During the Eight-Power Alliance's war of aggression against China, the Yuanmingyuan was brutally attacked by foreigners, who burned and looted it like robbers, looted the Yuanmingyuan, and the twelve bronze statues cast during the Qianlong period were thus scattered. China's thousands of years of history and culture, many home and country feelings are pinned on the historical relics passed down from generation to generation, so when China began to be rich and wanted to get back what belonged to itself, the price of cultural relics also increased day by day under the planning of overseas promoters, and many directly reached sky-high prices.
In 2005, the auction price of the Yuanqinghua Ghost Valley Zi downhill pot was as high as 230 million yuan, and since then, the cultural relics that have been exiled in China seem to have reached a price of more than 100 million yuan, for example, the final auction price of the Qianlong enamel color amphora is 120 million, and the auction price of a chicken bowl cup in the Ming Dynasty is as high as 280 million, in short, the price of these cultural relics is getting higher and higher.
But even if the price is high, there are still many patriotic rich people and cultural relics collectors in China, willing to spend high prices from foreigners to bring China's wandering things back to the embrace of the motherland, but according to rough statistics, over the years, China's cultural relics have been exiled at least 17 million pieces, if each piece is more than this hundred million yuan price, then the money that China has to pay will be astronomical.
In 2003, gambling king Ho Hung-sun spent 6 million Hong Kong dollars to bring back the bronze pig head from the auction; in 2007, it cost 69.1 million Hong Kong dollars to buy back the horse head, and in just 4 years, the price difference was nearly 10 times, which was really lamentable. In fact, many Chinese people will say that these twelve copper heads are not worth this price, this is just a faucet designed by the Italian painter Lang Shining for the Yuanmingyuan.
Foreigners are using Chinese feelings to carry out secondary robbery, which is really not worth it. But for the country and collectors who love cultural relics, it is patriotism, and its value is immeasurable. But there is a collector who spent a high price of 270 million yuan to auction back the rabbit and rat head of the Yuanmingyuan, but finally denied it in public and refused to pay.
This person is called Cai Mingchao, a Native of Fujian, who did the clothing business in his early years, and later liked the collection of cultural relics, once auctioned back a Ming Dynasty Buddha statue for a high price of 120 million yuan in 2006, and became famous for a time, becoming a rich man in the cultural relics industry. Cai Mingchao himself also opened a cultural relics auction company, in addition to his own likes, he still hopes to recover the cultural relics that have been exiled in China as much as possible.
However, in 2009, he attracted attention for auctioning cultural relics. The reason is that at an auction at Christie's in France, Cai Mingchao got the news that there would be rabbit heads and rat heads at that auction, and since it was a Chinese cultural relic, Cai Mingchao felt that he could not see it continue to wander outside, so he decided to auction off the two cultural relics.
At the auction, the competition was fierce, the price was higher than a sound, the price soared all the way, and finally it was coaxed to 270 million, Cai Mingchao became the last buyer as desired, and Christie's staff was also happy to see it. However, when it came time to pay, Cai Mingchao bluntly said that he could not come up with so much money, and frankly, it was not in line with the rules of the industry.
The auction house can even sue him in court, so that he can not participate in the auction for the rest of his life, but Cai Mingchao said that the two copper heads were Originally Chinese things, and other countries took them by illegal means, so why did China have to spend high prices and take formal procedures to get them back? Although this is also the voice of many Chinese people, in the end, this is still a bad rule of the auction house, in short, it is a trick.
Later, after the negotiations between the Chinese side and the French side, the French side gave the two copper heads to China free of charge, and although Cai Mingchao was to prevent the copper heads from continuing to flow outside, but it ruined his reputation, and now more than ten years later, Cai Mingchao has withdrawn from the cultural relics world, he said, after this incident, he was actually very guilty, and felt that he had no face to see his former friends again, so he chose to retire. What do you think about this?