Li Bai's only heirloom ink treasure "Balcony Post" is worth 4.6 billion, only 25 words. But if it weren't for Zhang Boju's wit and courage, he might have been exiled to Japan forever and could not return to China.
In 1937, in order to rescue this treasure, Zhang Boju did not hesitate to go bankrupt and purchased it with a full 60,000 oceans. In contrast, the three Lu Xun brothers jointly purchased a set of three-entry quadrangle courtyards, which only cost 3,000 oceans, and Zhang Boju's money on "Balcony Post" can buy 20 sets of such large quadrangle courtyards.
In ancient and modern times, in addition to having rich economic strength, becoming a great collector also requires a profound cultural heritage. So, what is Zhang Boju's life experience and background? What national treasures did he collect and donate during his lifetime?
Zhang Boju, born in 1898 in the family of the official eunuch in Xiangcheng, Henan, was passed to his uncle Zhang Zhenfang when he was 6 years old. Because Zhang Zhenfang and Yuan Shikai have a fellow villager and in-law relationship, Zhang Boju has studied with Yuan Shikai's sons since he was a child, and they are cousins according to their generation.
With this level of connections, Zhang Boju entered the military and political circles at a young age, reaching a height that is difficult for ordinary people to achieve in their lifetime. However, Zhang Boju himself has no interest in politics.
In 1925, despite the opposition of his parents, he resolutely took off his military uniform and left. Zhang Zhenfang had no choice but to let him enter the salt bank he was in charge of.
Here, Zhang Boju was able to get in touch with a large number of calligraphy and painting treasures mortgaged in the bank, and practiced a pair of discerning eyes to distinguish the fake from the true.
At the age of 30, Zhang Boju stumbled upon the Kangxi Emperor's imperial pen "Cong Bi Mountain House" in the Liuli Factory, and he immediately recognized that it was a genuine work and purchased it, and since then he has embarked on the road of collecting calligraphy and paintings.
In the early days of collecting paintings and calligraphy, Zhang Boju made such a vow: "What I collect does not have to be owned in my lifetime, as long as it is perpetuated on the land of my country, passed down from generation to generation, and circulated in an orderly manner, which is the original intention of my record." ”
He collected these artifacts, not to monopolize them, but to keep them in his country forever. However, in 1936, China's first well-known painting "White Picture in the Night" was sold to England by Prince Xiaogong's second brother, Pu Ru, and then to the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States.
Zhang Boju was deeply saddened by his failure to prevent this incident from happening.
Pingfu Post is the calligraphy work of Lu Ji of the Jin Dynasty, which has a history of 1700 years, is the earliest existing calligraphy ink in China, and is respected as "the first post in China" by the collection circle.
Zhang Boju is a person who loves Chinese culture, and he is worried that "Pingfu Post" will also be exiled overseas like "White Picture in the Night" and become a martyr of Chinese culture. Therefore, he repeatedly asked Pu Ru to sell "Pingfu Post".
Pu Ru asked for a sky-high price at the beginning, and he asked for 200,000 yuan when he opened his mouth, which made Zhang Boju very annoyed. However, in 1937, Pu Ru was in urgent need of money for his mother's funeral, so he finally sold "Pingfu Post" to Zhang Boju for 40,000 yuan.
Zhang Boju finally breathed a sigh of relief, he wrote in a small article: "I once tried to prevent "White Picture in the Night" from going abroad but failed, but this time I finally realized my wish, which is also a major event in my life. ”
In 1937, Zhang Boju found a precious cultural relic in the home of the ancient porcelain scholar Guo Baochang - Li Bai's "Balcony Post". This "broken paper" with only 25 words is the only heirloom ink treasure of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai, which reads: "The mountains are high and the waters are long, and the objects are like tens of millions."
If there is no old pen, how poor is it to be strong and strong. On the eighteenth, I went to the balcony to read, too white. However, the situation of this artifact is very dangerous, and the Japanese are frantically looting Chinese antiquities, and the "Upper Balcony Post" may be lost to Japan at any time.
Faced with this situation, Zhang Boju decided to buy it even if he went bankrupt, he said: "Those who don't know say that I collected fine products from the Tang and Song dynasties, and I did not hesitate to spend a lot of money, and I was bold.
In fact, I have gone through a lot of hard work, and I can't be as good as I wanted. Because it is easy to obtain, there is no national treasure. I don't buy them for money, I am afraid that they will flow into foreign countries. However, Zhang Boju was trapped in Beijing at the time, and the remittance from the Shanghai Salt Industry Bank could not be remitted.
So, he almost scattered his family wealth to scrape together enough 60,000 oceans to buy "Balcony Post". This move reflects Zhang Boju's deep love for and protection of the motherland's culture and history, and his behavior deserves to be remembered and respected forever.
Zhang Boju did not expect that he would be kidnapped because of his collection of these rare treasures. In 1941, a division commander of Wang Puppet ** kidnapped Zhang Boju in Shanghai and threatened Zhang's family: "If you don't pay a ransom of 3 million (counterfeit money), you will tear up the ticket!" ”
However, all of Zhang Boju's money was used to buy collectibles, and the family did not have any cash. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to sell your calligraphy and paintings.
In order to protect the calligraphy and painting at home, Zhang Boju went on a hunger strike and even told his wife Pan Su not to ** calligraphy and painting no matter what. In the end, the kidnappers compromised, and Pan Su sold his jewelry and received help from friends to successfully rescue Zhang Boju.
This story shows Zhang Boju's deep love for calligraphy and painting and his determination to protect it.
One day in 1946, Zhang Boju received an astonishing news: Zhan Ziqian's "Spring Tour" of the Sui Dynasty appeared in Changchun! It turned out that the last emperor Pu Yi smuggled more than 1,200 precious cultural relics out of the palace in the name of rewards before being driven out of the Forbidden City.
In 1945, when Japan was defeated, Pu Yi fled with more than 120 pieces of cultural relics and calligraphy and paintings, while the more than 1,000 pieces of calligraphy and painting he left in the "Little White Building" were wantonly looted by the guards left behind, and even many paintings and calligraphy were torn to pieces and burned in the competition!
Soon, those precious calligraphy and paintings that were robbed by the soldiers began to appear sporadically in the cultural relics market in Changchun.
Zhan Ziqian's "Spring Tour" has gone through more than 1,400 years of ups and downs, and is recognized as the oldest surviving painting in China, and it is now in the collection of a man named Ma Jichuan.
At that time, Zhang Boju was appointed as a member of the special committee of the Forbidden City because of his large collection and unique vision. He immediately suggested that the Palace Museum come forward to buy the painting, and said that if the funds were insufficient, he was willing to raise it himself.
However, the Forbidden City was unable to purchase the painting due to lack of funds. So, Zhang Boju decided to come forward personally, and he appealed: ""You Chun Tu" is a treasure of the country and the nation, and it must not be allowed to flow out of the country, and we cannot do anything that is sorry for future generations.
If someone sells it to foreigners, he is a sinner of the nation of the nation! "While negotiating with people, an agreement was finally reached at 220 taels**. However, in the past ten years, Zhang Boju has exhausted all his family wealth in order to collect ancient books and paintings, and now he can't even take out dozens of taels of gold.
In desperation, he had no choice but to sell the Beijing mansion left to him by his father, which was a villa that originally belonged to the great eunuch Li Lianying, covering an area of 15 acres and a courtyard house with more than 50 rooms.
In that turbulent era, Zhang Boju tried to single-handedly prevent the flow of precious literature abroad, and his actions were particularly moving.
Zhang Boju did his best to rescue top national treasures, including "Pingfu Post", "You Chun Tu", Li Bai's original works, etc., and donated 118 pieces of national treasures collected throughout his life to the country.
Most of these top national treasures, known as "giant relics", have become the treasures of the Palace Museum, supporting half of the Palace Museum's calligraphy and painting. Some people ask: why sell a house just to change it for a post and then donate that post?
In this regard, Zhang Boju said: "Although I have a lot of things in my collection, I do not think that they are my personal property, but national cultural relics, and I should preserve them for research and inheritance."
I can donate them and keep these treasures on our land forever. ”
Although Zhang Boju's family is wealthy, his own life is unbelievably simple. He did not smoke, drink, gamble, or wear fancy clothes, always wearing a long gown; His diet is also very simple, as long as there are scrambled eggs with green onions, he can be satisfied.
Although he lived such a poor life, he still maintained a noble character and spiritual outlook.
When Yuan Shikai was proclaimed emperor, Yuan Keding and Zhang Boju expressed strong opposition and angrily denounced Yuan Keding as a "bad guy". However, when Yuan Keding was in trouble, Zhang Boju selflessly took him in and took care of him until Yuan Keding's death.
This experience fully demonstrated the noble character of Zhang Boju, and he proved the spirit of love and mutual assistance between people with practical actions.
Zhang Boju's understanding of traditional Chinese collecting is not "secretive" and "descendant forever", but he generously shares it with his friends. Wang Shixiang once wanted to study the "Pingfu Post", but hesitated because of its preciousness.
He cautiously asked Zhang Boju if he could see it once or twice at his home, but he didn't expect Zhang Boju to say without hesitation: "You take it home and look at it." So, Wang Shixiang took "Pingfu Post" home and studied it carefully for more than a month.
Zhang Boju 05 Although he attaches great importance to love and righteousness, he still failed to resist the torrent of the times. He was raided from his home, imprisoned, and even sent to the countryside to join the queue at the age of 70.
However, due to his old age and frailty, he was refused to settle down and had to return to Beijing.
After returning to Beijing, Zhang Boju and his wife found that the courtyard had been turned into a miscellaneous courtyard, and they were forced to live in a hut of only 10 square meters, and they also had to endure bullying from their bad neighbors.
They met some of the villains who spoke ill of them and glared at them with a look of arrogance and impudence. They shouted and cursed, and the language was vulgar and unbearable.
Since they have no hukou and no food stamps, they have to rely on relatives and friends to get by.
In such an economic predicament, Zhang Boju showed great calmness and calmness, no matter what situation he was in, he was able not to complain, not to blame others, and always maintained himself.
Once, Wang Shixiang came to visit him and said with deep feeling: "No matter whether Zhang Boju is rich or poor, he has always remained the same. ”
Zhang Boju's friend in distress ** died in 1972, **Mrs. Zhang Qian told *** about Zhang Boju's predicament of having no hukou and no job, **After listening, she immediately arranged for people around her to solve Zhang Boju's matter, and hired him as a librarian of the **Museum of Culture and History, and Zhang Boju and Pan Su's Beijing hukou problem was solved.
Everyone's impression of Mr. Zhang Boju": In his later years, he dedicated himself to Chinese culture, and the painter Huang Yongyu recorded his life After his life returned to the right track, Mr. Zhang Boju devoted himself to participating in various opera, poetry, calligraphy and painting seminars, and made his last bit of strength for his beloved Chinese culture.
However, time was running out for him. At the beginning of 1982, the painter Huang Yongyu met Zhang Boju in a Moscow restaurant. I saw that Zhang Boju was old and staggered.
He ordered a beetroot soup, a few slices of bread, and two small pieces of butter. He ate slowly, carefully taking a small towel from his pocket, wrapping the rest of the bread and butter and taking it away.
Huang Yongyu was moved by Zhang Boju's simple life and deep love for Chinese culture, and decided to paint a picture of "Impression of Mr. Zhang Boju" to record the life of this great cultural pioneer in his later years.
In February 1982, Zhang Boju was unable to recover from a cold for a long time, and Pan Su was so anxious that she decided to send her husband to the hospital**. However, Zhang Boju was placed in an eight-person room, and the conditions of those patients were all more serious than him.
Only two days later, a patient unfortunately passed away, and Zhang Boju was restless and insisted on going home. Pan Su applied to the hospital, hoping to change to a single or double room, but the reply he received was: "Zhang Boju is not of enough level and cannot be changed." ”
In desperation, two more days later, another patient died. This time, no matter how much Zhang Boju made trouble, it was useless, and his cold quickly deteriorated into pneumonia. On February 26, 1982, Zhang Boju died in Beijing at the age of 84.
Zhang Boju, a collector known as a "national treasure", his death has aroused people's regret and indignation. Someone ran to the hospital and yelled at him that the goods he had donated to the country were worth enough to buy the hospital, but he was no longer awake.
When Zhang Boju was 30 to 60 years old, he devoted all his possession to collecting hundreds of cultural relics, but he did not do it for personal gain, but to protect these important weapons of the country from being exiled abroad.
His philanthropic deeds have enabled the preservation of many precious cultural relics and made great contributions to the country. Zhang Boju's story makes us feel the responsibility and mission of a collector, and his spirit will always be remembered.