China's area is 9.6 million square kilometers, while the water area of the inland sea and border seas is about 4 million square kilometers, and China not only has a vast territory, but also a large number of ethnic groups. Since the pre-Qin period more than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese nation has flourished in this land of China, and today, China has a history of civilization for thousands of years. The charm of Chinese culture is that it is a country that can absorb all kinds of rivers, we welcome others to learn from our culture, and we are willing to spread Chinese culture to all over the world. In ancient times, the most important way for Chinese culture to communicate with foreign cultures was the Silk Road on the road, as well as the Maritime Silk Road, whether it was spiritual culture or artifact culture, all of which went to the world.
The shipwreck of the "Nanjing"
According to later historical records, in 1752 AD, during the reign of the Qing government in China, the reigning emperor was the Qianlong Emperor. That winter, a merchant ship called the Goethe Malsen, laden with Chinese porcelain and gold, sailed from Nanjing to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was a ship full of cargo, and if it could be successfully reached, it would have benefited greatly, but after sixteen days of sailing, the ship sank in the waters of the South China Sea because of the reef, and the ship also had another name, which people at that time called "Nanjing". This is not the first ship to be silent in the South China Sea basin, according to statistics, China has more than two thousand merchant ships sunk in the South China Sea, it can be said that the seabed of the South China Sea may contain countless treasures.
In order to get rich, foreigners set their sights on ancient Chinese shipwrecks
In the 1980s, many people abroad set up expeditions to explore the waters of the South China Sea in order to find treasures sunk on the seabed. Not to mention, some people have made their fortunes by salvaging ancient Chinese shipwrecks and obtaining their treasures, the most rampant of which is a foreigner named Mike Hatcher. Mike Hatcher's childhood was not happy, and it can even be said that he suffered from poverty, and in order to get rid of the poor state of life, he set his life goal as a treasure hunt. In 1970, Mike Hatcher founded a commercial salvage company, and for greater profit, he set his sights on the South China Sea.
White-flowered porcelain, Hatcher took the eye
In 1984, Mike Hatcher stumbled upon the 1752 sinking of the Nanking in the archives of the Dutch East India Company, and based on some available information and relevant nautical diaries, he quickly determined the location of the shipwreck. Mike Hatcher took his expedition to the South China Sea, and after a long survey, he soon discovered the sunken Nanjing and began salvaging the shipwreck. There is no doubt that the harvest of this salvage is very rich, there are millions of pieces of Qing Dynasty porcelain, more than a hundred gold ingots, so many porcelain, he suddenly spent his eyes, and the people of the salvage team also spent their eyes.
Scars in archaeological history
China has always been known for its porcelain, and even our English name is "CHINA", which has the same name as porcelain. Millions of pieces of porcelain, if sold, would really be a fortune, but Mike Hatcher did not think so, he did not think that he would fish out so much. In order to obtain higher benefits, he smashed 650,000 pieces of porcelain, leaving only 239,000 pieces of blue and white porcelain. Because in porcelain, blue and white porcelain is generally the most valuable, the remaining 650,000 cultural relics, whether valuable or not, regardless of its manufacturing process, or the history of cultural relics, have all been smashed. This incident has become a scar in the archaeological history of our country, and only the remaining more than 200,000 pieces of blue and white porcelain have also made Mike Hatcher profit hundreds of millions of yuan.
The shame and pain of Chinese archaeology
The wreck was salvaged in the South China Sea, which, according to international regulations, should have been owned by our country, and Hatcher dragged the ship and porcelain to the high seas, saying that it was salvaged on the high seas. A year later, the shipwreck was judged to be owned by Hatcher because it was unclaimed, and in this way, the experts were both willing and powerless to recover the artifacts. Since then, it is as if he has taken root in the South China Sea, with money, he can hire more professional salvage personnel, buy more professional salvage equipment, and in order to find the location of ancient Chinese shipwrecks, he also went through Ancient Chinese books. In 1999, he found the Chinese shipwreck "Taixing" in Indonesian waters, spent a lot of money to fish it out of the Indonesian seabed, and suddenly gained huge benefits.
If we change to the current era, Hatcher will certainly not get any benefits in our place, but what can we do? At that time, we were poor and backward, and today we have become a big country and will no longer be bullied, and China's archaeological cause has also flourished since then. However, it has become a shame and pain in the archaeological history of our country.