The Great Relic Relocation: An Historic Migration
Hello, my name is Scott Pruett and I’m an anchor with NewsChina. With our podcast, we aim to provide insight into the current trends of modern China, allowing you to clearly see what’s happening today through a historical lens.
Today, we are going to take you back almost a century ago and offer you a glimpse at the largest-scale migration of cultural relics from China’s most prominent museum, the Palace Museum, formally the imperial residence at the Forbidden City.
In 1931, following the September 18th Incident in China, the Japanese occupied three provinces in Northeast China, including Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. It wasn’t long afterward that they turned their attention to Beijing, with an eye firmly set on the large collection of priceless cultural artifacts housed at the Palace Museum, located in heart of the city. Having failed an earlier attempt at looting the cultural relics back in 1894, during the first Sino-Japanese War, they came better prepared this time. The future of China’s most prominent museum and its vast collection was balanced on a knife edge.
With the threat of a life-and-death situation hanging over them, residents of Beijing were panicked and concerned. It would have still been fairly fresh in the city’s collective memory what had happened to Yuanmingyuan Park, or the Summer Palace, when Anglo-French Allied Forces invaded Beijing in 1860, looting and torching the Qing Dynasty imperial garden and holiday residence. A hard decision had to be made: was it a good idea – and was it, indeed possible – to evacuate the Palace Museum collection?
The museum’s board of directors hurriedly convened a managerial meeting to discuss the feasibility of the plan, but no consensus was reached. It was the museum’s vice president Ma Heng who proposed the immediate evacuation of the whole collection to the southern part of China. He insisted that the most important thing at the time was to keep the relics out of the hands of the enemy, even though it may be difficult to secure their return to Beijing in the future.
His proposal provoked an outcry from the public, who accused him of being more preoccupied with the objects than the wellbeing of the people and the nation. Quite a number of prominent figures from various sectors were among his detractors.
Hu Shi, a renowned diplomat and scholar, suggested seeking assistance from the international community. A similar view was shared by Lu Xun, a prestigious writer and literary critic, who voiced his despair in his poems. Even Ma Yanxiang, son of the vice president of the museum, believed that the cultural relics should, if necessary, be sacrificed.
In an effort to reverse the decision, Zhou Zhaoxiang, the then head of the Institute of Antiquity Conservation, along with other commercial associations and civil parties founded the “Beiping City People’s Association for the Protection of Antiquities in the Palace Museum” with the explicit remit of preventing the evacuation. Beiping is the former name of Beijing.
Under the auspices of this association, the members argued, among other things, that there was a high risk of loss, theft or damage to relics en route southward, and that, by moving the relics, Bejing was effectively surrendering without a fight.
As expected, the Japanese declared their intent to take control of the collection in the Palace Museum on the grounds that the then ruling Kuomintang government was no longer competent to shoulder the responsibility of its upkeep in the current political climate. They went even further to promote the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and enforced the inclusion of Japanese history and language into the syllabus of Chinese schools under their control. Culture was, thus, propelled to the forefront of the war, requiring the immediate evacuation of the cultural relics for safekeeping.
At this critical juncture, Ma Heng consulted with the museum’s president, Yi Peiji, and both agreed to send a telegraph to the then Chinese central government, which was based in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, briefing country’s leaders on the emergent situation.
While waiting for a reply, the pair decided to get a head start, just in case. Under their instruction, each piece of artwork was packed with the utmost care by the museum staff, so that not one piece would be left behind once the war, which seemed inevitable, reached Beijing.
It was, however, not an easy task. The staff paid a visit to Liulichang, a cultural complex well-known in Beijing for selling various craftwork, artistry and antiques to learn the technicalities of packing delicate artifacts. Back at the museum, each item was first wrapped with cotton and enveloped in oilpaper. The package was then placed in a thick wooden crate, which was further stuffed with cotton and straw to ensure as little movement as possible during transit. The container was finally sealed with steel wire on all sides. Several trials were carried out, which involved dropping crates from certain heights, to ensure zero risk.
With the packing completed, the largest-scale migration of cultural relics ever recorded in Chinese history was ready to begin.
There wasn’t long to wait. Soon after the last crate was sealed, at the beginning of 1933, China’s defenses tumbled one frontline after another, putting Beijing in imminent danger. The time had come for the great migration.
It all started on February 5th, 1933. In five different batches and escorted by Chinese armed forces, a total of 13,491 crates from the Palace Museum, together with another 6,000 crates from other institutions, were put onto a train bound for Shanghai. Amid the deafening roar of explosions and fighter planes, all of the cultural relics made it to Shanghai safe and sound.
Shortly after their arrival, Ma Heng, who, in 1934, had assumed the presidency of the Palace Museum, alongside his colleagues, continued their journey to Nanjing to oversee the construction of a warehouse in the renowned Chaotian Palace, the largest preserved traditional Chinese architectural complex. In 1936, the crates were on the move once more, being transported to Nanjing to be stored in the newly built warehouse.
Their stay, however, was short-lived. The July 7th Incident in 1937 precipitated all-out war in North China. Shanghai then came under heavy bombardment by the Japanese invaders and nearby Nanjing was also in great danger. The devoted defenders of China’s national treasures had no other choice but to set out on the second Long March.
The team was divided into groups who followed three different routes westward from Nanjing. The first 80 crates were taken along the southern route and finally made it to their destination – Anshun City of mountainous Guizhou Province in southwestern China. The second group travelled along central route by water with 9,369 crates and arrived in Leshan City in Sichuan Province. Along the northern route, 7,286 crates were taken to Emeishan City, also in Sichuan Province. It’s worth mentioning that local people along the routes gave these travelers as much help as they could, enabling them to complete the treacherous journey.
The first batch of 80 crates included some of the most rare and valuable works of art, including oracle-bone inscriptions, bronzeware, stone rubbings, calligraphy and paintings, among many other items. On the way to Anshun City, they were temporarily stored at the Yuelu Academy in Changsha City of Hunan Province. Ma Heng, however, upon arriving in Changsha, realized that it was not a safe site for these artifacts. He then decided to carve a cave into the nearby mountain to hide the containers. As the cave was ready, news came that the Japanese invaders were approaching the city. Without any delay, Ma Heng and the team loaded the artworks and were off again. Soon after their departure, Yuelu Academy was set on fire – a narrow escape for the irreplaceable treasures in the 80 crates.
The journey along the central route was alleviated by a Swedish trading house in Chongqing City, Anderson & Co., which provided shelter for nearly 4,000 crates. It is said that Anderson, the owner of the company, kept the Swedish flag raised to deter the Japanese forces, as Sweden was a neutral state during the war. Shortly afterwards, the journey resumed on water, aboard a fleet of 11 ships, from Chongqing to its final destination, Leshan City.
Upon their arrival in Leshan, local people welcomed them and offered their houses and temples for safekeeping of the artifacts.
However, not everyone completed the journey. While loading the cargo in dim light of early morning, Zhu Xuekan, one of the staff, unfortunately took a misstep, fell into the deep hull of the ship and died.
Along the northern route, that group experienced similar tragedies while trying to find its way off the snow-capped Qinling Mountain. Most of the time the team had to get off the trucks and pushed them forward manually. To make things worse, they suffered a severe food shortage and were forced to live on water made by melting snow and eating wild plants. The team finally made it to journey’s end, but fewer in number than when they set off.
On August 15th, 1945, the much-anticipated news came that the Japanese had conceded defeat and finally surrendered to China. Upon hearing the news, all staff of the Palace Museum burst into tears of great joy. Over the past 14 years, their footsteps had covered some 10,000 kilometers, traversing at least 10 provinces across the country.
On October 10th, 1945, in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony of the Forbidden City, the Japanese army based in North China announced its unconditional surrender to China. It was time for those travelers – and their luggage – to return home.
On February 15, 1946, a special ceremony was held in the Palace Museum to welcome these heroes and receive the transient collection of treasures. All of the objects, to everyone’s surprise, remained intact. However, due to the political situation of the time, some of the cultural relics ended up being kept in different locations.
In 1947, over 5,400 crates previously owned by the Institute of Antiquity Conservation were handed over to what is now known as the Nanjing Museum. Between 1948 to 1949, the Kuomintang shipped 2,900 crates to Taiwan, where they later retreated following their defeat to the Communist Party of China. Starting in 1950, it took eight years to relocate some 6,200 crates from various institutions to the Palace Museum. An additional 2,500 crates of files and documents were kept by China’s National Archives Administration and 2,000 crates of cultural relics remained in the Chaotian Palace.
In June 2021, the Anderson & Co. building in Chongqing was transformed into a museum to commemorate this epic journey and raise the public awareness of the significance of cultural relics to the nation. Established in 1891, the main business of the company was import and export. It had set up eight buildings to serve as its offices and warehouses. The following century saw multiple expansions and renovations to the complex. In 2017, when Shan Jixiang, the then president of the Palace Museum paid a visit to Chongqing, it was decided to establish a memorial museum at the location.
It is hard to imagine what would have happened to the Palace Museum if the evacuation had never taken place. In fact, a total of 2,953 crates of artworks that didn’t make it aboard the train were casualties of Japanese aggression. Bronzeware was salvaged by the invaders and used to replenish their military supplies, and many enormous volumes of books, magazines and other printed materials were lost. Additionally, parts of China’s Great Wall and its watch towers, ancient tombs and other archaeological sites fell victim to the occupation.
So, as well as preserving the priceless foundations of Chinese culture for generations to come, the Great Migration was, arguably the path – albeit a long and arduous one – that dictated the direction of the Palace Museum on its journey to becoming the leading institution we know today.
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Lü Weitao, translator Liu Junhuan, and copy editor James McCarthy. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.