Before 2003, China only paid attention to the excavation of cultural relics on land, but did not take measures to salvage ancient cultural relics underwater. It should be known that there are many ships that sank in ancient times on the seabed, which may have many precious cultural relics, and if this project is not carried out, it will inevitably cause the regrettable loss of many cultural relics.
Until 2003, China successfully salvaged the "Nanhai No. 1" Song Dynasty shipwreck, and some precious cultural relics on it surfaced, which marked the success of China's first salvage of ancient shipwrecks in the world. On this shipwreck, experts found precious cultural relics worth more than 300 billion yuan, but this is not the most gratifying, more importantly, our country has opened up new ways of cultural relics excavation, which means that China's cultural relics research work will take a big step forward.
The cause of archaeology requires advanced science and technology as a basis, accompanied by a wealth of historical and geographical knowledge. The requirements of the underwater archaeology cause are more stringent and more difficult, so China has not developed before. However, this time, the reason why our country has achieved such great success is actually "forced" by a foreigner. This foreigner is called Mike Hatcher.
Mike Hatcher was a British explorer who not only loved adventure, but also made a fortune. Since 1970, he has been salvaging World War II shipwrecks everywhere. Once, he accidentally discovered Chinese porcelain. It was in the South China Sea, when he heard about the "Taixing" of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, and knew that it was a Qing Dynasty merchant ship carrying a lot of goods, which sank to the bottom of the sea while passing through the South China Sea, and then sank to the bottom of the sea with a huge number of cultural relics. There was clearly a huge business opportunity, and Mike Hatcher decided to try his luck in the South China Sea.
As a result, Mike Hatcher successfully salvaged the giant sailing ship. Above are millions of pieces of Chinese porcelain, exquisitely shaped, delicately patterned, and exquisitely crafted, coming from Dehua, Fujian Province. Mike Hatcher studied the porcelain carefully, and in order to sell it for a good price, he even smashed all 600,000 pieces of ordinary, slightly rough porcelain, leaving only 365,000 fine pieces.
Mike Hatcher sent the shipment to Germany. In order to be able to make a smooth shot, he traveled east and west for the next year. He applied for an international convention that would make his salvage of unclaimed shipwrecks legal, as well as the auction of cultural relics on shipwrecks, so that all proceeds from the auction would belong to him. At the auction that followed, Mike Hatcher made a $30 million profit in nine days, creating a legendary move at the time.
It is precisely because of this huge loss that the Chinese archaeological community has made up its mind and decided to carry out underwater archaeology. With the successful release of the South China Sea No. 1, China has also salvaged 4 British shipwrecks in the East China Sea. These ships are also loaded with cargo, but after the identification of these artifacts, all of them come from China.
It turned out that these 4 British shipwrecks were carrying the Chinese cultural relics that the British had robbed from the Yuanmingyuan. In that year, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Austria, and the United Kingdom led the way. They are like unevolved primitive people, after entering the Chinese royal garden, they burn and loot, and they can take away all the treasures they can take, this group of robbers, took too many treasures from China. The burning of the Yuanmingyuan is internationally recognized as one of the worst acts of cultural destruction in human history.
The famous French writer Victor Hugo once denounced this behavior, and in order to study the truth, he traveled around and interviewed many participants. Some French soldiers referred to the Yuanmingyuan as the "summer palace", and they said bluntly that they had never seen such a luxurious scene. Another soldier said he took a lot of silk, jewelry, porcelain and sculpture, which was a carnival for the soldiers of the time.
At that time, the extent of China's losses, we are already immeasurable. It is only the serious carnival of the Eight-Power Alliance that is actually a disaster for our country and a suffering for all human civilization.
Today, British museums house a large collection of artifacts from China, even as high as more than 23,000 pieces. Many of them came from robberies from the Yuanmingyuan. This time, China salvaged 4 British shipwrecks, which naturally caused quite a stir internationally.
Some British media want China to return the artifacts from these shipwrecks to Britain, but this is obviously impossible, because these are Chinese things. And the British officials did not say anything, they know everything in and out, where will they open their mouths with China and take the initiative to mention that barbaric history?