In 1979, Zhao Tailai inherited his aunt's huge inheritance and spent 10 years quietly cleaning up and packing alone. In order to transport these national treasures back to China, he sold 4 villas in London, and used the money to transport the cultural relics back to China little by little, and it took another ten years to complete, and finally donated all to the motherland. But some people say that he is the representative of the national treasure stick, why is this? Who is his aunt? Where did this great wealth come from? Today, I will talk about the legendary story of Zhao Tailai and reveal the arduous journey of Zhao Tailai, the "richest man" in China.
Zhao Tailai
Born in 1954, Zhao Tailai's family was already very well-off, and in 1969, he caught up with the movement, his parents died, and he went to his aunt in Hong Kong alone. His aunt was very beautiful, and the family was rich and had many suitors. But she was single all her life, and it wasn't until 1977, when she was dying, that she called Zhao Tailai to the bedside, and Zhao Tailai didn't know a lot of things. It turned out that he was not satisfied with many nephews, but he admired Zhao Tailai's character, planned to pass on all his inheritance to him, and repeatedly told him not to tell anyone, the reason why she did not marry for the rest of her life was to ensure that this inheritance did not fall into the hands of others.
Bao Mo Garden
In 1979, Zhao Tailai inherited his aunt's tens of millions of assets and four villas in London, and what surprised him most was a treasure map. According to the treasure map, he came to England and found a treasure basement under a villa, which contained rare treasures and strange antiques that left him half stunned and overwhelmed. When his mood calmed down, he slowly looked at the treasures in this room: blue and white porcelain, Tang Sancai, various jades, bronzes, and various ancient calligraphy and painting works. Later, some experts assessed that the total value of these cultural relics could buy a city in britain, so the people believed that Zhao Tailai's wealth exceeded that of Ma Yun and Wang Jianlin combined, calling him the real "richest man" in China.
London villas
One of the treasures
Since then, in addition to eating and sleeping, the rest of his time has been to clean up and sort out this batch of treasures alone. After ten years of sorting, the inventory was finally completed, and the total number of treasures reached more than 60,000 pieces. In order to transport the treasure back to China, he sold four villas in London one after another, and used the money to transport all the treasures back to China through various channels, during which time he not only did not tell his relatives and friends, but even hid it from his wife.
Some of the treasures donated by Zhao Tailai
However, it is indeed not safe for a person to keep this huge wealth, and after thinking about it repeatedly, he later decided to donate this treasure to the motherland at the suggestion of a friend. In 1991, he donated 853 cultural relics of various kinds to the Yancheng Museum in Jiangsu Province, and donated 32 works of calligraphy and paintings by famous artists of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the China History Museum, including Qianlong's "Sun Tzu's Art of War" Bamboo Jane, ming Dynasty Wen Zhengming's "Hundred Beauty Map" and so on.
According to relevant media statistics, Zhao Tailai has donated as many as 50,000 cultural relics to the state, and according to Hong Kong media reports at the time, the total value is more than 800 million yuan. At the Guangzhou Museum of Art alone, he donated tens of thousands of cultural relics, of which about 1,000 treasures are national first-class and second-class cultural relics. Later, he donated a number of treasures to The Baomo Garden in Panyu, Guangdong, with more than 20 containers alone, including precious cultural relics such as the Golden Jade Robe and the Prince Wuding.
So where did Zhao Tailai's aunt come from with so many treasures? Zhao Tailai's great-grandfather was Wu Tingfang, a famous diplomat in the late Qing Dynasty. Wu Tingfang studied in the United Kingdom and followed Li Hongzhang after returning to China. He served as China's ambassador to the United States, became governor of Guangdong Province in 1922, and died of illness in Guangdong in the same year. According to the analysis, most of this valuable inheritance comes from Wu Tingfang's collection, and in order to keep this inheritance, his beautiful aunt was lonely for a lifetime.
Wu Tingfang
After Zhao Tailai donated a large number of treasures to the country free of charge, it also attracted a lot of network criticism. Some people even went to the treasure exhibition hall he donated to "fight counterfeiting", saying that many of them were imitations, and some people said that he was the representative of the National Treasure Gang and slandered him in various ways. I don't think anyone would dare to risk the world and go and fool the country with some fake things, knowing that this is not a trivial matter. Even if there are individual imitations in so many treasures, it should be a cultural counterfeit in the long river of history, of course, for Wu Tingfang, it may not be possible to seriously verify and identify one by one, but Zhao Tailai's patriotic heart must be affirmed, avoiding so many cultural flows from falling into a foreign land.
The world says that the gods and immortals are good, but money cannot forget. How many people have spent their lives toiling, just to increase some of their possessions to be given to future generations. However, once it exceeds a certain level, money is only a number, and if it is not well maintained, it will even bring disasters to future generations. I give Zhao Tailai a thumbs up for his righteous deeds, what do you think about that? I am Keiko, promoting the traditional culture of our country, if you like my article, please pay attention to it.