When it comes to ancient shipwrecks, many people first think of the Song Dynasty shipwreck "Nanhai No. 1". This shipwreck is the earliest, largest hull and best preserved ancient ocean-going trading merchant ship salvaged from the mainland so far. The shipwreck took the overall salvage method, costing an overall cost of 300 million yuan, but its value is immeasurable, and archaeologists are still carefully extracting cultural relics.
As we all know, ancient Chinese porcelain was deeply loved by Westerners, and a large number of porcelain was exported to all parts of the world through the Maritime Silk Road. Although the shipbuilding industry in ancient China was developed, there were still many cargo ships sinking into the seabed, which directly promoted the emergence of professional treasure hunters. Less well known is the discovery of the Nanhai One and the salvage of the water, thanks to the British mike Hatcher, who repeatedly secretly salvaged shipwrecks in the South China Sea, forcing China to pay attention to it.
Mike Hatcher was a British professional treasure hunter who salvaged more than 80 World War II warships and shipwrecks, and was once known as the "nemesis of underwater archaeology". In 1970, Mike Hatcher became an ocean commercial salvage company. By chance, Mike Hatcher salvaged a shipwreck of Ming dynasty porcelain from the South China Sea, which made him nearly ten million dollars directly.
Since then, Mike Hatcher has set his sights on the South China Sea. In 1999, Mike Hatcher found a Qing Dynasty shipwreck in the South China Sea, which contained more than a million pieces of porcelain from the Kangxi dynasty of the Qing Dynasty. After the news broke, the mainland government protested to the British, believing that the Chinese cultural relics here, but Mike Hatcher had already smuggled the porcelain out of the high seas.
Mike Hatcher is a fierce character, he carefully selected more than 300,000 pieces, smashed the remaining more than 600,000 pieces and did not want to return them to China. Mike Hatcher did this because he believed that things were more precious than rare, and so was porcelain. The author noticed that the name of this shipwreck was "Taixing", and the porcelain contained on it at that time was all from official kilns in various parts of China, and the porcelain was all fine. It's heartbreaking.
Mike Hatcher has committed far more crimes than that, salvaging at least 2 million pieces of porcelain from various Chinese dynasties in the South China Sea. In 1984, for example, Mike Hatcher discovered the "God malsen" in the dusty archives of the Dutch East India Company. In the winter of 1752, the Goethe Malsen, laden with porcelain and gold, sailed from Guangzhou to Amsterdam.
The Cargo God malsen sank 16 days after its departure, and Mike Hatcher studied the course and concluded that the vessel was on the bottom of the South China Sea. Mike Hatcher knew that if it was publicly salvaged, it would be troublesome, so he quietly salvaged and transported it to the high seas for more than a year, and then came up with the so-called "unclaimed" international convention, auctioning 240,000 pieces of porcelain, various cultural relics, etc. This shipwreck made Mike Hatcher earn tens of millions of windfalls.
As Mike Hatcher constantly searches for shipwrecks in the South China Sea, in recent years, china has established an underwater archaeology team as the mainland's national strength has increased. Thus, there was the later "South China Sea No. 1" salvaged out of the water.
Reference: Salvage of Ancient Shipwrecks in the South China Sea