Hello everyone, I'm Konishi.
When it comes to the Emerald Pagoda, most people should not even have heard of it, let alone seen it.
Therefore, few people know that this slightly less well-known emerald pagoda is a well-deserved national treasure! Even the master of traditional Chinese studies, Li Zhaomin, praised in relevant papers that "it is on a par with the lineage and the clan bi, and can be called a national treasure".
But what is striking is that this big pagoda that can be as famous as Heshibi is still living in the United States! So far, it has been away from the embrace of the motherland for more than 80 years!
Why is China's national treasure scattered overseas? What kind of bizarre story is hidden behind this?
With these questions in mind, let's take a look at the past and present lives of the Emerald Pagoda!
To ask about the past life of the Great Pagoda, it must be inseparable from its owner, Zhang Wendi.
Zhang Wendi belongs to the legendary figures of the Republic of China period, growing from a weak orphan to a rich businessman, and even founded a business empire!
Although his fame is not as good as that of Tie Baoting (the Jade King of the Republic of China), he is also a proper and successful person.
In fact, Zhang Wendi started out as an import and export trade, and later became famous in the jade circle because of a stone.
The Shanghai Jade Circle in 1922 was boiling with a giant piece of rough jadeite shipped from Burma! This guy initially estimated to weigh at least 9 tons, and most likely it was a high-end "gold wire species"!
However, the size is large, and the selling price is naturally high, resulting in many people watching the hilarity, but few people really dare to start.
Just as everyone was watching, Zhang Wendi spent a lot of money to buy this huge stone, and instantly exploded in the jade circle!
Almost all the Jadeite people were waiting for Zhang Wendi to deal with this stone?
It is reasonable to say that after the merchant buys the raw materials, he is generally thinking about how to earn back the money and make a big profit!
But Zhang Wendi did the opposite, giving up carving it into bracelets, beads and other currency, just to fulfill a dream of his childhood.
Zhang Wendi lost his parents at a young age, and thanks to the care of the people of Suzhou, he was able to grow up and go to Shanghai to struggle.
Now that he has achieved fame, he has never forgotten to raise his hometown, and he took this opportunity to carve a Suzhou City Bao'en Pagoda in return.
Unfortunately, Zhang Wendi had been away from home for too long at that time, and the appearance of the Bao'en Pagoda in his memory was already blurred, and he only felt that it was quite similar to the Longhua Pagoda in Shanghai, so he simply used the Longhua Pagoda as the prototype to create.
In order to be able to carve the way he wanted to be more perfect, Zhang Wendi specially transported this huge stone to Beiping and began to summon all the famous craftsmen to carve it reasonably.
According to statistics, 150 craftsmen participated in the creation of the great pagoda before and after, and it took a total of 10 years to build this emerald pagoda with a height of about 127 centimeters and a base imitating the Taihe Hall!
The complexity of the craftsmanship makes every detail stand up to scrutiny, which is amazing!
After the completion of the Great Pagoda, Zhang Wendi took it to the 1933 Chicago World Expo.
As soon as the big pagoda was unveiled, it attracted the attention of the audience.
Its appearance not only shows the world China's superb skills, but also conveys China's unique humanistic spirit to the world, which is a fairly successful cultural export.
After this, Zhang Wendi began to take the emerald pagoda to participate in various exhibitions, and donated all the proceeds of the exhibition to the countries that were fighting the war!
But later, Zhang Wendi had to stay in the United States due to the severity of the war, and his health was deteriorating, so he could only plan early.
He knew that he could not bring the pagoda back to China, so he could only donate it to the Oakland Museum in the United States for free, and asked the museum to donate all future exhibition income to China.
In this way, the national treasures that originally belonged to China could only passively wander in the United States in order to protect their own country.
And now that the national strength is getting stronger and stronger, it is still impossible to welcome back the national treasure of the past, which is a great pity!
Follow Konishi and take you to learn more about the story behind the artifacts.