Indiana Jones

Chapter 7 Painful Memories (02)

Inside the black bag was a sealed telegram, a document with only a few pages, and a torn ancient scroll with each page sealed in several pieces of glass.

The content of the message is as follows:

Koizumi-kun, I am surprised to hear that your department has made a major breakthrough in the archaeological workstation. Item No. 2 has the mysterious power to change fate. This item is related to the fortunes of the empire, and it is likely to help the empire turn the tide of battle. Ship it to the headquarters as soon as possible. However, your department is deep in the war zone, and you must be careful in all actions. I ordered Sakata to send an elite force to Yuegu Town to respond. Please be sure to arrive before [-] days. ——General Neiji Okamura, Commander of the China Expeditionary Force.

Even Neiji Okamura was involved, which shows that this matter is no small matter, so what is this so-called No. [-] item?Tommy became curious and read the rest of the document in one go.

Although the ancient scroll is very dilapidated, the text is still complete. It has been preliminarily processed, and each piece is protected by sandwiching two pieces of glass. It is very carefully packed in a wooden box, and there is another document, Tommy understood at a glance that this was an archaeological report document from a Japanese expedition team to his superiors, but it was labeled as top secret, making it suspicious.

Koizumi Daichi, who is in charge of this expedition team, is a major in the army. His application for the examination recorded in detail the excavation process of an ancient tomb in the Song Dynasty.

James didn't know anything about these things. As a former soldier, he didn't know anything about expeditions or archeology. He just relayed Tommy's words as they were, but Si Xuanyi understood the mystery as soon as he heard them. This so-called Japanese army expedition team was The "treasure hunting team" that collects Chinese cultural relics in the name of investigation.

He doesn't know much about the specific situation, but he has heard people talking about similar things, and he understands that this is a means for Japan to plunder Chinese culture.

During World War II, there were similar organizations among the Japanese invaders and Japanese civil organizations, and even Japanese intelligence agencies were involved. They collected precious historical relics, ancient books, precious metals, etc., and transported them to Japan continuously. It is well known that the Japanese plundering of Chinese cultural relics has reached an almost crazy point.

Speaking of this, I have to explain a few more words. In the decades from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the surrender of Japan in World War II, Japan has been using various channels to plunder Chinese cultural relics in a planned and step-by-step manner using official or non-governmental organizations. During this period, Japan once sent to China A large number of various "experts", these people often go around in the name of archaeology, prospecting, investigation, exploration, cultural exchange, etc., and use methods such as buying, robbing, stealing, and digging to explore and search for precious metals, rare treasures, antiques, calligraphy, paintings, etc. artwork etc.

On the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the plundering activities reached their peak. A large number of Chinese oracle bones, stone tools, bronze ware, carved stones, ceramics, ancient jade, silk embroidery, calligraphy and painting, scripture writing, rubbings, sundries, ancient books and other Chinese cultural relics amounted to tens of thousands. .

Among these organizations, there are official, non-governmental, and military intelligence agencies, but they all plunder cultural relics under various banners. The most heinous thing is that many so-called experts have not received any archaeological training. They only know Digging graves, but don't even know how to do the most basic recording work.As a result, during the excavation process, a large number of historical sites were destroyed, and there are still many precious cultural relics that cannot even be explained where they were unearthed.

According to the statistics of the Chinese government after the war, from 1931 to the end of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, a total of 1879 boxes of cultural property were looted by Japan, 741 historic sites were destroyed, 300 million books and manuscripts, and 360 million pieces of cultural relics were robbed. It was so shocking that the skull fossils of the famous "Peking Man" were also taken away and disappeared. In 1937, Japan implemented the "Golden Lily Operation" and looted at least 6000 tons of gold in Nanjing.

In fact, since the eight-nation alliance entered Beijing, the Qing Dynasty gradually came to an end. The plundering of China's cultural property by the great powers has never stopped. Books, cultural relics, handicrafts, and precious metals have flowed to other countries in large quantities, and cultural relics lost overseas in China Among them, Japan has the most collections and possessions, even reaching tens of millions of pieces according to incomplete statistics.During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Japanese royal family rewarded those who got the most treasures of Chinese documents.The Japanese "returned all the books in the market", and the ancient books they brought back accounted for half of the Sui and Tang court collections, amounting to more than 1800 volumes and more than 1.8 volumes. One monk brought back 5000 volumes of Buddhist books."Mifulue" compiled by Japan is a collection of 1000 volumes of Tang Dynasty books, which is more detailed than "Taiping Yulan" compiled by the Northern Song Dynasty. At the end of the 9th century, the "Nippon Kokukenzai Bibliography" compiled by Fujiwara Sase collected 1568 ancient books from the Tang Dynasty and before the Tang Dynasty, with a total of 17209 volumes, which is quite spectacular.

Okay, now back to the topic, Tommy is a second-generation Japanese-American, proficient in Japanese, and has received professional training, so he can understand these seized documents, but because of serious injuries, he can no longer finish the whole story. After finishing these, he handed the briefcase to James and died. As for the content involved in the ancient book, Tommy did not mention it. He just told James that the contents of the wooden box were very important before he died. The thing that was taken back is a priceless treasure that can change the fate of Japan's war. It must not fall into the hands of the Japanese, transport it back to the nearest US military base, and then contact the high-level US military. Someone will naturally take over. Tommy still wants to explain something But unfortunately he is gone.

James is not interested in these at all. What he cares most about is whether he can get out of this forest. If the importance of these things can really affect the whole battle situation, then he can't take the risk of taking them with him, in case he is in the forest What should I do if I get lost or meet a Japanese devil in the street? It’s better to leave these things behind. If I can go out, I can bring someone back to pick them up. If I can’t go out by myself, it’s not so easy for Americans or Japanese to find them. this place.

The other two U.S. soldiers were Tommy's subordinates, but they were seriously injured. Among the three surviving men, James' injury was considered the lightest. The three men bandaged each other's wounds and prepared to take a rest. They went out after dawn and talked. James learned that the other two were Chris and Marquis, both of whom were agents of the US Pacific Joint Intelligence Center.

Before departure, James climbed to the top of the plane to observe the terrain, but when he went out, he found that they were still in the dense fog and the original jungle. There were no people more than ten meters away, and the only thing he could see was the densely packed canopy of trees. There is no sun in the sky, no soil under your feet, no scenery in the distance, and only tree crowns nearby. By the way, there is also a C47 transport plane with only half of it left.

All the plane's instruments were out of order, the compass was out of use, the pointing equipment was out of order, and the radio was out of order, so they couldn't tell where they were at all.James can only judge the approximate location of the crash according to the flight route, which should be near Savage Mountain, near the Burmese side.

Marquis and Chris are in poor physical condition, but they are not willing to accept James' suggestion to stay and wait for rescue, but are ready to go out with him. They don't want to die in a place they don't even know.

As for the case, they don't plan to take it away. Now they can't even protect themselves and have no chance to take care of these things. If they stay here, they may be found, and if they take them out, if they die somewhere in the woods, they will be found again. The chance of discovery is probably infinitely close to zero. After all, it is much easier to find an airplane than a corpse.

Many times everything becomes unimportant in the face of life and death, especially under the conditions of no interest conflicts and no emotional factors, survival is the first element, and everything else must make way for life. Now their mission It's not to protect these things, but to go out alive, and take out the relevant information of these things by the way, so he just brought a briefcase, which can be regarded as fulfilling a promise to Tommy.

(End of this chapter)