Wu Zhongchao was the first director of the Palace Museum after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and was also a corporal of courtesy and a cultural relic worker who cared about the cause of the museum.

In the autumn of p>1927, Wu Zhongchao studied at Shanghai University of Law (now the predecessor of East China University of Political Science and Law), joined the China Communist Party the following year, and then went back to his hometown to work underground. Since 1931, he has worked in Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Wu Zhongchao successively served in several anti-Japanese base areas in Central China, and made great contributions to the establishment of Maoshan anti-Japanese base area, the establishment of guerrilla base areas on Jiangnan East Road, and the development, development and consolidation of liberated areas in southern Jiangsu.

However, little known is that during the Liberation War, especially during Wu Zhongchao's tenure as Secretary-General of Central China Branch and Chairman of Shandong Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee, he also collected and preserved a large number of precious cultural relics for the Party and the people. In the diary of A Ying, a famous scholar who joined the New Fourth Army, it can be seen that his complex of cultural relics protection has emerged in the war years.

A Ying's Diary Behind the Enemy Line, Volume 16, February 21st, reads: (Luomi) There is a Luomi Temple in Zhuang, and there is a monument built by Yongzheng, so Zhuang Dang is named after it. Choose a room in Zhuangkou to give Yun (Qian Xiaoyun) a rest. I went to Xitou to visit (Li) Comrade Yimou and met Secretary-General Wu. According to Comrade Yi Meng, the Central China Bureau has decided to follow suit. Knowing that this is the rear of the Central China Bureau, Secretary-General Wu is in charge and went to visit the Secretary-General.

Volume 17: Before dinner, go to Secretary-General Wu's place and have dinner there. He told a village in the southwest of Yi that it was the old city of a king in Jin. There are many antiquities, and one Hanlin family has many ancient books, which were acquired by the Japanese. There are still many Ming versions and calligraphy and painting.

Volume 18, May 15th: I got up at about 7 o'clock, and Secretary-General Wu's security guard said that there were many ancient books in the adjacent room. If you look at it urgently, it will be all Japanese books, and it will be messy, and it will be more than 1, copies. Comrade Xuan Zengda Zhai, Zou Lushan, Song Zhi and Kuang Yaming came one after another and chatted with a self-protection brother. After dinner, I returned it to Secretary-General Wu's office in Dazhai. On May 19th, I bought 3 postcards of the ancient bronze pottery and porcelain of the Journal at the cold stand and gave them to Secretary-General Wu.

The "Secretary-General Wu" frequently appeared in A Ying's Diary Behind the Enemy during the War of Liberation is Wu Zhongchao, which shows that his complex of cultural relics protection has a long history. Wu Zhongchao not only paid attention to collecting and collecting cultural relics during the War of Liberation, but also opened a special shop name in Dalian, Northeast China, in 1947, to collect cultural relics for the public.

In the summer and autumn of p>1947, due to the development of the third revolutionary civil war, a group of cadres of the East China Bureau headed by Tan Zhenlin and Li Yimang were evacuated from Weihai, Shandong Province to Dalian in Northeast China under the control of Soviet troops. At that time, Wu Zhongchao was the secretary-general of the Management Committee of the North Withdrawal Cadres of the East China Bureau. Dalian is an important sea port in Northeast China. At the beginning of this century, it was coveted and occupied by Japan and Russia one after another. For a long time, it is not only the settlement of the old people, dignitaries, Japanese and Russian expatriates, but also the distribution center of cultural relics and antiques. The Kanto Hall Museum (now the predecessor of Lushun Museum) and the Manchu-Mongolian Resource Museum (now the predecessor of Dalian Natural Museum) were established on this basis to some extent. Luo Zhenyu also spent his years in Dalian from 1929 to 194 (Luo opened an antique shop "Mo Yuan Tang" in Dalian in his later years). After Japan surrendered, the Dayun library built by Roche in Fusang Town, Lushun in 1928 was occupied by the Soviet Union, and a large number of books, paintings, bronzes, wood-block prints of dates in Song Dynasty and rubbings were damaged.

Wu Zhongchao usually pays great attention to all kinds of cultural relics scattered in the society. Before the war, he took care of the guards to take care of all kinds of cultural relics carefully collected by him when he moved to various places. At that time, the liberation of Dalian was just around the corner, and officials sold a large number of antique cultural relics, and the scattered cultural relics in the market were so numerous that they were out of management. In the past, underground party organizations often used antique shops for revolutionary activities. In May, 1928, Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao also dressed as antique dealers and took a Japanese cruise to Dalian, and then left Manchuria by the South Manchuria Railway train after the traffic policemen's relationship, and went to Moscow to attend the Sixth National Congress of China. Based on this kind of experience, Wu Zhongchao reported to the organization and proposed to open an antique shop in Dalian, so as to acquire a large number of scattered cultural relics and serve as a contact point for hidden underground party organizations. Therefore, Wu Zhongchao, through the relationship of Han Tongru, who taught at Huazhong Jianshe University in the Jiangsu-Anhui border region, implemented this plan by using several street houses in the antique shop "Bo Gu Hall" opened by Mr. Ma Zepu, an antique dealer near Dalian Oriental Hotel today. At the beginning of 1948, Bo Gu Tang Antique Store was formally established. In order to get information from all sides, a tea shop was set up in a corner of the store as an ear and eye. At that time, the store manager was Zeng Dazhai, a comrade-in-arms who accompanied Wu Zhongchao to the north, and was in northern Jiangsu and southern Shandong in the past. The deputy managers were Ma Zepu and Han Tongru, and there were eight staff members. Ma Zepu was responsible for the actual identification and selection of business. Ma Zepu (1894-1976) is a Beijinger. He has been engaged in the antique industry for a long time and is good at the identification of ceramics. In 1936, he and his nephew Chen Deshun opened an antique shop in Dalian and often traded antiques between Dalian and Beijing.

At that time, our party also set up a semi-public Tongli Company in Dalian, which was responsible for providing activities funds for the Northeast Bureau of China. As a result, Bo Gu Church, nominally a subordinate firm, is actually led by Tongli Company, and Tongli Company is also responsible for allocating funds, including the acquisition of cultural relics, and stipulates that it only engages in acquisitions and does not participate in auctions and sales. In the spring of 1949, with the complete liberation of Dalian after Liaoshen Campaign and the successive victories of Pingjin and Huaihai Campaigns, the comrades of the East China Bureau who had gone north to Dalian went south to meet the new struggle for the liberation of new China because of the development of the revolutionary situation in the liberation war, and Wu Zhongchao and other cadres who withdrew from Dalian in the north returned to Shandong in Jiaodong Peninsula to carry out revolutionary work. Wu Zhongchao served as the chairman of Shandong Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee. During this period, the collection and preservation of Shandong cultural relics were well organized and achieved remarkable results. At the beginning of the same year, the Shandong Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee held an exhibition of ancient cultural relics in the provincial library near Daming Lake in Jinan, exhibiting more than 32 ancient paintings and calligraphy, 3 rare books, more than 3 bronzes of the three generations of Qin and Han dynasties, more than 25 ceramics of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, more than 1 ancient jade, more than 3 coins of the past dynasties and several boxes of Oracle bones. It was the first time to hold such a large-scale exhibition of cultural relics in the wartime.

In order to continue collecting cultural relics in Liaodong, Wu Zhongchao specially instructed Ma Zepu to buy cultural relics in Dalian as usual before going south to Shandong. Ma Zepu was entrusted with this, so he still stayed in Dalian to collect cultural relics, and did not close his business until 1951. In the short period of more than two years, Bo Gu Tang * * has bought more than 2 boxes of various cultural relics for the country, including three generations of bronzes, Jun Kilns in Song Dynasty, Longquan Kilns porcelain, Japanese calligraphy and painting, gold and silver vessels, wood products, jade stoves and so on. Part of the collection was later transferred to the Shandong Provincial Museum for safekeeping, and the other part was transferred to the Beijing Palace Museum for collection.

after Wu Zhongchao was transferred to Shanghai as the secretary-general of the East China Bureau of China, Ma Zepu and Chen Deshun were introduced to Shanghai by Wu Zhongchao, who is also a member of the Shanghai Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee, to take up the ceramic appraisal work of the Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Committee, and assisted the customs in seizing precious cultural relics whose export was explicitly prohibited by many countries. At the end of 1949, Ma Zepu was entrusted by Chairman Li Yanong and Vice Chairman Xu Senyu to go to Huai 'an, northern Jiangsu, and received 49 boxes of pre-existing cultural relics such as Wu Zhongchao, and purchased a batch of jade, stone, ceramics and lacquerware for shipment from the Grand Canal to Shanghai. According to the memory of Mr. Xia Yuchen, an old expert of the late Shanghai Museum who participated in the storage and storage work in Shanghai, these 49 boxes of 2,853 cultural relics from Huai 'an became the first batch of bulk cultural relics received by the Shanghai Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee at the beginning of its establishment.

under the support and cultivation of Wu Zhongchao, Ma Zepu developed from an antique dealer with a sense of justice to a hero who contributed to the cause of the museum of cultural relics, especially the cause of the Shanghai Museum of Cultural Relics in New China. Therefore, his deeds were recorded in the "Biography of People" in the first chapter of Part IV of the Journal of Shanghai Museum of Cultural Relics published in 1997; Because he donated cultural relics to the Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Committee in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, his name has been engraved on the list of cultural relics donors on the lobby of the Shanghai Museum.

Mr. Yang Kuan, the curator of Shanghai Municipal Museum before the founding of the People's Republic of China and an expert in pre-Qin history who devoted himself to the establishment of Shanghai Museum after the founding of the People's Republic of China and served as the first deputy curator (when there was no official curator), also recalled with deep feelings in his autobiography "Turbulence and twists and turns in the historical rapids" written in the United States in the 198s: "In order to complete the work of establishing Shanghai Museum, ... among our exhibits, bronzes, ceramics and paintings are the most, so we need to strengthen our study in this area. In our study, we not only attach importance to the research results of experts in various categories, but also attach importance to the long-term accumulated experience of antique dealers in identifying antiques. The experience of antique dealers' identification was originally to make money, and special attention was paid to the market price when identifying antiques. Such identification is very useful for our work of purchasing cultural relics. At that time, there was a porcelain expert Ma Zepu in our association (Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Committee). He was originally an antique dealer and had rich experience in identifying Jingdezhen porcelain in different periods of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. We asked him to select representative works of various periods and clearly point out the characteristics of identification and market prices. I often listened carefully because we lacked experience in this area. " It is precisely because of Wu Zhongchao's outstanding contribution to the collection and protection of cultural relics that in September 1949, after the liberation of Shanghai, he was appointed as the Deputy Secretary-General of the East China Bureau and the Vice President of the Party School of the East China Bureau. At the same time, he was also hired as the first member of the Shanghai Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee with Li Yanong as the chairman and Xu Senyu as the deputy chairman. In the winter of 1954, Wu Zhongchao went to the Palace Museum to take charge of the affairs of the East China Bureau, and later served as the assistant minister of culture. After being transferred to the Palace Museum, he served as president and party secretary for a long time. During his tenure, he paid more attention to knowledge, and respected and cared for the intellectuals with strong points in Guangdong University.

He once quipped, "Conservation experts should be like pandas, a rare animal." Mr. Qi Gong, a contemporary calligrapher, is known as the "giant panda" for this reason-this is a rumor that once spread widely in Beijing. It is said that Mr. Qi Gong was annoyed by the constant visitors, so he refused to visit the uninvited guests on the grounds of poor health, and with his usual humorous style, he put a word between the outer walls of the door: "The giant panda is ill, and he refuses to visit!" When the newcomers saw this note of closing the door and thanking guests, they smiled and excused themselves, and no longer intruded. This joke is serious and convincing. However, according to Qi Gong's explanation, this is slightly different from the facts, and it is not sincere enough to be a humanitarian for outsiders. He said: "In fact, I wrote these four sentences:' Began to hibernate and refused to visit. Knocking on the door and pushing the door will be fined one yuan. " The note was posted on the door for only one day, and then it was taken away. Since then, more people have come to visit. According to Qi Gong, the anecdote about the "giant panda" has its own origin and has a long history. In 1954, when Wu Zhongchao first came to the Forbidden City, he recruited talents from National Cultural Heritage Administration Cultural Relics Department with a high salary (at that time, the physical distribution system was implemented), and hired Xu Bangda, an expert in calligraphy and painting appraisal who was a business secretary and had the skills of calligraphy and painting appraisal and was hired as a special consultant of the Shanghai Ancient Cultural Relics Management Committee at the beginning of liberation, as a researcher in the calligraphy and painting research department of the Forbidden City. At that time, some people thought that the standard was set too high. When Wu Zhongchao heard the news, he patiently explained, "Don't lower the standard. These people are rare creatures and know how to identify ancient paintings and calligraphy. The museum needs such people very much. " Therefore, a friend joked with Qi Gong and said, "Dean Wu said that Lao Xu is a rare creature. Isn't that a giant panda?" Later, when Qigong became ill, some kind-hearted people were afraid that his entertainment would affect his rest, so they used the topic to put a note on his door: "The giant panda is ill and declined to visit!" As a result, people actually wrote it for the sake of success. Mr. Qi Gong later said modestly, "I still have self-knowledge, how dare I call myself a national treasure?" It can be seen that Wu Zhongchao, the president of the Palace Museum, gave high status and necessary respect to people with skills, regardless of their status and qualifications.

When I was in the Palace Museum, Wu Zhongchao often said that the Palace Museum needed a large number of experts and professional backbones, otherwise it would be impossible to run such a large museum. To this end, he has special respect for experts with expertise, entrusting them with heavy responsibilities and fully trusting them to support them, so that experts can let go of their talents. From outside the hospital, he specially transferred a group of special talents with rich experience in identifying calligraphy, painting and ceramics, such as Liu Jiuan (1915 -1999), the former apprentice of Yueguzhai, Sun Yingzhou (1894 -1968), the owner of Dongsi Dunhuazhai, and Geng Baochang, who had been engaged in antique business in Liulichang antique shop in Beijing for a long time, so that they could play a role in the collation and identification of cultural relics in the Forbidden City. And in terms of treatment, professional titles and other aspects, we should take care of them accordingly, arouse their enthusiasm for work, teach them while appraising, and teach the appraisal experience to young people, so as to make the cause succeed and the Forbidden City develop sustainably. For example, Sun Yingzhou, who has made great achievements in identifying porcelain in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, was transferred to the Forbidden City and was promoted to an assistant researcher soon. Wu Zhongchao's ideas and experiences in discovering, exploring and using talents obviously come from the period when he fostered Bo Gu Hall in Dalian and met Ma Zepu. The reason why he dared to hire Sun Yingzhou and Geng Baochang without sticking to one pattern was also related to their close cooperation with Ma Zepu in antique management in his early years. Today, Mr. Xu Bangda and Mr. Geng Baochang, who are still alive, have long been the only surviving experts in Gu Shuhua and the field of ancient ceramics appraisal.

in 195 and later in 1952, when Wu Zhongchao was a member of the Shanghai ancient cultural relics management Committee, he twice donated cultural relics for the Shanghai Museum to accumulate collections. During the critical period, he told me to leave his savings to the Palace Museum where he had worked for a long time as a scientific research award fund. In Nanhui Museum, Pudong, Wu Zhongchao's hometown, people can also pay tribute to Wu Zhongchao's relics donated by his family, so as to deeply cherish the memory of this doyen who has been engaged in cultural relics and museums for a long time.