How the government of Republic of China and its intellectuals moved 111,584 pieces of antiques across half of the Republic of china since 1933 when Japanese army invaded beijing…
To preserve this whole civilization, literally.
It is a heart breaking miracle in human history.
What’s even more miraculous than the Dunkirk Miracle is that instead of a state, the Evacuation was done by one private shipping company on Yangtze River. In 1948x Mr. Lun Zuofu(卢作孚）, a self made shipping entrepreneur, a millionaire out of poverty, an socialist city designer, a polymath, an altruistic poet, a true intellectual with merely an elementary degree, directed the Yichang Evacuation (宜昌大撤退). Yangtze River only gave them 40 days before the dry season kicked in. Within 40 days, they transferred 100,000 tons of military and heavy industrial machinery, 50,000 people, from East China, against the stream, into Sichuan Province in the West of China. By 1940, Lu’s company transported total of 1,000,000 tons of cargo and 150,000 personals.
Please picture this effort was done by merely 20 modern fleets. Plus 850 wooden boats, manpower and animal power! China was barely industrialized while Japanese army had the best everything.
Over 140,000 of rare books from ancient China was transported by train, on foot, by ship, then by car and last on feet again, eventually hidden in a village that was not marked on Japan’s Military Map. Many of these books had just one copy. A whole civilization was housed in this residents while the Chinese were fighting and waiting for the war to end.
The government and its intellectuals moved 111,584 pieces of antiques across half of the Republic of china since 1933 when japan invaded beijing…
It is a heart breaking miracle in human history.
What’s more heart breaking is that Japanese people also suffered all the unnecessary sufferings, during the war. Way before US dropped the nuclear bombs.
I think the Japanese animation Grave of the Fireflies” ( 火垂るの墓) by Isao Takahata should be watched by every politician. It is so heartbreaking that i do not dare to watch it again because I know it is all true!
Can there be any more heartbreaking darkness than the above innocent lives lost to war? Yes, there can be.
After Chinese Communist took over (due to American’s misjudgment) China, Lu Zuofu, the hero and extraordinary Saint (as his friends called him), was humiliated by an young employee in his company. The Communist government was destroying and swallowing any free or market economy. Communism wanted not just the company share or property, they wanted total submission and total moral bankruptcy of free economy and those who built it.
Lu saw his company falling apart, accident doubled, his co founder kicked out the residency that they built together, now himself being accused of “corrupting communist” cause he used his own money to treat them for a meal.
Next day he committed suicide. His suicide note to his wife and children included “make a living with your own hands”.
I say this is an “even more heartbreaking darkness” for 1. it happened during peace time, 2. it was done by his own people, 3. Bombs and starvation destroys human’s body but not always the soul; the political persecution and brainwashing destroys both. He died thinking that he was guilty.
The young man directly cause the suicide of Lu, was a street orphan. A few years ago, Lu brought him home and started teaching him in person.
Yes, one of many accomplishments by Lu was education.
2/8/2026
卢作孚 （Lu Zuofu)
Lu’s calligraphy: “Wish everyone become an artist and make the world into a garden.”
Americans coined the phrase “The Greatest Generation” for those who grew up during Great Depression, fought World War Ii and then rebuilt science, technology and world peace. Actually in China you had such a generation in too. Lu was one of the thousands who suffered similar fate. The difference is that those Greatest Americans and Europeans went back home to rebuild after World War II, while those in China were wiped out.
By the way, Lu’s closest friend, Dr. Yan Yangchu (晏阳初）or James Yen, tried to persuade Lu to leave mainland. Lu decided to go to mainland from Hongkong.
Dr. Yan came to US to continue his mass education movement in underdeveloped areas in the world. At Carnegie Hall in New York City, in May 1943, Yan received a Copernican award with nine other “modern revolutionaries” including Albert Einstein, Orville Wright, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and John Dewey. He lived to 97 and worked until the very end.
Dr. Yen adopted the first name James in memory of his close friend James R. Stewart，a young British missionary killed in WWI.
So Dr Yen lost his two close friends, one by bullet and another by suicide. Both by tyranny.
America, you have been blessed with the exceptional fortune of the best coming to join you from all continents. No other land or state ever had such fortune.
Do not cast that blessing away.
2/8/2026