In addition to engaging in archaeology and cultural relics protection, my earliest involvement in the combination of cultural relics protection and folk collection should be traced back to 1989, which was my fifth year of graduating from university, an unintentional "encounter", but also made me a "hero", but also strengthened my original intention to unveil the dark curtain of the cultural relics collection circle and fight with fraudsters to the end.
Figure 1: The office building of Chongqing Municipal Museum under the cover of loquat mountain bamboo forest
At noon on September 5, 1989, as usual, I was in the bamboo forest next to the compound of the loquat mountain in Yuzhong District, Chongqing (the then Chongqing Municipal Museum, later settled by the Chongqing Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, later renamed the Chongqing Municipal Cultural Heritage Research Institute, the Chongqing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, and now renamed the Chongqing Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology), and the path leading to loquat mountain park happened to pass through this bamboo forest. At this time, a skinny foreigner dressed as a salesman with a map in his hand hurried over and asked me for directions.
I carefully looked at this foreigner with my "Sherlock Holmes's eyes": the leather jacket he was wearing was authentic goatskin, people who ate on salary were generally afraid to ask for money, they should be decent businessmen with richer incomes, but the hairstyles looked very sloppy, as if they had not been washed for a long time; the neckline and cuffs of his white shirt were shiny black, there were several deep wrinkles on the back of the leather coat, and the back of the hem was actually stained with straw scraps; the "Jian brand" filter was high smoke. What I smoked was a few dimes and a pack of mouthless "hammer doors"... All this gives people the feeling that there is always something weird.
The out-of-town voice was very heavy, and after communicating with him for half a day, I barely understood that this uninvited guest seemed to be looking for someone. He handed me the map in his hand, and what made me feel strange was that this was a map of Chengdu, so why did he bring a map of Chengdu to Chongqing to find someone?
After further conversation, I was surprised to find that this person had a batch of "treasures" in his hands and was eager to find a buyer.
A foreigner, mistakenly regarding Chongqing as Chengdu, looking for people near the archaeological work unit of the cultural relics museum, and rushing to sell a batch of "treasures", which can't help but make me wonder: What is this batch of "treasures"? Will it be related to prohibited cultural relics?
At that time, I had just graduated from Sichuan University majoring in archaeology for only a few years, and during my college years, I was ridiculed by my classmates as "Little Sherlock Holmes" in my spare time because of my obsession with criminal investigation, and I always wanted to find an opportunity to "try the bull knife". Now that the opportunity was in front of me, I decided to explore the truth.
Before finding out the true identity of the other party, I took this strange foreigner to the exhibition hall of the Chongqing Municipal Museum not far away, on the one hand, I wanted to use the lively place to cover up the content of our dialogue; on the other hand, I wanted to compare the cultural relics displayed in the glass cabinet in the museum exhibition hall to find out the true situation of the "treasure" in the mouth of the other party.
After I led this strange foreigner around the museum's exhibition hall, the other party said that "the 'treasures' in my hand are more similar to these cultural relics in the exhibition hall, there are 26 pieces in total", and also made it clear that if I could help him sell some, it would give me benefits.
I pretended to be greedy and asked him, "Then what good can you give me?" ”
He replied, "I can give you a 'gold lid,' which is worth a lot of money!" (The gold lid he was talking about at the time, because of the pronunciation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialects, I think it may be about the gold ring.) ）
In between conversations, a huge plan had slowly formed in my mind.
On the pretext of helping him find a buyer, I withdrew from the exhibition hall. In less than 10 minutes, I turned back and continued to greet him, without stopping for a moment, not giving him the energy to think about anything else. I said that I had called some of the people I knew who bought and sold treasures, and although they were all in this line of work, they didn't know if your "treasure" was real or not.
As soon as the other party heard it, he was anxious, patted his chest and said, "I can take them to the inspection!" ”
I nodded and said, "Don't worry, they'll be there soon, I'll go out and pick them up..."
Figure 2: Chongqing Municipal Museum Exhibition Building
For about half an hour, my friend and I, along with this foreigner and its driver, a total of 7 people, took a Beijing Bupeng jeep and drove toward Yipin Town, Ba County (now Banan District, Chongqing City), more than 40 kilometers away, according to the address provided by this foreigner.
It turned out that the truck loaded with "treasures" by the outsider and two partners was broken and was being repaired at an individual auto repair shop.
His two companions, one was a tall, chubby man, the other was a young woman, and when they saw so many of us coming together, they were nervous, so they asked the companion who brought us here: "Cheng Yingen, why do you bring so many people here?" ”
Only then did I know that this foreigner's name was Cheng Yingen.
Cheng Yinggen replied, "They are all people who have come to buy goods..."
At my urging, Cheng Yingen lifted the tarpaulin of the van. The scene in front of me made my heart beat faster: the car was actually full of many huge boxes, paper, more wooden boxes, the "treasures" inside were not only 26 pieces, but a full 26 boxes, and I mistakenly took the big boxes (that is, the "pieces" said by Cheng Yingen) as a single piece!
Although I was shocked, I calmly and calmly asked them to take the goods out to check whether they were cultural relics or not, and to observe them carefully in natural light to correctly judge whether they were true or false. Because there are many people in the garage, Cheng Yingen, who knows the "rules of the trade", and his partners can't wait to select a few large boxes and transport them to the foot of a remote hill for inspection of our car.
In Chongqing in early September, it was still hot and restless. In the middle of the afternoon, there was still a heat wave in the air, and the branches in the mountains and forests on both sides of the road did not move at all, only to know that they were still screaming. When the box was opened one by one, I was immediately stunned by the porcelain that exuded a calm, old atmosphere. Take a closer look, the glaze on the surface of the porcelain has a jade texture, the shell is old, and it is rubbed back and forth in the hand a few times, and the feel is soft. I squatted down again, took out a magnifying glass and looked closely through the light of the sun, and found that the surface of the porcelain had different degrees of use of wear marks, in an irregular distribution, I knew that it was the imprint left by time, and no matter how clever the counterfeiters in the world were, they could not make the taste of time. My preliminary judgment is that most of these are blue and white porcelain of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the "treasures" mentioned in Cheng Yingen's mouth have been identified as cultural relics.
At this point, my mind was already counting, and I nodded to my peers and said loudly:
"It's all genuine."
Hearing this, Cheng Yingen and his two companions couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and Cheng Yingen said emphatically:
"I'll just say it! Guaranteed genuine! ”
Several of my companions also said:
"There are so many fakes this year... As long as the goods are real, no problem, how much is needed..."
Cheng Yingen and his two companions were elated, and the group hurried to the repair shop.
The car turned over a hill, and I patted Cheng Yingen on the shoulder and said:
"This batch of goods is too much, let's discuss it separately to see how to deal with it better..."
With a "crunch", the car stopped in a relatively wide place, and I got out of the car with a few companions, took a few steps, and after a period of discussion, we talked about it for a while and then returned to the car.
Back at the workshop, the vehicle loaded with artifacts had not yet been repaired. At this moment, a truck full of real goods is in front of me, which makes my heart jump. Despite this, I forced my composure and talked to Cheng Yingen:
"This batch of goods is very important, your car is broken again, let's go back to the main city to find the car..."
Before the words could be heard, Cheng Yingen and his accomplices showed suspicious looks:
"Oops... Didn't you just say how much is too much? How...... Right now...... Running again? ”
I immediately said, "Rest assured, a few of them will go back to find a car to ship, and I will stay alone and wait for them!" ”
Hearing me say this, Cheng Yingen and his accomplices nodded reassuringly.
Figure 3: Renderings of the China Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing
It was getting dark, and in the small town repair shop far away from the main city, I was alone in the face of three outlaws who came from afar, and my heart was inevitably a little frightened. Nevertheless, I knew that I would have to find a way to deal with them no matter what, to protect the safety of this batch of artifacts.
In order to gain Cheng Yingen's further trust and not let them be distracted, I went out of my way to remind and emphasize the fact that he promised me the golden ring, showing a very greedy look.
During the conversation, I learned that these cultural relics dealers have been leaving Ningbo, Zhejiang For a long time, the cultural relics have not been able to get rid of their hands, the vehicle is broken in the middle of the road, and there is little money left on their bodies, so I took the initiative to pay the repair fee for them, thinking that their trust in me has increased by a few points.
The tattered "Yuejin 131" passenger and cargo dual-use car was finally able to barely hit the road after being tinkered with by the master of the garage for a while. I took them and headed for the main city. On the way, whenever we encountered a little pothole, the car would "scream", as if it was about to fall apart, and we had to stop and go. Just when everyone was exhausted, the trailer that came to greet us finally met us at a place called a fork in the road.
The antiquities dealers who are immersed in the dream of getting rich have not found the mystery behind it. At that time, there were traffic restrictions in the main city of Chongqing, and trucks were not allowed to enter the city during the day, but the dilapidated "Yuejin 131" was unimpeded all the way, led by a trailer, along the way all the way to the green light, directly into the Chongqing Municipal Museum compound located on Loquat Mountain.
At this time, the cultural relics dealers who had become turtles in the urn were still in the dark, and they were very calm to accept our reception, and they could not go out again without knowing this entry. It was late at night, we settled them in a room in this courtyard, and Zhang Huaibing, chief of the museum security section, also took out his own bedding and pillows for Cheng Yinggen to use.
The next day, cultural relics experts went to the museum compound to count and appraise the cultural relics, and registered them one by one. What is unbearable is that even at this time, Cheng Yingen has not yet realized the truth of the matter, and still thinks that this is our inspection before the transaction. It was not until the special case team announced that they would be detained according to law and put on bright handcuffs that they woke up like a dream. The leader of this gang, Shi Wenjun, was arrested in Chengdu the next day.
It turned out that my so-called "looking for a buyer" outside the exhibition hall of the museum was only reporting to the public security organs; my "friends who bought cultural relics" were precisely the elite generals composed of the four places of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, the Security Department of the Municipal Cultural Bureau, and the Municipal Museum Security Section; in order to explore the truth, I was allowed to go to Yipin Town as a professional worker in the cultural relics industry to do "undercover" and on-site inspection.
While I was staying in the repair shop to negotiate with the cultural relics dealers, the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau was in close contact with the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department, the Chengdu Municipal Public Security Bureau, and other relevant departments to investigate and verify the identity of the lawbreakers and understand the facts of the case.
From the discovery of clues to the exhaustion of the net, it took only three and a half days. I inadvertently assisted the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Department in cracking this case, which was hailed by the news media as the largest cultural relics smuggling case in Chongqing since the founding of New China, and finally counted and identified a total of 26 boxes and 2893 pieces of cultural relics that were resold (decades later, I still remember this number clearly because it is exactly the same as the long-distance account number of our museum office phone), of which more than 200 precious cultural relics of the second and third levels are as many as 200.
After the case was concluded, the Municipal People's Government assigned these cultural relics to the Municipal Bureau of Culture, which handled them according to the actual situation of the cultural relics. More than 200 second- and third-class cultural relics were collected by the Chongqing Municipal Museum (the predecessor of the Present-day China Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing), and the remaining cultural relics were allocated to the state-run Chongqing Municipal Cultural Relics Store for circulation.
Figure 4: Chongqing Cultural Relics Store
Shi Wenjun, Cheng Yingen and their accomplices were severely punished by law for selling precious national cultural relics. Today, some of the artifacts involved in the case are still treasured in the China Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing. After this incident, I was also a little famous in the industry. Moreover, because the police had come to the unit to understand the facts of the case, chongqing public security newspaper, China Cultural Relics Daily had made reports, colleagues and friends knew that I had actually done such a "dangerous" thing, and often ridiculed me as "Sherlock Holmes".
In July 2009, the CCTV film crew made a special trip to Chongqing for interviews and filming, and premiered in the 12th episode of the "National Treasures" series of "National Treasures" on the CCTV-10 Science and Education Channel at 19:41 on December 28, 2009, and reproduced the historical facts of this "intellectually broken cultural relics smuggling case" 20 years ago in a documentary manner.
Although there are reasons for this, I like to "inquire" about such things, and I can make some contributions to the protection of national cultural relics, which is also a hobby.
Unexpectedly, 18 years after this incident, I was nominated for the "Top Ten People Who Touched Chongqing in 2007" for this incident, and the reason for the list was: "Persistent and determined guardian of cultural relics, warrior of archaeology who fights wits and courage." "I know that this is a great honor that the public has given me. I also believe that my story carries the main theme of Chongqing's humanistic spirit of "perseverance and self-improvement, innovative fashion, honesty and justice, open-mindedness and openness". I have only one feeling: "The benevolent are invincible, the wise are carefree, and the brave are fearless!" ”
Cultural relics are the testimony of the survival and development of a nation and the history of solidification. If we trample on the past, how can we be worthy of our ancestors? How to be worthy of the roots of our nation? Illegal cultural relics dealers through illegal and criminal activities, disregarding the protection of the motherland's outstanding cultural heritage, but also to a certain extent disrupted the normal order of the collection market, making the collection industry mixed with fish and dragons, mud and sand, which also prompted me to lift the pen, to make what I saw and heard public, and not to waste the crystallization of decades of hard work of a cultural relics worker.
Figure 5, 05 "2007 Moving Chongqing Top Ten People" Nomination Award
Editor's note: This article is a historical fact, and the memoir written by the party Lin Bizhong (a librarian of the Chongqing Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the founder of the Chongqing Collection Association, and the author of the collection industry anti-fraud monograph "Collection Circle") based on his personal experience, is used for historical purposes.