Chapter Twenty-Six: Sketching

  In the morning, Guo Yu rarely came to Huafu Auction Company. It's already late March, and this year's spring auction should be about to start soon. This is the first time that Huafu Auction House has operated an auction itself, I wonder how Zhang Chong is doing.

  However, Guo Yu wasn't very concerned about these things. He had come to let the appraiser take a look at the pile of sketch practice paintings he had bought to see if they were valuable. Guo Yu was thinking of striking it rich.

  As he walked into the company's main gate, employees saw Guo Yu coming in and stood up one by one to shout "Good morning, Chairman!" Guo Yu responded with a slight nod each time, feeling quite dignified.

  Entering his own office, he saw his little secretary Mu Tong sweeping the floor. Guo Yu walked up and patted her on the butt, causing the little secretary to let out a soft cry.

  Guo Yu said to Mu Tong: "Go and see if Zhang is there. If he is, ask him to come over here."

  Guo Yu ordered his secretary to go and call someone.

  Kuo Yu walked into the rest area and took out the sketch practice drawings from the space. These sketches were placed in the space, not even dust fell on them.

  Zhang rushed in and the two sat down to chat. Guo Yu asked about the preparations for the auction.

  Zhang Chong said: "You are a boss who throws his hands up, and I was kicked out. Now that you're holding an auction yourself, you know it's really troublesome. You have to appraise the items, print catalogs, promote, visit tycoons, advertise, set up the venue, increase staff and security personnel, invite auctioneers... all sorts of things, a big pile of miscellaneous tasks, I'm dizzy with busyness."

  "How about it, is the time fixed?"

  "It's all set, next month on April 10th, the day of the auction, at the Sheraton Hotel's venue. You should come and join us if you're free then." Zhang Chong replied.

  "Later, if I'm in Hong Kong, I'll definitely go. Oh right, I brought some things with me, can you ask an appraiser to take a look? It needs to be an European painting appraiser."

  "What's this? Let me take a look." Then she followed Guo Yu into the rest area and saw a stack of drawing paper.

  Zhang Chong casually picked up a few, he couldn't understand the names either, even if he understood most of them, he wouldn't recognize them, so he directly called the company's European art and artifact appraiser to come over.

  Appraiser Zhu Mi is in his thirties, similar to Guo Yu and others, a native of Hong Kong who studied art and art appreciation in France, and has also worked in appraisal for eight or nine years.

  The appraiser didn't pay much attention at first, but when he picked up a sketch and saw the name on it, he was stunned. "Renoir 1885, my god, could this be real?" As he looked at the dozen or so sketches in his hand, Zhu Mi's hands began to tremble slightly. For those who like to study Western art, these things are comparable to the Bible.

  Zhu Mi hastily put the painting on the table, solemnly put on gloves, and began to carefully identify these dozen sketches.

  Guo Yu said, "This isn't going to work. You've been studying these few sketches for half a day, and there are 20,000 of them here. How long will it take? Finally, Guo Yu told Zhu Mi, "First, just take a look at whose paintings these are and whether they have any value, then we can examine them more closely."

  But obviously Zhu Mi was somewhat excited: "Boss, do you know that this sketch in my hand may be a painting by Renoir? Do you know who Renoir is? He's one of the masters of French painting, a representative figure of Impressionism, and..."

  "Stop." Seeing Zhu Mi's unstoppable trend, Guo Yu hastily called a halt and said to Zhu Mi: "These, I really don't have time to study. If you like, you can carefully examine them later. The main thing is to practice drawing here, but looking at it this way will take until that year and month."

  "Alright boss, I'll hurry up and organize the team to move them to the vault, categorize and appraise each one, and I'll get a detailed appraisal report out to you as soon as possible."

  "Alright, you go ahead." He dismissed Zhu Mi and had the albums moved to a safe deposit box before he could finally relax. These weren't even artists yet, but they were so fond of these sketches. If they were sold to Europeans, they would definitely be snatched up in a frenzy. Ha! You people have nothing better to do than sell Chinese antiques? From now on, I'll have nothing better to do than sell foreign antiques, and you can come to Hong Kong to scramble for them.

  Things were settled, and Guo Yu didn't care about it anymore. However, the next day he received a call from Zhang Chong, saying that his batch of sketches had been appraised, with 30 pieces identified, including two works by master painters, three by second-rate artists, and others that although not famous, had appeared in history and were somewhat valuable. Zhang Chong asked Guo Yu if he wanted to take a look, but Guo Yu didn't care - these sketches were still the least valuable part of his collection, and the New York art market and the Colter family's collection hadn't even been brought out yet, those were the real treasures.

  But Guo Yu is not in a hurry to take it out, and let them die of envy. Later, he will slowly release it and sell it at a high price to the Europeans. If there's too much, it will affect the price.

  Guo Yu met Teacher Huang when picking up his son, suddenly remembering that he hadn't prepared a gift for the Huang family yet. He had to choose one carefully and also buy two cars. In the future, when dating girls, he couldn't drive his own Lincoln, which was an extended car, not suitable for two people to take a leisurely ride. It's better to drive himself when picking up girls.

  He made a rough calculation and called Zhang Jiazheng to buy a Bentley and a Mercedes-Benz, with the Bentley for himself and the Mercedes-Benz for his bodyguard.

  After the handover, he returned to 1915. Now it's already spring, and the farm is getting busy. The employees are all working in the fields. Gu Yu called Al to understand the current planting situation of the farm.

  "Boss, according to the seeds you provided, we have arranged about 10,000 acres of experimental fields for planting wheat and corn. The rest are still planted with the original seeds this year, covering an area of approximately 800,000 acres, with wheat and corn roughly half each. This is already the limit that we can take care of. Other places are now used as pastures, and we currently raise 800,000 head of cattle, 400,000 sheep, and a chicken farm is under construction."

  "We still don't have enough manpower, but those damn Americans won't let us hire more people, which has limited our development." Guo Yu is still a bit indignant.

  "How is the shipping company doing?" Guo Yu continued to ask.

  "Boss, I've been negotiating with a medium-sized ocean transportation company in San Francisco. The recent outbreak of the European war has made the transportation industry very prosperous, so it will be more troublesome to acquire and the price will be higher than before."

  "Hurry up, I hope it can be completed as soon as possible. This involves our future development in Southeast Asia. How is the acquisition of land in Southeast Asia going?"

  "Someone has already been sent to the Netherlands, but there is no reply yet. I estimate that we will have news soon. After all, it's just a colony and so desolate, it shouldn't be difficult to take down," said Arle.

  After Al left, Guo Yu called up the security guard and wanted to go to the security team to take a look at their training situation.

  On the playground, there were about three thousand people training. Ha De, Da Zhu, Er Zhu and Li Meng were all here. When they saw Guo Yu coming over, they quickly came forward to pay their respects.

  "What's the situation with the Imperial Guard?"

  "Sir, the guard troops have recruited three thousand people and are now in training. Originally, these people had all participated in training before and learned quickly." answered Da Zhu.

  At this time, Hatt also said: "Boss, I will train them to be as sharp as the German army." Then he touched his big beard.

  After leaving the playground, Guo Yu rode his horse to the fields to take a look. The slightly undulating fields stretched out in strips as far as the eye could see, with several employees working in the fields from time to time. The sky was clear and the air was fresh, with a gentle breeze blowing, presenting a picturesque scene of rural life.

  At night, Hu Yunyuan and Xiaoni accompanied Guo Yu to take a bath. This was Guo Yu's favorite moment. Lisha had gradually changed roles and now seemed more like a subordinate, usually managing the work of Huafu Academy, working very seriously and responsibly, only occasionally stealing glances with Guo Yu.

  Kuo Yu always liked to check his merit points while taking a bath. Although he knew it was unlikely that he would be able to upgrade again in the near future, seeing those slowly rising points still made him happy. Now he had accumulated another 3 million points, and this was only after three months. It seemed that domestic development had accelerated once again.

  But the money spent here is also speeding up, tens of millions of dollars, and it's decreasing rapidly after simple spending. It seems that I need to speed up, arrive in Nanyang as soon as possible, stabilize and start selling industrial products with advanced black technology. At least, I have to make the income and expenditure here break even, otherwise, I will be bankrupted. It seems that supporting millions of people is not an easy task, let alone more people in the future.