Going south from Tianfu Square in Chengdu, Sichuan, you can drive about 60 kilometers to the Jiangkou Shen Yin Site in Jiangkou Street, Pengshan District, Meishan City.
On October 25, the reporter looked at the Chenyin ruins at the mouth of the river. During the dry season, the Minjiang River flowed gently and deeply, with no sails. The vegetation on both sides was bleak. There was no longer the busy shipping scene in ancient times, and the villagers who used to collect cultural relics on the shore were no longer there.
Jiangkou is named after the confluence of two rivers. In December 2019, the town was removed and a street was established. The Minjiang River originates from the southern foot of the Minshan Mountain. After flowing into the Chengdu Plain, it divides into the Chengfu River (also known as the Jinjiang River) and the Jinma River, and then merges at the river mouth. Historically, Fuhe-Minjiang-Yangtze River waterways have developed shipping, as evidenced by Du Fu's poem "The window contains the snow of the Xiling Mountains for thousands of years, and the door is anchored by the Eastern Wu thousands of miles of ship". And Jiangkou is known as "the first town in the Minjiang River thousands of miles away" because "there are many sailing boats and many department stores."
In 2014, the case of stealing Zhang Xianzhong’s sunken silver ruins brought Jiangkou Town into the public eye. Criminals pilfered a large number of national cultural relics including the Tiger Button "Yongchang Generalissimo's Golden Seal" from the Minjiang River in Jiangkou and resold them, involving hundreds of millions of yuan. The case shocked the country, and at the same time aroused public attention and expectations for combating the crime of illegal excavation and theft of underwater cultural relics.
html Eighteen years have passed, what is the situation of the cultural relics recovered from the Zhang Xianzhong Sunken Silver Site case? What achievements have the public security organs made in cracking down on illegal excavation and theft of underwater cultural relics? What other problems are faced? This year coincides with the 35th anniversary of the launch of my country's underwater archaeological research project. The reporter conducted an investigation with questions.
The picture shows that in April 2020, archaeologists followed the prescribed procedures to register the cultural relics that came out of the water that day into the warehouse. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Kun (file picture)
The legend of "Jiangkou sinking silver" has come true
According to historical records, Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xianzhong occupied Chengdu in August 1644 and established the Daxi regime. In 1646 (the third year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty), Zhang Xianzhong led the Great Western Army to plan to flow out of Sichuan along the Minjiang River and Yangtze River waterways, "taking advantage of the situation to go to Chu, changing his name and becoming a giant merchant."
When the Daxi Army reached the waters of the Minjiang River at the mouth of the Pengshan River, Nanming General Yang Zhan led his army to stop the attack. According to "Pengshan County Chronicle": "Zhang Xianzhong's troops and Yang Zhan fought a decisive battle in Jiangkou Town. Zhang's warships were burned and more than half of them sank. They suffered heavy casualties and were defeated back to Chengdu." After the Battle of Jiangkou , ships loaded with gold and silver were either burned or sank into the river due to collisions.
There are many records about the salvage of heavy silver in many documents: First, Yang Zhan, the victor of the Battle of Jiangkou, used a long spear to "nail out" the silver in the wooden scabbard. The harvest was huge, and "he was a rich and powerful general"; the "Pengshan County Chronicle" also recorded in the 59th year of Qianlong's reign that the local government "went to the river mouth to salvage for several days, and obtained ten thousand taels of silver, as well as jewelry, jade and other items."
As time goes by, Zhang Xianzhong's "Jiangkou Sinking Silver" gradually became a legend. Pengshan area has the folk song " stone dragon pair of stone tigers, gold and silver are ten thousand. Whoever knows the difference will buy Chengdu ". Similar folk songs are also spread in Chengdu, Jianyang , Lushan and other places.
On April 20, 2005, the Pengshan County water diversion project was under construction in the Minjiang River Channel in Jiangkou Town. An excavator dug out a log 2.5 meters above the surface, and 7 silver ingots were scattered from it. Its shape and carved inscriptions indicate that it was tax money collected during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, and it is very consistent with Zhang Xianzhong's route to war and the location he occupied, providing strong physical evidence for Zhang Xianzhong's "silver sinking at the mouth of the Yangtze River".
News that there was heavy silver in the Minjiang River at Jiangkou spread like wildfire, attracting people to pick it up. The Pengshan Public Security Bureau and the cultural relics department paid close attention to this. On the bank of the Minjiang River section of Jiangkou Community, Jiangkou Subdistrict, the reporter saw a monument with the words "Jiangkou Sinking Silver Site" engraved on it and the sign "Announced by the People's Government of Meishan City on October 21, 2010 and established by the People's Government of Pengshan County."
"After 2010, the cultural relics department and the public security agency formed a joint inspection team to strengthen the protection and vigilance near the ruins and increase patrols in the protected area." Yu Hai, leader of the Economic Investigation Brigade of the Pengshan District Branch of the Meishan Public Security Bureau, said.
Wu Tianwen, director of the Pengshan District Cultural Relics Protection and Management Office, remembers that although the relevant departments at the time had explicitly banned illegal excavation, criminals still committed crimes driven by profit, and ships often stole and excavated cultural relics within the protection area of the site.
Yu Hai told reporters that in early 2014, the police obtained a piece of information that someone was suspected of using professional equipment to sneak into the river area of the "Jiangkou Chenyin Site" at night to steal cultural relics, and then resold them to other places to make huge profits at the hands of cultural relic dealers. The Meishan City Public Security Bureau immediately set up a task force and began a battle against criminals who stole and resold cultural relics.
After a year of painstaking investigation, the time is right and the task force is ready to close the network. In April 2015, more than 200 police officers from the Meishan City Public Security Bureau were divided into eight arrest teams to arrest six gangs that had been involved in illegal excavation and reselling of cultural relics. Within 12 hours, the arrest team arrested 31 suspects and confiscated 241 crime tools.
“The opening and investigation of the case by the public security organs has given the villagers a shocking legal education. Coupled with regular legal education propaganda, everyone has a deep understanding that cultural relics belong to the state.” Wang Fan, secretary of the Jiangkou Community Party Branch of Jiangkou Street, said.
The suspect has arrived, but a more severe test awaits the task force - the recovery of cultural relics. Yu Hai said: "The recovery work determines the success or failure of the case. Only by forming a complete evidence chain of excavation - sale of stolen goods - purchase - recovery can the case form a closed loop and successfully prosecute."
In the past two years, the police on the task force traveled to more than 10 provinces and cities, traveling more than 100,000 kilometers, and recovered more than 1,000 cultural relics, including 100 national precious cultural relics. This batch of cultural relics proved the authenticity of Zhang Xianzhong's legend of "Sinking Silver at Jiangkou", further attracted the attention of cultural relics departments and experts and scholars, and promoted the launch of underwater archaeological excavations at the Jiangkou sinking silver site.
After five archaeological excavations, the Jiangkou Chenyin Site (later known as the Jiangkou Late Ming Battlefield Site) has yielded 72,000 cultural relics, and was selected as one of the “Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in the Country in 2017” and “Top 100 Archaeological Discoveries in a Century.”
Protection is inseparable from strong law enforcement
During the investigation and visit, the reporter heard the saying "one ship has ten tombs".
Zhang Min, associate researcher at the Archaeological Research Center of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, believes that this may have been suggested by criminals who robbed and stole underwater cultural relics. "A ship carries a large load. If the cargo can be preserved after sinking, cultural relics of this magnitude will be very tempting to criminals."
Human activities have left a diverse and huge amount of underwater cultural heritage in my country’s existing oceans and inland water bodies. Since the mid-1980s, illegal fishing and smuggling of underwater cultural relics has become increasingly serious in my country's coastal areas and inland waters. In April and May of 1986, the British Hatcher organized a salvage operation on the Gedaya Reef in the southern waters of the South China Sea to salvage the Dutch East India Company's "Goethemarsen" which sank in 1752. After stealing a large number of precious cultural relics such as blue and white porcelain from the Qing Dynasty and Qianlong period, 150,000 cultural relics and 125 gold ingots were auctioned in Amsterdam.
Underwater cultural relics carry rich historical and cultural information, just like a "time capsule" sinking to the bottom of the water. Through underwater archaeological investigation and excavation, we can understand the economic conditions, manufacturing processes, and shipbuilding technology at that time, and we can also get a glimpse of the prosperity of Sino-foreign exchanges on the Maritime Silk Road, which is of great value. These precious relics have been repeatedly looted and destroyed, and the cultural relic workers interviewed expressed their extreme sadness.
"Underwater archaeological work itself is a rigorous science and must be carried out in strict accordance with underwater archaeological regulations. The archaeological team has to clean, number, map, photograph and extract cultural relics at the site within a limited dive time. The operation is quite difficult." Zhang Min said that looters often completely ignore the historical and cultural information of cultural relics and use underwater blasting, forcible pulling and other means to steal cultural relics. The damage is devastating.
The "Goethe-Marsson" incident aroused strong dissatisfaction among Chinese academic circles. The Chinese government expressed great concern about this incident, which directly led to the establishment of my country's Underwater Archeology Research Institute in 1987, which marked the beginning of my country's underwater archeology career. In October 1989, the "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Relics" was promulgated. Since then, the protection of underwater cultural relics has been protected by special regulations.
In recent years, with the rapid economic and social development of our country, marine development and water-related construction have been vigorously carried out. Illegal crimes of stealing and smuggling underwater cultural relics have been repeatedly prohibited, and the security situation of underwater cultural relics resources is not optimistic.
The coastal area of Fujian is one of the starting points of the Maritime Silk Road. In Zhangpu County, Fujian Province, fishermen have more or less experienced catching broken porcelain pieces from the sea. In 2020, several groups of people took turns stealing ancient porcelain from this sea area. After more than 50 days of investigation, the public security organs of Zhangzhou City and Zhangpu County successfully cracked the "11·23" series of major cases of stealing cultural relics from sunken ships on the seabed and supervised by the Ministry of Public Security. They arrested 19 suspects and seized 846 pieces of porcelain from the sea, all of which were identified as cultural relics of the Longquan kiln of the Yuan Dynasty, and 76 cultural relics of level three or above.
Ruan Yonghao, deputy director of the Zhangzhou Cultural Relics Protection Center, believes that the detection of this case will have a great deterrent effect. He said that protecting underwater cultural relics is difficult and requires strong law enforcement. Zhang Min agreed: "Intensifying the crackdown by public security organs can not only effectively prevent crimes related to underwater cultural relics, but also serve as a deterrent to educate, thereby promoting the protection of cultural relics."
The new situation calls for new actions.
" Nanhai No. Ⅰ " Song Dynasty shipwreck excavation, Beiyang Navy shipwreck investigation, "Yangtze Estuary No. Ⅱ" shipwreck investigation... After more than 30 years of development, my country's underwater archeology has made great progress. Development is inseparable from protection. The public security organs' efforts to crack down on illegal excavation and theft of underwater cultural relics have gone hand in hand with the development of underwater archeology, and have achieved remarkable results.
The Ministry of Public Security has successfully solved a series of major cases of excavation and theft of underwater cultural relics through major case investigation mechanisms such as listing supervision, leadership package, and targeted recovery of stolen goods. But at the same time, we need to realize that the situation of underwater cultural relics crime is still serious.
At present, the total number of underwater cultural relics in my country is countless, and many underwater cultural relics have not been included in cultural relics protection units and have not been designated as protected areas. Underwater cultural relics are often located in open waters, where protective capabilities are weak. Routine law enforcement inspections can serve as a deterrent, but looking across the vast ocean, the protection of many remote underwater cultural heritage sites is actually in a vacuum.
“Judging from the actual combat work in recent years, most of the current crimes against underwater cultural relics are committed by gangs, showing the characteristics of organization, specialization, cross-region, and network.” Hu Yunyun, director of the Cultural Relics Crime Case Investigation Division of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said that the entire chain of combating underwater cultural relics crimes requires a high level of professional knowledge of cultural relics and a mastery of relevant laws and regulations. The public security organs still have a shortage of professional teams and expert talents who work professionally.
In addition, some places do not pay enough attention to the protection of underwater cultural relics and do not do much. A working mechanism involving cultural relics, public security, coast guard and other departments has not yet been established. Daily safety precautions, case handling and investigation and other work are subject to multiple management and fragmentation.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to cultural relics and archaeology. In response to new situations and new problems that have emerged in the field of underwater cultural relics protection, the party and the country have continued to move forward, and the light of the rule of law has shined into hidden corners of the water.
looks back along the timeline. Since 2013, the revision of the Regulations on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Relics has been included in the legislative work plan of the State Council; in 2016, the State Council issued guidance, clearly proposing to speed up the revision of the Regulations on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Relics; since 2017, the Ministry of Public Security, in conjunction with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, has continuously carried out special operations to combat and prevent cultural relics crimes; on January 23, 2022, the revised "Regulations on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Relics of the People's Republic of China" was announced and will be officially implemented from April 1.
The new version of the regulations further clarifies the law enforcement responsibilities of public security organs in the protection of underwater cultural relics, and requires all relevant departments to strengthen communication, coordination and law enforcement cooperation, share information on underwater cultural relics law enforcement, and form an effective joint force. Cui Yong, a researcher at the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, wrote an article stating that the new regulations provide a reference basis and legal provisions for law enforcement crackdowns on the destruction and theft of underwater cultural relics, and have a certain deterrent effect.
During the special campaign to combat and prevent cultural relics crimes, local public security agencies conducted in-depth investigations and coordinated with cultural relics departments to conduct joint inspections and identify safety hazards, effectively preventing and deterring cultural relics criminal activities. In October this year, the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage decided to continue the special campaign to combat and prevent cultural relics crimes until 2025, once again sending a clear signal that the public security agencies will resolutely build a solid bottom line for cultural relics safety.
Be consistent, start well and finish well, and achieve long-lasting results. For public security organs, filing a case, solving a case, and recovering stolen goods are just the beginning. How to protect and make good use of underwater cultural relics in the future is an important new topic.
To this day, at Jiangkou’s late Ming Dynasty battlefield site and the Pengshan District Hanya Tomb Museum where cultural relics are temporarily stored, two teams formed by the Pengshan Public Security Special Patrol and Jiangkou Police Station conduct regular patrols 24 hours a day. Not far away, the Jiangkou Chenyin Museum is rising from the ground and is expected to be completed in 2025.
In the Han Cliff Tomb Museum in Pengshan District, the reporter saw through the thick glass window the tiger button "Yongchang Grand Marshal Gold Seal" that was speculated to be Zhang Xianzhong's self-cast seal. This gold seal had been sleeping in the river for more than 300 years. It was later recovered by the public security agency after being sold by the excavation gang for 7.7 million yuan. In the future, it will reappear in front of the world with the dignity it deserves. (People's Public Security News)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-