As the saying goes, in the millennium, China's economy is booming, and there are many opportunities to get rich, so an antique fever began to spread in the cultural relics collection industry, and some strange things were circulated, and these strange things were at the top of the world collection list.
However, the professional and moral standards of the so-called "experts" in the program were uneven, hurting some of the participants in the treasure hunting, including Zhu Yun, a farmer in Zhengzhou.
In 2009, he and his brother tried to paint a Qianlong royal painting by Song Shan Humberto, which was identified as a fake by Liu Yan's "experts" and sold to a collector for $170,000.
A year later, Zhu Yun saw on the news that a painting that was clearly an heirloom had been auctioned off for $87.36 million, and he realized that it was a hoax and angrily took Liu Yan to court.
Alarmed qianlong royal pen
After the reform and opening up, China's economy has made great progress, living standards have been significantly improved, as the saying goes, "food and clothing are worry-free, warehouses are solid and know etiquette", after the material needs have been met, people began to gradually pay attention to the spiritual and cultural world.
At the end of the 1990s, with the revision of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics, at the strong request of private collectors, the behavior of private collection and trading of cultural relics was recognized by law, and the antique trading market became more and more popular.
At the same time, television stations around the world have also seized the outlet of antique treasure hunting programs with "distinguishing the true from the false" and "estimating the value" as the core.
In 2003, CCTV's financial channel launched a weekend special program "Jian Bao", which was full as soon as it was broadcast, and the ratings rose steadily.
Henan Satellite TV also followed suit, producing a treasure-hunting variety show "Huayu's Gate" in early 2004, which was very popular in Henan Province and is still one of the station's brand columns.
Henan is located in the hinterland of Kyushu, is one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization, since ancient times has a wealth of historical and cultural resources, so every time the show audition, audiences from all over the world will come to the sea, a variety of treasures emerge in an endless stream.
However, some so-called "experts" speed racing plan skills are corrupt in their private morality, pretending to borrow baby things to coax the masses, telling lies, lying and doing things, confusing the public opinion, resulting in many people involved in the speed racing program skills, and even losing tens of millions of assets.
Zhu Yun, who lives in Zhengzhou, is an ordinary farmer with average economic conditions at home, but the ancient paintings handed down from his ancestors always bother him. He has loved collecting calligraphy and painting since he was a child, but he has never had the opportunity to buy the real ones, until last year, when he happened to see an oil painting of "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" at an auction and was immediately attracted. Then he was captivated by the connoisseur's show, and his heart was filled with hope when he saw the expert professor on the screen estimating millions of dollars at once.
One day in September 2009, Zhu Yun brought his family's ancient paintings to the audition site of "The Gate of Huayu". At that time, several experts sat at the front of the audition scene, holding the treasure sent to verify the authenticity. When Zhu Yun arrived at the scene, the expert of the identification was Liu Yan.
When Zhu Yun unfolded the ancient painting, Liu Yan was surprised: "Isn't this a long-lost imperial pen that has long been lost,"Song Yang Han Botu?" ”
The Qianlong Emperor was known for his love of tourism. During his 60 years in power, he visited Gangnam only 6 times. In 1750, he arranged a large hunting trip to Zhongyue. In early October, the Qianlong Emperor's chariot arrived at the world-famous Songyang Academy.
At that time, there were two 4,000-year-old cypress trees in the academy, and Qianlong wrote thirteen poems in a row, and also painted small scrolls and scrolls, "Songyang HanBaitu", one of which was called "HanBaixing".
There are four authentic works of "Songyang Hanbaitu", two of which are collected in the Palace Museum, and only one of The original works of Songyang Humberto are lost, but it is also the first copy of Qianlong, known as "the treasures in imperial paintings".
Liu Yan picked up the magnifying glass on the table, from paper, inscription poems, plutonium to paintings, carefully examined for a long time, sometimes lying on the table to study the details of the drawing paper, while the Zhu brothers nervously folded their hands, waiting for a news that might change the fate of the family.
Ten minutes later, Liu Yan raised his head and said to the brothers in frustration: "This painting is indeed an antiquity, but it is not the original handiwork of the Qianlong Emperor, it should be a facsimile of the late Qing Dynasty."
At this time, Liu Yan took out his business card and handed it to Zhu Yun, saying that he knew a good antique collector and would come to Zhengzhou in more than half a month.
The Chu brothers, who had been dealing with land issues all their lives, knew nothing about antique artifacts, and rejected the idea of getting rich as soon as they heard experts say it was fake.
At this time, we knew that we could exchange hundreds of thousands of dollars and were already very satisfied, so we exchanged contact information with Liu Yan on the spot and wanted to sell the painting, but we didn't know at the time that this decision would make the family regret it for a lifetime.
"Fakes" selling at a high price?
Half a month later, under the leadership of Liu Yan, the Zhu Yun brothers came to a high-end hotel, where an antique collector named Cheng Gong was waiting for them.
As soon as they met, Cheng Gong excitedly asked them to take out the ancient paintings to see, eager to buy the treasure.
But after listening to Liu Yan say a few times that it was not Qianlong's imperial pen, he changed his face on the spot, angrily saying that he never accepted counterfeits, telling them to hurry up, and let the honest Zhu Yun brothers stand next to him, not daring to say anything more.
Liu Yan came out at this time, he comforted the Zhu family, said good things to Cheng Gong, after a difficult "matchmaking", the two finally reached an agreement, Cheng Gong bought the painting for 170,000 yuan, and the two brothers were happy to see so much money and left.
In this way, Liu Yan and Cheng Gong, a good policeman and a bad policeman, successfully swindled the real masterpiece away from a pair of peasant brothers, who resold it at a sky-high price, causing a huge sensation.
A year later, Zhu Yun saw a news report on television that Qianlong's painting "Songyang Hanbaitu" had been auctioned off at the Beijing Poly International Cultural Relics Collector, a rare Chinese painting on the market for hundreds of years.
In the end, a mystery buyer bought the painting for 78 million yuan, plus commissions and storage fees, and the final price reached 87.36 million yuan.
Zhu Yun looked at the ancient painting on the TV and was surprised, he sold the family heirloom last year, and immediately called his brother to discuss the matter.
In the time that followed, the two consulted all the news newspapers related to the auction and finally determined that the person who sold the painting was indeed Cheng Gong.
They realize that their heirloom is authentic, and they may have been deceived by Liu Yan and Cheng Gong working together.
Once a masterpiece worth more than $80 million in his hands, now only to be seen on television, including lost treasure and unshared money, it's a huge gap that the brothers can't satisfy anyway.
They went through the cards that Liu Yan gave them, and contacted the "cheaters" on the list to get the heirloom, but found that Liu Yan laughed at their requests, and even arrogantly told them that the antique world has always had the rule of buying and leaving, blessing and misfortune, and they agreed to sell their paintings, especially for their own lives.
However, in August 2011, Zhu Yun sued Liu Yan and Cheng Gong to the Zhengzhou Intermediate People's Court on the grounds that Liu Yan and Cheng Gong had been deceived, asking the court to terminate the contract for the sale and purchase of antique cultural relics that year, and requiring Cheng Gong to return the cultural relics or pay the auction proceeds in equal amounts.
The case is relatively complex, and the court believes that there is a possibility of criminal fraud, so it does not file the case and transfers it to the public security organ for filing and investigation.
In the process of criminal investigation, the police found that there are even two experts named Liu Yan in the cultural relics appreciation circle, who are Shenzhen scholars, who have long been engaged in academic research in the field of cultural relics appraisal qualification certificates, but they are not active in the literary circle.
Another Beijinger is not officially qualified, but he knows a lot about cultural relics and has been traveling in Beijing. It was he who tricked Zhu Yun out of the heirloom. After the incident, Liu Yan of Shenzhen clarified the matter through a media platform and even made his qualification certificate public.
Subsequently, in the face of reporters' questions, Beijing Liu Yan said that cultural relics appreciation does not require qualification certificates, and anyone can enter the circle as long as they want.
For Zhu Yun, Liu Yan said that the transaction is legal and there is no problem.
According to him, Cheng Gong sold the painting for more than 80 million yuan purely for hype. He said that both the buyer and the seller were one person, and that the matter had nothing to do with him from beginning to end. When he recognized the painting, he simply misjudged it.
Failed, Yanophan
In this case, for the police to investigate it as a fraud offence, at least three aspects of the evidence need to be clarified:
First of all, Liu Yan told Zhu Yun that the painting was a fake, and he subjectively believed that the painting was authentic, and he deceived Zhu Yun to buy it for himself, or to let others buy it cheaply for him.
Secondly, when Zhu Yun sold the painting to Cheng Gong for 170,000 yuan, he made the subjective mistake of thinking that the painting was fake.
Third, there is clear evidence that this Songyang Humberto is real.
After a detailed investigation by the police, the latter two points are unmistakable.
But the first point, Liu Yan insisted that he did think that the painting was a fake, the police did not find evidence of Liu Yan and Cheng Gong collusion, Liu Yan did not participate in the auction, all the clues, the police finally ruled out the possibility of Liu Yan and Cheng Gong suspected of fraud.
Liu Yan was not a party to the contract, so he did not bear civil liability, and Zhu Yun could not provide any evidence to prove that Cheng Gong was fraudulent, so the court dismissed his claim in the least lightly and lost the case.
For an ordinary peasant family, 80 million is a family's dream of wealth that cannot be realized for a lifetime, so after losing the lawsuit, the Zhu family, who have lost their relatives, sulk every day, they try to appeal, but in the end there is no useful evidence, nor any court support, so they have to give up.
Under the pursuit of the media, the culprit Liu Yan left Beijing and moved his family to Hong Kong, China, where he made a comeback and still makes waves in the antique world, for him, the past has long been a thing of the past.
In this story, the Zhu Yun brothers, due to their ignorance of antiquities and the blind worship of so-called "experts", handed over the wealth passed down from generation to generations to more than 500 times more than 170,000 to 87.36 million people, which made many people feel sorry, but in retrospect, how could their greed not be the root of this disaster?
In the cultural relics market, authenticity is difficult to distinguish, especially in today's counterfeit products, many antiques are often inseparable from authenticity, and many experts are fake.
China has a vast territory and a long history, and many scholars have conducted a lifetime of research on cultural relics and can only come up with one category, but the authenticity of cultural relics is easily judged by some "experts" who do not know the source of cultural relics or even do not have professional appraisal qualifications.
In 2012, a man named Fu Changyong brought a pair of white Ming Dynasty sweet cups from Yongle. After careful identification, the three experts agreed that it was a fake. According to the rules of the show, if the cupholder does not quit, the forgery will be shattered on the spot and the centuries-old treasure will be smashed by the game hammer.
Later, Fu Changyong handed over the level of fragments of the cup to some professional appraisal agencies, and was surprised to find that the cup was not only a Ming Dynasty thing, but also very valuable, with a market valuation of up to 200 million US dollars.
Fu Chang took the matter to court, but, like Zhu Yun, was eventually dismissed by the judge. His story is tragic.
At the beginning of the 21st century, for more than a decade, various treasure hunting programs have been sensational, and various entertainment links such as "treasure hunting" and "treasure smashing" have made it difficult to find treasures, break the wealth, and the dreams of the rich have been continuous, making the excessive entertainment treasure hunting variety shows cause extremely bad guidance in the cultural relics industry.
To this end, in 2012, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued a document to severely crack down on excessive entertainment of cultural relics programs, many popular programs were banned, and now, "Shangxin, forbidden city", "I repair cultural relics and cultural relics in the Forbidden City" and other programs that promote the correct value concept have been launched.