Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City

Written by Adam Brookes

Narrated by Adam Brookes

The “gripping and meticulously researched” (The Times, London) true story of the 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, rare Ming porcelain, and the extraordinary Stone Drums of Qin, which are adorned with 2,500-year-old inscriptions of cultural significance.

For sixteen 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 “compelling story of art, war, and adventure” (Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs: 1613-1918) follows the small group of men and women who, when faced with war’s onslaught on civilization, chose to resist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781797148090

Adam Brookes

Adam Brookes was born in Canada and grew up in the United Kingdom. For many years he was a journalist for BBC News, working as a correspondent in Beijing, as well as in Indonesia and the United States. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.    

Reviews for Fragile Cargo

[Wilma Branstetter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fragile Cargo is a phenomenal tale of the effort of a few men who had the forethought to catalog many of the cultural and fragile rare pieces of the works of art of the Forbidden City in China in the early 1920s and then pack some of the rarest pieces for transport in the 1930s when Japan invaded and attacked or bombed what sounds like all parts of the country. The logistics for moving the crates, thousands of crates, by so many different methods of transport to locations with less than optimum environments for storing and then trying to keep the crates safe from fires, water, bombs, and other gut wrenching headaches actually so much more dangerous than all of the library collections I have read about. Listening again to this book will happen soon and eventually I will get to a book for the bibliography. I really hope that other people will listen to this book, perhaps even a few high school age young people. Give it a try. Wow!