Chen Wenzhe read these industry information, and the more he read, the more emotional he became.
Not to mention anything else, given the conditions at the time, it was not easy to transport tens of thousands of rare treasures back to the motherland.
For example, Zhao Tailai sold four villas in London and used the money from selling the villas to transport these cultural relics back to China one by one.
You must know that this was in 1991. At that time, it was the time when the economy took the lead, and everyone was looking at money.
Such a comparison makes it even more difficult for Mr. Zhao Tailai.
What is even more difficult is that he donated a total of 853 cultural relics of various types to the Yancheng Museum of Jiangsu Province in the first batch.
Then he donated 32 calligraphy and painting works by famous Qing Dynasty artists to the Chinese History Museum.
These include the bamboo slips of "The Art of War" written by Emperor Qianlong, the scroll of "Hundred Beauties" painted by Wen Zhengming in the Ming Dynasty, the chrysanthemum stone from the Old Summer Palace and other national treasure-level cultural relics.
Zhao Tailai later donated more than 10,000 pieces of collection to the Yangcheng Art Museum.
Nearly a thousand of them are all national first-class and second-class cultural relics.
At the Baomo Garden in Panyu, Guangdong Province, the number of cultural relics and artworks he donated amounted to 20 containers.
Among them there are many precious cultural relics such as the gold-stitched jade garment and the Prince Wu tripod, which can be traced back to the Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods to the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The number of cultural relics that Zhao Tailai donated to the motherland for free is as many as 10,000.
There is a bit of controversy here. Some people say that they donated 50,000 pieces, others say that they donated 60,000 pieces, and some even say that they donated 80,000 pieces.
However, the only thing that is not controversial is that the estimated total value of Xiangjiang Media that year was more than 800 million yuan.
It should be noted here that not all collections are worth 800 million.
Instead, the estimated value of the first batch of more than 7,000 donated items alone exceeded 800 million yuan.
This is what Mr. Zhao Tailai said personally on CCTV 4's "Chinese World".
Among them, there are as many as 150 cultural relics with national grade three or above.
This includes more than 10,000 pieces of collection donated to the Yangcheng Art Museum, and 40 containers of cultural relics and artworks donated to Panyu Baomo Garden.
In order to bring the cultural relics across the ocean back to his "natal family" in China, he sold four residences in London to pay for the freight!
After 10 years of organization, another 10 years of transportation, and the sale of 4 villas, Zhao Tailai finally allowed these Chinese nation's artistic treasures to return to his motherland.
If it were Chen Wenzhe, he might be willing to donate tens of thousands of cultural relics.
However, if he was asked to spend twenty years doing this kind of thing, it goes without saying that he would definitely not be able to persist.
At this time, Chen Wenzhe also knew why Professor Tao mentioned Mr. Zhao Tailai.
Others Chen Wenzhe may not be good at it, but at the end, I found out that Mr. Zhao Tailai donated gold jade clothes in the 1990s.
Not only that, there are also many bronzes among them, especially bronze tripods, such as the Prince Wu tripod.
Chen Wenzhe laughed when he saw the Prince Wu Ding. This must also be a fake, because the real one has never left the country.
But is it easy to imitate Wang Ziwu Ding?
The Prince Wuding has a wide body, a girdle waist, a flat bottom, slanting upright ears, and a thick edge around the mouth.
There are six embossed Kui dragons hanging around the body of the vessel, with their mouths biting the edge of the tripod.
Holding the cauldron's waistband with both feet, the cauldron feels like it is rising amid the smoke.
The lid of the tripod is flat and slightly curved, with round buttons.
The lid, neck and inner wall of the abdomen are all inscribed with 84 characters.
The inscription describes the purpose of Wang Ziwu's utensils and praises his merits.
The Prince's Wuding was cast separately and then welded, using new concepts such as mortise and tenon joints and intermediaries. The craftsmanship was so superb that it was at the top of the world at that time.
It is certainly not easy to imitate such a bronze vessel.
Forty or fifty years ago, imitation was even more difficult.
What's more, this is Wang Ziwu Ding. It's really difficult to imitate that style!
The Prince Wu Ding has a unique Chu-style style, with a flat-bottomed waist shape, which is easily reminiscent of the story of "The King of Chu has such a slim waist".
The six three-dimensional monsters surrounding the belly of the tripod are each formed by two Kui dragons curled up.
They were cast separately using the lost wax method and then welded to the tripod body, showing a very high level of casting.
Techniques such as relief, vertical relief, split casting, mortise and tenon joints, and welding are used in detailed decoration.
Beautiful shapes, exquisite patterns, and romantic and bizarre themes are the outstanding features of Chu culture and art.
The long inscription expresses the memory of the ancestors, narrates Wang Ziwu's own achievements in benevolent administration to the people, and educates his descendants to use this as a guideline.
The words in the whole text rhyme smoothly. It is a long and beautiful text rarely seen on Chu bronzes and has important historical value.
In addition, the inscription is written in bird seal script, which is known as the earliest "artistic calligraphy" in my country.
The Prince Wu Ding is a bronze vessel from the Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period. A set of seven bronze tripods was unearthed from the tomb.
The words "Prince Wu" are engraved on the tripod. The seven tripods are arranged from large to small, which is called the tripod.
Of course, what Mr. Zhao Tailai donated seems to be a Warring Prince Ziwu tripod, but I don’t know what happened.
The owner of the Prince Wu Ding is named "Wang Ziwu" and is also called "Ling Yin Zigeng".
This person is well documented in historical records, and there are many references to him in "Chun Qiu Zuo Zhuan" and other historical records.
According to these records and later generations' annotations, it can be known that Wang Ziwu (called Gong Ziwu in historical records) was named Zigeng.
He was the son of King Zhuang of Chu who was one of the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period and "aspired to dominate the Central Plains", and was also the younger brother of the King of the Communist Party of Chu.
He served as Sima during the reign of the King of the Communist Party of Chu, which was equivalent to the position of chief of national defense.
Once, he escorted Queen Qin Ying (sister of Qin Jinggong) back to her natal home, but was detained by the State of Qin.
His younger brother bribed the ministers of the State of Jin with three hundred gold to let the State of Jin build Huqiu City (the land of Chen State, in the area of Huaiyang County, Zhoukou, Henan Province today), and said to the State of Qin, if you release the younger brother of the King of Chu, We will not build a city.
The Qin people were afraid that the Jin army would be stationed in Chen for a long time, so they had to let Zi Geng go.
For this reason, Chu State sent another three hundred carts as a heavy gift to Jin State to express its gratitude.
Why was Qin willing to take diplomatic risks and detain Zigeng?
And the Jin State was willing to take the risk of war and force Qin to release its people?
In the end, Chu State did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to let Zi Geng return to the country.
It can be imagined how highly Zigeng was valued at that time.
As for the discovery of Prince Wuding, it is another story.
In 1978, there was a severe drought in Xi County, Nanhe. The river bed dried up and cracks appeared.
One day, a child herding sheep accidentally tripped over something and fell to the ground while passing by a dry river bed on his way back from herding sheep.
At first he thought it was a wooden stake, but later he looked more closely and saw that it was something made of copper.
But he didn't know what it was, so he went back and told the adults the news.
Because cultural relics had been discovered in Xi County before, when people heard the news, they immediately picked up their tools and rushed to the river bed.
People found that there were many "copper corners" exposed on the river bed.
Only then did we know that a group of cultural relics had been discovered, and we immediately reported it to the Xixian Cultural Relics Bureau.
After receiving the news, the Xixian Cultural Relics Bureau immediately organized personnel to carry out protection and excavation work.
After three days of excavation, all the work was completed.