Chapter 96 Protect Tokyo Nara

Everything that Sicheng did was integrated into Huiyin's painstaking efforts.Huiyin lacks Sicheng's rigor, meticulousness and patience in measuring, drawing and systematically sorting out data, but he can incorporate profound philosophical thinking and aesthetic enlightenment in the process of integrating materials and describing historical facts.Most of Sicheng's writings have been edited and polished by her.These words combine the rationality of scientists, the sobriety of historians, and the passion of artists.Liang Sicheng expressed his love and respect for Huiyin in the preface of "Images of Chinese Architecture History":

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, colleague and former classmate Lin Huiyin.For more than two decades, she has been a tireless contributor to our common cause. With the help of Fairbank, the microfilm of only the drawings of Chinese architecture was completed, and the effect looks excellent.Sicheng was delighted to see the film in Chongqing, which was a great comfort to him and Huiyin. In 1944, a major turning point occurred in the worldwide anti-fascist war.On the battlefield of the Soviet Union, the German aggressor army was blocked under the city of Leningrad and began to be defeated; in France, the British and American coalition forces successfully landed in Normandy and opened up the second battlefield; in the Pacific region, the United States began a large-scale bombing of the Japanese mainland. , China's War of Resistance Against Japan also changed from a long-term strategic defense to a strategic offensive.

During this period, Liang Sicheng was appointed as the deputy director of the Theater Cultural Relics Protection Committee.In midsummer, he brought Luo Zhewen, a young staff member of the Construction Society, to Chongqing. Luo Zhewen has been in the Architecture Institute for more than three years.He studied under Liang Sicheng, learned the most basic drawing skills, and is now proficient in tracing and drawing.Since he started working in the society, he has never left Lizhuang one step. Now he is very happy to be able to follow Liang Sicheng to the metropolis of Chongqing. Chongqing is known as one of the three "stoves" in China, and the summer days are the saddest.Luo Zhewen arrived in Chongqing, and lived in Academia Sinica with Liang Sicheng.Every day, his job is to draw the drawings marked with various symbols that Liang Si handed over to him into a positive map.Most of the areas drawn on these drawings are the areas occupied by the Japanese, and the symbols on the drawings indicate the ancient cities, towns and ancient cultural relics in these areas.Some of them are foreign cities. Luo Zhewen especially noticed that these cities include the ancient cities of Kyoto and Nara in Japan.

During this period, Liang Sicheng was also responsible for organizing and compiling a set of cultural relics and architectural materials in the occupied areas.The materials, in Chinese and English with pictures, include temples, pagodas, museums, etc., all of which are marked on military maps to prevent them from being destroyed in a strategic counteroffensive.This set of materials was sent to the American pilot who was ordered to bomb the Japanese base, and was also given to Zhou Enlai who was in Chongqing at the time. Luo Zhewen stayed with Liang Sicheng in Academia Sinica for more than a month.

Since then, in the large-scale bombing of the Japanese mainland by the allied forces dominated by the United States, all important cities in Japan have suffered devastating blows, and only the two ancient cities of Kyoto and Nara have miraculously remained unscathed. Liang Sicheng kept silent about the inside story, and the young Luo Zhewen never linked this matter with his work.It was not until 40 years later that Liang Sicheng's behavior of protecting the cultural wealth of mankind beyond national boundaries was praised by people at the international academic conference on the protection of ancient cultural relics held in Nara, Japan.He is called "the benefactor of the ancient capital" by the Japanese.

Only then did Luo Zhewen understand the special significance of those sweaty days in Chongqing.