The museum was established in Beijing after the last Qing emperor Puyi left the Forbidden City in 1925, but a few years later the Japanese invaded China, prompting the Nationalist government to pack up the museum's collection and ship it south, first to Shanghai, then on to Nanjing, Changsha, Guiyang, and Sichuan.
1925 年清廢帝溥儀出離紫禁城之後故宮成立，不久日軍侵華，國民政府將古文物裝箱離京，一路南逃，從上海、南京、長沙、貴陽再到大後方四川。