I believe that many people have watched some film and television dramas such as tomb robbery and treasure digging. In the play, we will find that some treasures are hidden in the palace, some treasures will be hidden in the tombs of the dead, and some treasures will be hidden in the sea, and because of the accident on the ship, they will sink with a large amount of treasure. Today, the story that Xiaobian wants to tell is the story of a British treasure hunter who stole Chinese treasures from the sea and caused huge losses of 4 billion.
Mike Hatcher is an Englishman who is a well-known foreign treasure hunter and a leader in the treasure hunting industry. In 1999, he found a ship from the Chinese port of Xiamen sunk in the South China Sea in a book called "The East India Navigation Guide", which was a logbook written by the Dutchman James Hasberg, and the shipwreck mentioned in the book was the "Taixing".
Mike Hatcher was suddenly interested, although the book did not indicate the specific location, but Mike Hatch still relied on a wealth of experience in shipwreck treasure theft, the location contained in the ancient book was circled within a small range. Mike Hatcher suppressed the joy in his heart and did not tell anyone the news of the clues found. In 2004, Mike Hatcher secretly assembled an expedition of archaeologists and brilliant frogmen, and arrived around April at the location recorded in the logbook, and it was around April that the treasure hunt began.
After a month of treasure hunting, Mike Hatcher's team still had nothing to gain. Just as he was about to give up, there was a sudden turnaround. A frogman near the end of his dive found a typical large wooden boat component, which indicates that they are close to the position of the "Taixing". Sure enough, in the next few days, they found the main body of the "TaiXing".
They managed to obtain 350,000 pieces of precious porcelain from the Taixing, all from the Dehua years of the Qing Dynasty, which Mike Hatcher auctioned off for more than 200 million. There were originally more than 1 million pieces of porcelain on board, but the market principle was that things were scarce and expensive, so Mike Hatcher smashed another 600,000 pieces of porcelain, so that the remaining 300,000 pieces of porcelain could be sold at a better price. In this regard, the treasure hunting community enshrined his "achievement" as a treasure hunting myth, believing that he easily stole 200 million treasures from a clue to find treasures.
But for the Chinese archaeological community, it is a heavy blow. Although he stole only two hundred million treasures for cash, he found more than one million artifacts but destroyed more than six hundred thousand pieces, and some antique experts assessed that the total value of the more than one million pieces of porcelain found by Mike Hatcher should be four billion, and the huge loss of these four billion was irreparable in any case. In fact, it is illegal to salvage ancient Chinese ships like Mike Hatcher's, but it is also very difficult to restrain Mike Hatcher's behavior through international law. In order to better protect these treasures and make these ancient relics that have been left behind no longer be stolen, China has gradually stepped up the salvage and archaeological work of ancient ships.