Awakening ability

Chapter 199 The Auction Opens

The charity auction for flood relief has finally started.

The location of the auction is in the National Teacher's Mansion, which saves the money for renting the venue.

The National Teacher's Mansion originally had enough venues to hold such an auction.

There were a lot of people participating in the auction, five to six hundred people, which was equivalent to a large gathering of wealthy families in the capital.

In order to prevent someone from bidding the item at a high price without paying, the auction requires that everyone who participates in the auction pay 100 taels of gold as a deposit.

After the auction is over, these deposits will be returned, and of course they can be deducted from the auction amount.

There is only one case where the deposit will not be refunded, and that is when the auctioned item is bid at a high price but has no ability to pay.

Such a deposit system is also equivalent to setting up a very high threshold.

100 taels of gold is equivalent to 5000 taels of silver in this world, and there are really not many families who can afford it.

That is to say, in Taiqiu, the capital of a huge empire, so many rich and noble families can be found.

In a smaller country, there really wouldn't be such a large number of wealthy people, and it wouldn't be possible to get that much gold in a short while.

Steward Chen is in charge of this auction.

Master Ma is an official of high rank, so it is not easy to be the host of an auction.

In the official agricultural society, merchants still had relatively little status.

Butler Chen is just a commoner, so it doesn't matter.

The auction was held outdoors, and a stage was set up in an open space. The participants of the auction sat under the stage, and then the auction items were delivered to the stage one by one, and Steward Chen introduced those items to everyone.

This time, Emperor Hongxi did not participate in the auction, but he sent his confidant eunuch to make a contribution to the country's charity on his behalf.

In fact, of course, he was showing his favor to Fang Hao, saying that I am very good, so please don't mess with me.

There are hundreds of seats in the audience, Fang Hao is also in it, and it is still the most rear position.

This made those participants feel strongly uncomfortable, always thinking that they were being targeted by the national teacher.

Lin Bin, the official chairman of the Disaster Relief Office, was also on the stage with several office staff. There was a large desk with several account books on it to record the results of this auction.

Steward Chen came to the stage, and the first thing he announced was the rules of the auction.

This charity auction only accepts gold, in units of taels.

Everyone is free to bid, and the highest bidder wins.

Then start showing the auction items.

The first bid was for a set of twelve glasses.

In China, it might be worth a few dollars each, but here it is a top luxury.

According to Chen Butler's narration, this is a treasure from the imperial palace, and the asking price is 50 taels of gold.

It is required that each bidding cannot be lower than five taels of gold.

As soon as the tone fell, someone said: "50 taels, I want it!"

Soon someone raised the price again:
"60 taels!"

"seventy!"

"one hundred!"

"One hundred and five!"

Quotes came and went, and prices kept rising.

So many people are chasing this set of glasses, not necessarily because they like this set of glasses, but because this is the first case of this charity auction. Taking a picture of it will undoubtedly get a good impression in Fang Hao's heart. Relatively good impression points.

To put it bluntly, he just wanted to please Fang Hao.

Not necessarily to reap any benefits, at least to eliminate disasters for your family.

In this way of thinking, the bidding price of this set of glass cups has been continuously raised.

The starting price was 50 taels of gold, but within a minute, it had risen to 1 taels of gold.

The bidders are all from the elite circle.

And he is also a core figure in the circle of powerful people.

At the beginning, some pure businessmen really took a fancy to such a set of cups and wanted to take pictures and enjoy them for themselves.

But after a few bids, they chose to give up.

It's not that I can't afford the money, but that I dare not participate in the bidding.

They can't afford to offend such a circle.

Bidding is still in progress.

"600 taels of gold!"

"700 taels!"

"Eight hundred!"

"Nine hundred!"

One price is higher than the other.

The people who made the quotations no longer represent the bigwigs of the imperial court, but a few princes.

This is not something that other princes and ministers can participate in.

No one wanted to lose this bidding, which made the price of a set of cups that were not that high originally worth skyrocket.

In the end, the fierce competition came to an abrupt end after one person spoke.

"5000 taels of gold!"

A drake-like voice spoke.

This was the first time that voice spoke, but after speaking, all bidding voices fell silent.

The quotation is too high, and few people can afford such money is one aspect.

On the other hand, no one dares to compete with this person.

The person who made the bid this time was the eunuch who came on behalf of Emperor Hongxi. Bidding with him would mean getting in trouble with the emperor.

Neither can the prince.

When meeting the emperor, the prince also had to kneel.

"Someone paid 5000 taels of gold. Is there anything higher?"

Housekeeper Chen asked a question.

No.

"5000 taels."

"5000 two toes."

"5000 two or three times."

"5000 taels, deal!"

As soon as the gavel fell, the first auction item in this charity auction was successfully bid.

Fang Hao watched all this from the back seat, and nodded secretly:

"It seems that the royal family is quite supportive of charity work. They are enlightened people. Even if they want to make a revolution in this country in the future, they can keep this mascot. It's okay to be a republic."

He was satisfied with the goodwill shown by Emperor Hongxi this time, not because the first order was taken by the emperor's representative.

As long as the eunuch opened his mouth, no one would dare to bid with him, so taking the first order was not considered a very sincere thing.

What made him feel sincere was that the eunuch didn't open his mouth at first, but let the price rise to a certain height, and then stretched the price vertically, giving a quotation of 5000 taels of gold.

This is full of sincerity.

This is a sincerity worth 5000 taels of gold.

Fang Hao was quite satisfied.

The second auction item was a fox fur coat with a starting price of ten taels of gold.

Frankly speaking, this price is not expensive. A fox fur of this quality can sometimes be sold for thousands of taels of silver, which is 20 taels of gold.

However, the starting bid price is included in the starting auction price. In the real auction, the hammer price is much higher than the starting auction price.

The competition for the second piece was not as great as that of the first piece, but in the end it was hammered down at a price of 200 taels of gold.

Several princes did not participate in this bidding, because the starting price was too low, and it was not the first order, so there was no need to waste their strength here.

The one photographed is the representative of the Tobe Minister.

Now the National Teacher's Office is intervening in the disaster relief issue that should have been in charge of the household department, which made the household department's minister panic and eager to buy an amulet to protect himself.

(End of this chapter)