The Xicheng Canal was chiseled through the Song Dynasty, as a canal connecting the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Yangtze River, it is the main road for the water transport of Jiangnan out of the river, like a blood vein, which has promoted the continuous development of Jiangyin for thousands of years.
The Xicheng Canal, an urban section that carries the history of Jiangyin, also continues to witness the modern development of Jiangyin City. The Xicheng Canal Park project, which started construction in July 2019, plans to build the Xicheng Canal into a belt-type canal city park with the largest scale and excellent landscape in Jiangyin.
What is unexpected is that the construction sites on both sides of the canal, which are under construction in full swing, have become the "gold digging ground" for cultural relics thieves and traffickers: the construction site excavator drivers and "professional treasure hunters" have frantically excavated ancient tombs as long as the history of the canal. Cultural relics such as longquan kiln kiln porcelain in the Song Dynasty were sold through the underground cultural relics trading network.
The Surging News recently learned from the Jiangyin police in Jiangsu Province that the Jiangyin police recently cracked this case of extraordinarily large theft and resale of cultural relics listed by the Ministry of Public Security, smashed the criminal gang of excavating and reselling cultural relics in the whole chain, arrested 58 criminal suspects, recovered more than 1,100 pieces of porcelain, lacquered wood, gold and silverware, and other cultural relics, and identified 2 first-class cultural relics, 13 second-class cultural relics, and 49 third-level cultural relics. In particular, there are 2 first-class cultural relics - Longquan kiln blue glaze mane furnace and green glaze octagonal cup, which are exquisite in craftsmanship, well preserved, and have little surviving amount, which is very precious.
The suspect identified the scene of the excavation. The pictures in this article are all provided by the police
Antiquities dealers
In December 2020, Jiangyin police received a report from the public that two men were taking a taxi from Jiangyin to Jiangxi to suspected of reselling cultural relics.
Gao Yuchao, a police officer of the criminal police brigade of the Jiangyin City Public Security Bureau, told the surging news reporter that the Jiangyin City Bureau quickly set up a special case team to coordinate operations with criminal investigation, network security, and other police departments to carry out investigation work.
The police found that the two men were Tang Mouhua and Zhou Moufang, who had been engaged in underground cultural relics trading in Jiangyin for many years. The two have repeatedly mentioned words such as "Longquan official kiln" and "antiques", which are indeed suspected of reselling cultural relics. The special case team immediately launched a further investigation into Tang and Zhou.
During this period, one of Tang Mouhua's actions showed that he was extremely sensitive and alert. After seeing on the news that the public security organs carried out a special operation to crack down on cultural relics crimes, Tang Mouhua, as an antique shop owner, took the initiative to donate a stone stele of "Liu Huan's Epitaph" to the Jiangyin Museum. The stone stele has a bluestone texture, slightly broken, the inscription has a total of 24 lines, more than 460 characters, and the tomb owner Liu Huan has a prominent identity and is closely related to Wang Anshi, Su Song, Wang Ling and other celebrities in the Northern Song Dynasty. Later, the stele was identified as a third-class cultural relic. At the same time, Tang Mouhua also repeatedly claimed to the outside world that he would "never touch the excavated cultural relics again" in order to confuse the police's investigation line of sight, and the work of the police once reached an impasse.
The special case team immediately adjusted the investigation thinking and decided to expand the gang structure from the periphery, Yang Mou, Zhao Moudong and several other cultural relics dealers who had close contacts with Tang and Tuesday people emerged, and an underground cultural relics trading network gradually became clear.
Yang Mou, an antique shop owner, because his father is engaged in the construction industry, knows a lot of excavator workers, buys antiques, sells cultural games to earn the difference, or acts as an intermediary in cultural and entertainment transactions, collecting benefit fees. Zhao Moudong, once the director of a folk museum, was called "Director Zhao" in the Jiangyin cultural relics circle.
After nearly four months of investigation, at the end of March 2021, the police learned that Yang and Zhao had recently wanted to sell a plum bottle newly unearthed in Sichuan to Hu Mouliang, a jiangxi cultural relics dealer. Because the criminal transaction of cultural relics is extremely hidden, and the location of cultural relics is difficult to find, the special case team decided to arrest the suspects when they traded.
On the evening of April 3, the special case team arrested 3 criminal suspects who were trading in one fell swoop at Yang's residence, seized 550,000 yuan of stolen money and a plum bottle on the spot, which was later identified as a Song Qing white glaze carved flower pattern plum bottle, which is a third-level cultural relic.
The breakthrough of the whole case was thus opened.
Reselling "Zhang Xianzhongjiangkou Shenyin"
Shi Lianghong, captain of the criminal police brigade of the Jiangyin City Public Security Bureau, introduced that after the first round of net collection, the special case team quickly organized a special case meeting based on the preliminary investigation and preliminary trial and launched a full-chain attack.
At this moment, with the arrest of Zhao Moudong, the criminal police corps of the Jiangsu Provincial Public Security Department received a report that Zhao Moudong was suspected of reselling "Zhang Xianzhong Jiangkou Shenyin" silver ingots, and the criminal police corps of the Jiangsu Provincial Public Security Department issued this clue, and the Jiangyin police randomly launched an investigation along the line.
The police recovered 16 ingots of "Zhang Xianzhongjiangkou Shenyin" silver ingots
After investigation, in February 2017, Zhao Moudong and others went to Deyang, Sichuan Province, for 880,000 yuan to buy 16 ingots of "Zhang Xianzhongjiangkou Shenyin" silver ingots, of which 3 ingots have been sold, and the remaining 13 ingots are buried in the vegetable field in their own courtyard. At present, the 16 silver ingots involved in the case have all been recovered, and 5 second-class cultural relics and 11 third-class cultural relics have been identified.
The police investigation also found that in March 2021, cultural relics dealer Hu Mouliang was introduced by Yang mou to buy two powder boxes from Cao, a "professional treasure hunter" from Jiangyin. The special case team went to Beijing, Anhui and other places to seize two powder boxes, which were identified as green glazed carved flower lid boxes from the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, which were second-class cultural relics and third-level cultural relics respectively. In order to find out the source of cultural relics, the special case team quickly attacked and captured Cao. After investigation, in March 2021, Cao used metal detectors, shovels and other tools to excavate ancient tombs and steal cultural relics such as powder boxes and ancient coins on a construction site in Canal Park in Jiangyin District.
The Song Dynasty Longquan kiln blue glazed bafang cup that was stolen and resold.
According to the information already grasped, the special case team focused on the clues that Tang Mouhua and Zhou Moufang went to Jiangxi to resell cultural relics, and found that the cultural relics that Tang and Zhou went to Jiangxi to sell may be a Song Dynasty Octagon that was just unearthed at a construction site on the bank of the Xicheng Canal in Jiangyin City and was very profitable.
Sell tenfold the price
Tian Xiaojun, a police officer of the criminal police brigade of the Jiangyin Municipal Public Security Bureau, said that Tang Mouhua and Zhou Moufang confessed that in December 2020, they purchased a number of cultural relics unearthed in Jiangyin at a price of more than 160,000 yuan through the introduction of others, and then sold two of the porcelain (octagonal cups and bristle stoves) to Yan Moujun, a cultural relics dealer in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, at a high price of more than 1.6 million yuan.
The suspect's confession shows the favor of cultural relics dealers for "unearthed cultural relics". According to Tang Mouhua, when selling the bristle stove to Yan Moujun, Yan Moujun said to try the glaze, "because the unearthed porcelain sprinkled with a little water will be immediately absorbed, Yan Moujun sprinkled a little water on the stove, at that time did not quickly suck it off, Yan said it was a bit controversial." I understand what he means, he wants to buy it, but I'm afraid it's fake," Tang Said, who told Yan that he could take it for testing, and if it was fake, he could return it.
In order to trace the source of cultural relics, the special case team went to Suzhou, Changzhou, Guizhou, Tongren and other places in Jiangsu Province, and arrested 4 Guizhou criminal suspects, including Zhou Moufei and Zhou Mouming, who were suspected of excavating ancient tombs. The police found that in November 2020, 4 criminal suspects found two tombs (identified as Song Dynasty tombs) during the construction work of the Jiangyin construction site, used excavators, shovels and other tools to carry out theft and theft of more than 30 buried cultural relics (including 2 first-class cultural relics, 4 second-class cultural relics, 5 third-class cultural relics, and many other precious cultural relics), the excavated wooden coffins, tomb bricks and other burial tools were buried nearby, and then the batch of cultural relics were sold to Tang Mouhua and others and shared the stolen goods. According to the police, after the suspect identified the scene of the excavation, the cultural relics department has intervened to carry out rescue excavations of ancient tombs.
Zhou Moufei, 27, confessed that he had been driving an excavator for seven or eight years. In November last year, when he was working on an excavator at the construction site, he felt that he had dug up a coffin, and Zhou Mouming and others who were together found something and took it out, and everyone thought it might be worth a little money, so they discussed that they could sell it. Zhou Moufei said that some people will often be seen on the construction site with probes to "treasure hunting".
The "treasure hunt" tool for the suspects involved.
Gao Yuchao, a police officer handling the case, introduced that the driver group that drives the excavator has an exchange group, and often exchanges some newly dug "things" in the group, and some cultural relics dealers will contact the excavator driver in the group to buy. Yang Mou, a cultural relics dealer mentioned above, also said that on some construction sites in urban construction and development, there will be ancient living sites, ancient tombs, etc. The first contact is the driver of the excavator, digging up things, and some of them will be sent to the antique market or collecting people for resale. He would sometimes buy antiques through the excavator on the construction site and sell them at a higher price to earn the difference in the middle.
Eradicating the "cancer"
Shi Lianghong, head of the criminal police brigade of the Jiangyin City Public Security Bureau, introduced that in order to achieve the whole chain of crackdowns, the special case team traced the origin of the suspected cultural relics searched and seized in the residences, warehouses, vehicles, and antique shops of the people involved in the case in accordance with the principle of "checking the source of the case and pursuing the destination from the bottom down", and successively carried out several rounds of centralized net collection operations, successively arrested a number of criminal suspects in professional exploration and excavation, and cracked a number of cases of illegal excavation, resale, and theft of cultural relics unearthed in Jiangyin.
The pirate excavation cases cracked by the special case team all occurred at the construction sites developed and constructed in Jiangyin City in recent years, especially after the launch of the Xicheng Canal Park project, a key municipal construction project in 2019, the pirate diggers colluded with the excavator drivers on many construction sites on both sides of the canal to commit crazy crimes.
Gao Yuchao introduced that in the process of handling the case, the criminal police brigade of the Jiangyin Municipal Public Security Bureau hired experts from the municipal museum as consultants for the special case team, and the cultural relics experts fought with the police and participated in the whole process of recovering the cultural relics, which provided professional support for the preliminary determination of the authenticity of the suspected cultural relics and the preservation and appraisal of the cultural relics involved in the case.
Diao Wenwei, consultant of the special case team and associate researcher of the Jiangyin City Museum, told the surging news reporter that in order to identify the two pieces of Longquan kiln porcelain, he and the police of the special case team went to Shanghai and went to Fudan University to find authoritative experts in related fields. For example, Diao Wenwei said that the inscription of the lacquered wood seized this time is complete, and after reading it, you can know where it was produced and who made it, and the "advertising" term is also on it. These lacquered woodware played a very important role in the study of the commodity economy of the Song Dynasty.
Diao Wenwei said: "These cultural relics have been excavated by archaeologists and are even more valuable. Ancient tombs were stolen and excavated, many things will be destroyed, a lot of historical information will be lost, it is painful, this time Jiangyin police finally eradicated the hidden underground cultural relics trading industry chain "tumor", and recovered such good cultural relics. ”
The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Public Security said that in the more than a year since the special operation to combat cultural relics crimes was launched, as of November 30, the national public security organs have detected 2,704 cases of various cultural relics crimes, smashed 585 cultural relics criminal gangs, and arrested 5,368 criminal suspects, including 22 fugitives wanted by the Ministry of Public Security's A-level arrest; nearly 61,000 cultural relics were recovered.
The above-mentioned person in charge also said that cultural relics are entities that run through ancient and modern times, carrying splendid civilization, representing both the "hard power" of the country and the "soft power" of the nation; it has important historical, artistic, and scientific value, and is also related to the international discourse power of academic research, and the protection of cultural relics is of great significance to the country and the nation. Public security organs throughout the country will actively work together with cultural relics departments to continue to increase the intensity of the work of cracking down on and preventing cultural relics crimes, and constantly improve and perfect the long-term mechanism of strict prevention, strict management, strike hard, and strict management, so as to open up the road, strike at the same time, and promote special actions into a new stage.
Source: The Paper