When he was very young his father, Mao Zedong, left the family for his next wife, He Zizhen.
Later, his mother was executed by a warlord, leaving Anlong and his siblings effectively orphaned.
Upon being smuggled to Shanghai after his mother's execution, he and his siblings lived on the streets.
In the early 1990s, a flood of unapproved biographies of leaders appeared.
One such "autobiography" was a supposed account by Mao Anlong of how he had not died and actually been forced into hiding by his father.