A long time ago, a sea disaster comparable to the "sinking of the Titanic" occurred in our country's waters. And in this shipwreck, a large number of cultural relics sank to the bottom of the sea together with the ship.
It was precisely because of this disaster that a British man made a fortune and took away some complete and valuable cultural relics. However, the most resentful thing is that in order to ensure the preservation of the value of the cultural relics in his hands, he actually smashed all the remaining cultural relics.
This makes countless Chinese today very angry about this behavior, and protecting cultural relics has become a craze of the times.
The Sinking of the Taixing
Our country has been very advanced in both commerce and agriculture since ancient times, but our navigation has not been very perfect before this.
So much so that an unprecedented maritime disaster occurred in 1822. At that time, a large commercial ship named "Tai Xing" set out from a port in Xiamen, my country, preparing to go overseas to do porcelain business. At that time, the displacement of the entire giant ship exceeded 1,000 tons.
You must know that at the beginning of the 19th century, the productivity of the entire world was very backward. At that time, it was quite remarkable to be able to produce a large ship with a displacement of 1,000 tons. It's one of the best ships.
But at that time, in addition to the sailors on the ship, there were more than 1 million pieces of porcelain and thousands of tourists. Many people had never seen such a huge ship at that time. Although it was the most commercial ship, it still did not stop those curious tourists.
At that time, the society was relatively turbulent. Even now, there are still some pirates in some public waters, who specialize in plundering passing ships and merchants.
At that time, in order to avoid pirates at sea, the Taixing chose a relatively distant route. But people are not as good as God, not to mention that drifting at sea is much more dangerous than on land.
The weather at sea can change at any time. One second it may be clear skies, the next second it may be stormy. In addition, the preparations for sailing were poor at that time. Once there was a storm, there were almost no rescue measures. At that time, I had already left my life to God.
However, when the people on the entire ship were celebrating after thinking they had escaped the pirates' robbery, they did not expect that an unprecedented shipwreck would be waiting for them.
No one knows what happened at that time. Thousands of tourists fell into the sea together with millions of pieces of porcelain. However, only 180 people were rescued by a British freighter and their lives were saved.
At that time, the sinking of the Taixing and the sinking of the Titanic were hailed as the world's two major sea disasters. Before departure, they were both called "unsinkable giant ships", but they both failed. , in the eyes of the world, these two giant ships were the pinnacle of the world at that time, but in front of the sea and nature, they seemed so "powerless".
Even today, when technology is so advanced, when we face the disasters brought by nature, we still seem so pitiful and helpless. We never dare to hope to conquer nature, we just hope to live with it peacefully.
Mike Hatcher’s windfall
As time goes by, countries around the world have formed a relatively stable pattern. Moreover, there is a unified rule on the high seas in the world: no matter who it is, no matter what the person or organization is, as long as it is a ship salvaged in the high seas, no matter which country it once belonged to, they have no right to take it back.
Although this regulation is open to people all over the world, some people took advantage of a loophole and took this opportunity to make an ill-gotten fortune. One of the representatives of this industry is the British professional treasure hunter Mike Hatcher.
After the Taixing sank, our country also sent a large number of search and rescue personnel to the location of the suspected shipwreck. However, things at sea are ever-changing, and because there were no accurate measuring instruments at the time, it was difficult to find the place where the shipwreck occurred.
Because the people who fell into the water were rescued by a British cargo ship, the British have a book called "India Navigation Guide", which details the time when the Taixing sank. Episode location. It's just that no Chinese has read this book at all, and the location of the shipwreck has never been found.
But this book happened to be seen by Mike Hatcher. At that time, he was already an expert in shipwreck salvage, but he bought most of the salvaged items with the money. It also went into his pocket. And at that time, he had already accumulated a lot of wealth through salvage and sales, and he also had a dedicated team of his own.
He "cleverly" made use of international conventions. Mike Hatcher and his team successfully blended into some salvage teams every time. In just a few years, they A lot of treasure was recovered, and the countries couldn't completely stop him.
After learning that there was huge wealth on board the Taixing, Mike Hatcher took action.
He has almost determined the specific location where the Taixing sank based on the records in the "India Navigation Guide" and some materials at the time. After that, he began to lead his team into the South China Sea, preparing to salvage the porcelain that had been sealed for many years.
After unremitting surveys, he finally found the location of the sunken ship. The next thing his team will do is to take these cultural relics ashore and auction them.
In the end, he salvaged more than 1 million pieces of cultural relics, and they were all the most valuable porcelain during the Kangxi period. With this salvage, Michael Hatcher and his The team also made a fortune. This alone would not make the Chinese people so angry. In order to buy a good price for what they had in their hands, he smashed all the low-value items and threw them back into the sea.
We are very fortunate to be born in the most glorious era of our motherland. The historical legacy has become classic culture. They will not hinder our development, but they also play an extraordinary role as witnesses of history.
Our country not only has profound culture, but also is very rich in cultural relics. Nowadays, they have become the most powerful evidence for us to explore history, and naturally their value is also extraordinary.
After this incident was made public, our country immediately dispatched its own underwater archaeological team to salvage some sunken ships. The achievements in the past few years have also been very remarkable, and more and more cultural relics have returned to the embrace of the motherland.
The most important thing is that the consciousness of the Chinese people has been improved, and they have attached great importance to and care about their cultural relics. Some of the cultural relics were bought by some domestic collectors at large prices and then handed over to the country.
The country is our safe haven, but when the country needs us, we must also be duty-bound.