Yancheng Museum

　　    Yancheng Museum was founded in 1961 as a comprehensive local museum focused on studying and presenting the history of Yancheng. Its core mission includes organizing year-round exhibitions that reflect Yancheng’s history, collecting, preserving, and researching cultural relics and historical materials from the region, as well as undertaking the city’s cultural heritage protection efforts. The main site is located at No. 118 Jianjun West Road in the urban area, within the New Fourth Army Reestablishment Headquarters Site (Taishan Temple), a protected cultural heritage site of Jiangsu Province. Additional affiliated venues include the Hu Gongshi Calligraphy Art Museum, the Lu Gongci (the memorial temple of Lu Xiufu, prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty), and the Zhao Tailai Cultural Relics Museum. The total building area spans 3,800 square meters, including 2,400 square meters for exhibitions and 400 square meters for cultural relics and archival storage.

　　　　    Currently, the museum houses a collection of 16,000 cultural relics and materials, most of which are representative historical artifacts from the Neolithic Age to the Ming and Qing dynasties in the Yancheng area. There are also over 4,000 revolutionary relics documenting the region’s revolutionary struggles during the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War. Mr. Zhao Tailai, a British-Chinese national, donated over 800 cultural relics to the museum in three separate contributions, prompting the establishment of the “Zhao Tailai Cultural Relics Museum,” with the name inscribed by Mr. Wang Guangying. Relatives of the renowned Yancheng-born calligrapher Hu Gongshi donated more than 200 of his works and related materials to the museum, leading to the creation of the “Hu Gongshi Calligraphy Art Museum,” with the name inscribed by Mr. Zhao Puchu.

　　　　    The museum’s permanent exhibitions include the “Yancheng Historical Relics Exhibition – From Tidal Flats to City,” reflecting 5,000 years of Yancheng’s history; the “Zhao Tailai Donated Relics Exhibition”; the “Zhao Tailai Donated Religious Relics Exhibition,” featuring Tibetan Buddhist thangka paintings donated by Mr. Zhao Tailai; the “Hu Gongshi Calligraphy Art Exhibition”; and the “Lu Xiufu (Southern Song Prime Minister) Historical Materials Exhibition.” Additionally, there is a large-scale special exhibition titled “The Culture of Sea Salt,” which showcases the production, management, and development of sea salt through the ages, as well as the influence of sea salt history on Yancheng’s politics, economy, and culture.