Daomu Biji: Wu Xie’s Private Notes

Wang Meng sent an e-mail saying that he received the 2003 antique auction yearbook. This kind of stupid thing was sent to us every year, and I never knew who sent it. Anyways, common peasants like us couldn’t afford any of the items in it.

I saw on the news that the Americans had sent a skateboard to Mars last month, [Note: It was written exactly like that in the headlines] and the old guys at NASA celebrated with each other. I comforted myself, they even made it to Mars, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to try and find a person under the sea.

I didn’t fully understand what A Ning told me, and I didn’t know their company very well, either. I searched a bit and found that their company did exist. The logo showed a soft triangular coral (Insert A Ning’s illustration of the logo). This kind of AI-designed enterprise company wouldn’t be too small-scale, so I should be able to trust their professionalism at least.

Such large-scale salvage companies weren’t common overseas. Generally, marine salvage projects were often carried out by teams that were sent by the government since there were lots of secrets and wealth involved. The governments of various countries weren’t willing to let private companies conduct these legendary business activities.

The most typical case was the domestic marine salvage plan of the Japanese shipwreck “Awa Maru”. Because it was rumored that the ship carried Peking Man (1) fossil skulls, countless foreign salvage companies offered free assistance at that time, but the Chinese refused.

There was still an international controversy over why the Americans sank this ship back then. The sighting report at the time indicated that this huge ship was sailing at top speed in the heavy fog and seemed to be eager to reach its destination. Many conspiracy theories believed that there were other things on board besides the Peking Man skulls, which forced the Americans to break the agreement and sink the Japanese civilian ship.

History is full of mystery, so no one knows what secrets are in the ruins under the sea. Naturally, it was better to keep those secrets under their control than to expose them to the treasure hunters who sought nothing but profits.

Even though every country had strict inspections for salvage projects, this kind of supervision was actually very weak. That was why there was an idiom, “The emperor is too far away to control what happens in the mountains”. It was basically impossible to supervise marine salvage on the far away sea.

I heard from some of my friends who handled goods that Xisha had almost become a battlefield. There were ships from various countries coming in and out, and the coast guard couldn't even catch up to them. Moreover, the profit was too great. If a boat went out and returned with ten million, they would only be sentenced to ten years or so if they got caught. You would be an idiot to sell drugs instead of doing marine salvage work.

This sounded very attractive to me. Even Li Ka-shing (2) would have to admit defeat in the face of making two or three hundred million in a few days. Plus, the risk was much lower than losing your head trying to make two hundred thousand from poaching hawksbill sea turtles.

The following are some famous marine salvage incidents at home and abroad:

Awa Maru, Japanese ocean liner, was loaded with forty tons of gold, twelve tons of silver, forty boxes of jewelry, and a large number of cultural relics the Japanese looted from China. There were also three thousand tons of tin ingots, three thousand tons of rubber, and thousands of tons of rice. The ship was sunk by a U.S. submarine in Fujian waters on March 28, 1945. It was later salvaged from 1977 to 1980. At that time, the salvaged items were worth fifty million U.S. dollars. (Fifty million U.S. dollars in 1980!!).

Geldermalsen, a Chinese merchant ship (3), sailed from Guangzhou to Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. In 1752, it sank in the waters of Hong Kong. In 1986, marine salvor Michael Hatcher salvaged 239,000 pieces of blue and white porcelain from the ship, and found a hundred and twenty-five pieces of gold ingots, each weighing forty-five kilograms. The value of the items was worth twenty million U.S. dollars.

Tek Sing, a Chinese merchant ship, was found in the South China Sea. It was also Michael Hatcher who recovered more than a million pieces of porcelain from the ship, of which he smashed six hundred thousand pieces because their color was ordinary and he didn’t have the ability to transport them. The remaining parts were sold for more than thirty million U.S. dollars in Germany.

Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish colonial ship, sank in the waters of Havana in 1622. It was discovered by the treasure hunter Fisher in 1985. Eight tons of gold and five hundred kilograms of gems were salvaged! All the artifacts pulled from the water were worth four hundred million U.S. dollars. Because of this, Fisher gave up operation of the entire company. At that time, treasure hunting had become the only thing worth pursuing in his life. I thought his mentality was very similar to that of Uncle Three’s.

Because of the huge cargo capacity of ships, there was a saying that a ship was worth ten ancient tombs. The number of porcelain items carried on some large merchant ships was almost astronomical. Throughout history, the number of giant ships that had sunk in the Maritime Silk Road was far beyond people’s imagination, and these huge treasures were far from being discovered.

But I could only find a simple webpage for A Ning’s company on the internet, which didn’t reveal much information. This company didn’t seem to carry out high-profile projects. I wasn’t familiar with foreigners’ antique business, so I could only tell myself to be careful.

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TN Notes:

(1) Peking Man is a group of fossil specimens of Homo erectus, dated from roughly 750,000 years ago. Whether there were skulls of Peking Man in the shipwreck of Awa Maru is not confirmed as of now.

(2) Li Ka-shing is a Hong Kong business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. As of June 2019, he is the 30th richest person in the world. Wiki link

(3) Geldermalsen actually belonged to Dutch East India Company (VOC), but I have no idea why the author said that it was a Chinese merchant ship.