"Wait a minute, they are developing rapidly, what does it have to do with the war? Is it by reselling weapons? Yue Guanchao asked.

Song Siyuan waved her hand and said eccentricly: "It costs money to resell weapons, what they do is to buy and sell antiques without capital." ”

In 1860, the British and French troops entered the Old Summer Palace, and the officers, led by the nearby people, set fire to it for three days, and burned the imperial buildings including the Old Summer Palace, Qingyi Garden, Jingmingyuan, Jingyi Garden, Changchun Garden and Haidian Town to the ground.

These gardens are the private gardens of the nobles of the former dynasty, which contain the top treasures of the time, and the officers are obsessed with wealth and begin to loot in the garden, antiques, silk clothes, jewelry and porcelain, bronze sculptures, gold and silver utensils, gems and jade...... Everything of value was looted by the British and French forces.

In the end, only a little leftover food remained, which was divided up by the displaced refugees who poured in later, and it was no longer prosperous.

After the matter reached the international community, the international community talked a lot about these acts, because the robbery of wealth was a private act of the officers, and the British only condemned these officers openly, but did not punish them behind the scenes, let alone after the officers handed over the wealth.

Seeing that these officers would not hand over all the looted treasures, Steinman smelled the huge profits and began to start an auction house business, providing consulting services for the antiques looted by the officers in the form of auctions, acting as a broker for the buyers and sellers, exchanging these antiques for money as much as possible, or helping the officers launder the antiquities

Due to the looting of tens of millions of things in the previous dynasty, the Steinman Group made a lot of money on these cultural relics, and obtained tens of millions of pounds of profits every year by buying and selling without capital, and at the same time, it also allowed the Steinman Group's business line to expand rapidly, in addition to international trade, comprador union, cultural relics auction, but also began to get involved in cruise shipping, newspaper and periodical distribution.

In the past 100 years, this kind of cultural relics auction has never been stopped, and the Steinman Group can be said to be a criminal and unspeakable.

"Is there no one to take care of them? These people are blatantly selling antiques! ”

In Yue Guanchao's view, such a large multinational group has been committing crimes for a long time, but it is extremely conspicuous, and it is impossible not to be noticed.

Song Siyuan explained: "The Steinman Group belongs to the White Glove of the Royal Maritime Society, to put it bluntly, the person who really manipulates it must be a certain prince and nobleman, since there is this factor, then Steinman is equivalent to taking refuge in the royal relatives, how can there be anything." ”

"I can guess all of them, but it's a little surprising."

Song Siyuan picked up a photo: "The current helmsman of this Steinman Group is called Steinhein, a name we seem to have heard of before." ”

When Xu Xiake heard this name, he was puzzled: "Stanherin, I remember that when I traveled to Dunhuang, I once met a Taoist priest Wang Yuanzhen near the Crescent Spring, and the person who deceived him of many scriptures at that time seemed to be called Stanherin. ”

What he said, everyone had heard earlier, I heard that Wang Yuanqi was poor after becoming a Taoist, and he always wanted to rebuild the big Buddha hall and the nine-story building, but because the people were not famous, and the Taoism was not high, they could not raise silver taels to start the construction.

At this time, there was an explorer Steinhe found him, and he bought two scriptures, and later, on the grounds of protecting the scriptures, only a small amount of silver money took away several cars of Dunhuang scriptures, before leaving, Wang Yuanzhen repeatedly asked him to promise that he must send silver two back, so he was willing to let them take away the scriptures free of charge.

It's just that this foreigner is very cunning, although he promised to donate silver to rebuild the pavilion for the crescent spring, but he has not come again since, Wang Yuanzhen realized that he was deceived, it was a few years later.

Now, when Xu Xiake heard Stein's name again, he suddenly felt strange, and he interjected: "Is there a picture of Steinhein?" ”

Song Siyuan nodded, handed over a black and white photo, in the photo, Steinhein is at least fifty years old, his hair is half an inch long, he has a decent three-seven-point oily head, a pair of frameless square glasses on the bridge of his nose, his facial features are slightly three-dimensional, with the usual three-dimensional sense of foreigners, his hair is slightly gray, and he can feel that he often travels and explores, and has a sense of health and vicissitudes.

He only glanced at it, and his eyes were already bright: "Wang Yuanzhen let me see the photo of him and Steinhein back then, and it is indeed the Steinhein that Wang Yuanzhen knows." ”

Song Siyuan said: "Really? ”

Xu Xiake nodded, as if he was very sure that the photo he saw was the same person as the current Steinhein: "Really, it's true, Wang Yuanzhen is obsessed with this, I remember it very clearly." ”

Yue Guanchao narrowed his eyes: "This Stanherin, how did it come from?" According to your parents, it seems that he has been stealing cultural relics in China all along. ”

Song Siyuan already felt that Steinhein was not simple, and continued to introduce his life of Steinhein.

This foreigner named Steinhein, a senior member of the Royal Maritime Society, the helmsman of the Steinman Group, and a British explorer, adventurer, cultural relics expert, and Huawutong, is actually a tomb robber and cultural relics dealer.

As a child, Steinhole followed his father to the Governor-General's residence in India as a civilian staff, and he spent nearly twenty years in British India until his father was transferred back to England.

Perhaps he lived in Central Asia when he was young, and he developed a strong interest in East Asia and even Central Asian culture, and during the British Indian period, he also used to travel to the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia with the help of trade facilitation.

After graduating, Steiner joined the Steinman Group as a consultant of the Steinman Group, responsible for leading cultural relics experts to identify many antiques from China.

About ten years ago, he got a legend from an antiquities dealer in his work!

The emperor of the Zhou Dynasty carved a pair of yin and yang double fish, when the king of Zhou Mu went west to Kunlun, he once gave one of the jade bi to the Queen Mother of the West, he believed that this jade pendant was in the Western Desert of China, and repeatedly used the identity of the Sino-British exchange group to come to the desert Tibet, on the surface to investigate the customs and fill the gap on the map of the Western world about Tibet and the desert, but behind the scenes it is looking for the lost Yin and Yang fish pendant.

Five years ago, the British and Chinese sides organized international cultural exchange activities, and on behalf of the British side, he led an international expedition to the Western Desert and discovered the ruins of the ancient Shanshan Kingdom near Dunhuang.

Since then, there has been no news from Steinhein, some people say that he is concentrating on writing about his own experiences in the desert of the Western Regions, and some people say that he went to other places to explore and travel, and there are different opinions, the main owner does not appear, and the outside world can only speculate for no reason.