Adventures of the Treasures

It is said that right in the middle of heaven is a purple constellation that never moves; that's where the Heavenly Emperor lives. Down on earth, inaccessible to his subjects, is the home of the Son of Heaven--the Forbidden City. Inside, locked away from the sight of common eyes, lay untold numbers of precious treasures--until October 10, 1925, when the Palace Museum was established, and they came at last before the eyes of the world. But within eight years these same treasures, to avoid the approach of the Japanese, were quietly removed from the palace that had been their home for centuries and began one of the strangest and most exciting journeys in the annals of art history.

Swarms of visitors flocked to the Palace Museum in its early days. But after the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931, Na Chih-liang recalls, "Most people believed that with Japan's ambition it was just a question of time before the war came to Peking and that we'd better get ready early by picking out the best objects, moving them away from danger and waiting for the situation to settle down before coming back."

On February 4, 1933, Na Chih-liang, Wu Yu-chang and others received notice to pack their things and get ready to go. The next evening, in the dead of night, lines of wheelbarrows, one after the other, made their way from the Forbidden Palace to the train station.

Early next morning piles and piles of wooden crates sealed with paper strips were loaded onto two trains bound for Pukou across the Yangtze River from Nanking. "Whenever the trains stopped we'd hop off, run back and check the seals," recalls Na. When they got to Pukou the trains stopped for further instructions. "The goods had arrived but there was no place to put them. Somebody joked that we were carrying the bride's palanquin while looking for the house of a groom!"

Na and his colleagues waited a full month before they got the order to load the crates on ship--and go to Shanghai. And so 19,557 boxes of artifacts, divided in five lots, came to rest in a 7-storey warehouse in Shanghai. After nearly four years they were shipped in December 1936 to a newly completed, temperature-controlled facility in Nanking. Here museum workers were able to think once more about planning an exhibition. But they had scarcely begun when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937 brought war to Shanghai and left Nanking in imminent danger.

"At the time I was in charge of the local refugee areas," Han Lih-wu says. Han suggested evacuating the collection to the rear. After obtaining authority, he was put in charge of the project.

The Nanking objects were divided into three groups. The first group of 80 selected boxes, escorted by Na and two others, was shipped west on August 14, 1937, to the Hunan University Library in Changsha. Na then returned to Nanking. Shortly later the Changsha train station was bombed and Na's two remaining colleagues hastily sent the objects southwest to Kweiyang. "The very next day the library was bombed flat!" Na exclaims.

In November the government decided to move to Chungking and on December 13 Nanking fell. Under these circumstances the artifacts, even in remote Kweiyang, were an object of concern; it was suggested placing them in caves. Suitable caves were found for them in early 1938 just outside Anshun in Kweichow Province.

But even as this first group of 80 boxes was on its way to the southwest many thousands of others still remained in Nanking. Na says that he and his fellows had to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. He recalls one man who couldn't bear to part with any of his things; he just grabbed a fan off the table and left in tears. Another colleague and his wife carried away a table. When someone asked him what they were doing with a table, he almost tried to carry it back. He finally dumped it on the dock and left Nanking with nothing.

"At that urgent period I was talking to museum personnel about their land and sea shipping plans, contacting the Supreme Military Council to appropriate vehicles and contracting for ships with English merchants," says Han.

The land route destination was in the northwest, in Paochi, Shensi Province. The collection was temporarily placed in two temples while caves were excavated. The caves were quickly completed but Na and Wu thought they were too damp. As an experiment, they left some magazines inside and one week later found they had molded to the point where they couldn't be opened.

They still hadn't decided what to do when the order came to take the collection to Hanchung. Because there was no railroad and each truck could hold just over 20 boxes, they needed to make 300 trips to carry all 7000 crates. In between lay the Ch'inling Mountains. And it was the dead of winter.

All went smoothly, however, until they got word that a big snowfall had cut off the trucks in a small mountain village and they needed supplies quickly. "We put chains on the tires but we couldn't see the road," recalls Wu. "We almost went over the edge several times. It was only when I got back that I found that despite the snow I was soaked with sweat!"

After 48 days they managed to transport all the objects to Hanchung. But just as they heard that the caves in Paochi had been bombed in, they also learned that the collection's intended future home in Hanchung had been blown up as well.

Now the order came down to move the boxes again--to Chengtu in Szechwan! But between Hanchung and Chengtu lay 525 kilometers and 5 bridgeless rivers. It took 10 months in all to get everything there. The road was difficult and living conditions hard. "Trucks turned over many times but luckily nothing--and nobody--was ever hurt." But when they got to Chengtu, Chungking was bombed and they decided to move 150 more kilometers southwest to Omei. "Here we finally settled down until the end of the war," says Na.

The land journey, departing Nanking on December 8, 1937, and arriving in Omei on July 11, 1939, had taken nearly two years. The group had left Nanking less than a week before the massacre.

The third part of the collection, shipped by water, was loaded on a freighter going to Hankow just as the Japanese entered Nanking. "Nanking was already a scene of terror and confusion," says Han. "We had to save the artifacts while thinking of a way to stop people from scrambling on board." The ship carried 9,369 cases some 385 metric knots to Hankow. Since Hankow itself was also in danger at the time, they travelled an additional 600 knots to Chungking. But Chungking too was beginning to be bombed. They finally decided to move to Loshan, where they arrived in September 1939.

Ferrying across a river on the way, one of the towropes broke. But before the boat could smash up on the rocks it ran aground on a spit of sand. "It was then that I started to believe that the objects had a life of their own. Otherwise, how could they have passed safely through so many dangers, the bombings, the overturnings and the capsizings?"

In this way some 13,484 cases of articles survived the war. In March 6, 1947, the collection was gathered together at Chungking and shipped back to Nanking. Na recalls waiting in Nanking for three months down on his hands and knees with flashlights and poison fighting termites. "It was more of a headache than escaping the war," he says.

The treasures were finally returned to the Nanking museum on December 9, 1947. The first post-war exhibition was held in spring of the following year.

But a year and a half later things took a turn for the worse. With the approach of the Communists, the government decided in November 1948 to move the collection to Taiwan. The next month Han Lih-wu gathered together three ships for the task. The last ship left in a drizzling rain on January 29, 1949, the eve of Chinese New Year. As people rushed the ship to flee the approaching Communists over 700 boxes were abandoned in the harbor to make room.

The complete collection arrived in Keelung harbor on February 22 and was then transferred to Taichung. In April the following year the collection was stored in caves in Wufeng County. The collection entered its spacious new home in Waishuanghsi in November 1965.

It was a full 32 years after that winter evening long ago when the collection first left the Forbidden City. It had travelled over 10,000 kilometers.

(Peter Eberly)

[Picture Caption]

The National Palace Museum outside of Taipei is home to an incomparable,world-renowned collection of Chinese cultural objects.

To get from Hanchung to Chengtu three rivers had to be crossed by wooden raft.

Before 1965 the collection was stored for 15 years in caves near Wufeng in northwest Taiwan.

This box was part of the first batch evacuated from Peking. The Chinese characters are the museum's "logo".

An exhibition room used when the collection was stored in Taichung.

Han Lih-wu (l.) and Na Chih-liang (r,) pose in a warehouse in front of some of the treasures they went through so much to save.

Na Chih-liang (l.) and Wu Yu Chang (r.), friends for over 6O years, havea lot of memories to share. They are neighbors now.

When Wu Feng-p'ei escorted the collection to Taiwan in 1949, he was 36. This was his travel permit.

Wu Feng-p'ei is 72 now. A lacquerware expert, he retired from the museumonly last year.

To get from Hanchung to Chengtu three rivers had to be crossed by wooden raft.

Before 1965 the collection was stored for 15 years in caves near Wufeng in northwest Taiwan.

This box was part of the first batch evacuated from Peking. The Chinese characters are the museum's "logo".

An exhibition room used when the collection was stored in Taichung.

Han Lih-wu （l.） and Na Chih-liang （r,） pose in a warehouse in front of some of the treasures they went through so much to save.

Na Chih-liang （l.） and Wu Yu Chang （r.）, friends for over 6O years, have　a lot of memories to share. They are neighbors now.

When Wu Feng-p'ei escorted the collection to Taiwan in 1949, he was 36. This was his travel permit.

Wu Feng-p'ei is 72 now. A lacquerware expert, he retired from the museum　only last year.