When he assumed power, China was divided by three hundred languages and a thousand dialects. But Mao signed a decree making Mandarin the official language. He required all business and education and public conversation to be in Mandarin. He ordered that the forty-seven thousand pictorial characters be simplified so his red book could be small and easy to carry. They were reduced to fifteen hundred. Suddenly God’s Word could be translated much more easily, and the whole nation could be reached with one translation.
