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In August 1987, the Guangzhou Maritime Search and Rescue and Salvage Bureau and the British Salvage Company carried out the first Sino-foreign cooperation on marine salvage.
The aim was to help britain find what belonged to britain
"The East India Company
"The shipwreck of the Rhineburg. It is said to have sunk in the waters of the South China Sea. They wanted to get it back, and there might be a lot of valuable stuff on it, but the ownership went to the British.
About the East India Company
Here by the way this one
East India Company
What's the point.
East India Company, full name:
The venerable East India Company, or the British East India Company, the British East India Company.
This company is very powerful, and it is also a vicious crime, and it is they who transport the opium to China.
It was personally issued a "business license" by Queen Elizabeth I of England in December 1600 to trade in India. However, the purpose of this company is not pure, and the businessman does not do business, but to stir up the muddy waters of politics and military to serve the British colonization and aggression, which is also a common thing of imperialism. Wasn't the same true of the Japanese militarist period? Doctors, teachers, businessmen, etc. eventually became spies, and they still are.
In the first and second Opium Wars, this company was the culprit, which reduced the Qing Dynasty to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and poisoned countless Chinese!
Despite Lin Zexu's Humen smoke, driven by huge interests and political intrigues, opium was smuggled to China through profiteers.
They produced opium in The Bengal region, which was transshipped via Calcutta to Guangzhou, China, and then distributed throughout China. Although the Qing government repeatedly reiterated the "no smoking ban", the company was mercenary, smuggling opium through various channels, averaging as much as 900 tons per year.
So, what exactly was on this East India Company shipwreck? In addition to the proceeds of their aggression, there must have been evidence of trafficking in opium.
Also "the venerable East India Company" should be the "evil East India Company".
Unexpected discovery
The sea area salvaged by the search is located in the South China Sea, which belongs to the auxiliary waters of Shangxiachuan Island in Taishan City, Guangdong Province.
Unfortunately, the result was disappointing, the sea was vast, the waves were rough, and where was the ghost of the shipwreck of the "evil East India Company". This ship is afraid that it has long since disappeared with the end of British colonial rule.
Just when the divers were disappointed, eh, did not expect that the "willow dark flower bright another village" thing happened, in front of the water located 23 meters underwater, there was a big guy who caught their attention.
A closer look, good fellow, a huge undersea shipwreck covered with seaweed and shells, and a large amount of porcelain loomed in the cabin, like a warehouse. What an unexpected bonus.
Shangxiachuan Island is located on the Maritime Silk Road in ancient China, so experts are very excited to say: this discovery has the historical significance of pioneering and pioneering, and it is a great discovery.
Preparation before salvage
Two years later, in the winter of 1989, the underwater archaeology team of the China History Museum officially conducted an underwater examination of the shipwreck, which was also the first time that China's underwater archaeology was groundbreaking.
Subsequently, the location of the shipwreck was precisely located, mapped and mapped to establish the scope of the site, which was the same as the preparatory work before the archaeological excavation on land.
At the same time, the underwater archaeology team also carried out tentative archaeological excavations, the first time it salvaged more than 4,000 pieces of water all kinds of precious cultural relics, there are many luxurious gold and silver artifacts, even knowledgeable archaeologists are the first time to see, called rare treasures, valuable, dazzling.
Then, for how to salvage a shipwreck under 23 meters of water, this is a complex and huge project, so experts from all walks of life from all walks of life from all over the country gathered in Guangzhou for a long time to discuss and study, trying to find a comprehensive salvage strategy.
This time, after all, this is the debut of the Chinese underwater archaeology team, and the excavation object is so important, it is still a big man, and it has to be cautious.
Below, there are several very important issues that have been put in front of various experts and have to be solved:
First, is it only the extraction of underwater artifacts? Such as porcelain, etc
Second, is it necessary to salvage the whole together with the hull?
Third, the hull is huge, how to salvage as a whole, in order to ensure the safety of the hull?
Fourth, after salvaging so many cultural relics, where are they stored for display? If it is placed in the storeroom, it does not make any sense.
Fifth, such a large-scale salvage will inevitably require huge amounts of money, but where does the money come from?
Sixth, this shipwreck that has been sleeping on the bottom of the sea for nearly a thousand years, what specific cultural relics are inside, it is not clear, once out of the water, what will happen is unpredictable, no one dares to say. If there will be problems such as oxidation, it will be trouble.
Judging from the type of cultural relics that were salvaged from the water for the first time, this is a shipwreck of the Southern Song Dynasty. So, the shipwreck that has been soaked in the seawater for nearly a thousand years must be very serious, can it withstand the overall salvage?
If these problems cannot be solved, it is better not to salvage.
In 1998, the German salvage company
Water Law
The Tang Dynasty "Black Stone Shipwreck" salvaged in Indonesian waters extracted only 67,000 pieces of Chinese Tang Dynasty porcelain from the wreck. But they are treasure hunters, not much different from tomb robbers. We are archaeologists, focusing on the value of cultural and historical research, so the hull is also a cultural relic, even if an iron nail has to be taken back, the difference between the two is equivalent to archaeology and tomb robbery.
After several years of research, discussion and consultation, and formulated a complete and thorough excavation, everything was finally ready only to owe Dongfeng "money".
Money! Is it the state or the local government?
Salvage cost input
Underwater archaeology is not as easy as land, first of all, China's underwater archaeology is in its infancy, with insufficient experience, and unnecessary expenses are inevitable. In addition, archaeological excavations on the seabed at a depth of 23 meters are not accessible to anyone, human resources are limited, the required equipment is expensive, time-consuming, and unpredictable.
How much money to invest, this is also the key, no money can do anything.
Therefore, after the salvage plan is determined, there is nothing left to do.
First of all, to build a special dock, it takes a lot of silver, buy steel, cement, use ships, labor, and calculate tens of millions.
In addition, the overall salvage requires at least two special salvage vessels, and the daily rent is astronomical, calculated in hundreds of thousands.
The overall salvage, but also to preserve, you have to build a museum, this museum also needs a large amount of silver, to be calculated in units of hundreds of millions.
With the deepening of the salvage progress of the shipwreck, the original budget investment of 100 million yuan is becoming more and more stretched. Then, from 100 million, 150 million, and finally the budget rose to 300 million yuan. There are many invisible expenses that you can't see, but when you spend money, you don't have to, for example, all kinds of experts eat, live, travel, don't you want money.
Wherever the money comes from, it is unrealistic to ask the state treasury for money, and the local government also gets the money, and it is a big head. However, local finance pays attention to the rate of return, how to recover the cost. Open for tickets.
The investment in underwater archaeology:
Repair the dock, 14 million.
Boat charter, 800,000 / day.
Built: Crystal Palace, 150 million.
A total of 150 million yuan was spent on salvage and construction of the terminal.
A total of 300 million yuan was spent before and after.
Remember that in 1975, South Korea accidentally found a Chinese Yuan Dynasty shipwreck in the waters of Xin'an Moppo, salvaged nearly 10 years ago, salvaged 9 times, out of the water 22,040 pieces of Chinese Yuan Dynasty porcelain, copper coins 28 tons of about 8 million pieces, small leaf rosewood logs 1017, for this reason, the South Korean government invested heavily, specially for this batch of cultural relics from China to build a huge museum. Of course, South Korea has money.
Official salvage
On January 16, 2007, the salvage officially began.
Two 10,000-ton salvage vessels sailed to the salvage area. The overall salvage of the wreck requires a huge caisson to be placed on the seabed, and then bound to the wreck, just like an adult carrying a child, carrying the wreck from 23 meters underwater, nearly one meter of silt.
The sink is about 30 meters long, about 10 meters wide, about 4 meters high, and weighs 3,000 tons.
After the wreck surfaces, it must be towed to the shore, and then it is translated as a whole and placed in the museum.
Therefore, the museum had to be built before it was salvaged, which is why the salvage was not carried out until years later.
Just think about how difficult this kind of salvage is. It can be described as huge, spectacular, unprecedented! This is unique in the world!
Water artifacts
The early salvage was carried out for nine months, and a total of more than 80,000 pieces of various cultural relics were produced, mainly porcelain, including major kilns in China, such as Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Factory, Longquan Kiln, Dehua Kiln and other fine products. According to archaeological experts, these porcelain pieces can sell for millions of dollars, and this time a whole ship of treasures was found, and experts valued it at about 300 billion.
The salvage was a gradual process, until 2019, which lasted more than ten years, all underwater cultural relics were cleared, and a total of more than 180,000 cultural relics were released from the water.
The types of artifacts are as follows:
Porcelain, iron, condensation 55 tons, 170 pieces of bronze, 1700 pieces of copper coins, 151 pieces of gold, 124 pieces of silverware and so on. Porcelain and iron are the most common. There must be many organic substances, such as silk, paper, etc., but they are all rotten.
To say that the most beautiful cultural relics are gold and silverware, it is difficult for people to make them now. However, it is unbelievable that the Song Dynasty people 800 years ago could make such a thing.
Where the boat goes
So, where is this huge Southern Song Dynasty merchant ship going?
According to archaeologists, the ship departed from the port of Quanzhou in Fujian Province, passed through South Asian countries, transferred to Southeast Asia, and finally ended up in the Middle East for overseas trade. This is the Maritime Silk Road in ancient China.
Subsequently, the ruins of Quanzhou Port in the Song Dynasty were also discovered, confirming the speculations of archaeologists.
Who is the owner of the ship
As for who the owner of the ship is, it has always been a matter of concern to everyone.
Judging from the construction structure and technology of the ship, it is a merchant ship during the Southern Song Dynasty of China. Extrapolating from more than a hundred luxurious gold objects salvaged from the water, a gold belt is 1.8 meters long, and the gold bracelet weighs more than four or two, which shows that the owner of the ship is a tall man. There are more than a hundred pieces of gold, which should be the personal belongings of the shipowner, not for sale. It seems that the ship owner is very rich, perhaps the richest man in the Southern Song Dynasty.
There must have been a storm at sea, or a reef that sank, and everyone was buried in the sea, and there should be no survivors.
A vignette from the British
It is precisely because of these well-crafted gold and silverware that the British can't sit still, saying: This is their thing, Chinese in the Song Dynasty, there can be no such craftsmanship, and it is really brazen to send people to ask for it.
The Eight-Power Coalition invaded Beijing, burned the Yuanmingyuan, stole and robbed from the Forbidden City in China, and took away millions of cultural relics, but they pretended to be deaf and dumb, and did not talk about it. Just look at the British Museum, Chinese cultural relics account for a large proportion, and that is only a small part of the exhibition, and many of them are not displayed in the warehouse.
You know, China in the Song Dynasty can be one of the most economically and technologically developed countries in the world, making these things, a piece of cake. What a hero!
I am a Chinese treasure, a Chinese civilization of five thousand years, broad and profound, dare to ask who in the world can be the enemy!
Let's take a look at those exquisite Song Dynasty relics, made in China: