The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China’s Forbidden City by Adam Brookes

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City by Adam Brookes The gripping true story of the bold and determined museum curators who saved the priceless treasures of China’s Forbidden City in the years leading up to World War II and beyond. Spring 1933: The silent courtyards and palaces of Peking’s Forbidden City, for centuries the home of Chinese emperors, are tense with fear and expectation. Japan’s aircrafts drone overhead, its troops and tanks are only hours away. All-out war between China and Japan is coming, and the curators of the Forbidden City are faced with an impossible question: how will they protect the vast imperial art collections in their charge? A difficult and monumental decision is made: to safeguard the treasures, they will need to be evacuated. The magnificent collections contain a million pieces of art—objects that carry China’s deepest and most ancient memories. Among them are irreplaceable artefacts: exquisite paintings on silk, vanishingly rare Ming porcelain, and the extraordinary Stone Drums of Qin, which are adorned with 2,500-year-old inscriptions of crucial cultural significance. For sixteen terrifying years, under the quiet leadership of museum director Ma Heng, the curators would go on to transport the imperial art collections thousands of miles across China—up rivers of white water, across mountain ranges, and through burning cities. In their search for safety the curators and their fragile, invaluable cargo journeyed through the maelstrom of violence, chaos, and starvation that was China’s Second World War. Told for the first time in English and playing out across a vast historical canvas, this is the exhilarating story of a small group of men and women who, when faced with war’s onslaught on civilization, chose to resist. Fragile Cargo reminds us of the enduring power of beauty in a world beset by conflict and violence.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com, the chrisvossshow.com. Hey, welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As as always refer the show to your

family, friends, and relatives. We've seen our, uh, listenership double in February and just passed through, uh, another,

uh, one of our million, uh, marks, uh, of audience listeners to download. So thanks for being there in the, in the tens of millions.

We certainly appreciate it, man. Uh, you can see our stuff on youtube.com for just Chris Foss, uh, goodreads.com for just Chris F, and all the other places on the interwebs. I have something kind of unique and special today. It's just myself. I'm going to be talking to you about a great book that just recently came out.

The book came out February 14th, 2023. It was entitled Fragile Cargo, the World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City. We had author Adam Brooks on the show a few weeks ago, and the publisher kindly asked us to hold the presentation till later and not do a live. And in turning off all the buttons, we were doing something we don't normally do and just record it as opposed to doing it live and pressing the button and all the buttons we were doing something we don't normally do and just record it as opposed to doing it live and pressing the button and all the setup we do and uh someone forgot to press record so that was probably me anyway uh so i wanted you to inform you about this book the sad part was it was a good hour and 15 minute long, brilliant, insightful.

One of the best political discussions I've had on China and its future and its past. And it was a pity it was lost. It wasn't your normal conversation of, what's your book? What's it about? And stuff. So I'm going to give you the rundown of kind of what the experience we had and tell you about the book, Cause I think it's an important book for people to know about and read about. And of course we waste,

we lost a whole hour and a half episode and I at least like to pay back this author for spending that much time on us on our show, even though there's, there was no publication of it. So we're going to make a publication by making audio here. I'm going to tell you about this. So this is kind of interesting. A lot of people don't talk

about this turns out that during the spring of 1933 you know the the war was spilling over um from japan into china and they were really concerned well the china's forbidden city if you're familiar with it had pretty much all the riches of china inside of it, buried and hidden and blah, blah, blah. And it was worth probably what I'd say billions. And it was like very private, selective art, beautiful paintings, scrolls, all the things that are the most important things to any sort of nation state. And there was like basically, what was it? Magnificent collections that contain millions

of pieces of art uh they carried china's deepest and most ancient memories irreplaceable artifacts exquisite paintings on silk uh vanishing rare ming porcelain and the extraordinary stone drums of quinn or queen i'm not sure if i'm pronouncing it right. They also had 2,500-year-old inscriptions of crucial cultural significance. So you can imagine how important this stuff is. Also, you can imagine that it doesn't transport well, hence the name of the book, Fragile Cargo. So what they decided to do as the Japanese were advancing and planes were starting to come overhead, is the establishment in China decided they should do something that it was a matter of time until their main,

Peking's Forbidden City was overrun, which it eventually was, and they moved all of the stuff all around the country to hidden parts of the country, rural parts of the country, where it was sent to be protected. And so this gentleman, Adam Brooks, tells us a brilliant story of all the things they did to map it out, to get it going. You know, I mean, there was damage along the way. I mean, you're trying to transport, imagine trying to transport porcelain Ming dynasty

vases and other things. And, you know, they're in in these trucks these rickety trucks from the you know 100 years ago uh not the best thing and probably not on the best roads you know probably lots of dirt roads and bumps and rocks crevices and then you know things being stolen things being attacked um you know just it's just a wild sort of ride. And then of course, some of it was taken Taiwan. We talked about what, one of, one of the big problems that they had with, uh,

with the last, uh, ruler of, uh, uh, China at the time before I think it was Ho Chi Minh came in. No, that's a Vietnam before the,

uh, oh, the one guy that came over and took over, uh, with communism, uh, in China. Uh,

anyway, um, so they actually took all the bullion and gold and stuff out of uh china when he was coming and they ran it to taiwan and that's one of the reasons china has a real beef with taiwan basically all the gold and treasure were sent there so uh it's an interesting story about how they save these treasures and their race is on as they think the city is about to fall. And they send these treasures out of the city. And some of them get damaged. Some get destroyed. Some don't make the travel back either.

And it's kind of crazy. But I guess at a certain point, you figure that you're going to do this. And this went on for 16 years under the leadership of Ma Hing. And they took these imperial art collections thousands of miles across China, up rivers of whitewater, mountain rages, burning cities, and searched for safe places for the fragile, invaluable cargo. I can't imagine violence, chaos, and starvation that was China's Second World War. And so it's a really amazing story.

And Adam's insight into what took place in this and his documentation was gripping. And it reads kind of almost like a movie. It's really exciting what's in there. And so I think you guys will definitely enjoy it uh especially if you've been interested in what goes on with china and and other things uh kind of some of the underpinnings of why china claims taiwan and why there's a whole issue there uh goes back through all the years of china and stuff and so he gets into a lot of that we We had a brilliant discussion on China,

the third world war with China, uh, China invading Taiwan and other great stuff. And, and he was really insightful and I was really impressed with what he knew. So that's kind of my, uh, recap. Um,

maybe I'll get lucky and we'll have them on the show again sometime, maybe for a future book. Um, but, uh, thereby goes, thereby goes the way we went. So order the book. You can order it wherever fine books are sold, and I think you'll enjoy it. Fragile Cargo. I'm sorry.

Let's cut that right better. Fragile Cargo, the World War II race to save the treasures of China's forbidden city by Adam Brooks. And thanks, Adam, for coming on the show. Be sure to pick up his book and watch for some amazing shows we have coming up. We have another billionaire coming on the show, and he's going to be talking to us about his book later on this week. Anyway, thanks for tuning in.

We really appreciate you. You're the greatest audience ever known to man. Thank you very much, and we'll see you guys next time