Is the silk case in the Warring States Period true?

Copying is self-knowledge-is it possible to recover the only silk book left in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the cultural relic [Changsha Bullet Library Chu Silk Book] that was cheated and robbed?

cultural relic

Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period (Eastern Zhou Dynasty)

contemporary era

Cultural relics restoration

Is it possible to recover the only silk book left in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and the cultural relic [Changsha Bullet Library Chu Silk Book] that was cheated and robbed?

Chu Silk Book is an illustrated book written on silk fabrics. Font is a popular Chu script in the Warring States period. The book has more than 900 words, divided into two sections, with 12 images around it, a paragraph attached to each side, and images of plant branches and leaves in the four corners. It is the earliest ancient silk book among the unearthed cultural relics, and it is also a unique calligraphy work and imaginative romantic art work in Chu culture. Its content is extremely rich, including four seasons, astronomical phenomena, moon taboo, creation myth and so on. This is of great value to the study of Chu characters in the Warring States period and the ideology and culture at that time.

The process of the loss of Chu silk books is extremely tortuous, and the party directly dealing with it has also passed away. After several interviews and inquiries, the reporter learned what had happened.

Treasures are attached as waste.

1942 At the beginning, a group of grave robbers found a hole in Changsha ammunition depot and dug it together. Ren Quansheng is one of them. He joined the Hunan Provincial Cultural Relics Team in 1953, and made important contributions to the later archaeological excavations such as Mawangdui Han Tomb. After the founding of New China, Ren Quansheng once told colleagues in the museum about the process of stealing and digging the Chu tomb in the ammunition depot.

At that time, grave robbers discovered a Chu tomb in the Warring States period, and found a batch of bronze weapons, lacquerware, wooden figurines and some broken textiles. In the eyes of grave robbers, bronzes and wood products are the most sought after, so textiles were given to antique dealer Don as waste by grave robbers. They don't know that this kind of textile is one of the most exciting discoveries in the cultural history of China.

Shang Chengzuo learned that Chu silk was unearthed and planned to buy it. While in contact, Cai Jixiang, a famous antique dealer in Hunan, came back from other places and quickly bought silk and other cultural relics for 3,000 yuan.

When Cai Jixiang first got the silk book, he folded it several layers and put it in a bamboo basket with many pieces of silk under it. Subsequently, Cai cleaned the dirt and filth on the silk book with a brush, unfolded it and copied it. 1944, Cai printed the research results of silk calligraphy into a book "Late Zhou Shu Kao".

Ke Qiang, an American, cheated Chu Silk.

The original letter written by Cai Jixiang to Shang Chengzuo on August 2 1974+0 was published in the fourth collection of Hunan Museum Collected Works published on August 2 1998. In his letter, Cai Jixiang described in detail the process of Chu silk books flowing into the United States.

Because many words on silk are ambiguous, at 1948 (Shang Chengzuo wrote a question mark on the letter, changing "8" to "6", and it was suspected to be 1946), Cai Jixiang took the silk to Shanghai, and wanted to take infrared photos of the silk to show some words.

Cai found Ji antique shop and asked the owner Jin to find a photo studio for infrared photography to shoot silk books. Ke Qiang found someone to introduce him and took the initiative to find you. Ke Qiang's English name is Kirks. According to Shang Chengzuo, a few years ago in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Kirks appeared as a teacher of Yali Middle School, pretending to be a "cultural archaeologist" and plundered Changsha cultural relics.

Ke Qiang told Cai Jixiang that there are two new infrared cameras at home to help. Cai Jixiang took the silk book to Ke Qiang's residence. Ke Qiang fiddled with it for a while and asked Cai to keep the silk book for a day on the pretext that there was something wrong with the camera.

Cai was eager to find out the words on Chu silk, so he agreed. The next day, Cai asked Ke for a silk book. Unexpectedly, Ke sent someone to bring it back to the United States without authorization. Cai had a premonition that things were not good and angrily asked Ke to return the silk book immediately. Ke Qiang lied to Cai Jixiang that he could send the silk book back about a week after taking the photo. According to Cai's account, Ke Qiang was an American intelligence officer in Shanghai at that time. He has power and influence, and he can only be at his mercy.

Finally, the two signed an agreement stating that the silk book was worth $65,438+0,000, and Ke paid $65,438+0,000 on the spot. If you don't send it back when it's due, Ke Qiang will have to pay Cai another 9,000 dollars, which is actually equivalent to buying it. Cai Jixiang suffered a dumb loss.

Asking for silk books has been repeatedly rejected.

A week later, Cai Jixiang asked Ke Qiang for silk again. As expected, Ke Qiang made an excuse to evade. After that, every two or three days, Cai went to ask, and Ke either said "I have written to ask" or was simply not at home. When Cai urged Ke again, Ke's servant told Cai that he had flown back to America. Cai lived in Shanghai for more than a month in order to get information. With all the money in his bag used up, he had to go back to Changsha in frustration.

Cai later discovered that Wu Cunzhu, the son of the manager of Xiang 'e Printing Company, had studied at Columbia University in the United States and was a student of Ke Qiang. Cai immediately wrote a letter to Wu Cunzhu, asking him to ask Ke Qiang about the whereabouts of the silk book. After a long time, Wu Cunzhu wrote back that he had met Ke Qiang, but Ke Qiang never mentioned returning the silk book. He only said that the agreed price of $65,438+$0,000 was too high, and he was only willing to pay $6,000, hoping that Cai would lower the price. Cai immediately wrote to Wu Cunzhu, saying that the silk book could not be sold under any circumstances, and that Ke Qiang should send it back immediately, and he himself refunded the deposit of 65,438 yuan+0,000 yuan. Later, Wu Cunzhu wrote back that Ke was vague about returning the silk book, unwilling to reply and unwilling to pay as agreed. Cai Jixiang understood that Chu silk books were actually stolen.

Post-liberation efforts

1955, Cai Jixiang, as a representative of Hunan Provincial People's Congress, told the story of Ke robber cheating silk books at the conference and handed over the contract that he was forced to sign with Ke Qiang in that year to the Provincial Department of Culture.

In the same year, in order to confirm the truth of what Cai said, Hunan Provincial Museum sent Gao to Beijing to find Wu Cunzhu, then a professor of Peking University. Gao didn't see Wu Cunzhu in person, but after Wu Cunzhu knew Gao's purpose, he wrote a certificate and handed the correspondence with Cai 1946 to 1948 to Gao through the school personnel department, which showed that what Cai Jixiang said was true.

1974, Cai Jixiang wrote a letter to Shang Chengzuo, saying that although it was nearly 30 years ago, he still hoped to fight a transnational lawsuit to recover the Chu silk book for the motherland. Ke Qiang was still alive at that time.

1982, Gao went to the United States to attend an academic conference. He saw the original Chu silk book on display at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and measured it. It was 38.5 cm high and 46.2 cm wide.

In the mid-1980s, Gao, then the deputy director of the Provincial Museum, sorted out the materials written by Cai Jixiang and Wu Cunzhu's certificates and letters and gave them to National Cultural Heritage Administration, hoping to find a way to recover Chu silks, but later there was no following.

Now, Cai Jixiang and Ke Qiang have passed away successively, and Chu Silk has changed hands several times in the United States, and the hope of recovering it is almost slim.

(When writing this article, I refer to two articles, Gao's Summary of Cultural Relics of Chu Tomb Unearthed in Hunan and Xiong Jianhua's Legend of Chu Tomb in Changsha Ammunition Depot. I am especially grateful. )