China's last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, left us with the impression of "closed country", so that in the inherent concept of many people, there was no maritime trade in ancient China. However, historical records record that since the first few centuries AD, China has already begun the road of maritime trade, and many ancient artifacts have been exported to overseas countries in this way. In the surrounding waters of China, the north is the Yellow Sea to Korea and Japan, and the south is the South China Sea Basin, and their seabeds have ancient shipwrecks, quietly waiting for people to find underwater. Because of this, in the last century, many explorers from abroad liked to come to China to seek gold, form expeditions one after another, look around for shipwrecks in China's waters, and some people became rich overnight.
The sinking of an ancient shipwreck
In 1822, an ancient ship called the Taixing departed from the port of Xiamen, loaded with cargo, and the destination of its trip was Indonesia. In the nineteenth century, there were already pirates robbing merchant ships for a living, and the people on the Taixing decided to take a detour to the Paracels in order to avoid the pirates, and the accident occurred at this time. The Environment of the Paracel Islands is harsh, there is nothing in the sea, the underwater reefs are everywhere, the Taixing ship unfortunately sank, and more than 2,000 people on board and the cargo on board sank to the bottom of the sea. Since then, the Taixing has become a ship recorded in the history books and has gradually been forgotten.
An adventure for foreigners
At the end of the twentieth century, a foreigner, with his belongings and an expedition, settled in the South China Sea. At first, people did not realize what kind of disaster this foreigner would bring to us, only that he seemed to have come with a purpose, this Mike Hatcher from Britain, found an ancient merchant ship from the South China Sea in China. As soon as Mike Hatcher arrived in the South China Sea, he did not stop salvage in the South China Sea, and he did not hide his ambitions at all, and this salvage fished out the Taixing. Mike Hatcher fished out a large amount of blue and white porcelain on the ship, this huge merchant ship with a length of more than 50 meters, a width of about 15 meters, and a weight of more than 1,000 tons, is also unprecedented in The archaeology of our country.
One regret: 650,000 pieces of porcelain were broken
On the Taixing, Mike Hatcher fished out more than a million pieces of Chinese porcelain, most of which came from kilns in southern Fujian, and about 80 percent came from Dehua. But Mike is well aware of the principle of "scarce things are precious", in order to better hype, has obtained greater commercial benefits, he will catch 650,000 pieces of porcelain smashed, leaving only 365,000 of them, these smashed porcelain, regardless of age, regardless of the degree of exquisiteness, all into a pile of fragments.
The story behind the shipwreck of the Taixing
Few people know about this period of history, and we do not know that China's underwater archaeology was forced out by people like Mike Hatcher. Shards of porcelain, shipwrecks and the remains of the victims were discarded everywhere, and he took away not only the treasures of our country, but also the legendary Taixing. The sea did not destroy the shipwreck and the cultural relics, but the people smashed the ship's historical monuments as soon as they fell. The remaining 365,000 pieces of porcelain, Mike Hatcher got the German price to sell, and in nine days, Hatcher made a profit of $30 million and became rich overnight. Prior to this, Mike Hatcher also fished out the ancient Chinese shipwreck "Nanjing", also known as the "Gold Malsen", and took the 239,000 blue and white porcelain on board to the Dutch auction.
Rise after shame
When the porcelain from the "Nanjing" shipwreck was auctioned, experts took $30,000 and traveled thousands of miles to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to buy back the cultural relics, even if it was only one piece. Mike Hatcher also gave the first plate of the priority auction to Chinese, but in the three days of the auction, Chinese did not even have the opportunity to raise the card, and the price of each artifact was ten times the estimated price, and $30,000 was like waste paper. At this time, we realized the importance of underwater archaeology, and today, decades later, our underwater archaeology is so developed that we are trying to salvage the "South China Sea One", to some extent, it was forced out by Mike. Today, we are strong and no longer need to be humiliated, and no one in China today dares to humiliate.