he traveled to hundreds of restaurants in Beijing, mobilized more than 200 chefs and more than 1,000 waiters, and established the back kitchen of the Great Hall. After agreeing on the banquet menu with the chef and assigning the work, he began to set up the venue again.
More than 4,000 people need more than 400 tables, and due to the limited area of the banquet hall, how to place and layout is very important. It is necessary to let every guest have a place, but not too crowded and affect the waiter's serving. For this reason, Zheng Lianfu wandered around the banquet hall day and night, measuring over and over again, and finally succeeded in coming up with a perfect plan and placing 472 tables.
At noon on September 30, Zheng Lianfu was conducting the final inspection before the banquet began in the Great Hall, and seeing that all the work was ready, his tense heart finally relaxed. But at this moment, he saw Director Shen Bo who came in a hurry.
Seeing Director Shen's anxious appearance, Zheng Lianfu guessed that something might have happened, and his mood couldn't help but become nervous again. Sure enough, after Shen Bo saw him, he asked directly, "Is it too late to change the location of the state banquet now?" ”
After listening to Director Shen's words, Zheng Lianfu broke out in a cold sweat, and hurriedly asked why he wanted to change the location of the banquet?
It turned out that the comrades of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Department temporarily discovered that the ceiling of the banquet hall of the Great Hall was all made of wood keel, and when the banquet was held, all the lights on the scene should be turned on, and the intricate wires on the ceiling were easy to spontaneously combust due to excessive power, and if a fire broke out, the consequences would be unimaginable.
When the Great Hall of the People was built, Shen Bo was the general person in charge of construction, and he knew very well about the internal structure and knew that this was a very serious safety hazard, so after consulting his superiors, he immediately rushed to the banquet hall of the Great Hall to ask Zheng Lianfu, the person in charge of the state banquet, if he could change the location.
Zheng Lianfu directly rejected this idea, because at this time, it was less than seven hours before the start of the state banquet, the layout of the banquet hall had been completed, and the dishes and ingredients in the back kitchen had been prepared in advance.
Moreover, the invitations to the state banquet have already been distributed, and the above venue is the banquet hall of the Great Hall, if the venue is changed, not only will every invited guest be notified again, but it may also cause unnecessary conjecture on the foreign guests, which will have a bad impact on the image of New China in the international community.
Since it was too late to change the venue of the banquet, then we had to do everything we could to prevent the fire from happening. At first, the comrades of the public security department wanted to mobilize the fire department to prepare outside the banquet hall and rush in as soon as a fire broke out to ensure the safety of the participants.
However, this proposal was directly vetoed by Shen Bo and Zheng Lianfu, and this time it was a state banquet for the 10th anniversary of the National Day, and the eyes of the whole China and the world were watching the grand occasion of the banquet in the Great Hall, and if a fire broke out, it was impossible for firefighters to extinguish the fire without being noticed.
Shen Bo added: "The ceiling of the banquet hall of the City Hall is more than ten meters high, and if a fire does occur, it will be very difficult for firefighters to extinguish the fire. Since we can't put out fires, the only thing we can do is to eliminate the hidden danger of fire. ”
Hearing this, Zheng Lianfu thought of a way, why not select some skilled firefighters and electricians, climb on the ceiling of the banquet hall with small fire extinguishing equipment, and wait for it, and find that there is a short circuit or spark in the wire, and extinguish it in time, so that the hidden danger of the fire can be eliminated.
It seemed bold, but it was also the easiest and quickest way to do it at the time. As the general person in charge of the construction of the Great Hall, Shen Bo is very clear about the quality of the ceiling, which can fully withstand the weight of dozens of people without worrying about collapse.
This suggestion was quickly approved by the public security department and higher-ups, after which Shen Bo and Zheng Lianfu went their separate ways, and soon selected 50 skilled firefighters and electricians from the surrounding fire brigades and factories, and then asked them to change into black clothes and climb the ceiling, so that they would not be discovered in the dark shadows.
At 7 o'clock in the evening of September 30, 1959, the state banquet for the 10th anniversary of the National Day began smoothly in the banquet hall of the Great Hall.
At this time, no one knew that there were 50 "men in black" silently sticking to their posts above their heads, protecting the safety of every guest present. It can be said that the state banquet for the 10th anniversary of the National Day was held successfully, smoothly and successfully, and these behind-the-scenes heroes have made great contributions.