Fragile Cargo: China’s Wartime Race to Save the Treasures of the Forbidden City

Fragile Cargo will share the as-yet-untold story of the brave people who saved China’s art from the ravages of the Second World War, undertaking a perilous journey across the vast country in order to protect these fragile treasures. After the end of the war, and the beginning of the Communist regime, the Forbidden City curators were each faced with a stark choice- remain with their rescued artefacts in China, or flee with them to Taiwan. Depending on their choice, the curators’ fates took startlingly different, sometimes heart-breaking turns.Author and former BBC Beijing correspondent Adam Brookes draws on first-hand diary accounts and his own interviews with eyewitnesses to offer a new perspective on China’s twentieth-century history, exploring the cultural, social and political impact of the war and the Revolution on the country’s people and its art heritage.

The gripping story of the heroic evacuation of China’s Forbidden City art collection by its curators as the Japanese forces advanced during the Second World War.