860, the British and French coalition forces captured Beijing. They extended the claws of sin to the treasure house of world civilization: the Old Summer Palace.
After entering the Old Summer Palace, their greedy eyes were infinitely amplified. This treasure house combines Chinese and Western styles, and an incredible architectural style is integrated. The pavilions, towers, rivers and waterfalls are pleasing to the eye. All kinds of rare and rare grasses, flowers are in full bloom, and they are dazzling. This garden contains the wisdom of Chinese martial arts.
Suan Mingyuan
So the group of robbers broke into the Summer Mingyuan. They looked at this dazzling array of treasures without hiding their inner greed at all. They frantically smashed the vases and mirrors just to remove the gems on it. Tore off those precious paintings and scrolls that have been carefully cared for roughly from the wall. They put on the queen's phoenix robe and their pockets were filled with gems and crystals. They opened the warehouse and snatched the silk randomly. They roughly removed the bronze ware and put it on the carriage.
They destroy all the things they can't take away. This garden that countless people praised and sighed was already dilapidated when they evacuated.
In order to cover up their crimes, they ordered the burning of the Old Summer Palace and burned this treasure in the history of human civilization. The most tragic loss was the Imperial Library, which once treasured the most gorgeous books of the Chinese people in various fields, all of which were wiped out in the fire.
burn the Old Summer Palace
In 2009, Christie's auction house actually publicly auctioned the treasures in the Old Summer Palace, which angered countless Chinese people. This is simply a blatant robbery of money.
and Cai Mingchao After learning the news, he began to have a plan in his heart. He plans to rely on his own efforts to return these two national treasures to the motherland.
Established a business empire
Cai Mingchao was born in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province. Quanzhou is a place where merchants are rich. Because his home is very close to Xiamen and his business trade is very developed, he has been influenced by it since he was a child and hopes to become an excellent businessman and create his own business empire.
After he entered society, he found that there was still a big gap in clothing trade , so he immediately started the clothing trade business and quickly earned a lot of money.
Cai Mingchao
He understands that people who do business must pay attention to their credibility. Therefore, he takes honest management as his foundation and is generous and generous to others, which has won praise from people in the circle.
Wait until the 1990s, he focused on the porcelain business. Sure enough, as he imagined, the porcelain business was getting bigger and bigger. He has a very strong interest in cultural relics and handicrafts, and has always hoped that he could have more contact with them. Then he set up a craft company, and took advantage of the times to make his business stronger and stronger.
As expected, doing business requires vision, opportunities, and integrity. Officially based on the above characteristics, he created his own business empire.
Cai Mingchao
Since it is an industry related to cultural relics, it is inevitable to understand the existence of auction . In the public's impression, auctions are games for rich people, but in fact, auctions have to bear very large risks, and correspondingly they are often accompanied by huge profits.
Even Cai Mingchao cannot avoid all risks. But he often doesn't care about those things, but focuses on the profits he will make in the future.
After experiencing countless falls, he plans to set up his own auction company. He has always adhered to the principle of treating people with integrity, so in his auction company, he has always been auctioned with integrity and absolutely no loopholes. Once, due to packaging problems, an item from was broken on the plane at their auction house, but he immediately compensated the entrusted party with 500,000 yuan. From then on, he will strictly check the auction items whenever he has time. As a result, his auction company enjoys a high reputation in the country.
Cai Mingchao
The more cultural relics he comes into contact with, the more he says he can discover the value of cultural relics. At first, he might have been exposed to cultural relics for money, but later he was deeply attracted by the traces of history engraved on cultural relics and decided to treat them well. Over time, he found that he had more and more cultural relics in his collection.
When others complimented him as a collector, he just smiled modestly: "I am just the protector of cultural relics."
took a gilded bronze Buddha statue
In 2006, he bought it for a sky-high price of HK$116 million, gilded bronze Buddha statue during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty.
Cai Mingchao and Buddha statues
This Buddha statue is the largest Buddha statue in the existing Yongle period, and is made through a series of complex processes through copper tires. It has more than 1,200 volumes of in its body, which is of great significance to us in studying the history of ancient China.
Because the meaning of this Buddha statue is very special, all forces want to take it into their pockets.
The competition for auctions was very fierce at that time. A Western bidder and a Taiwan bidder, two people made a continuous offer, making the atmosphere on the scene very warm. Cai Mingchao joined the auction until the auction price reached 80 million .
Every time he holds up a number, two people follow him. Someone in the venue shouted: "1.3 billion Chinese people support you!" Some Westerners also shouted: "China OK!"
Auction venue
Although he is determined to win this collection, he is still very excited about people's support for him. Finally, the Buddha statue was sold at a sky-high price of 140 million. Cheers erupted throughout the venue.
This also set the highest auction price for Chinese art to date.
After getting this Buddha statue, Cai Mingchao watched it carefully. As time goes by, he is no longer as bright as it was when he was, but becomes dim. However, the solemnity and majesty of the Buddha statue is still the same as before, and no one can desecrate it.
He looked at this Buddha statue and couldn't let it go. But he knew that his collection room should not be its end. He decided to donate the Buddha statue for free. The incident of also caused a great sensation in society, and he also entered the public's vision.
Cai Mingchao and Buddha statue
But he donated the Buddha statue not to make himself make more money, but he felt that this Buddha statue should be made more valuable.
took the beast's head, causing controversy
But then, the auction of rabbit heads and rat heads in the Old Summer Palace made him even more controversy.
In the period when our country was poor and weak, although there were countless gorgeous treasures and treasures, the country did not have the ability to protect them and could only let foreign invaders snatch them away.
12 copper head in the Old Summer Palace is such an example. The British and French forces ruthlessly extended their claws to the Old Summer Palace, took away the treasures we had collected, and let the fire burn for three days and three nights, turning the prosperous gardens into ruins.
Twelve beast heads
But since the founding of New China in , my country's economic development has begun to improve, and a lot of patriotic businessmen have emerged. They hope to bring more national treasures home through their own strength.
Tianlongshan Buddha's head, bronze "tiger horn", " Mid-Autumn Post " and " Boyuan Post ", "Five Ox Pictures"...
The return of every national treasure makes us very happy.
However, some foreign auction houses have keenly grasped the patriotism of the Chinese, so they raised the prices of cultural relics to make more huge profits.
So when Christie's auction house got the rabbit head and rat head of the Old Summer Palace, it had decided in its heart to make some money from the Chinese. So they announced the valuation of these two lots, which made the whole Chinese angry.
Rat head rabbit head
These two collections are just ordinary bronze ware, but they have been speculated to a very high price by foreign capital.
They want to use our patriotism to make huge profits. And we just want the national treasure to go home. Their behavior of auctioning national treasures is no different from the British and French coalition forces robbing the Old Summer Palace.
Countless Chinese people became angry and even spontaneously organized civil groups to boycott this joke auction.
The attitude of foreign capital is very clear: They just want to shoot for Chinese people, they just want to make money from Chinese people. It’s simply that the drunkard’s intention is not to drink.
Whether this collection can be brought home also depends on the integrity of the Chinese people. If this collection eventually falls into the hands of foreign countries, foreign countries will even make unfair words and spread rumors that are unfavorable to our country.
Cai Mingchao
And these two beast heads have been lost abroad for many years, so the news was released. If you miss this auction, you still don’t know how long it will take to wait until you show up next time. So no matter what, you should try your best to get them.
Cai Mingchao was also very angry when he learned about this. He knew that according to usual practice, these two beast heads would definitely be hyped to a sky-high price, and then the Chinese would pay for it.
He had an idea in his heart, and it was formed secretly.
Because he is also a well-known collector in the circle, he has the qualification to enter this auction. But this time he did not intend to be there himself, but instead entrust his friends. He participated in the auction by phone.
Cai Mingchao
So at the beginning of the auction, his friends frequently started quoting. The competition on the field was also very fierce. The troops from several sides refused to give in to each other and fired the two beast heads to sky-high prices. Cai Mingchao followed closely behind and refused to give in.
Finally, he bought them for more than 31 million euros, and the price was 270 million yuan.
He went to take pictures of these two beast heads, but he was still under great pressure and risks. But at this extremely critical moment, he did not only protect his own property, but chose to put the country and our civilization forward. As soon as the auction result of
was released, the Chinese people were excited. Our humiliation proves that our national treasure of precious value has finally returned to our motherland.
Cai Mingchao
Cai Mingchao said: himself will donate these two beast heads to the country for free. This also made everyone sigh at his profound understanding of righteousness, and for a time, he praised him countless times.
But a few days later, Christie's auction house suddenly announced: Cai Mingchao did not pay after taking pictures of these two beast heads.
Because the amount of the auction stimulated was too huge, it will not be paid on the spot, but will give the auctioneer a week to prepare these amounts and then pay the money. But a week later, Cai Mingchao did not give the money.
Cai Mingchao
There were many different opinions for a while. But without exception, everyone thinks that the auction has turned into a farce. Some people praise him on the Internet, so naturally some people slander him, believing that he has lost all the Chinese.
At this time, Cai Mingchao stood up. He stated that he would not pay this money. Because these national treasures belong to China themselves, they were extremely vicious foreign invaders who snatched them from China, and now they are going to rob the Chinese people again. This is originally an inherent cultural relic in our country.
As soon as this remark came out, the Internet was in full swing. people who support him think: He is right. It is precisely because of the shameless behavior of foreign invaders that we have to work so hard and bear huge risks.
Cai Mingchao
But those who oppose it think: no matter what, it is a product now.Cai Mingchao's behavior is like lying on debts and not paying money, which will make China break its promises all over the world. To put it bluntly, this will also affect China's international status and credibility.
The two sides refused to give in to each other, and they quarreled endlessly about this matter. But no matter what, Cai Mingchao took on extremely great risks and losses in this auction.
The reason is simple: integrity is the foundation of doing business. Businessmen have no integrity and are openly breached by others. No matter how much money they use, they cannot buy it back.
His life and career fell into a low point for a while. But he said he did not regret it. It’s not that he can’t afford the 270 million. He can use it to build welfare homes, donate schools, and contribute to society, but he doesn’t want to see that it’s the money in the hands of shameless foreign invaders.
Cai Mingchao
And if he lets the auction be completed smoothly, it is tantamount to giving foreigners who have invaded us a signal: they can take more treasures left over from the history of invading China, and continue to auction them at high prices to the Chinese, and make huge profits from it. This is something that no one wants to see.
So after he doesn't pay for a week, these cultural relics will fail to sell to , thus preventing this auction.
He knew that his behavior was incorrect, but it was even more wrong for foreign invaders to auction our cultural relics. But she didn't expect that this incident would be so big.
Finally, through a long four-year negotiation, the majority shareholder of Christie's Auction house, Pino family , announced that they would donate the two beast heads to China for free.
Rabbit Head and Rat Head
Finally, this thing has arrived, we all want to see the ending.
is just the only drawback that Cai Mingchao chose to withdraw from the auction industry. His business empire also fell into a low point.
stands on the standpoint of a bystander, we cannot evaluate whether he is right or wrong. But it cannot be denied that Cai Mingchao is indeed a very courageous person. He dared to use the rules to stop auctions, and at the same time, he also had deep faith in the country and immortal national justice.
Cai Mingchao
In his opinion, in front of the country, those small profits of individuals seem indescribable.
But we should admire him. He dares to act and bear justice. Some people betray state secrets and are willing to become foreign lackeys. Where is the patriotism!
