African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 381: Chapter 60 (No Subscription Chapter)

The Royal Shipyard in Trieste, Ernst personally glanced at the ”Archduke Ferdinand,” indeed a giant in this era.

Ernst himself is not familiar with ships, but there’s no worry about the Austrians misleading him, while the technical staff from Heixinggen’s Trieste shipyard also participated in the supervision. This ship will be Ferdinand’s flagship, and ordinary people don’t dare offend the Emperor’s brother. Seeing the quickly forming Archduke Ferdinand, Ernst was very satisfied, ”Let’s go!”

This time Ernst left for East Africa, bringing many items, including several collections from Hohenzollern Castle, mostly antiques and cultural artifacts.

In Europe, Ernst found many treasures, mostly acquired from soldiers returning from Britain and France, especially books and paintings, things that foreigners don’t appreciate, and the likelihood of forgery in these is small, as the West currently lacks such technical talent.

Among Ernst’s collections, the ”Lady’s Admonition” was bought for less than two shillings, considered a ”high price” recovery.

The British and French soldiers have no idea of the value of these rich artifacts, mostly selling them as spoils of war, while Ernst purchased them in bulk; currently, he’s acquired over four hundred paintings.

There are even more books, with the typical example being the ”Yongle Encyclopedia,” Ernst has about five hundred volumes, all bought by weight.

However, Ernst’s cultural appreciation isn’t very high for what he possesses, but he knows that anything flowing out from the Yuanming Garden and Forbidden City wouldn’t be poor.

French artifacts mostly ended up in Ernst’s hands, in this respect he thanks the people back home for their internationalist spirit.

Compared to the British forces accustomed to distant raids and pillage, the returning French soldiers received markedly different ”treatment” domestically.

On one hand, the French press willingly disclosed this batch of ”spoils” from Yuanming Garden, related information is abundant, the ”spoils” and the ”insider” details of this invasion warfare constantly surfaced.

On the other hand, a considerable number of French citizens feel ashamed and angry about the pillaging by French forces, thus they reproach them. Among these, the most famous criticism comes from the renowned French writer, literary giant Victor Hugo, who described Yuanming Garden as ”China’s Palace of Versailles + Louvre + National Library of France,” an invaluable treasure of human civilization, and the acts of pillager General Montauban are barbaric destructions of human civilization, disgraceful to France.

Regarding the ”spoils” pillaged from Yuanming Garden, French domestic public opinion showed division and opposition, and subsequently the social influence split in two.

On one hand, the press continued in-depth reporting of various information, leaving a substantial amount of historical documents rich in research value.

On the other hand, the returning French officers and soldiers successively converted the ”spoils” in auctions, unwilling to retain these controversial ”souvenirs,” hence numerous auctions and catalogues emerged.

Ernst took the opportunity to acquire a batch, mostly Qing Court utensils, but these ornate items didn’t align with Ernst’s aesthetic taste.

Especially enamels, which not only the Qing Court favored, foreigners liked too, but Ernst felt they couldn’t compare to the Ru Kiln he possessed.

Moreover, these items were priced much higher than the Ru Kiln, Ernst found that the more extravagant the artifacts at auctions, the higher the prices.

Those crafted according to ancient Far Eastern aesthetics, which are relatively elegant and simple, couldn’t gain attention from the British and French robbers.

Now they truly don’t recognize the worth, with some exceptions being opportunistic Japanese, but in this timeline, the Japanese bought few artifacts from the British and French, most were taken over by Heixinggen Bank.

Historically, from 1931 to 1945, Japan transported 1,879 boxes of cultural heritage from the Far East. After the victory in the War of Resistance against Japan, Japan’s own statistics show they took 3.6 million artifacts from the Far East, not including the ”spoils” inherited by descendants of Japanese war criminals from their ancestors.

The Tokyo National Museum still houses numerous Chinese calligraphy and paintings, like ”Li Bai Wandering Poet Painting,” ”Snowscape Mountain and River Painting,” ”Six Patriarchs Cutting Bamboo Painting,” the authentic ”Seventeen Letters” by Wang Xizhi... even shamelessly listing these national treasures in their 150th-anniversary exhibition, this dog-like nation, Japan is forever irredeemable.

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”Handle these calligraphy and paintings with care, and daily patrols must be dispatched on board, don’t let mice gnaw on these artworks.”

The subordinate said shamefully, ”Your Highness, don’t worry, rats wouldn’t trouble themselves attacking iron boxes.”

”You’re right, but still be careful, many items inside are to be placed in museums, even a minor damage could ruin the visual appeal.”

Besides antiques and artifacts, Ernst brought the most books; a total of thirty thousand sets, to fill the empty national library. The national library wasn’t built in First Town but in the newly constructed city of ”Soga.”

Culturally, East Africa as a whole is relatively indifferent. Seemingly due to habitual thinking, East Africans don’t like reading much, even among the Germans who received compulsory education, it’s the same.

After all, compulsory education is an obligation, not the Germans’ right, the initial aim of universal compulsory education was to cultivate qualified soldiers and loyal patriotic citizens.

Ernst himself doesn’t care much about this, adults have fixed mindsets, and Ernst is pleased these people’s thoughts remain unchanged. Besides, the audience for Soga National Library isn’t ordinary people.