ps: I would like to thank the book friends ‘Eternal Tears’ and ‘l9999’ for their support with two monthly tickets each, and the book friend ‘daguren’ for their reward support. Thank you very much!
Today’s third update is for you all!
Chapter 813 Yongle Ceremony
…
"Ten AT-12t 120mm rocket launchers, 1,000 rounds of rockets; 10 20mm caliber Vulcan cannons, 1 million rounds of ammunition; 20 Type 95 assault rifles, 500,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, 100,000 rounds of rifle grenades; plus 2
4 tons of plastic**, 12mk 48 heavy torpedoes, 12 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a total of 153 million US dollars!"
After nodding, Liu Dong said: "How much deposit do I need to pay?"
"30% deposit, totaling US$45.9 million!" Ed said immediately.︽,
“I swipe my card!”
Watching Liu Dong take out his bank card to pay the deposit, the most excited person in this weapons store is not Ed, who has received a big order, but Richardson, who brought Liu Dong here!
According to the decision between him and Liu Dong, his intermediary fee can get 0.5% of all Liu Dong's transaction volume, and this 0.5% multiplied by 153 million U.S. dollars, which is 765,000 U.S. dollars, which is more than money.
Much more than what he makes in a year!
"marvelous!"
After telling Ed better about the time and place of the high seas transaction three days later, he turned around and looked at Richardson's eyes that almost pounced on him. Liu Dong smiled and said, "Don't worry, I won't give you less commission!"
"Little Richardson, you've made a lot of money this time!" Ed laughed beside him.
"Hehe, hehehe. Thank you Mr. Liu!" Richardson was already smiling from ear to ear.
"No need to thank me. You deserve this!"
After buying the arms, although Liu Dong planned to take a stroll in the black market, there was no need for Richardson to accompany him on the rest of the trip! After all, Liu Dong was just curious and had nothing to buy.
Of course, Liu Dong would not look at the weapons and weapons again, but Liu Dong was very interested in the jewelry and artworks on the lower floors.
So after sending Richardson away, he brought Eric here.
Just as Liu Dong imagined, even though it is a black market, there are still fakes in the areas where art is sold, but there are just much fewer!
"Hey. Why is this painting here?"
When Liu Dong accidentally walked to an open art store, his eyes were caught by an oil painting hanging on the wall in the store, and he was very familiar with this oil painting!
Liu Dong originally thought it was a fake, but during the exploration with the relic Yuanguang, Liu Dong discovered the rich spiritual light on it.
"Boss, can you show me this painting?" Out of curiosity, Liu Dong immediately walked into the store.
In fact, when Liu Dong stopped in front of the store, the boss had already noticed him, but he just didn't come up to say hello immediately!
Now seeing that Liu Dong was inclined to buy, the boss naturally quickly joined in.
"Hello. Do you want this one?" Following the direction of Liu Dong's finger, the boss took down a portrait hanging on the wall.
"right!"
After Liu Dong nodded, the painting was also handed to him.
The moment his hands touched the painting, the relics in the mustard space also gave the identification result: "Vincent Van Gogh's "Portrait of Doctor Gachet"!"
"It's really it!" With the evidence of the relics, Liu Dong no longer doubted it!
However, the whole world knows that this famous painting by Van Gogh was auctioned at Christie's Auction House in New York within 3 minutes for US$82.5 million on May 15, 1990, to Ryo Saito, Japan's second largest paper manufacturer.
It also set a world record for the auction price of an art piece at that time. To this day, this famous painting by Van Gogh still maintains the auction record for the most valuable art piece in the world.
But now this painting has appeared openly on the black market in Miami!
Faced with this result, Liu Dong knew without guessing that the Japanese entrepreneur's home must have been robbed!
But regardless of whether it was the reason Liu Dong guessed, since he encountered this famous painting worth thousands of gold, there was no reason to let it go. As for the troubles he might encounter in the future, Liu Dong would not care about the Chinese art plundered by Japan.
Is it still less? I haven’t seen them return it in so many years!
Liu Dong made up his mind and said, "Boss, how much does this painting cost?"
"50 million US dollars!" The slightly thin boss stretched out five fingers towards Liu Dong.
"No, no, this is too expensive! I can only pay 5 million at most!" Liu Dong shook his head without hesitation.
Are you kidding? This is a black market. How can things on the black market be sold at market prices?
However, although he knew that the price of 50 million was indeed a bit expensive, Liu Dong's bargaining standard, which suddenly shrunk ten times, made the skinny boss secretly angry.
"This is too harsh!" The skinny boss frowned fiercely.
Although this painting is stolen goods, its original value is as high as 82.5 million, and this was the price ten years ago. Taking into account the heating up of the international art market in the past ten years, the current price of this painting is definitely more than 82.5 million.
!So he thinks that although 50 million US dollars is a bit expensive, it should still be acceptable!
"Sir, since you know this painting, you should know its current value. Compared with the art transaction record holder that was sold for 82.5 million in 1990, I think US$50 million is cheap enough!"
"No, just the opposite! In addition to appreciating it for ourselves, the most important thing when we collect art is to appreciate its investment value. If I buy this painting now, I can only appreciate it in private and cannot take it to the auction openly.
trade, so the value of its investment has shrunk significantly! Therefore, the price of $50 million is too high!”
Of course, Liu Dong also understood that the other party would definitely not sell it for US$5 million, "...otherwise, let me buy these two paintings for US$20 million, and then let me choose from your store."
Two things!”
"$20 million?"
The skinny boss hesitated a little. His Van Gogh painting had been hanging here for more than a month. There were many people asking about the price. But in the face of the high price, few people would actually buy it, and this thing belongs to
Stolen goods are prone to problems if they are hidden for a long time.
So after thinking about it, the skinny boss said decisively: "Okay, for only 20 million US dollars, you can pick two things in the store, but the oil painting on the wall is not included in the scope!"
In his shop, except for four or five good oil paintings on the wall, the value of other items does not exceed 1 million US dollars. It doesn't hurt to let Liu Dong pick two pieces.
"Of course!" Liu Dong said happily.
In addition to this famous painting by Van Gogh, Liu Dong also discovered two precious antiques that are "national treasures" to the Chinese!
"I want them!"
As he said that, Liu Dong took two books from the edge of the iron shelf at the edge of the store. The pages were black and the book covers were obviously thread-like and stained by insects and sweat!
Compared with ordinary Chinese ancient books, these two books are much larger, 50.3 cm high, 30 cm wide, and more than one finger thick!
Looking at the four characters in Guange style that were vaguely visible on the cover, Liu Dong was excited and muttered silently: ""Yongle Dadian", I didn't expect to find a rare copy of "Yongle Dadian" here!"
"Yongle Dadian" was compiled during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. Xie Jin, a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, served as the chief editor. It took six years to complete the compilation. It is the most famous ancient classic in China and the largest encyclopedia in the world so far.
Its scale far exceeds all similar books compiled by previous generations, leaving many rich stories and unsolvable mysteries for future generations.
This heyday, compiled during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, preserves Chinese history, geography, art, philosophy, religion and encyclopedia documents before the 14th century. It has a total of 22,937 volumes, with a catalog of 60 volumes, divided into 11,095 volumes, and the total book is about 370 million
Character.
Compared with the encyclopedia compiled by France Diderot and the British "Encyclopedia Britannica", "Yongle Dadian" appeared more than 300 years earlier and can be called a treasure of world cultural heritage.
According to rough statistics, "Yongle Dadian" has collected and preserved as many as seven to eight thousand kinds of ancient classics, which is five times as many as the previous books such as "Yiwen Leiju", "Taiping Yulan", and "Cefu Yuangui".
, six times, even the large-scale series "Sikuquanshu" compiled in the Qing Dynasty only contains more than 3,000 books.
Due to wars and theft by guards, there are only more than 400 rare copies of the "Yongle Dadian" preserved in the world, scattered in 30 units in 8 countries and regions around the world.
There are only two volumes preserved in China, including Taiwan, and the rest are all abroad.
But Liu Dong is very sure that these two volumes are not among the more than 400 volumes, because he is very familiar with the number and content of all the rare volumes of "Yongle Dadian" that are still preserved, even the 797 photocopied editions.
Neither of these two books are included.
Liu Dong was naturally very excited to find the "Yongle Dadian" on both sides that was relatively well preserved here. Perhaps in the eyes of Westerners, although these two ancient Chinese books are of great significance, their value is not too high, but to Liu Dong
In Dong's eyes, they are priceless treasures!
It is even more valuable than Van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gacher" that he obtained previously.
With the wrapped Van Gogh paintings and two never-before-seen copies of "Yongle Dadian", Liu Dong became even more interested in the black market!
Don’t tell me, there are really a lot of good things here!
However, considering that most of the things sold here were stolen goods, which would cause him a lot of trouble if exposed in the future, Liu Dong did not buy more even though he was greedy.
But when he left, he had 37 antiques in his hand!
In addition to the original Van Gogh's famous painting "Portrait of Dr. Gacher" and the two volumes of "Yongle Dadian", the most precious one is the Qing Dynasty Kangxi imperial kiln's "Yipin Gong Porcelain" pastel celestial sphere vase!
With Eric by his side, Liu Dong couldn't fit everything into his mustard space, so he could only hire a few people to drive the artworks to his yacht.
At this time, the two Nords who went out to buy daily necessities have also returned! (To be continued...)