In later generations, news of the loss of Chinese cultural relics abroad often appeared on the TV news, how many difficulties were experienced in order to recover the cultural relics, and there were also patriotic people who bought them at high prices abroad, and so on.

If you can get a cultural relic back, you have to broadcast it on the news, so it should be really not easy.

At that time, Lin Zixuan was just a small citizen, and he didn't feel it deeply when he watched TV, and he passed by scolding the cultural relics dealer, and he couldn't do anything anyway.

After the crossing, he didn't have much contact with the antique industry, he didn't understand this, and he didn't have a hobby of vassal elegance.

In the final analysis, the Lin family is a merchant family, not a scholarly family, Lin Zixuan is an outlier, and he accidentally became a writer.

But he was an impostor, and he was not very interested in what the literati of this era thought was elegant.

However, although he did not know about the cultural relics market in Shanghai, he had heard about it.

For example, the majority shareholder of the Shanghai newspaper The News, Canadian Fu Kaisen, a collector of Chinese antiquities, came to China in 1887 and lived for decades, collecting thousands of Chinese antiques.

Chinese cultural relics have long been lost overseas, and the Eight-Nation Coalition entered Beijing to burn down the Old Summer Palace and looted countless cultural relics.

According to the record of "The First Part of the History of the Qing Dynasty".

"Gengzi, more than half of the collection of books in the "Four Libraries" is rumored, and it is rumored that many people from Britain, France, Germany, and Japan have shipped it. It is also said that when the foreign soldiers entered the city, they took the book two inches thick and the long ruler to replace the bricks and support the military utensils. Wujin Liu Baozhen Taishi picked up several volumes, and regarded them as "Yongle Canon". ”

This is just the beginning.

These cultural relics from China were brought back to the West, which attracted great attention from Westerners.

Antiquities dealers and scholars from the West flocked to the East to loot the treasures, regardless of the risks. There are even Western museums that issue purchase documents for Chinese cultural relics, and the prices are clearly marked.

The soldiers didn't know what to do. Ancient books are used as bricks, but these antiquities dealers are different. They know what is valuable.

Some foreign businessmen also set up trading houses in Beiping, Shanghai, Tianjin and other places where cultural relics gather, specializing in the purchase of Chinese cultural relics.

Some Chinese antique dealers have also set up antique shops that specialize in foreigners' business.

As a result, the two sides colluded together, and a large number of cultural relics were continuously transported abroad through various channels.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the third French minister to China, Wei Wuda, was famous for collecting Chinese antiquities and was an expert in the identification of Chinese antiques.

Yue Bin, the largest antique dealer in Beiping, was raised by him and made a fortune.

During this period, the Beiyang government had no laws and regulations prohibiting cultural relics from leaving the country, and lacked the necessary management of the second-hand book industry and the antique industry. As a result, the outflow of cultural relics is unimpeded.

Over time, these foreign antiquities dealers were not satisfied with the antiques on the market.

In order to make huge profits and find more valuable Chinese cultural relics, they joined forces with tomb robbers in China and began to excavate tombs all over China in the name of archaeology.

A one-stop smuggling industry chain of cultural relics has been formed, including tomb robbery, sales and transportation.

Ding Wenjiang had seen a similar scene, and it was heartbreaking to say it, but he couldn't do anything about it.

Because not only tomb robbers are involved, but also large and small warlords in various places provide convenience for foreigners, and even these warlords are involved in tomb robbing. in exchange for money.

The most famous warlord tomb robbery in the history of the Republic of China is Sun Dianying's crazy tomb robbery in Zunhua, Hebei Province in 1928.

He chose two mausoleums, one is the Yuling of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and the other is the Dongling of the Empress Dowager Cixi.

In Lin Zixuan's memory, there were two places where the loss of cultural relics left a deep impression on him.

One is the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. One is the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang.

In later generations, he read Yu Qiuyu's "Cultural Journey", the first of which is called "Taoist Tower". It tells the story of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, and the royal Taoist priest in it is hateful.

Wang Daoshi was originally an ordinary peasant. fled to Gansu and became a Taoist priest. Responsible for guarding the Mogao Grottoes.

One day, he stumbled upon a large number of artifacts in a hidden cave in the Mogao Grottoes.

He didn't understand the value, so he took a few scriptures and sent them to the county magistrate, who in turn gave them to Gansu Xuetai.

This scholar was a goldsmith and understood the value of the cave, so he suggested that it be sent to the provincial capital for safekeeping, but there were many things and the freight was not low, so the bureaucrats hesitated.

Eventually, the matter was settled.

Only the cultural relics that Wang Daoist took out a little bit again and again were sent as gifts in the officialdom.

Later, these scrolls were discovered by foreigners, and they were found to be treasures.

A large number of European scholars, archaeologists, and adventurers rushed to Gansu and the Mogao Grottoes, just to obtain the scriptures in the caves.

The last thing they faced was the Taoist Wang who was guarding the Mogao Grottoes.

A completely unequal transaction began in front of the Mogao Grottoes, and the price of the Wang Daoist was not high, or even pitifully low.

In 1905, the Russian Booluchev exchanged the Russian goods he had brought with him for a large number of documents and scrolls.

In 1907, Hungarian Stein exchanged a stack of silver dollars for 24 large boxes of scriptures, 5 boxes of woven silk and paintings.

In 1908, the French exchanged a small amount of silver dollars for 10 carts and more than 6,000 volumes of manuscripts and scrolls.

In 1911, the Japanese Koichiro Yoshikawa exchanged more than 300 volumes of manuscripts and two Tang sculptures at an unimaginably low price.

This royal Taoist priest did not know that what was traded out of his hands was a splendid civilization.

In the huge China, there are not even a few volumes of scriptures!

In Luoyang, the same thing happened in the Longmen Grottoes.

In 1931, the American Pu Ellen went to Luoyang to visit and visited the Longmen Grottoes, he was interested in these stone carvings, and photographed the "Emperor and Empress Buddha Picture".

"Emperor and Empress Buddha Picture" is carved with the scene of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty and Empress Dowager Wenzhao worshipping Buddha.

After returning to Beiping, Pu Ellen negotiated with Yue Bin, an antique dealer in Beiping, and signed a contract to ship the "Emperor and Empress Buddha Picture" to the United States at the cost of 40,000 yuan for five years.

Yue Bin took advantage of the turbulent situation at that time, bought off the local garrison in Luoyang, chiseled the "Emperor and Empress Buddha Map" into pieces, and transported it back to Beiping.

He asked someone to glue the broken stone to repair it, and finally pieced together two reliefs, "The Emperor's Rite of Buddha" and "The Empress Dowager's Rite of Buddha", and sold them to the Americans.

It can be said that it is a heinous crime.

The ignorance of the people, the inaction of those in power, and the greed of Western antiquities dealers are the main reasons for the loss of Chinese cultural relics overseas.

Just like the sentence that appears most often in "Taoist Tower": I hate it so much!

Hate was not born a century earlier, hate did not stand in front of the Mogao Grottoes, hate did not stop those freighters heading to the West......

Lin Zixuan traveled to this era, and with a little strength, he felt that he should do something to make future generations of Chinese no longer so sad and leave cultural relics in China as much as possible.

Ding Wenjiang and Lin Zixuan had no other intention in saying this, he and Lin Zixuan had the same concept and the same educational background.

Both returned from studying in Britain and the United States, both supported traditional culture, opposed the Soviet Union, and were willing to do something for the country.

Lin Zixuan knew that this matter was too big, it was not something he could do alone, it would take too long, and he would have to fight against Western cultural relics dealers all the time.

Therefore, he needs to find a group of like-minded people to set up a huge non-governmental organization and continue to operate.

"Let's start with us!" In the peach blossom bushes of Longhua Town, Lin Zixuan said firmly to Ding Wenjiang. (To be continued.) )