Excerpted from The Forbidden City, China Workers Publishing House.
1924 1 1.5 is an extremely ordinary day, but it is extremely unusual for the last emperor Pu Yi who has abdicated. He didn't know that this was his last day in the Forbidden City. 13 years, Puyi has never left here. He still owns everything in the palace, including all the cultural relics collected here. It was the last accumulation collected by feudal emperors in 2000, covering almost the uninterrupted civilization of China.
Throughout the history of China, the replacement of dynasties is often accompanied by the loss and destruction of a large number of cultural relics. For example, Xiao Yi and Emperor Liang Yuan burned all his collections before the imperial city was breached. Moreover, the essence of cultural relics in every dynasty and place will be concentrated in the court. Is the fate of this cultural relic.
As the last feudal dynasty in China, the Qing Dynasty reached an unprecedented scale after the prosperous period of Kanggan, and these cultural relics were stored in the Forbidden City and the palaces of emperors in previous dynasties. In a sense, the palace has become the big warehouse of the world's artistic wealth. No one can tell exactly how many collections there are in the Qing Palace and where they are stored. At present, the collection of books compiled by the Qing court is mostly limited to the records of calligraphy and painting, far from all.
1924165438+1On October 5th, Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City. A month later, the Qing Dynasty Aftercare Committee made an inventory of the cultural relics in the Forbidden City. The inventory report shows that porcelain is the most in the cultural relics of the Forbidden City, mostly in Ningshou Palace, Forbidden City and Prison Palace. Followed by calligraphy and painting, with Zhong Cuigong as the most; Each temple collects different amounts of gold, bronze and jade. But this is just what happened after Puyi left the palace. What is certain is that a large number of cultural relics have been lost at this time.
As a matter of fact, the first great loss of Qing palace collections was in 1860, more than 60 years earlier than that.
It is a large royal palace built by the Emperor Yuanmingyuan in the Qing Dynasty from 65438 to 050, and it is also an important collection of royal cultural relics. Forty scenes of Yuanmingyuan, painted by court painters Shen Yuan and Dong Dai, are now in the National Library of Paris. People today can only imagine Yuanmingyuan from here. According to incomplete records, there are more than 200 famous paintings and calligraphy of Tang and Song Dynasties in Yuanmingyuan. Wen Yuan Pavilion in Yuanmingyuan was the largest library building in China at that time, and there were more than 30,000 volumes in one volume. However, there are only seven kinds of China's Siku Quanshu. There are 65438+ ten thousand precious Buddha statues in the Acropolis since Kangxi. And these century-old treasures disappeared in a few days.
1860101October 6, after the British and French allied forces captured Beijing, they entered the Yuanmingyuan. The next day, the crazy robbery began.
At that time, a reporter from the British Times said in a communication to the motherland that after entering the emperor's palace, no one knew what to take. Silver was replaced by gold, and gold was replaced by watches and jewellery. Valuable porcelain and enamel bottles were broken because they were too big to take away. Valuable paintings and calligraphy are just waste paper in the eyes of soldiers, and even used to light cigarettes.
After three days of looting, the British and French allied forces burned down the Yuanmingyuan. Hugo, a great French writer, angrily condemned this atrocity. He said: After looting and burning Yuanmingyuan, the two robbers shared the loot equally, holding hands and laughing, and returned to Europe.
The British Museum in London has one of the largest collections of China cultural relics in the world. It is said that the collection of Song, Yuan and Ming porcelain here is second only to the Forbidden City in Beijing. A woman's history is displayed in the Oriental Pavilion. This is the earliest scroll painting.
1900 On the fourth day of the eighth lunar month, Eight-Nation Alliance occupied Beijing, and the Forbidden City was invaded for the first time since its establishment. At that time, the armies of various countries took turns to station in the Forbidden City for more than a year, and the cultural relics of the Forbidden City were looted.
Zhongnanhai, a palace earlier than the Forbidden City, became the headquarters of Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. During Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion, Yuanmingyuan was completely destroyed by the war, and several other important royal sites and even royal residences were looted. The Yongle ceremony of the Hanlin Academy was burned. This is the earliest and largest encyclopedia in the world, with 65,438+065,438+0,000 volumes, with only over 300 volumes left, of which 65,438+070 volumes were left in China, and the rest were distributed to libraries and private hands all over the world. As well as the fate of cultural relics in the Palace Museum, always fluctuates with the changes of the national movement and the current situation. Puyi lived in the Forbidden City for the last few years, and the small court was in doomsday chaos. A group of eunuchs began to wait for opportunities to steal treasures. At that time, many antique shops were opened in Di 'anmen area, and the business was booming. The backstage bosses of these shops are mostly palace eunuchs.
After the founding of China, when cleaning up the Forbidden City, precious calligraphy and paintings that were previously hidden by eunuchs but not taken out of the palace were found in many places. Among them, Six Horses in Zhaoling is the work of Zhao Lin, a great painter in Jin Dynasty, which was found under the stage of China Palace. It is based on Zhao Lingshi, Emperor Taizong of Shaanxi Province, and is the only work handed down by Zhao Lin.
The theft of cultural relics in the palace angered Puyi, who ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to investigate the matter thoroughly. However, this has caused even greater disasters.
1On June 26th, 923, in order to prevent evidence theft, eunuchs set fire to Fujian Palace, where most of the collections left by Emperor Qianlong to Emperor Jiaqing were boxed and sealed. How much the fire destroyed is still a mystery. It is said that there are thousands of golden buddhas in Fujian Palace. When disposing of these ashes afterwards, only one gold shop picked out the gold nuggets and nuggets of 17200.
After the Fugong fire, it was only a matter of time before Puyi moved out of the Forbidden City amid the condemnation of Chinese people. For his later years, he began to transfer cultural relics to the palace in the name of rewarding Pu Jie. In fact, during her ten years in the backyard, Puyi gave many palace supplies to officials around her at will. This is the masterpiece of Gu, a great painter in Southern Tang Dynasty. Puyi gave it to his master Liang Dingfen. Although it was later taken back by the Qing palace, it was taken out of the palace by Puyi and scattered among the people. After the founding of New China, National Cultural Heritage Administration bought it back from Hongkong and gave it to the Palace Museum for collection.
Song copied Gu Kaizhi's "Han Xizai's Banquet". At that time, there were two pieces in the palace, and Puyi gave one of them to his master Zhu Yifan. Later, this work went to the United States and was hidden in the friel Art Museum in Washington. If the previous reward was for fun, then the so-called reward for Pu Jie later was a premeditated theft. As the abdicated emperor, Puyi dared not take things out of the palace directly, but created opportunities for his younger brother Pu Jie to accompany him into the palace. The eunuch wrapped the painting and rare book in yellow silk, gave it to Pu Jie, and took it out of the palace after school. Puyi recalled in the book "The Goddess of Luo" that such smuggling activities lasted for almost half a year, and the ancient calligraphy and paintings shipped out were all fine works.
It can be seen from "Appreciation of Pu Jie Watches" discovered by the Cleaning Committee later that this treasure stealing activity started on 1922, that is, July/3, 2004 in Xuan Tong/kloc-0. First, some rare books of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, then famous paintings of past dynasties, 68 volumes, 1285 calligraphy and painting. Only 165438+26 won the prize on the first day of October.
1On February 23rd, 925, Puyi left Beijing for the Japanese Concession in Tianjin after being driven out of the Forbidden City for more than three months. Later, he established the so-called "Tianjin House Cleaning Department" and still lived a luxurious life in the small court. In order to support the facade, he began to sell paintings and calligr.
It is the only remaining work of Ruan Gao, a painter of the Five Dynasties, with no more than ten figure paintings handed down from generation to generation. It is the original work of Yan in Tang Dynasty, which reflects the important historical facts of the affinity between Tang Dynasty and Tubo. These two works were taken back by the Palace Museum after the founding of New China. In the first half of my life, it was as precious as the statues of emperors in previous dynasties. After flowing out of Tianjin, it was sold to the Japanese, and it was collected by the Boston Museum in the United States after World War II.
1931September 18, the September 18th Incident broke out. In June of this year 165438+ 10/0, Puyi quietly left Tianjin for Changchun under the control of the Japanese army. 1March 9, 932, Changchun Puppet Manchukuo Palace, after signing the "All-Japan Protocol", a traitorous treaty, Puyi became the "emperor" of Puppet Manchukuo.
Shortly after becoming a puppet emperor, the cultural relics he smuggled out of the palace were secretly transported from Tianjin to Changchun and stored in a warehouse called Xiaobailou.