Hong Kong, China, 1981. A 23-year-old boy stood guard at his aunt's bedside, and his aunt, who was lying on the bed, seemed to be dying. At the end of his life, the young man, with tears in his eyes, leaned down and put his ear to his aunt, who told her about a family secret: "There is a manor in the British family that has hidden treasures handed down from generations in the family, and now it is your turn to guard it." He left a hand-drawn treasure map for the boy, and soon after he died and passed away.
Zhao Tailai
The young man was sad and surprised to hear such a secret. The treasure map that my aunt said was hiding a large number of Chinese cultural relics stolen from the Yuanmingyuan when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China. The number is more than 60,000 pieces, which can be described as a priceless price.
Many people find it incredible, how did so many cultural relics have been preserved by this family for decades until today? Who are the guys who inherit these artifacts? And what did he do with these artifacts after that?
Generations of guardianship
The young man's name is Zhao Tailai, and he is the fourth generation of guardians of this batch of cultural relics. The source of this batch of cultural relics can be traced back to his great-grandfather, Wu Tingfang.
Wu Tingfang
Wu Tingfang was born in Singapore in 1842 to a wealthy family, and later returned to China with his family to live in Guangzhou. At that time, the government of the late Qing Dynasty had been weak for many years, and the former Heavenly Dynasty had long been in ruins, and after that, it was constantly oppressed by the great powers and signed many treaties that lost power and humiliated the country.
Wu Tingfang is a hot-blooded teenager with great patriotic feelings, who grew up and devoted himself to legal studies, trying to resist the oppression of China by foreign powers in law. At the age of 32, he was admitted to the London College to study law, and later became the first doctor of law in modern Chinese history, belonging to the most famous figures in the field of law. After completing his studies, he resolutely returned to China and became a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the first Chinese member at that time.
Li
After the western affairs movement was launched, Wu Tingfang became the legal adviser to Li Hongzhang's shogunate and successively participated in Sino-French and Sino-Japanese negotiations. The signing of unequal treaties deeply stung the nerves of this countryman. Many people are even more blunt: "Instead of being born as a prisoner, it is better to die as a righteous citizen." "The government of the late Qing Dynasty resolutely chose to seek perfection, fulfill the treaty, and cede the land. Although Wu Tingfang and other patriots strongly supported the breaking of the treaty, they were inferior in power and had no choice.
Until 1896, with the efforts of Wu Tingfang and others, the Qing government signed the first equal treaty in modern China, the Sino-Mexican Treaty of Commerce. This also allowed Wu Tingfang to have a place in the legal profession, and foreign ambassadors also praised him.
After that, Wu Tingfang reformed China's legal system, established a new lawyer system, and made progress in the legal system. However, in the late Qing Dynasty, the power of the country had declined, and the horseshoe of the great powers wantonly trampled on the territory of our country. In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, the Yuanmingyuan in Beijing was burned down, and countless Chinese cultural flows were sent to foreign countries, which was not only a loss of wealth, but also a loss of world civilization.
Ruins of the Old Summer Palace
The loss of a large number of cultural relics is undoubtedly painful for the Chinese people. Wu Tingfang, who was the chief of foreign affairs at the time, was also sad and indignant, but there was nothing he could do. In order to make up for the loss of Chinese cultural relics, Wu Tingfang tried his best to collect Chinese cultural relics scattered abroad when he was a mission to various countries, and hid these cultural relics in a British mansion.
After several years of hard work, he collected tens of thousands of cultural relics and silently guarded them. Before his death, he passed on the protection of cultural relics as a family mission.
Time flies, and people's lives are like white colts passing through the gap, fleeting. The Wu family's mission of guarding cultural relics has been passed down in the family for generations, until the generation of Wu Tingfang's son.
However, due to a sudden turmoil, Zhao Tailai's parents both unfortunately died, leaving only 15-year-old Zhao Tailai. The heavy responsibility of protecting cultural relics was passed to Zhao Tailai's aunt, who was taken to live in Hong Kong by his aunt after Zhao Tailai.
Zhao Tailai's aunt is also a rich family in Hong Kong, it is said that people are extremely beautiful, there were many powerful people in Hong Kong at that time admired her, but she never married, chose a lonely person to die. People around her could not understand her behavior, and even Zhao Tailai at that time was quite puzzled by her aunt's behavior.
It was not until 1977 that Zhao Tailai learned about the inheritance. At that time, her aunt called Zhao Tailai to herself and said to Zhao Tai very seriously: "Our family still has an inheritance overseas, which needs you to inherit." Zhao Tailai was very confused, but seeing his aunt's expression was not to make fun of himself, it was just to show that he knew, and then his aunt said to him that he must keep it secret.
In 1981, Zhao Tailai's aunt died, and before he died, he told Zhao Tailai that he had guarded the secret for many years, that is, the cultural relics preserved by the family, and Zhao Tailai understood his aunt's good intentions. She chose to be unmarried all her life and died alone, in fact, in order to protect these cultural relics.
"Ant Move" lets the artifacts go home
In this way, Zhao Tailai came to England with his aunt's will and found the manor that his aunt said. Through that hand-drawn treasure map, I found a cellar in an inconspicuous corner.
When Zhao Tailai entered the cellar, with the help of the light of the flashlight, he found that the cellar was covered with straw and cotton, and the boxes were piled up in a disorderly manner. The box was very old, and there were even bugs squirming on it.
Zhao Tailai slowly approached several large wooden boxes in front of him, carefully pried open, and there were large or small objects inside, as Zhao Tailai, who had rich experience in appreciation, could see at a glance that this was the cultural relics that his aunt said in his mouth.
Sweeping by with a flashlight, I was still surprised, large and small boxes were piled up all over the cellar, and some cultural relics were directly stacked on the straw. In addition to being surprised, he felt pity for these artifacts that had been sealed in the cellar and had not seen the light of day for decades.
For the next ten years, Zhao Tailai has been cleaning and sorting out these cultural relics in this manor. In order to avoid being noticed, he did not hesitate to change his nationality to British nationality. When he sorted out and counted the artifacts, he did not hire any helpers, not even his own family.
For ten years, he dealt with each treasure meticulously and let go of all his life. Sometimes even the teeth were knocked out by the big porcelain, and the toes were smashed by the big bronzes, but they still did not give up. Behind it is the love of these Chinese cultural relics and the mission of the family, and it is also a kind of reverence for the artworks of these Chinese civilizations.
At the same time, in the face of the tens of thousands of cultural relics that were counted, Zhao Tailai was also walking on thin ice. Afraid that these cultural relics that have been guarded by the family for generations will appear poor, when they can't ask for security personnel, they specially raised four fierce hounds to help the nursing home.
During this decade, Zhao Tailai recalled: "My life is extremely monotonous, almost in addition to eating, I am sorting out cultural relics in the cellar. However, every time I see a cultural relic after being sorted out and released with a strange brilliance, I feel a sense of accomplishment. ”
Because the material for packaging cultural relics needs to be moisture-proof and moisture-proof, but also strong, the requirements are very high. Equipped with tens of thousands of pieces of packaging materials, it cost a lot of money, and Zhao Tailai did not rely on selling cultural relics to raise funds, Zhao Tailai later joked: "During my time, I was a poor man living in a mansion." ”
It was under such an insistence, under the efforts of Zhao Tailai for ten years, that all the collections were sorted out.
Speaking of the experience of transporting these cultural relics back to China, Zhao Tailai is also extremely emotional, he said: "Thanks to the fact that he has lived in the UK for more than ten years, he has always been very low-key, otherwise not only these cultural relics cannot be smoothly transported to China, I am afraid that even I will find it difficult to come back." ”
After counting these cultural relics, he informed his family and friends about the cultural relics and proposed the idea of transporting the cultural relics back to China. Zhao Tailai's father-in-law expressed his support after learning of his idea. In order not to attract attention, Zhao Tailai's father-in-law deliberately registered an art collection company for Zhao Tailai in London.
Later, under the cover of art collection companies, coupled with the fact that The British exports were in deficit at that time, the management of exports was relatively relaxed. In the next two years, Zhao Tailai returned to the motherland like a industrious ant, carrying "heavy objects" one by one.
Let the artifacts return to the country
Just when these cultural relics are slowly returning to the land of the motherland, when his family and friends all think that Zhao Tailai is about to become a super rich man, he chooses to return these cultural relics to the motherland. He said: "These collections are originally national, and they should be placed in museums for the world to appreciate and admire the history of Chinese civilization behind the cultural relics." Every word is patriotic, which is really admirable.
Zhao Tailai donated these cultural relics to the Guangzhou Museum of Art, the Guangdong Museum of Art and the Guangzhou Panyu Baomo Garden.
In 2000, he donated thousands of cultural relics to the China History Museum and the Jiangsu Yancheng Museum. Among them, there are more than 150 cultural relics that have been rated as national third grade or above, involving cultural relics such as the Shang Zhou and the Warring States. Some people said: "If you compare the prices auctioned by foreign auction houses, the total price of the collection donated by Zhao Tailai in recent years is as high as more than one billion." ”
Of course, When Zhao Tailai inherited and guarded this batch of cultural relics, he was also worried all day, he said in an interview: "I would have kept it on behalf of the state, and when I donated all these cultural relics to the country, my heart was also solid, just like completing the family's mission." ”
The four generations of the Wu family have been guarding this batch of national cultural relics for decades, and the energy and sacrifice they have paid are self-evident. Although in Zhao Tailai's generation, he could not consult with his aunt who had sacrificed his life's happiness in order to protect cultural relics, and his aunt who had a spirit in heaven must have been pleased. In 2005, Zhao Tailai was named "World Outstanding Chinese", and the Chinese government also praised his selfless dedication.
Zhao Tailai right
At the award ceremony, Zhao Tailai, who was covered with sideburns by wind and frost, still said: "My contribution is not great, and I have only done a little responsibility for the country to protect cultural heritage." Behind a few simple words, there are generations of selfless dedication and full of patriotic feelings.