1931 After the September 18th Incident, the security of cultural relics at the Palace Museum is becoming increasingly serious. The Palace Museum’s cultural relics are imminent and there are many things to do. Millions of cultural relics cannot be transported away or carefully screened. As a result, some of the fine products have not been collected, but the defective products are taken away in the whole box. These selected cultural relics include calligraphy and painting, bronze, porcelain, ivory, enamel, rare books, etc., and are divided into 5 batches, totaling 196.90 boxes and 620,000 pieces.
was led by Yi Peiji, the then president of the Palace Museum, and began to screen and package cultural relics before the migration. For this reason, they also specially hired cultural relics and antiques dealers with great experience in this area to guide them. The method of packaging cultural relics is to use straw as lining according to the shape of the cultural relics, sticking them tightly with cotton, and high-quality cotton paper on the outside. This professional way of packaging cultural relics can withstand long journeys and severe bumps. Hundreds of thousands of cultural relics have not been damaged during the transportation process of tens of thousands of miles.
On the evening of February 5, 1933, Beiping whole city was martial law. 13,491 boxes of cultural relics set off from Shenwumen Square and were transported to the railway station by dozens of chariots in turn. The army escorted the whole process, and there were many military and police along the way. In less than 120 days, five batches of cultural relics were transported to Shanghai in sequence, and then they were transferred to Nanjing Chaotian Palace .
But as the war continues to deepen, Nanjing is not a safe place. Cultural relics continue to move westward in three routes. Because there is no transportation, more than 3,000 boxes are left stranded in Nanjing. "This westward migration took 8 years and it took more than 10,000 miles. Vehicles and personnel transporting cultural relics walked on Sichuan Shu Road with difficulty. The enemy planes along the way were bombed and encountered bandits, and they continued to temporarily change their walking routes and temporary storage locations. Finally, this long-lasting and huge cultural relics migration path was completed with a slight loss, which was called a miracle by people at home and abroad." After a large number of cultural relics moved south, Zhang Tingji, Director of the General Affairs Department, was ordered to stay behind. The Palace Museum under the Japanese and puppet regime struggled to maintain its hard work and tried its best to deal with it. In November 1937, Zhang Tingji, on behalf of left-behind employees in Peking, reported the status quo to the Executive Yuan of the National Government and sought protection. American sinologist Janet, Shen Dawei, who witnessed the situation at that time, said: "The Japanese army in 1937 When the Palace Museum was occupied by the month, Ma Heng, the director of the Palace Museum, had moved west with some treasures... In the days when Ma Heng was away, Zhang Tingji, the director of the General Affairs Office, was responsible for the work of the Palace Museum. The Japanese attempted to send Japanese as the director or consultant of the Palace Museum, but failed due to the resolute resistance of the Forbidden City staff. The Japanese were not allowed to enter the Forbidden City at will. Unless they brought letters of introduction, they would be turned away by the left-behind staff. "In these eight years of fall, "although the left-behind personnel did not work hard and slept in the open like those who moved south with cultural relics, they were also very rare under the rule of the Japanese and puppets. They were neither humble nor arrogant, which could be said to be a fulfilling mission." Due to the migration of a large number of cultural relics and the interference and destruction of the Japanese and puppets, they could only barely maintain the opening of the separate routes, but there were few tourists and the doors were neglected.
In June 1938, the constitutional police broke into the Taimiao Library of the Palace Museum twice and moved out and tore up a large number of books and materials, including 242 books, 340 volumes, 369 magazines, and 10,682 volumes. The books include anti-Japanese and anti-Japanese resistance, destruction of the Japanese puppet regime and Manchuria, including a large number of books with the signs of the Kuomintang’s blue sky and white sun, and absolute destruction of communism, Marxism and other contents; books and magazines related to justice, education, finance, etc. must also be destroyed. The failure to destroy this time is a huge blow to the Forbidden City’s document library. Japan hopes to promote slavery education in this way.
The short-term copper offering movement once again dragged the Palace Museum into the mud. In March 1945, the Liaison Department of the Beijing Army of the Japanese invaders sent a letter to the mayor of the pseudo-Beijing Special City, demanding that "official and civilians of Beijing Special City" "providing (providing) all the coppers they own to directly enhance their combat power, so as to achieve the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle." All households and units were forcibly levied copper and iron for use as Japanese artillery shells and bullets. "This movement has affected thousands of households, and cultural institutions like the Forbidden City are not spared." Despite the repeated boycotts, in order to ensure the overall safety of the Forbidden City, 1,095 kilograms of copper cannons scattered in various courtyards had to be handed over 1,095 kilograms of copper cannons scattered in various courtyards.However, the Jinpin Fair and the Japanese army were not satisfied with this amount and demanded that the Forbidden City must donate more, because the copper and iron collection task of the Japanese military headquarters in Beijing alone was as high as 400,000 kilograms. The Japanese and puppet North China Government Affairs Committee finally ordered that 54 copper cannons and 2 copper cannons from the Ming Dynasty could not be cut off.
Before this, on June 22, 1944, the Japanese army had robbed 91 bronze lamp pavilions and a bronze cannon from the Forbidden City. The Japanese army surrendered just after the batch of cultural relics was transported to Tianjin and before they could be transferred to Japan. Zhang Tingji and others, together with the Ministry of Education's Assistant Representative of Pingjin District of Pingjin District Committee, went to Tianjin to receive and transport the batch of cultural relics. The situation they saw was that "some were broken and destroyed, weighing 4,460 kilograms in total, which weighed 971 kilograms less than the time they were robbed, and the 54 copper jars that were robbed were nowhere to be seen." According to statistics from Ma Heng, director of the Palace Museum, "This court (during the fall), the 2,095 copper jars were requisitioned, with 66 copper jars, one copper cannon, and 91 copper lamp pavilions."
In the eighth year of the Anti-Japanese War, 149 bronze artifacts in the Forbidden City were plundered by Japan, a large number of books and magazines in the Taimiao Library were destroyed, and Zhang Gufeng's map of the Documentary Museum was robbed.
moved to Taiwan to calligraphy and painting, and fine and soft
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the National Government returned to Nanjing, and cultural relics scattered in three places in Sichuan were concentrated in Chongqing. In order to thank the Sichuan people for their efforts in the protection of cultural relics, the hospital held a "Peking and Painting Exhibition of the Palace Museum in Chengdu" in Zhongzheng Park in Chengdu. The works in the exhibition include 100 works by 88 painters over the past 1,500 years from the Jin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, and are almost the most important foundation in calligraphy, painting and cultural relics moving south. In order to co-organize the exhibition, the municipal government tried every means to ensure safety. In addition to the military and police, it also asked the Pao Ge organization in Sichuan to assist.
Due to the limitations of the venue, it is difficult to display more than 100 rare calligraphy and paintings at one time. The hospital decided to divide it into two sessions, changing it every ten days, which lasted for more than 20 days. It received tens of thousands of visitors from all over the country and southwest, which is a grand event in the cultural history of the Anti-Japanese War. Unfortunately, the exhibition has become the last time this batch of national treasures has appeared in the mainland. In 1947, this batch of cultural relics was transported from Chongqing Xiangjiapo to the Palace Museum branch of Chaotian Palace in Nanjing, and was later secretly transported to Taiwan. The National Government also ordered Ma Heng, the then director of the Palace Museum, to transport the remaining Palace Museum cultural relics to Nanjing and then to Taiwan with the cultural relics from the Nanjing Branch. After Ma Heng's multi-party dealings and delays, this plan was stranded and the cultural relics of Peking were preserved on the mainland. In the end, the number of cultural relics in Taiwan was equivalent to one-quarter of the entire cultural relics migrated south. The cultural relics that were transported away in the future remained in Chaotian Palace in Nanjing.
In April 1949, the cultural relics were relocated to Taiwan and registered, with the total number of cultural relics counted at 231,910 pieces and 27 pieces and 692 pages. The boards of the two houses of the National Government continued the investigation system of the Palace Museum, and successively published records such as "Integration of Chinese Cultural Relics", "Records of Calligraphy and Painting in the Palace Museum", and "300 Famous Paintings in the Palace Museum". In 1962, Taipei Palace Museum was built in Shuangxi, a suburb of Taipei, and was named Zhongshan Museum. It has been expanded five times so far. From 1989 to 1991, the research team of the Cultural Relics Inventory Plan for the Taipei Palace Museum was established and a comprehensive inventory of cultural relics began. When it was completed in 1991, the figures were released to the public: the total number of cultural relics of all dynasties was 645,784 (later, it was donated by multiple sources to expand).
, who served as the director of the Taipei Palace Museum for 18 years, said in an interview with the media: "In 1949, all the calligraphy and paintings are all calligraphy and paintings, fine and soft, and heavy things cannot be moved. The Forbidden City in Beijing is known for its big things such as palaces and utensils, and we are known for its calligraphy and paintings. Calligraphy and painting are the most important in culture." , Shan Jixiang , the director of the Palace Museum in Beijing, believes: "Cultural relics are the most dignified only when they are displayed in their native places. If they are lost overseas like lonely ghosts, they will have no dignity." The cultural relics lost in the Forbidden City are not only on the other side of the strait.
