The atmosphere in the spring of 2013 was different from previous years, not because the weather changed, but because of a major event that touched the hearts of every Chinese.
With the Announcement by the French Pino family to return the two cultural relics statues of "Rat Head" and "Rabbit Head" to the mainland free of charge, the hanging heart of everyone finally landed.
Logically speaking, the return of cultural relics that have been displaced overseas for a hundred years is a happy event worthy of the happiness of the people on the mainland, but many people in society have different views on this.
The reason is that the journey of "returning cultural relics home" is not smooth, which hides a controversial story behind it.
The protagonist behind this story is Cai Mingchao, who took the head of the beast at a sky-high price of 270 million yuan, but did not pay.
Dabbled in the business years of collecting
Cai Mingchao was born in Jinjiang, Quanzhou, and spent his youth in this small city not far from Xiamen.
From ancient times to the present, Quanzhou has always been an important treaty port on the mainland, and every year there will be countless commercial products going abroad, and there are also a large number of foreign products entering China.
The prosperous business environment has bred a large number of merchants for Quanzhou, and Jinjiang, as the golden triangle of southern Fujian in the mainland, has stepped out of countless rich people.
Under the influence of this environment, Cai Mingchao also ventured into the business world early, ready to obtain his own wealth in the market competition.
At the earliest, Cai Mingchao was engaged in the garment trade industry, and with the unique geographical advantages of Quanzhou, he earned the first bucket of gold in the import and export trade.
Since the 1990s on the mainland, porcelain has become a popular collection of cultural relics at home and abroad, and through this market trend, Cai Mingchao set up a handicraft company to specialize in chinese porcelain.
With excellent business ability, Cai Mingchao soon made achievements in the handicraft industry, and also began to contact the cultural relics collection and auction industry.
Unlike the sale of porcelain crafts, the auction of cultural relics collections tends to take more risks and is more profitable.
After several years of exploration, Cai Mingchao decided to set up an auction company of his own and engage in the collection auction business by attaching himself to the name of a state-run auction company.
Since then, the collection and auction of cultural relics has gradually become the focus of his career, and the funds accumulated in other industries in previous years have also become his initial working capital.
In 2004, the mainland officially launched the art auction license system, and Cai Mingchao immediately broke away from the relationship of affiliation after learning the news and established the Heart and Art Auction Company.
Years of commercial operation for Cai Mingchao has accumulated a wealth of contacts and a good reputation, soon after the establishment of the company, many people came to entrust the auction collection.
In the auctions held by Cai Mingchao, few collections are forced to "re-auction", on the contrary, transactions are always reached at prices acceptable to both buyers and sellers.
Under several years of painstaking management, Cai Mingchao's name has become more and more loud in the circle, and the company's business is also booming.
At an auction, Cai Mingchao even reached a transaction for a piece of Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain, with a transaction price of up to 880,000 yuan.
With the boom of business, Cai Mingchao's view of cultural relics in his heart is also changing. In the past, no matter how valuable these collections were, they were only goods sold in the market in his eyes.
But as his understanding of cultural relics deepened, he became more and more able to understand the psychological state of those collectors who bought cultural relics at astronomical prices.
Because these cultural relics are not only a fine artifact, but also carry the traces of the wheel of history, and record countless glorious national cultures.
Later, in the course of business, Cai Mingchao was no longer just a businessman, but also a half collector, often spending money to buy a lot of valuable collections.
The experience of business and collection allowed Cai Mingchao to gradually begin to contact a group of special people. These people did not buy collections for themselves, but specifically bought Chinese cultural relics that were living overseas.
Since the mainland entered the modern era, it has experienced nearly a hundred years of humiliation, and countless precious cultural relics have been forcibly taken away by the invaders and scattered all over the world.
These people spontaneously set up charitable organizations to collect clues about relevant cultural relics, and at the same time, they will raise funds to purchase these cultural relics and donate them to mainland museums free of charge.
In them, Cai Mingchao felt a strong sense of home and country, and this national consciousness hidden in the bloodline gene will also have an extremely important impact on his life.
After bidding on the Buddha statue, he became famous
In 2006, Sotheby's Hong Kong planned to hold an auction featuring many rare objects, but the most striking was the gilded statue of Shakyamuni.
The statue was produced during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty and was a gift from the emperor to Tibetan lamas. Judging from the Yongle Buddha statues unearthed so far, this one is undoubtedly the largest and most exquisitely made statue.
In the auction of the collection of Buddha statues, the Buddha statues of the Yongle years are often more exquisite in shape and have a higher level of craftsmanship, and the transaction price of the collection is also higher.
Previously, two other statues similar to this statue reached sky-high prices of 50 million and 40 million Hong Kong dollars in auction.
For the transaction price of this Buddha statue, the cultural relics collection community can not give an accurate assessment, and can only be determined by the bidders present.
After learning this news, Cai Mingchao came to Hong Kong as soon as possible, ready to start buying this priceless treasure.
In addition to Cai Mingchao, this auction has also attracted countless insiders, and many collectors are also imperative to this.
On October 7, the auction was held as scheduled, and Cai Mingchao, who was holding No. 353, followed the crowd to the corner of the venue.
Years of experience in the auction industry have made him more aware of the skills involved, and he stands outside the crowd to judge the bidders on the spot.
At the beginning of the auction, more than a dozen bidders made an offer for the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, raising the reserve price of the Buddha statue to 80 million Hong Kong dollars in an instant.
This price undoubtedly dissuaded many bidders, and at this moment, Cai Mingchao raised the number plate in his hand and shouted out the price of 85 million Hong Kong dollars.
But soon, a Taiwanese buyer quickly raised his offer and showed a determination to win the collection.
After round after round of psychological games, the price of Buddha statues has gradually climbed, breaking through the mark of 100 million Hong Kong dollars.
In the end, when the host auction hammer fell, the price of the Buddha statue was determined at 120 million Hong Kong dollars, and the winner of the auction was Cai Mingchao.
The auction broke two records in one fell swoop, with the Buddha statue becoming the highest-priced Chinese craft at auction, and Cai Mingchao setting a record for the highest price bid for a collection by an individual in China.
After this incident, Cai Mingchao's name instantly appeared on the front page of many newspapers, and the abbot of the Shaolin Temple, Shi Yongxin, gave this a high evaluation as a major event in the Buddhist community.
The day after the auction ended, Cai Mingchao received news that others wanted to buy and said that he was willing to pay more than 20% of the bidding price.
However, in Cai Mingchao's view, his bid for the Buddha statue was not to sell it again, but to bring this national treasure back to the motherland, so he resolutely declined the buyer's offer.
In fact, the statue is worth much more than HK$120 million, and according to the ritual system of the Yongle years, the interior of the statue is often stuffed with scrolls of scriptures.
The statue of Shakyamuni Buddha at auction is completely sealed, so these sutras are all preserved inside the Buddha statue, which makes the value of this Buddha statue even more precious.
Cai Mingchao's bidding on the Buddha statue has won him high praise from the Chinese people, and he not only brought the national treasure back to the motherland, but also sent a signal to the world.
China has begun to prosper and become rich, and Chinese has the ability to collect national treasure art collections, which has led overseas auction companies to re-examine the Chinese market.
For Cai Mingchao himself, bidding for the Buddha statue not only brought him fame, but also fulfilled the long-standing wish in his heart.
Bringing back the overseas collections for his motherland became the focus of his life thereafter, and at the same time, it also allowed him to lead an auction storm in the future.
Causes and consequences of the Beast Head Incident
After the auction of the Buddha statue, Cai Mingchao was praised by his peers in the circle, and was also invited to serve as a collection consultant of the China Rescue and Loss of Overseas Cultural Relics Special Foundation.
In the past few years of cooperation, Cai Mingchao has made great contributions to the search for lost cultural relics in the mainland overseas, and has also become a well-known personal collector in China.
In 2009, the news of an auction broke Cai Mingchao's peaceful life, because the protagonists of this auction were the "rat heads" and "rabbit heads" that had been lost overseas for many years in the mainland.
During the Second Opium War of 1860, the Anglo-French army captured the city of Beijing and began a robbery campaign.
The Royal Garden, the Yuanmingyuan, treasures countless treasures of the mainland, and the poisonous hands of the British and French coalition raiders also reached here.
After a few days of burning and looting, the magnificent Yuanmingyuan was burned to the ground by the British and French allies, which also left an indelible scar on the depths of our nation's heart.
At the entrance of the Haiyan Hall, a monument in the Yuanmingyuan, there is a beautiful chiming fountain, in which the head of the beast of the zodiac symbolizes the twelve hours, and the water is sprayed in turn to record the time.
In this invasion of the Anglo-French coalition forces, the heads of the zodiac beasts were taken away by the enemy and exiled overseas.
After the founding of New China, many patriots were actively looking for these lost precious cultural relics, and the head of the zodiac was also in this rank.
Macau gambling king Ho Hung-sun has invested tens of millions of dollars to buy back the statues of pig heads and horse heads, and donated them to the state free of charge.
In addition, the mainland has also recovered several statues of cow heads, monkey heads and tiger heads in different ways, and the recovery of these cultural relics has greatly inspired the hearts of the Chinese people.
When the news of the "rat head" and "rabbit head" auctions came, the whole country was always paying attention to this situation.
These two statues not only lost cultural relics, but also represent the humiliating history of the nation, and the retrieval of cultural relics that were lost has a special national significance for Chinese.
After cai mingchao learned the news of this auction, he was also extremely excited, and bringing back these two statues for the motherland became his greatest wish.
But at the same time, Cai Mingchao also had many other concerns in his heart.
Ever since patriots on the mainland began to search for lost cultural relics and bought them back to the motherland at high prices, foreign auction houses have also sensed this "business opportunity."
Countless cultural relics lost overseas by the mainland began to be maliciously calibrated at high prices, and the market price began to rise, far exceeding the collection value of the cultural relics themselves.
Taking the zodiac beast heads as an example, from the value of the cultural relics themselves, these twelve beast heads do not have a long history, nor do they have an extraordinary level of craftsmanship.
In the past use process, it was only like a faucet, as part of the decoration of the entire pond.
In the 1980s, an American antique dealer bought three animal heads for only $1,500, and when they were handed over to auction houses, the most expensive horse head was only $500,000.
But when Poly bid for these cultural relics to return to China, the transaction price of Tiger Head had soared to more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars.
When Ho Hung-sun bid on the statue of the horse's head, the price had reached an incredible amount of more than 69 million Hong Kong dollars, which naturally hid the commercial operation of the auction company.
In the view of Xie Chensheng, honorary president of the China Cultural Relics Society, the soaring price of animal heads is a naked commercial speculation.
Overseas auction companies have taken advantage of the national sentiments of mainland patriots to maliciously inflate market prices and make huge profits from them.
From the perspective of cultural relics value, the bronze statue of the twelve animal heads is not a precious collection, but only because it is associated with that sad national history, it has become a "tool" in the eyes of business.
Therefore, before this auction, Cai Mingchao clearly realized that these two beast heads would definitely be hyped up at a sky-high price.
From the perspective of funds, Cai Mingchao's years of business accumulation and the charitable assistance of patriots will certainly help him successfully buy back the two statues.
However, from the perspective of national sentiment, these cultural relics originally belonged to the mainland, were originally robbed and plundered by the invaders, and now they have to be bought back at a sky-high price.
This way of returning lost cultural relics to China obviously made all the Chinese, including Cai Mingchao, feel unacceptable.
But the reality is that if you don't participate in the auction, the two statues are likely to be bought by others, and then it will be a more complicated process to get them back to the motherland.
The repeated speculation did not make Cai Mingchao come up with a better solution, and at the same time, the auction has reached the date of being held as scheduled.
On the day of the auction, Cai Mingchao did not arrive at the scene, but entrusted a friend to observe the scene, and he participated in the auction by phone.
Judging from Cai Mingchao's original intention, if the two collections are auctioned or withdrawn, he will no longer have to participate in this auction, and if he enters the normal auction procedure, he also has room for maneuver.
When the on-site auctioneers continued to increase the price of the animal head, Cai Mingchao realized that he had to bid, otherwise the two beast heads would continue to live overseas.
In the end, Cai Mingchao successfully bid for two statues of "Rat Head" and "Rabbit Head" at a sky-high price of more than 31 million euros.
According to the 2009 exchange rate, this price has reached a terrible 270 million yuan in renminbi!
When the news of the successful auction returned to China, major newspapers published the news one after another, and the Chinese people were also very happy about the return of cultural relics.
But the matter is far from over, because Cai Mingchao did not really pay for the money.
The storm of public opinion after the auction
As is customary in international auction houses, bidders often do not need to pay immediately after they have successfully concluded a transaction.
After all, such a huge amount of transactions, buyers also need a certain period of time capital turnover, and this period is generally about a week.
However, a week after Cai Mingchao auctioned the beast's head, the auction house did not receive any funds. As a result, Christie's made this situation public and made cai Mingchao's identity public.
As soon as the news came out, public opinion in China and France was in an uproar, after all, this is undoubtedly the most unacceptable untrustworthy behavior in the auction world.
In the midst of the bustling discussion, Cai Mingchao explained his attitude to the outside world for the first time: "As a Chinese, I should have shot in that situation, but I will not pay this money."
After the statement was issued, public opinion immediately showed two extreme attitudes, some people were extremely supportive, and some people were very opposed.
In the eyes of supporters, Cai Mingchao's behavior, although unruly, has brought back two statues for the mainland, and he should even be regarded as a national hero.
However, in the eyes of opponents, Cai Mingchao's behavior will greatly damage the image of Chinese and leave the international community with the impression that Chinese does not pay attention to credibility.
Both views have their own basis, and the voice of debate has never stopped. For both parties, it is even more difficult to face a dilemma.
Many people in Christie's auction company hope to put it into legal proceedings, so Cai Mingchao will face huge compensation and even prison sentences.
But if such measures are taken, Then Christie's is bound to lose the Chinese market and be met with massive resistance from the Chinese people.
But if no measures are taken, the French Pino family that entrusted themselves with the auction will not give up, after all, it is their vital interests.
For Cai Mingchao, this storm has completely affected the trajectory of his life.
In the business world, credibility is always the most important trading condition, and this incident has completely discredited him in the circle.
In addition, International Auction Houses such as Christie's have put him on the "blacklist" and never had the opportunity to participate in high-level auctions.
The company that has been painstakingly operating for more than ten years has been affected by this storm and has also come to a situation of frequent closures. It is no exaggeration to say that the beast head incident has caused his life to fall to the bottom.
Because the impact of this incident was too extensive, under the continuous fermentation of the media, it quickly became an international event.
The two sides began four years of consultations, and after round after round of fruitless negotiations, the French Pino family also directly intervened in the incident.
Finally, until 2013, the French Pino family could not give up China's huge market and decided to donate the two animal heads to China free of charge.
This topic, which has aroused countless hot discussions in public opinion, has finally come to an end.
epilogue:
Everyone has their own position and opinion, whether Cai Mingchao's move is right or wrong, can only be left to the world to comment.
As a dishonest person, Cai Mingchao paid a terrible price, sacrificed his personal reputation, and even ruined his subsequent development career in the auction industry.
But as a Chinese, Cai Mingchao did use his own strength to recover many cultural relics that had been lost overseas for the mainland, so that these traces of recorded national pain could be returned home.
Others laugh at me for being crazy, and I laugh at others who can't see through it. When the beast head returned to China in 2013, Cai Mingchao said too many words, but a friend relayed a sentence of "finally back, congratulations, congratulations."
In the final analysis, the reason for such a complicated storm is because the country was poor and weak.
In the forest of the world, only the prosperity of the country can protect those precious cultural heritages and the hard work of every people in the country.