"Everyone is very sad. I don't know how to explain the present situation. How can the treasures in the palace be stolen? "
"Later, I carefully read the relevant files and carefully combed the whole story. It turns out that such an amazing scene happened more than 50 years ago. This was done by the G8. According to the relevant records, the Ganjul Sutra 18 box was cut with brocade, and the intruders stole the gold-plated Buddha's light and seven pearls from Jing Wei. "
Later, Xiang Si hopes to write a book about the loss of palace books based on his research findings in the Forbidden City for more than 20 years, so as to let people know about the loss of these national treasures and rare books in the palace. Three years later, he applied to the Palace Museum for this research topic.
"I have made a systematic study of the circulation of treasures in the Qing Dynasty outside the palace, which can be roughly divided into four periods. The national treasures and court secrets lost for the first time mainly include the loss of Yongle Dadian and Sikuquanshu. "
Xiang Si said: "The revision of Yongle Dadian in Ming Dynasty can be said to be an unprecedented cultural event." According to the relevant historical records, about 3,000 people participated in the compilation, which lasted for three years and included more than 22,000 volumes. After the compilation was completed, Ming Chengzu was very satisfied and personally prefaced and named it.
However, since the publication of Yongle Dadian, until the end of Ming Dynasty, the whereabouts of the original Yongle Dadian has been a mystery to historians and cultural circles. Some experts believe that Yongle Dadian died as early as the end of the Ming Dynasty. Some people say it was destroyed by fire, others say it was buried with the mausoleum, and others simply think it is missing. Presumably, it was destroyed by war when the Ming Dynasty perished.
In addition, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the books in the secret cabinet of the palace were loosely managed, and some unscrupulous Confucian officials were insatiable and tried their best to steal the secretary's Yongle Grand Ceremony. According to the historical records of the late Qing Dynasty, Wen and others, the minister of the Imperial Academy, deliberately put a burden on their followers when they entered the Imperial Academy every morning, put on cotton-padded jackets when they left at night, and brought the Yongle Grand Ceremony in the secret pavilion home with the same size. Later, some unscrupulous Confucian officials stole it and found that no one asked, so they began to sell it publicly. For a long time, foreigners who are insatiable about the secrets of the palace have been asking around about the news that Yongle Grand Ceremony flowed out of the palace, so a large number of secrets of Yongle Grand Ceremony flowed into the hands of foreigners and were taken out of China.
Eight-Nation Alliance's second loss took away countless cultural relics.
In Xianfeng 10, the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing, looted the Yuanmingyuan, and took away a large number of Yongle Dadian collected by the imperial court. Forty years later, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing again, and the Yongle Grand Ceremony stored in imperial academy suffered a terrible accident and was almost destroyed. Most of the books that survived the fire were scattered everywhere. Some soldiers think these books are big and strong, so they simply use them as bricks, some as managers and others as fortifications or sidewalks.
According to relevant records, China's palace secret "Yongle Dadian" has as many as 55 volumes in Japan, second only to 45 volumes in the United States and 38 volumes in the United Kingdom. China has been making every effort to obtain these lost palace secrets. At present, there are 226 volumes of Yongle Dadian in China.
"A considerable part of the treasures from the palace originated from the plunder of China by foreign powers. Among them, the British and French Coalition forces burned the Yuanmingyuan, which was the most serious looting and destruction of China's cultural relics. "
1859, Britain and France studied the battle plan against China and decided to form an expedition team of 20,000 people from the joint forces of the two countries. When dividing up the mountains of treasures, the commander-in-chief of the British and French allied forces decided to set up a joint Committee to divide up all the spoils of the two armies. However, after the action started, everything changed, and many precious items were gone.
As a result, the officers and men with red eyes began to become barbaric and crazy. Wave after wave of robbers poured into the resplendent palace with green eyes, robbing and setting fire to those utensils, calligraphy and paintings and cheats that could not be taken away.
"1900, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and the Forbidden City was destroyed again. How many national treasures were robbed and lost in Yuanmingyuan? So far, there are no accurate figures. According to statistics, about 6.5438+0.6 million pieces of China's national treasures have been lost overseas. These precious historical and cultural heritages are regarded as the most precious cultural relics by more than 200 museums around the world, and even the treasures of town halls are solemnly collected. The number of precious cultural relics in China scattered in the private hands of all corners of the country is really incalculable, and it is estimated that it should be more than 6,543,800+million; About hundreds of thousands of China treasures have been lost outside the palace. "
Xiang Si said that about 20,000 famous ancient paintings in China have been lost overseas, and China's most precious ancient painting "A Historical Picture of Women" is one of them.
"Another most painful loss is that Puyi stole the national treasure secret. This time, almost all the best cultural relics and books selected by the palace. " Xiang Si said very sadly. In the third year of Xuantong in the Qing Dynasty, that is, 19 1 1, the last emperor Puyi abdicated under the guardianship of Queen Yulong, and continued to live in the harem in the northern part of the Forbidden City according to the "preferential conditions for clearing houses" given by the government of the Republic of China, and continued to use the year number of Xuan Tong. 13 was called the small court. However, after Puyi abdicated, he was unwilling to lose his country and devoted himself to reviving the Qing Empire and regaining the throne of the emperor.
In order to raise money, in the name of rewarding Pu Jie, he transported the most valuable calligraphy and painting and ancient books out of the palace and stored them in the house of the British Concession in Tianjin. "When he went to the northeast, he and his courtiers didn't eat anything, so they exchanged priceless calligraphy and paintings, antiques and local farmers for steamed buns and steamed buns."
According to Xiang Si's research, Puyi believes that ancient books are the most precious wealth. During the six months when he stole the treasures of antiquities in the palace, all the stolen books were difficult to carry in the first 40 days! Then, these national treasures were stolen from the palace and given to Pu Jie. He gave 265,438+00 rare antiques of Zhaorentang 465,438 times, almost all of which were masterpieces of Song Dynasty, and most of them were priceless.
Puyi stole rare books from the palace for the third time.
"After Puyi smuggled the ancient books out of the palace, most of the rare books of the Song and Yuan Dynasties in Zhaore Temple have been lost outside the palace, and only Song Dynasty 10 and Yuan Dynasty 15 were left in the temple. These cheats are also excellent books and good books, but they are slightly inferior to those rare books that have been stolen from the palace. "
He told the company that these ancient books were given to Puyi's father, the former regent of the Qing Dynasty. He gave them to Zai Tao, then secretly transported them to Tianjin Jingyuan, sold dozens of them, and finally transported them all to the northeast, and entered the library building of the puppet Manchukuo Palace in Tibet. I didn't know the following until Japan surrendered.
"After Puyi arrived in the northeast, he hid in the library of the Puppet Manchukuo Palace. After the Kuomintang occupied Changchun, he received 13 boxes of Song books and handed them over to the National Changchun University Library. Now it is in the library of Northeast Normal University. Some of the remaining precious ancient books and treasures were recovered, acquired and collected in the Palace Museum in Beijing, while others were lost everywhere. "
Known as the first wonder in China, The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival was taken to the northeast by Emperor Puyi, and also entered the puppet Manchu Palace in Tibet. 1In August, 945, Puyi was captured by the Soviet Red Army, and the calligraphy and painting jewelry he carried with him was also confiscated, including this picture "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival". However, due to the chaotic situation at that time, people didn't care about this work, just threw it at the airport at will, and later handed it in as a trophy, and two more were found one after another.
1950, these three Riverside Pictures on Qingming Festival were handed over to Northeast Museum (Liaoning Provincial Museum). At the end of 1950, the Ministry of Culture organized experts to clean up the cultural heritage left by the Northeast, and Yang, a research institute of the Ministry of Culture, was ordered to count and sort out the spoils of the Northeast. Among the mountains of collections, he was ecstatic to find this picture "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival".
In addition to looting by the great powers and stealing from the palace, there are also some rare national treasures that were forcibly transferred, internally distributed and given to each other during the war.
In 1930s, the Japanese invaders invaded Beijing, and the Palace Museum was forced to pack a large number of fine cultural relics and move south. "From the autumn of 1932, the cultural relics of the Forbidden City began to be boxed. Facts have proved that this is a wise move. " Xiang Si said that it won valuable time for the later emergencies.
Packaging cultural relics can be a professional knowledge, on the one hand, how to package cultural relics, antiques and precious books; On the other hand, what national treasure cheats should be installed. There are two secrets in the packaging of national treasures and cultural relics, one is tightness, and the other is separation. At that time, the three major museums of the Forbidden City sent experts from relevant departments to select the secrets of national treasures. Their idea is that Beijing may become a battlefield, and we should try to pack the best cultural relics, fill them as much as possible, increase the number of pieces and reduce the number of boxes. So that Mr. Wu's bronze box was later unpacked and inspected in Shanghai, and the bronze could not be installed after being dismantled and inspected. At that time, everyone was complaining that the packers had to pack so much, but they didn't know it was the kindness of the packers.
The fourth national treasure lost moved south in an extraordinary period.
In the national treasure collection of the Palace Museum, all the fine paintings and calligraphy preserved in the palace are carefully packed and almost empty. More than 7,000 pieces of fine porcelain from the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties were all boxed. Together with the palace secrets and rare books, 13000 boxes of cultural relics all moved south.
"Because Beijingers were firmly opposed to the southward migration of national treasures at that time, the departure date was determined to be 65438+ in the middle of the night on February 5, 1933. The national treasures that had been loaded at noon, car after car, bid farewell to the deep palace they never left and embarked on the road of southward migration. After thousands of miles and more than ten years, almost all the cultural relics are intact except for the humid weather and serious humidity. There are 2,972 boxes of cultural relics shipped to Taiwan Province Province, including nearly 1.60 million copies, and the Palace Museum was established in 1.965. 1950 and 1953, a large number of national treasures of the Forbidden City moved from Nanjing to the north twice. "
Zheng, president of the Palace Museum, said that some national treasures that flowed out as gifts in the past have become witnesses to cultural exchanges. For example, in 1869, the Library of Congress of the United States received books from the Qing court at that time and returned them at the request of the United States government, with 933 volumes 10; Both Yale University and Columbia University received books from the Qing government.