In 1959, the theft of a national treasure-level cultural relic alarmed the State Council, and a year and a half later, the suspect was exposed to a pillow towel

In August 1959, the tenth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China was approaching.

This is the first tenth anniversary of the founding of New China, and preparations for the celebration of the world's attention are in full swing.

It was at this time that an urgent report was presented on the prime minister's desk last week: a national treasure from the China History Museum was lost.

What kind of national treasure is this?

Say its name, many people have not heard of it.

Its name is "Skunhe".

Coincidentally, just 2 days later, the Forbidden City also lost a national treasure: the Qianlong Emperor's royal golden book.

There is no doubt that these two national treasures were stolen.

Premier Zhou was greatly shocked and immediately issued instructions: The Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Cultural Relics formed a special team to investigate within a time limit.

What kind of treasure is this "Skunho"? Why did its disappearance alarm the Party Central Committee and the State Council? Who is the perpetrator? How was the case finally solved? In this article, the author takes you back in time and space back 63 years, following the people's police at that time to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the national treasure-level cultural relic "Shi Konghe".

Premier Zhou

August 14, 1959, 8:00 a.m., China Museum of History.

Xiao Wei is the custodian of the museum's Western Zhou Social Relics Exhibition Hall. On this day, as usual, she danced with a feather duster, gently cleaned the cultural relics in the display case, and counted them by the way.

There are several cultural relics in each display case, and the placement of each cultural relics has long been familiar to Xiao Wei.

When she walked to the 32nd showcase, her heart suddenly clucked: there should be 17 cultural relics in this cabinet, but how can it only count to 16?

Could it be that I counted wrong? Xiao Wei was stunned for a moment, and then he counted again.

That's right, it's 16 pieces, 1 less.

Xiao Wei already knew what the less one was, but she still couldn't believe it, and then took the exhibit list of the No. 32 display case, checked it one by one, and finally confirmed the missing cultural relic.

"Skunkon and are gone! Skunkon and no more! Xiao Wei lost his voice and shouted.

At 9 a.m., the Cultural Protection Department of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau received an alarm call from Zhang Rong, head of the security section of the China History Museum, saying that the museum's national first-class cultural relics "Shi Konghe" were missing and most likely stolen.

A few minutes later, Gao Ke, director of the Cultural Protection Department, and Li Yan, deputy director of the Department, led 9 investigators to the scene.

"What is this 'Skunho' artifact?" How come I've never heard of it? Gauck asked curiously.

According to the staff of the museum, Shi Konghe is a bronze ware of the Western Zhou Dynasty, 7.5 centimeters high and 11 centimeters in diameter, which looks like a spherical water bowl with a handle, the overall shape is not large, but the production is very exquisite, and the inner sole of the instrument is engraved with a large seal inscription: "Shi Kong is used for treasure and his descendants yongbao." ”

People familiar with bronzes know that bronzes with inscriptions are worth much more than bronzes without inscriptions, because inscriptions often record important information such as time, events, people, and systems, which is helpful for historical research.

This "Shi Konghe" can be said to have been leaked.

Western Zhou bronze "Shi Konghe" (infographic)

One day at the beginning of the liberation, an old lady surnamed Wang came to the Qingdao Trade Bank.

"You see, how much is this object worth?" The old lady took out a bronze vessel.

An old employee of the trading house took a look at it, and this object was not big, but it was a good thing at first glance.

"Old man, do you know what this thing is?" How did it come about? ”

"My family's ancestors, I don't know what the name is, anyway, it is an old object, the age is not short, if it is not for the poor life of the family, can not go on, still reluctant to sell it ..."

Finally, the old lady left the ancestral bronze, took the cash, and left happily.

This bronze is "Shi Konghe".

Later, the Zhenhuan Pavilion Store Department of Beijing Technicolor accidentally learned of this situation and believed that the value of "Shi Konghe" historical relics was extremely high, so it took the initiative to contact the Qingdao Trading Bank to negotiate and wanted to acquire Shi Konghe.

The Qingdao Trading Bank had no choice but to endure the pain and sell Shi Konghe to the Zhenhuan Pavilion Store Department.

On October 28, 1957, Shi Konghe was sent to the Palace Museum and displayed in the Bronze Museum.

In June 1959, the China History Museum was completed and delivered to use, and the internal exhibition began. Because the museum's furnishing plan involves 5,000 years of Chinese history, the Party Central Committee attaches great importance to it, and the Politburo of the Central Committee personally approves the exhibition plan, and the Palace Museum also transfers a number of precious cultural relics, including Shi Konghe, to the China History Museum and displays them in Cabinet No. 32 of the Western Zhou Social Relics Exhibition Hall.

At this critical juncture, Shi Konghe disappeared.

Seeing this, everyone may be very curious: what kind of treasure is this Skunkon?

Famous archaeologists Guo Moruo, Xia Nai and other appraisals believe that Shi Konghe is the Western Zhou legal measuring instrument - He, more than 3,000 years ago, can be compared with the famous Shang Martingale, Qin Quan Qin Quantity, Han Ruler and other measuring instruments, is a rare cultural relics in the history of Chinese metrology and agriculture, and the inscription inside the he has made its value increase sharply.

Simply put, this is a rare national treasure.

It is no wonder that its theft alarmed the State Council, so that Premier Zhou personally ordered the establishment of a special case team to solve the case within a time limit.

After the museum staff briefed the situation, the leaders and investigators of the Third Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security also arrived.

Investigators conducted a detailed investigation of the scene and found that the 32 display case where Shi Konghe was placed was not locked. Looking at the surrounding display cases, even the glass is not installed, and many valuable cultural relics are placed inside without any obstruction.

Zhang Rong, chief of the museum's security section, introduced that because of the tight time, these display cabinets have not had time to install glass, and the work of placing cultural relics and installing glass is carried out at the same time, these cultural relics do not have any protection measures at all, so they are directly exposed to the eyes of the workers who install glass.

In this way, the perpetrator is likely to be hidden among the workers who install the glass.

But further investigation found that these glass installers are politically reviewed, relatively reliable, and the workers who install glass do not understand the value of cultural relics, if it is a plot of wealth, how can they pick a humble small thing to start with?

The investigators continued to expand the scope of the investigation, found that the overall defense of the museum was tight, the guards and fighters were armed with live ammunition, and the people entering and leaving were strictly inspected, and the elevator was being built on the east side of the corridor of the Western Zhou Social Relics Exhibition Hall.

More importantly, the thief's goal seems to be very clear, only stealing The Konghe in Exhibit 32 and taking it together with the explanatory plaque shows that this person understands the value of cultural relics and is in line with the characteristics of insider crimes.

Eventually, the investigators concluded that the thief was an inner ghost.

On the evening of the 14th, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau officially set up a special case team, characterized as an internal personnel to commit the crime, and the preliminary judgment was that the crime occurred from 6:30 p.m. to the morning of the 14th.

Since it was an insider, the scope of suspects was greatly reduced, and since there was no surveillance at the time, the special case team checked the 43 internal staff who remained in the museum at the time of the crime.

After investigation, a person named Zhao Tongzhen surfaced.

That night, Zhao Tongzhen and another staff member, Yang Wenhe, worked the night shift before and after the museum, whether it was from time or convenience, he had the conditions to directly contact the cultural relics in The No. 32 exhibition box.

In addition, the guards on duty in the corridor also confirmed that on the night of the crime, only Zhao Tongzhen had entered and exited the Western Zhou Cultural Relics Exhibition Hall.

In summary, Zhao Tongzhen is suspected of committing a major crime.

Next, the task force conducted an in-depth investigation of Zhao Tongzhen's background.

Zhao Tongzhen, then 29 years old, joined the army in 1949 and was demobilized in 1958 and assigned to work at the China History Museum. Zhao Tongzhen has only been in the museum for about 1 year, and his position is a requisitioner of the cultural relics requisitioning group, who is familiar with the value of the cultural relics in the museum.

It has been learned that during his service in the army, Zhao Tongzhen coveted enjoyment, paid attention to food and clothing, liked to take advantage of small profits, and embezzled collective vegetable money and food stamps, because the amount was not large, he was only punished, but he has since lost his qualification to join the party and promote cadres.

In addition, informed sources revealed that although Zhao Tongzhen has been married, her life is not in order, she has close contacts with the young and beautiful female staff of the Dahua Cinema, often goes in and out of restaurants and restaurants, and relies on his little salary to maintain this grade of consumption.

There is a time of crime, the conditions of the crime, the motive for the crime, and a previous conviction, and Zhao Tongzhen is the only suspect in this case.

The museum is very excited, and if you catch this inner ghost, you can get the national treasure back.

But the task force poured cold water on them: there was no direct evidence.

Xiao Wei used a feather duster to dust the inside and outside of the display cabinet spotlessly, her shouting attracted a lot of staff, the scene was seriously damaged, the technicians failed to extract fingerprints, footprints and other information, and it was impossible to lock the key evidence of Zhao Tongzhen's crime.

China Museum of History

In order to trace the whereabouts of cultural relics, the Ministry of Public Security sent a collection of clues to the photos of Shi Konghe to public security organs across the country, and the last statistics showed that the photos alone were more than 2 sacks of 140 pounds.

It's just that these efforts have not paid off.

Three months have passed, six months have passed, and a year has passed, the special case team has never found the exact evidence of Zhao Tongzhen's crime, and it is impossible to directly arrest Zhao Tongzhen based on suspicion alone; the shi kong and the disappearance case is still a mystery, while the Qianlong Emperor's royal gold book case, which occurred at the same time, took only more than two months to solve the case, and every investigator in the special case team was under great pressure.

Unexpectedly, on the eve of the Spring Festival in 1961, the case suddenly took a turn for the better.

In April 1960, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture organized a group of cadres from subordinate units to work in the former Sangyuan Village of Niulanshan Commune in Shunyi County for a period of one year.

On the eve of the Spring Festival in 1961, there was a theft incident in which the boxes of four subordinate cadres in a dormitory were pried, and the missing items included a Swiss Mawei watch, a elephant radio, and even two pillow towels, a pair of socks, a small bundle of wool and a piece of soap.

The leader of the subordinate team felt that this matter may have been done by the local villagers, and in order to avoid expanding the scope of knowledge and not affecting the relationship with the local villagers, he instructed everyone not to spread the news, and reported to the police.

Investigators investigated the scene and found a hole in the roof of the dormitory, which contained a ball of newspaper, opened the newspaper and looked at it, inside was a tea box, and then opened the tea box, it was the stolen watch and ore radio.

Why are the stolen stolen goods placed here?

According to the experience of the investigators, the thief should have nowhere to hide after winning the hand, and first put the things in this place where he thinks he is hidden. It shows that the thief is likely to be an internal thief, that is, one of the 4 people in the dormitory.

Who, exactly? The investigator decided to lure the snake out of the hole, quietly put the thing back in place, and then waited for the rabbit, waiting for the thieves to come and take the booty, and instructed the captain to keep it strictly confidential.

But there is no impermeable wall in the world, the landlord's sister-in-law somehow learned about the theft of the cadres under the dispatch, and felt that the other party and the police must be suspicious of their families and would tarnish their reputations, so they found the village branch secretary and cried.

"It certainly wasn't done by the people in our village!" When the village party secretary heard this, he was very angry and quite investigative and said to the landlord's sister-in-law: "You think about it, what are the abnormal people among the subordinate cadres who live in your family?"

The landlord's sister-in-law thought about it, and suddenly her eyes lit up: "That's right! On the morning of the accident, the one named Zhao Tongzhen was quite strange. At that time, I didn't knock on the door, so I went into their dormitory, trying to clean them up, but the Zhao Tongzhen was in the house, and he looked very flustered when he saw me, as if I had discovered some secret..."

As soon as the village branch secretary heard this, he immediately found Wang Shuli, the leader of the next faction, and told him about his major discoveries.

Wang Shuli's head was hot, and he forgot the investigator's secret instructions, and ran to turn over Zhao Tongzhen's box and bedding, but found nothing, but alarmed Zhao Tongzhen.

Days passed, and the bait in the hole in the roof remained untouched.

Time passed like this day by day, on February 14, the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, the cadres sent down to the city to return home for the New Year.

Before dawn, everyone got up and was busy packing their bags, and Zhao Tongzhen saw that everyone was busy, and a person quietly walked to the courtyard.

Seeing that there was no one around, Zhao Tongzhen strode to the firewood pile, bent down to open the firewood pile, took out something and quickly carried it into his arms, and burrowed into the toilet.

"Zhao Tongzhen! What are you doing? ”

Suddenly, a voice came from behind him.

"Nothing... Didn't do anything..."

Zhao Tongzhen panicked, quickly threw the things in his hand to the ground, and looked back, only to find that the person who asked the question was Qiu Guanxin in his dormitory.

Everyone rushed to hear the noise, took a picture with a flashlight, and found a pillow towel on the ground.

"Gee, isn't that my pillowcase?" Qiu Guanxin exclaimed.

"You did it!" And those things! Hurry up and hand it over! Everyone asked.

As a last resort, Zhao Tongzhen had to obediently pull out other things.

Everyone stole everything, and Zhao Tongzhen lowered his head.

At this time, the special case team finally got the evidence of Zhao Tongzhen's crime and arrested him according to law.

In the face of police interrogation, Zhao Tongzhen was very cunning, only admitting the theft in front of him, denying Shi Konghe's case, and insisting on not saying it.

The contest lasted for 4 days, and by the morning of February 18, Zhao Tongzhen could not withstand the strong pressure, and the psychological defense line finally collapsed, honestly confessing his criminal acts and Shi Konghe's whereabouts.

Soon, Zhao Tongzhen led the scouts to the western wall of a warehouse in the cultural relics depot of the China History Museum, pointed to a Western Zhou bronze and said: "Shi Konghe ... I hid it in its belly..."

The investigator carefully removed the upper half, revealing the spacious "belly" of the lower half, and found that Shi Kong and Hisan were inside.

Bronze: Mane

Zhao Tongzhen explained that Zhang Rong, the head of the museum's security section, knew that he had a bad track record, and also knew about his style problems, and also mobilized everyone to "help" him, making him very faceless, so he moved to retaliate against Zhang Rong.

How do you retaliate? Zhao Tonghao's eyes lit up: stealing cultural relics made Zhang Rong ugly.

Zhao Tongzhen knew that every cultural relic in the museum was extremely valuable, and stealing one at random was enough for Zhang Rong to drink a pot. At about 11:55 p.m. on August 13, 1959, Zhao Tongzhen went to the Western Zhou Dynasty Cultural Relics Exhibition Hall alone to select the target of the crime, and finally his eyes were attracted by Shi Konghe of the No. 32 display case.

Zhao Tongzhen stared at Shi Konghe, fighting ideologically for a while, and finally decided to do it.

Because there was no glass in the display cabinet, Zhao Tongzhen easily took Shi Konghe into his hand, put it in his pocket, and then moved the other cultural relics slightly to a position and placed them evenly, so that if other staff did not pay attention, it was likely that an inconspicuous "small cultural relic" would not be lost.

After committing the crime, Zhao Tongzhen sneaked back to the duty room and put Shi Konghe in his school bag and put it under the table.

Early the next morning, after Zhao Tongzhen handed over his shift, he picked up his school bag, went straight to the old museum, ran to his office, wrapped Shi Konghe in newspaper, and carefully stuffed it behind the cultural relics cabinet.

Zhao Tongzhen felt that there were so many cultural relics in the museum, the average person was not particularly concerned, and certainly could not find a missing piece, but did not expect that the administrator Xiao Wei was very careful, and as soon as he went to work, he found that Shi Konghe was missing, and the police also immediately intervened.

After the incident, the leaders of the special case team and the museum talked to Zhao Tongzhen many times, and he knew that he had become a suspect of the police, because he was worried that the police would search his office, so he planned to transfer the stolen Shi Konghe.

On this day, he stumbled upon an unlocked warehouse door in the museum's new museum library, and there was a half-meter-high bronze statue under the western wall of the warehouse, or the kind of "mane" that could be separated and the abdomen was hollow, and he was inspired at once.

Infographic

Early the next morning, Zhao Tongzhen took advantage of the small number of people and quietly hid Shi Konghe in the "belly" of the mane.

Everything was as Zhao Tongzhen wished, the police investigated for several months and did not harvest, the wind gradually became less tight, Zhao Tongzhen wanted to find an opportunity to take Out Shi Konghe, but before he could act, he was sent down to the countryside to exercise, because the management of the cadres sent down was very strict, and Zhao Tongzhen did not have the opportunity to return to the museum to take Shi Konghe.

During the dispatch, Zhao Tongzhen itched his hands again and gave his hands to his colleagues in the same dormitory.

He repeated the trick, hiding part of the stolen goods in a hidden hole in the roof of the dormitory, and the other part of the stolen goods in the firewood pile in the yard, wanting to wait for the wind to pass before taking the stolen goods, but he did not expect that just after he took out the stolen goods of the firewood pile, he was bumped by Qiu Guanxin, a colleague who accidentally went to the toilet, and caught a personal stolen goods.

At this point, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau could justifiably arrest him, and the Shi Kong and theft cases turned around in a surprising way, and were finally cracked.

With the arrest of Zhao Tongzhen, Shi Konghe, who had been missing for a year and a half, was finally lost and recovered.

After seeing the report, Premier Zhou finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Soon after, the Beijing Municipal Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zhao Tongzhen to life imprisonment for stealing state cultural relics.

China Museum of History

On July 1, 1961, the new museum of the China History Museum opened on time, and Shi Konghe was placed in its original position to welcome people's viewing, but everyone could not imagine that this Shi Konghe had a special experience of being lost and recovered.