Speaking of this Wang Taoist, we can't fail to mention the "Taoist Tower" prose in the high school textbook.

After reading that essay at that time, Gao Hongsheng was also very sad, hating that stupid Taoist Wang for selling China's treasures, those ancient documents in the cave, to foreigners, hating him for destroying the exquisite murals and Buddha statues in the cave, and hating him for not protecting these treasures.

But looking at the materials in his hand, he really didn't even have the slightest intention of blaming this Wang Daoist, but was full of sympathy for him, a cultural relics relict who was extremely scandalized by an article.

Who is Wang Taoist? A landless peasant, a homeless person, what we now call a blind streamer, a fake Taoist priest who had to pretend to join the Taoist sect in order to be able to make ends meet.

How much can an ignorant peasant know in that very ignorant and closed society, and how much can he know that the exquisite frescoes in those caves are priceless treasures? Can he know that the documents in the cave are national treasures of China?

In fact, we should really thank him for not bulldozing all the exquisite murals in the Mogao Caves, not burning the documents in the caves, and not turning the caves in the Mogao Caves into pig farms, sheepfolds and cowsheds.

A poor Taoist priest who was destitute, without any government support, trekked in the desert wind and sand every day, turning his fortune around, and spent every penny he begged for the restoration of the Mogao Grottoes.

It took more than two years to clean up the quicksand alone, and if it weren't for a pious admiration, would you have been able to do it?

For him whitening several caves and knocking out several Buddha statues, I can only curse with hatred, this stupid grass.

Because he doesn't understand, he is ignorant, what can you say to such a person? Do you blame someone who doesn't know anything about heritage conservation?

Can you blame him for his behavior when an old farmer digs up an old clay pot in his field, and then he dislikes it and delays him from planting crops, and breaks it with a hoe?

But where is our generation of art master Zhang Daqian? He is not an ignorant outcast, he should understand the importance of cultural relics protection, but also how to protect cultural relics, he is a representative of the cultural people of that era!

But what did he do? Zhang Daqian went to the Mogao Grottoes twice to copy the murals, and when he was copying, he often peeled off the surface of the later murals to see the early murals inside.

Today's Cave No. 130 has left evidence of his guilt, he first stripped off the first layer of Western Xia murals, and then peeled off the second layer of late Tang Dynasty murals, and what we see now is the lowest layer of Tang Dynasty murals.

The most hateful thing is that when he peeled off the murals, it was like stripping off the old wall skin of his house, without taking any protective measures, just like before we painted the old house, those exquisite murals of the Western Xia and Late Tang Dynasty were picked up and discarded, and the murals of the Tang Dynasty at the bottom were also scratched beyond recognition by the later painters.

There are more than 30 murals in the Mogao Grottoes that he destroyed, but what's wrong with us, what are we talking about?

No, it's just a sentence that people in that era didn't have a sense of cultural relics protection, and it was over.

But Zhang Daqian went to the Mogao Grottoes from 1940 to 1942, and he had no awareness of cultural relics protection, so do you ask a semi-literate peasant in the late Qing Dynasty to have a sense of cultural relics protection?

Is it just because he is a farmer, a small person, that you put a basin on others?

As for the problem of the Taoist priest stealing and selling the cultural relics in the cave, let's take a look at what happened to him from the discovery of the cave to the later documents.

No one in a huge country is even inferior to foreigners, and their treasures are not known to be treasured like mustard, can you still blame Wang Daoshi?

Let's take a look at the rest of the scriptures in the Qing government, on the way to Beijing, once again looted, along the way, the officials, goose plucking, walking all the way to lose all the way, to Beijing in charge of escort Xinjiang governor He Yansheng even regarded those cultural relics as his own, connived at his son to transport the scriptures and cultural relics home without authorization, and took many fine products as their own, in order to fill the number, and tore some longer scrolls into two, filling up the difference.

This is also the origin of the fake scriptures that Gao Hongsheng saw when he first returned to Jinan.

Compared with such a ** government, how can you hate and blame a false Taoist priest of the same period! Compared with those sanctimonious hypocrites, our simple Wang Taoist priests can simply be called saints.

He did not hide even a scroll, let alone keep the income from the sale of the scroll as his own, but invested all the income in the maintenance of the Mogao Grottoes without reservation.

More than 10 years ago, Mr. Ren Jiyue (a contemporary philosopher, religious scholar, and historian, who recently passed away) commented on the theft of the "Dunhuang Testament Book" in an article: "Although Wang Daoist reported to the Qing government shortly after the discovery, the Qing government was indifferent. In this way, relying on the power of Daoist Wang alone, he naturally cannot and has no ability to protect it. So it was inevitable that the ominous and tragic fate of these suicide notes was decided. ”

This is the most objective evaluation of the theft of documents and materials in Dunhuang, whether from a historical perspective or a realistic perspective.

Standing in front of the tallest and largest pagoda built for him by the disciples of Wang Daoshi, looking at the four big characters of "Gong Chui Baishi" written on the inscription, Gao Hongsheng bowed deeply to this "peasant" and thanked him for his contribution to the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.

In 1997, Gansu People's Publishing House published a special article in "Beautiful Dunhuang" to introduce Wang Yuanzhen's life and deeds, saying that he "guarded the Mogao Grottoes for more than 30 years and dedicated his whole life to the holy land that did not belong to him." This is the best affirmation of his life, and he deserves the four big words "meritorious for a hundred years".

Let us not be induced by those one-sided articles, so that we can face up to this "sinner of the Dunhuang Grottoes" who was scolded in that article, the clown who "staggered forward" in the tragedy of a country and nation, and evaluate Wang Yuanqi as a false Taoist priest in a fair and fair manner.

Leaving Wang Yuanqi's tomb tower, following the flow of people into the Mogao Grottoes Scripture Pavilion, standing on the big stone engraved with Chen Chenyinke's heart-wrenching cry: "Dunhuang, the sad history of our country's academics!" In front of the big characters, Gao Hongsheng clenched his fists, ruthless in his heart, and swore in a low voice: "Let Dunhuang learn from a new start." I'll bring back all the contents of the cave. ”