Shang Dynasty bronzes were sold overseas and sold for a sky-high price of $9 million.

In 2001, Christie's in New York was a blockbuster artifact: a Shang Bronze that was supposed to belong to the mainland ended up in the hands of the French, and the price was a staggering $9.246 million. And 13 years later, another group of "heavenly macho men" brought back to China the bronze artifact, which was estimated to have reached 50 million US dollars.

What the hell is going on with all this? Behind this is actually a group of Hunan people's love for the country and history, and the price they have paid is really impressive.

In 1919, the whole of China was in a turbulent era of alternating old and new societies, the new cultural movement was in full swing, and the May Fourth Movement directly announced the arrival of new forces to the old society. In Taoyuan County, Hunan Province, in this quiet corner of the chaotic world, the largest and most exquisite bronze fangyi [léi] (a kind of ancient wine vessel) has been unearthed so far.

According to local county records, Ai Qingyan, a farmer who was only a teenager at that time, was cultivating the fields in Maoshan Yu. Coincidentally, he stumbled and stomped on a pile of dirt on his way to his grandmother's house carrying a dung rake, but found a black object inside.

He saw that this object seemed to be quite heavy, and hurriedly called out to his family to dig it out together, and since then there have been more ancient monster pieces in this village that look like ancient Ding. Five years later, the antique dealer Shi Yuzhang heard the news that there were ancient objects in the village.

He carefully examined this object, thinking that he should have noticed that it was indeed a cultural relic, so he took the initiative to bid 400 oceans. At this time, Ai Qingyan's eldest brother just kept an extra eye, so he took the lid of this object to the nearby school and asked the principal Zhong Fengyu to "palm his eyes". The headmaster saw the tadpole text on the lid, realized that it was definitely an antiquity, asked to keep the lid, and claimed to be willing to bid 800 oceans to buy it.

Where did the farmers of that time see so much money. When Ai Qingyan's eldest brother heard the news, he rushed to the village and shouted". Shi Yuzhang, an antique dealer, felt that the transaction might be full of twists and turns, and actually directly moved the idea of stealing, picked up nearly a hundred pounds of bronze and ran outside the village, disappearing without a trace.

Enraged, Zhong Fengyu published an article in the Ta Kung Pao on June 11, 1925, denouncing Shi Yuzhang's behavior, claiming that it might lead to the loss of cultural relics. Such an incident attracted the attention of Zhang Shizhao, the then chief of education, and asked Hunan Province to pursue it. However, where did the Government of the Republic of China at that time have the real determination to protect cultural relics?

Obviously, the bronze was found in the Yang Kechang antique shop in Changsha, but the official in charge of the arrest turned a blind eye and only asked Shi Yuzhang to be arrested within 5 days. In 1926, with the fall of Duan Qirui, the government decree to retrieve Fang Wei was quickly empty, and eventually lost overseas.

What is even more ironic is that the whereabouts of this dish Fangmu were revealed by foreigners in the 1928 book "History of Chinese Art". According to the records, this dish Fangmu actually circulated among antique dealers such as Bao Erlu, Yao Shulai, and Lu Qinzhai in just a few years, and was finally sold to foreigners under Lu Qinzhai's "knife".

In the following ten years, the body of the vessel was gradually lost in the absence of domestic cultural protection strength. The time flickered, and it came to 1992.

This year, Xiong Chuansheng, an archaeologist who had presided over the excavation of the Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb in Changsha, received a call from Ma Chengyuan of the Shanghai Museum, who claimed to have found the whereabouts of the vessel fangyi, which was in the hands of Japanese collector Nitta Dongyi.

(It should be noted that this Xintian was actually a Chinese, born in Taiwan, which was still occupied by Japan at the time, and then went to Japan to develop, speaking Hokkien and Mandarin.) ）

However, here's the problem. In Japan, he wanted to retrieve the vessel's body, and Nitta wanted to buy back the lid of the vessel. Although the two sides have the same love for this cultural relic, they can't talk about it. To this end, Niota even wrote a letter to the Hunan Provincial Museum in 1993, saying that he was willing to donate 200,000 US dollars, requesting that he be able to give the lid to himself, and he would exchange it for other cultural relics.

But the loss of national treasures is already painful, how can it be exchanged in this way? In this way, the two sides have never been able to make the two sides merge into one. Despite this, the two sides maintain close contact. Seeing this, some people will surely ask why the mainland did not bid to buy the dish Fang wei back?

In fact, there are two difficulties: first, Xintian is quite persistent about this cultural relic and refuses to resell it; second, our country was unlikely to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to buy a cultural relics at that time. As Xiong Chuansheng said, "At that time, it was still 1993, there was no concept of such a large amount of money, and the price could not open its mouth to the other party, and I did not dare to think about it."

However, in March 2001, a piece of news came that shocked the entire Chinese cultural and cultural community. It turned out that the body of the vessel actually appeared at christie's auction in New York. At that time, Nitta was old, but his family and career had suffered a double whammy, and he could only sell his treasures.

The Chinese bidders who got the news rushed to the call and raised $3 million in a short period of time (already the limit amount under foreign exchange control at that time). At the auction site, the price rose, and Chinese bidders thought that their $3 million would be able to buy back the national treasure. Unexpectedly, the appearance of a mysterious French buyer changes everything.

The French buyer directly bid $9.246 million for the national treasure (at the exchange rate at the time, including a handling fee of about 90 million yuan), which is the sky-high price, the highest auction record for Asian art in the world at that time.

Since then, the price of bronzes has soared like a rocket, and almost all well-known collections have been auctioned to more than one million US dollars, which has also made many domestic archaeologists pessimistic about the return of The Dish Fangwei. However, the Hunan Provincial Museum has given up the dollar and has been doing everything possible to find out the whereabouts of cultural relics and inquire through various channels whether there is a possibility of going to auction again.

In March 2014, the Hunan Provincial Museum received news that It would appear at Christie's auction on March 20. For a time, many people with lofty ideals from all over the country rushed to New York, and the collector also privately revealed his price to the mainland: 700 million yuan, and the valuation in the international market has reached 50 million US dollars.

On March 15, a secret letter from the Hunan Provincial Museum to Christie's was posted on the Internet, apparently deliberately trying to disrupt our efforts to buy cultural relics back. According to the letter, the Hunan Provincial Museum has turned around for help, raising about $20 million, hoping to buy it directly and avoid auctions.

However, this letter has put us into a passive position, and foreign buyers will definitely deliberately raise the price, even if they can't buy it, it won't let us buy it easily.

At this time, the top collectors in the world, such as Esconnaxu, An Siyuan, Giselle, Cao Xingcheng and others appeared at the auction house. Among them, Taiwanese collector Cao Xingcheng launched an initiative with a fist-and-fist patriotic heart, hoping that Chinese collectors will not shoot at all, so that Hunan can auction the national treasure with an estimated reserve price of $20 million.

Soon, a group of domestic and Chinese collectors responded one after another, jointly issuing an open letter, imploring that the overall situation be the most important. However, judging from the fact that the bronze heavy object "Owl Head Lift beam pot" at sotheby's auction on March 18 was only auctioned for $3.7 million, it is clear that international buyers are ready to embarrass us.

However, the emergence of a group of Hunan people has disappointed the wishes of international buyers, and the first of them is the Hunan collector - Tan Guobin. Before the auction, in order to negotiate as much as possible, he first ran around, contacted a group of Hunan entrepreneurs who were willing to contribute generously to the country, and mobilized 6 enterprises such as Hunan Radio and Television and Hunan Publishing.

Immediately after, as his VIP collector, he approached Wei Wei, the executive director of Christie's Asia, and made a request for a purchase, but it was unsuccessful. However, Tan Guobin did not give up, under his efforts, finally let the national treasure return a little eyebrows, and even discussed three plans with the relevant departments at that time:

The first option is for Tan Guobin to continue to communicate with Christie's and mobilize companies to contribute charity funds together, trying to win at a price of $20 million;

The second option is to bid at auction site, where the price is expected to rise to $35 million;

The third plan is that if the Hunan side can't move the card, the collector Liu Yiqian, under the mobilization of Tan Guobin, expressed his willingness to help and authorized the card to be raised to $60 million.

Tan Guobin was still afraid of not being safe, so he asked someone to reproduce the model of the lid of the vessel fangwei and brought it to the auction together, and consulted as privately as possible. At the scene of the negotiation, Tan Guobin and others argued on the basis of reason, and then talked about the regret of the separation of cultural relics with the model and the body of the vessel Fangwei, hoping to impress the sellers hidden behind the scenes.

Tan Guobin and others talked for three days and three nights, almost talking about their faces full of blood, and finally reached an agreement on the afternoon of March 19, although it was higher than $20 million, but only about half of the estimated transaction price was purchased. (Due to the confidentiality agreement and the seller's requirements, the specific price has been kept secret)

It is the efforts of Tan Guobin and others that make the impossible possible.

The funny thing is that when the auction on March 20 announced the news that The purchase of The Dish Fang was successful and would no longer be auctioned, Tan Guobin was not present. It turned out that he was paying a $3 million deposit off the field, and due to the card swiping restrictions, he actually swiped more than 1200 times.

But in any case, He finally returned to Hunan in June 2014.

So, what is this dish that people with lofty ideals in China have worked hard to bring back to China for many years?

In fact, the vessel is a large wine vessel, and it also plays the role of a ceremonial vessel. According to records, the bronze 罍 was first born in the late Shang Dynasty, flourished in the Western Zhou To Spring and Autumn Period, and disappeared from the Warring States. Up to now, there are only a few dozen pieces of bronze left, of which the dish is the most precious.

The bronze is about 62 centimeters tall and has a lid of 29 centimeters, making it the largest bronze square piece unearthed so far. The overall shape is majestic and solemn, using standing carving, relief carving, line carving and other techniques, making people feel like they are in the Bronze Age. What is even more rare is that an inscription is engraved on the lid of its vessel, which reads "Dish Tianquan has been honored as a father and has honored Yi" (to the effect that the Dish family was commissioned to cast ceremonial vessels).

However, there are two questions that experts do not understand:

First, according to the identification, this vessel is a ceremonial vessel of the late Shang Dynasty, which should have appeared near the Central Plains, why did it appear in Hunan? You know, the Cai family has been active in the Central Plains;

Second, it has always been believed that the south of the Yangtze River in the late Shang Dynasty was a barbaric land, so that there is a saying that "Shang culture is only the Yangtze River". However, from the perspective of The Dish Fang, this view is obviously wrong, and at that time, the south of the Yangtze River already had relatively close ties with the Central Plains. However, in what form of communication?

Of course, no matter what the final answers are, we should applaud the patriotism of Tan Guobin and others. Speaking of which, I suddenly feel that a sentence in Gu Long's novel is actually very suitable for these people with lofty ideals, and I quote here to show respect:

The pearl of the moment has become the yellow flower of yesterday, and it is to illuminate the eternals, and there is only the word benevolence and righteousness.