Just for this painting, Yang Jing has to give a thumbs up to Mike Aller.
As for how the Yanjing operation was going, Yang Jing still needed to find a time to travel back and take a look.
Yang Jing was of course happy to see Mike Aller complaining that he had so much money that he could never spend it all.
In fact, in the early 1980s in Western European and American countries, artworks worth tens of millions of dollars were very rare. Apart from those unshakable treasures of the museum, other artworks that could be auctioned were mostly priced at hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Artworks worth over tens of millions of dollars were really rare in that era.
It was not until the 1990s that artworks worth tens of millions of dollars began to increase. One reason was that the US dollar was not as valuable in the 1990s as it was in the 1980s. Another reason was the increase in the global economic volume, which led to a significant increase in the prices of artworks.
In other words, those artworks that were worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in later generations were not that expensive at all in the early 1980s. Therefore, this period was also a good time to acquire some fine European and American artworks.
Looking at the watch, he found that it was not yet one o'clock in the morning. Yang Jing was not sleepy at the moment, so he thought about it and simply activated the restricted time and space shuttle skill again, and directly arrived in Yanjing on January 5, 1982.
Of course, Yang Jing chose Xiangshan Park as his travel destination. At five o'clock in the morning in winter, there were basically no people in Xiangshan Park.
After coming out of the park and waiting for a long time, Yang Jing finally got on the first bus from Xiangshan to the city center. After changing another bus, he finally arrived at Deshengmen.
Deshengmen is not far from Houhai. Yang Jing was too lazy to take a car, so he strolled along Gulou West Street and reached the northern edge of Houhai.
The courtyard house that Mike Aller bought is not called Hai Courtyard yet. It was not until the area was renovated in 2002 that it was called "Hai Courtyard" because it was located in the "Hai" area.
In February 2002, after years of preparation, the Yanjing Municipal Government finally promulgated the "Protection Plan for 25 Historical and Cultural Protection Areas in Old Yanjing". For the first time, 25 historical and cultural protection areas appeared within the Yangjing Second Ring Road. However, with the acceleration of urban modernization, more and more areas need to be protected. By 2007, Yanjing had 40 historical and cultural protection areas mainly for traditional courtyard buildings. Outside these 40 protection areas, the courtyard house, as a traditional building in Yanjing, is rapidly dying out, and the total number of courtyard houses in the protection areas will hardly change due to regional restrictions. In particular, as more and more people realize the preciousness of courtyard houses, the price of courtyard houses in Yanjing City is getting more and more expensive.
The courtyard houses in this area of Houhai North were the first to be included in the historical and cultural protection area. When they began to undergo special protective renovation, the courtyard houses in this area were named according to the heavenly stems and earthly branches according to their different locations. The courtyard house bought by the Russian oil tycoon in the past life happened to be located in the "Hai" area.
Of course, Hai Siheyuan was bought by the Russian tycoon in 2007. After the purchase, the Russian tycoon began to rebuild the courtyard. Finally, the cost of the entire Hai Siheyuan when it was delivered to the owner was about 40 million US dollars. Converted at the exchange rate in 2007, that was nearly 300 million national currency.
The reason why the final price of this courtyard is so expensive is not only because of the unique geographical location, special architectural form and huge area of the courtyard itself, but also the luxury of the building materials.
When the courtyard was rebuilt, there were 24 supporting wooden pillars in the main house of the courtyard, all of which were logs with a diameter of half a meter. The wood used for the house was all native wood from the tropical rainforest of Thailand. With the relevant taxes and transportation costs, the price was as high as RMB per cubic meter. And this was only the wood used for construction. Most of the other related materials were top-notch configurations imported from abroad. Coupled with the huge basement, it is not surprising that the overall cost eventually became so high.
However, the Russian tycoon bought the yard and rebuilt it in 2007, while Yang Jing commissioned Mike Aller to buy the yard in 1981, a full 26 years apart.
Don’t underestimate these 26 years. It is during this 26-year time difference that the value of many things has undergone earth-shaking changes.
For example, in 1981, a small courtyard house with an area of about 140 square meters near Houhai could be bought for 2,000 yuan of national currency, but in 2007, the starting price of this courtyard house was 20 million yuan!
Mike Aller bought this courtyard for only 500,000 US dollars in 1981. According to the official exchange rate of 1 US dollar to 1.7 national currency at that time, this top-quality courtyard house with an area of more than 3,000 square meters was only about 800,000 national currency. Even if it was calculated based on the internal trade settlement exchange rate of 1 US dollar to 2.8 national currency, this courtyard was only 1.4 million national currency!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
