China entered the period of feudal society more than 2,000 years ago, and China in this period believed that it was the center of the world, and also believed that the place after China was an area of uncivilized civilization, all barbarians, so the surrounding ethnic minorities were called Southern Barbarians, Northern Yi and so on. However, in the Western Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions, China opened the door to exchanges with the world, and the Silk Road came out step by step under the leadership of Zhang Qian. China's silk, tea and ceramics were exported overseas and were welcomed by many foreigners, and gradually, China was no longer satisfied with exchanges with these countries, so the Maritime Silk Road was also opened.
In 1998, a German salvage company found a shipwreck in Indonesian waters, which was a certain age and very old. It was not until they had fully salvaged the vessel that its identity was finally revealed. It turned out to be a Merchant Ship from the Tang Dynasty, and the salvage company named it: Black Stone. The Black Stone is filled with cultural relics from ancient China, and the porcelain alone has reached 67,000 pieces, all of which belong to the cultural relics of the Tang Dynasty. Experts said that this is evidence of foreign cultural exchanges during the Tang Dynasty, and it is also a witness to the Maritime Silk Road, which is very precious, and it is also the earliest ancient shipwreck of the Maritime Silk Road discovered so far.
Ever since the cultural relics pirates carried out an insulting blow to our country's ancient shipwreck, the cause of underwater archaeology in our country is developing in a very rapid way. In 1986, when China discovered the Nanhai No. 1, when it was afraid that the cultural relics pirate Mike Hatcher would attack again, our archaeologists quickly launched a meeting to find the most favorable protective measures for the Nanhai No. 1, because at that time, China did not have the technology to salvage ancient shipwrecks, so the task of salvaging the Nanhai No. 1 was delayed for a long time. It wasn't until 2001 that the salvage work began to officially begin, but things still didn't go so smoothly. It was not until 2004 that the overall salvage plan of Nanhai No. 1 was finalized, and in 2007, the salvage was successful.
But even if the salvage is successful, the cultural relics on the ship can not be sorted out so quickly, until August 2019, the Nanhai No. 1 was officially completed, all the cultural relics have been out of the water, the number of cultural relics on the ship has reached 190,000 pieces, the number is extremely amazing, the value of these cultural relics also exceeded 300 billion. The BlackStone was discovered by foreigners, and the cultural relics on board are not as many as the South China Sea No. 1, but the historical value of the BlackStone is more precious than the Nanhai No. 1. The cultural relics on the BlackStone reached more than 67,000 pieces, and China's experts learned of this news and expressed their intention to purchase.
At that time, the German salvage company offered 40 million US dollars, about 280 million yuan, which Chinese experts said was an acceptable price. But the Indonesian government did not agree, the Indonesian government hoped to share the money with the salvage company, the German salvage company was unwilling, so they had a conflict, and at that time, some people threatened that 280 million would not be sold to the Chinese, so the Blackstone could not be released for a long time. Later, Singapore's Sentosa agency broke the situation by spending $30 million on Blackstone before China and bringing it back to Singapore. Fortunately, Singapore is also part of the Chinese cultural circle, there are many Chinese living, although the BlackStone did not return to China, but it did not lose too far away is also a fortunate misfortune.
The appearance of the Black Stone once again made people see the splendor of the Maritime Silk Road, and how prosperous China's culture and economy were during the Tang Dynasty, which once again shocked the world. In fact, as early as before the discovery of the BlackStone, there were many ancient Chinese shipwrecks salvaged, southeast Asian countries have registered salvage of ancient ships reached more than 200, the imprint of the Maritime Silk Road is constantly being lit, these imprints each have important historical memory, that belongs to the memory of ancient China.