The British helped us find the "South China Sea One", but China is unable to salvage it.

In the last issue we talked about the British people sitting in their cars and crying as they were leaving. How did a century-old pirate live in Bengbu? It is estimated that they recall that they are too wronged, they have found the treasure of the shipwreck, and they can achieve the peak of their lives of overnight wealth, but they have to terminate the contract because of the Chinese shipwreck. In the end, the first joint underwater archaeology between China and the United Kingdom ended with the British taking advantage of the prosperity and failure. So what then? Next, how do we salvage this future national treasure shipwreck "Nanhai One"?

Hello everyone, I am your old friend Zhang Rui. Today, I will continue to talk for you, after the discovery of shipwrecks, China is facing a dilemma that everyone did not expect. How to break the game?

Before talking about this dilemma, I will answer the questions of some netizens in the previous issue. Everyone is asking, what is the ultimate fate of the British people after they return home crying? The initiator of the project, Roy Martin, in order to investigate and salvage the "Rhineborough" shipwreck, had specially registered a "maritime exploration and salvage company". The company had three letters in its original English name, "PLC". Meaning: Public Limited Company. The exact translation should be: a limited company that can raise funds publicly.

In the mid-16th century, the British government issued "privateering permits" to private shipowners, authorizing British pirates to go out to sea to plunder enemy ships. During the reign of Elizabeth I, in order to win the war between Britain and Spain, sea privateering became a "national movement" in which Britain actively participated from top to bottom. The most famous English pirate, Drake, raised only 5,000 pounds in several robberies from 1577 to 1580, and the final looted treasure was worth as much as 4.7 million pounds! Today, European and American countries have applied this traditional method of raising funds to go to sea to the field of shipwreck salvage, and Martin's company is raising funds in this traditional way of pirate countries, in order to share the risk of finding and salvaging shipwrecks.

But alas, hey, there seems to be something wrong with this word, and it should be a fortunate thing for us. Well, it feels much better to say that. Fortunately, the target shipwreck of this Sino-British cooperation, the "Rhineberg", was not found in the end, and the shipwreck found was because it was a Chinese shipwreck, and according to the contract, the salvage cooperation must be terminated. As a result, the British team spent all the money raised by the fundraisers and had to return to the UK to announce the company's closure. This is the ultimate fate of the Briton Roy Martin and his team of underwater archaeology treasure hunters, as well as the investors who supported them.

Well, after the British careerists' vain attempts to divide up the cultural relics of the shipwreck on the chinese seabed were shattered, a big stone in my heart finally landed on the ground, and I was in a good mood. Let's go back to the main topic and talk about the real situation of Underwater Archaeology in China that year.

If you want to talk about China's underwater archaeology in 1987, it is 100 times worse than the Chinese Navy at that time. This statement is no exaggeration. After the British helped us find the "South China Sea One" by accident that year, the situation of China's underwater archaeology was that there was no talent, no technical equipment, and three had no funds. Looking at the "South China Sea No. 1" in the sea in front of our homes, we couldn't do anything about it. Using a phrase "looking at the ocean and sighing" to describe the inner feelings of the underwater archaeology manpower in those years can be said to be without any sense of violation.

However, history is already before us, and whether Chinese themselves take on the responsibility of protecting underwater cultural heritage is not given a second option. Even if you have nothing in front of you, you have to start from scratch and bury your head. Underwater archaeology is a very professional work, if we want to do it ourselves, we must first cultivate professionals who understand underwater archaeology. At that time, the field of underwater archaeology around the world had two very different directions in how to carry out underwater archaeology work in their respective countries.

The first is to have professional divers launched to undertake the excavation of the submarine shipwreck, and the overall command work is conducted by archaeologists on the working platform. This method was first seen in 1900 in the Greek shipwreck of Antikesila for underwater archaeological excavations. Later, in July 1975, South Korean fisherman Choi Heung-geun salvaged six complete pieces of celadon and brought them home. On New Year's Day 1976, Cui's younger brother came to visit his brother and found the celadon. He was a teacher who believed that since an antiquity had been salvaged from the bottom of the sea, it should be reported to the Cultural Relics Administration of the Ministry of Culture and Intelligence. In July, the Choi brothers received a 1 million yuan bonus from the Cultural Relics Administration, and we don't know how much this million won was worth at that time. Didn't you give this brother an award certificate or something? In any case, Korean archaeologists believe that these porcelains are precious Song and Yuan celadons, probably from a shipwreck.

Due to the uncertainty of the location of these Song and Yuan celadons, the South Korean authorities did not organize further work. It wasn't until September 1, 1976, that six fishery divers in South Korea discovered the exact location of the shipwreck. After using triangulation to measure the relationship between the location of the shipwreck porcelain and the location of the peaks of the nearby islands, they salvaged 123 pieces of celadon porcelain. The six divers sold porcelain to antique dealers. Subsequently, they were arrested for illegally selling cultural relics. However, they acquitted themselves for giving the exact location of the shipwreck and making up for their mistakes.

In October 1976, the Korea Administration of Cultural Heritage formally established an underwater archaeological excavation team headed by archaeologist Professor Yoon Moo-byung and with naval divers as the main force for underwater salvage. The first underwater archaeological work carried out by Korean archaeologists was officially launched, and the shipwreck they excavated was the famous "Sinan Shipwreck".

The advantage of the above underwater archaeological excavation method is that a large number of divers can be quickly mobilized to launch the water in a short period of time; the disadvantage is that archaeologists cannot visit the underwater site in person and cannot intuitively understand and grasp the excavation of the underwater ship site.

The second is that archaeologists, trained in diving, personally go down to the bottom of the sea to carry out underwater archaeological excavations of shipwrecks. This approach was first applied to the seabed by the "father of underwater archaeology" American George Bass, in 1960, in the sea area of Cape Gelidonya, Turkey. They set out to bring modern archaeology to the seabed for underwater excavations and studies of a Bronze Age shipwreck. The advantage of this approach is that archaeologists can dive to the bottom of the sea and conduct standardized underwater archaeological excavations of shipwrecks; the disadvantage is that there are very few archaeologists who can master diving techniques at the same time, and the progress of underwater work is severely limited.

The two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, we in China to settle down as soon as possible, is it to select divers to train archaeology, or to select archaeologists to train diving techniques? Which way is more reasonable? I now ask you, if you had made a decision, how would you have chosen? You can leave a message for me in the comment area.

Our predecessors felt that it would take four years to train divers to systematically learn archaeology, while it would take only a few months to train archaeologists to systematically learn to dive. So, that year, China decided to select young archaeologists to learn about diving and underwater archaeology.

Therefore, at the invitation of the Netherlands, in 1987, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage selected two young archaeologists, Zhang Wei of the China History Museum and Yang Lin of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, to go to the Netherlands to learn underwater archaeology techniques. The Dutch at the time believed that China had a huge maritime territory and that there must be underwater archaeology professionals. And when the two young men got off the plane and told them that they could dive, the Dutch were dumbfounded. Therefore, he immediately changed his plans and temporarily gave two Chinese guests a crash diving course. At this time, Zhang Wei and Yang Lin thought to themselves, they have all come, and they can't embarrass the country and go back. So they threw themselves into the Netherlands diving training and underwater archaeological excavation practice crash course.

The following year, in 1988, China sent a young scholar Wang Jun to Japan to learn Japanese underwater archaeology techniques. Wang Jun was a good and versatile student, not only learning Japanese underwater archaeology techniques, but also planting grass to Japan on the Song and Yuan shipwreck that We ourselves were unable to salvage in the Yangjiang Area of Guangdong Province. It successfully attracted the keen interest of Professor Shozo Tanabe of the Institute of Aquatic Archaeology in Japan.

Immediately after the iron was hot, Professor Akizo Tanabe was invited to visit China and signed a Sino-Japanese cooperation agreement with Yu Weichao, director of the China History Museum, to investigate the shipwreck of the Song Yuan in Yangjiang, Guangdong. Due to the limited funds of the China Museum of History that year, underwater archaeology was an extremely expensive work, and the Japanese side finally decided to invest 300,000 yuan to undertake all the expenses of the Sino-Japanese joint underwater archaeological survey in 1989. You may not know that in 1989, the normal monthly wage of ordinary workers was only more than 30 yuan, and 300,000 yuan was a considerable amount of money.

Therefore, two years after the Sino-British joint underwater archaeological survey found that the Chinese Song and Yuan shipwrecks were discovered, in 1989, China and Japan once again began to investigate the mysterious shipwreck on the seabed of the Yangjiang River in Guangdong. Unlike the last time, this time, China has studied abroad, has its own three underwater archaeology team members, and has pulled in 300,000 yuan of Japanese funds, and the Japanese side has sent several experienced underwater archaeology team members, as well as underwater photojournalists who can record the whole process.

After two years of underwater archaeology in China, bystanders during Sino-British cooperation have become actual participants in Sino-Japanese cooperation. However, at this time, China's underwater archaeology is still very weak, waiting for Chinese underwater archaeologists is the upcoming Sino-Japanese joint investigation team to go to sea, waiting for Chinese underwater archaeologists, is the first jump of the history of the incomparably brave under the waves...

Well, let's talk about it today, the next issue, we will talk about the thrilling and touching story of the Sino-Japanese joint underwater archaeological survey "Nanhai No. 1". Welcome to @Zhang Rui Underwater To See the World We will see you in the next issue.