"I'm familiar with Manila, but where is Acapulco?"
After hearing the boss's conclusion, Long Wu and Gao Jianxiong didn't react immediately. In the end, they still suffered from their lack of education.
"Acapulco is a port city on the Pacific coast of central Mexico. You can understand it as the outer port of Mexico City, the capital." Gu Kun was also willing to educate his subordinates about illiteracy, so he explained,
"From the time the Spanish opened up the global silver cycle in 1565 until 1815, when the Potosi silver mines were on the verge of exhaustion. The global precious metal trade cycle at that time was as follows:
The Spanish colonists mined American silver from Potosi and transported it to the coast of Central and South America first to the port of Acapulco, which was the most suitable port for crossing the Pacific. Then they plundered some local silver from the Mayan and Aztec civilizations in Acapulco.
The gold that came in was shipped to Manila.
Ming maritime merchants like Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong would also sell tea and porcelain to Manila, where they would exchange it for Spanish American gold and silver. Then Manila merchant ships would take the Indian Ocean route to sell the tea and porcelain back to Europe.
The ships we caught in the Lanfang offshore and Java Sea all belong to the second link of this global trade chain, that is, the ships that have spent their gold and silver and completed their cargo, so the ships are full of tea and porcelain.
And today’s sunken ship probably belongs to the first link in the above-mentioned trade chain, which is to transport Treasure Island to Manila, so that’s why there are so many silver coins on the ship.”
"A boat full of silver coins?!" Everyone's blood pressure instantly soared.
Damn it, the boss's luck... is so incredible.
Even the most loyal subordinates could not help but feel shaken, while those who were less die-hard had completely fallen into jealousy.
Fortunately, the sea is a world where the strong are respected, so everyone only dares to think about it.
Gu Kun's intuition has already made him feel the change in the atmosphere. To put it more mysteriously, he can feel the "murderous aura".
He justly reassured: "It's not that exaggerated. When I was a boy, I studied the information on Spanish silver ships out of curiosity. The customs declaration load of American silver ships recorded in historical archives was only five to six million silver pesos.
There is very little gold.
And because there are so many eagles in Mexico, don’t have high expectations for the added value of silver coins as cultural relics. It is estimated that these silver coins will only be shipped at a price that is slightly one or two times more expensive than the current silver price. And silver is not worth much now.
Everyone knows how valuable it is, 925 industrial silver is only over 3 yuan per gram, not to mention that the silver content in Mexico’s Eagle Ocean is not even 900.”
After hearing these words, everyone's mentality became slightly more balanced, but their minds quickly turned to mental arithmetic.
Those who are a little better at mathematics have already estimated the value of the silver ship mentioned by the boss.
"Mexican Eagle Ocean generally has two-peso and five-peso denominations. Each peso weighs 16 grams. The silver content of nine percent is 14 grams. The silver content of 45,000 pesos is 7.2 million grams, which is 7.2 tons...that's
Is it too little? A large Galenic sailing ship with over a thousand tons transported less than 10 tons of coins?"
Gu Kun also saw everyone's doubts, so he put on a show openly and honestly: "Brother Gao, go to the second bookcase on the left in my captain's cabin and get the book box containing the archives. I have read the ancient books before
Copies of the maritime trade files are all there, there should be relevant records."
Gao Jianxiong hurried back to the captain's cabin and soon brought over an iron box. Gu Kun called a few core confidants to sit around and look through the box together.
These materials are about ancient merchant ship trade information from all walks of life, and silver-carrying ships are a very small example. Gao Jianxiong went through seven or eight copies before finding it, so it is not surprising that some people think that Gu Kun came here deliberately.
Gao Jianxiong and Long Wu watched it together and analyzed frankly: "It turns out that it is really less than ten tons. It is right when you think about it. After all, several ships are sent every year. How can there be a higher output for something as valuable as gold and silver.
If you calculate it this way, 500,000 silver pesos is about 22 million yuan based on the price of silver. If the Yingyang silver coin can be worth one or two times more than the value of the silver itself, it will be 40 million to 60 million yuan..."
Long Wu thought for a while and was quite puzzled: "If you calculate it this way, it is not worth many times more than the boats we fished in the Java Sea before. How could this be so? Looking at the information in the file, the market price back then, Zheng Chenggong wanted to
It takes thousands of tons of tea to be exchanged for dozens of tons of silver. But now, the value is almost the same..."
Gu Kun said with a smile: "You haven't come to your senses. That's because the value of porcelain and other things over time has far exceeded that of silver coins. The blue and white porcelain of the Ming Dynasty can increase in value hundreds of times today, while the value of porcelain in the Ming Dynasty can increase hundreds of times.
The Mexican Eagle Ocean has only increased in value several times now.
Moreover, what Zheng Chenggong earned was only a small part of the global trade at that time: the price of tea in Manila and the price finally shipped to Amsterdam were at least 15 times different in the 17th century. In Amsterdam, a pound of silver could only buy a few pounds.
Here’s the tea.”
Gu Kun explained so much to appease his morale and unify his thoughts before homework, so he didn't want to talk more nonsense.
"Okay, don't ask, let's get started! Long Wu, you will lead the way by diving this time. Brother Gao, you will take control on the ship first. I will go down with the wired submersible to have a look. By the way, I will see if I can move some important boxes."
Come up here—Xu Hu, you are responsible for watching over the storage yard. All the goods you have picked up are gathered together. No one is allowed to unpack and inspect them privately. Wait for me to come back and inspect them together."
With just a few instructions, Gu Kun arranged the work.
Xu Hu was a soldier under Gao Jianxiong back then and served on Ganquan Island because he was the first to be discharged and transferred to work with Gu Kun. Gu Kun was arranging guards to harvest these jobs that did not require technical content but required loyalty the most.
As a child, I tended to trust him.
After a while, Long Wu took the divers into the water again.
The stern of the "Nightingale", like a dock landing ship, opened a hatch to the sea, and out of it came a small wire-controlled submarine that was definitely a sci-fi in the 1990s.
Don't underestimate this electric submarine, which is only a dozen tons. This is the last piece of high-end equipment that Gu Kun spent extra money to purchase when he was in Blackland, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This small submarine carries a 2-kilometer cable, so it can travel as far as 2 kilometers away from the mothership in a straight line. However, the maximum deep dive is only 1,000 meters. This is determined by the pressure-resistant shell, not the length of the cable.
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The cable is as thick as an arm, and coupled with the outer insulation layer and armor, it is almost equivalent to a human calf. Under normal circumstances, the power of the submarine motor depends entirely on the cable input.
However, there is also an emergency battery pack on the boat, which can last for 15 minutes. This is so that in the event of an accident, cable breakage or power failure, the boat can quickly float to the surface of the water with emergency power in 15 minutes. It is very safe.
It's foolproof.
There are two mechanical arms in front of the submarine. They don't have many joints and can't do any delicate operations, but they are enough to demolish the shell of the wooden sunken ship.
There is also a platform at the stern of the boat that can open and close the hatch. It has a volume of only a few cubic meters and is usually flooded. This design was originally intended to store and transport some findings from undersea scientific research, but when it came to Gu Kun,
, just act as a porter transporting gold and silver.
This was the first time for Gu Kun to drive this kind of thing in his life, but he had experience in his previous life, so he got started smoothly——
Before the rebirth in the previous life, these manned wire-controlled submarines had been eliminated. The ones used by Oceania were all unmanned remote-controlled submarines. There was only one operator sitting on the big ship, watching the pictures captured by the submarine's camera on the screen.
It controls like a game console.
He also caught several of those high-end goods and handed them over to the relevant departments in exchange for rewards.
So, can you not be familiar with the road?
Gao Jianxiong, who was sitting on the big ship, was a little worried when he first watched Gu Kun get on the submarine, but he was relieved when he saw that the image sent back by Gu Kun was stable.
"The boss is really awesome and talented. He can drive an electric submarine so smoothly for the first time. He is an experienced driver."
Gu Kun drove the submarine and quickly dived to a depth of two to three hundred meters. Then, under the light instructions of Long Wu and others, he used a robotic arm to drill open the outer wall of the cargo hold of Galen's ship, and then asked the divers to directly remove the boxes one by one.
Moved to the back cabin of his submarine, he quickly surfaced again.
This is the biggest difference in salvage efficiency when there is a submarine and when there is no submarine - when there is no submarine, the biggest restriction on the operating speed is the speed at which the divers can surface.
As mentioned before, when divers float too fast in the deep sea, bubbles will precipitate in the blood vessels, leading to death from oxygen poisoning. Therefore, the process of floating up after Long Wu and others fished out something for the first time took a full six hours.
With a submarine, this problem no longer exists. Gu Kun can dive once every 15 minutes, and then surface for another 15 minutes. He can fish once in half an hour, and he can transport several tons at a time, which is better than divers who can only carry 100,000 tons at a time.
It is much more comfortable to carry dozens or hundreds of kilograms.
Long Wu and the others brought oxygen bottles for four more hours this time and concentrated on guiding them. During this time, Gu Kun made 20 round trips, picked up hundreds of boxes, and moved the two cargo holds that were expected to be the most important.
Empty.
On the last trip, Gu Kun gave Long Wu and the others a light signal and told the divers responsible for guidance and transportation to stop working.
A few hours later, Long Wu and the others slowly returned to the ship, and Gu Kun had already counted all the harvest.
"It's a good job. We will follow this rhythm in the next few days, first move out all the boxes in the cabin, and finally stuff inflatable pontoons into the boat and salvage the empty hull as a whole. Today everyone will be rewarded with a thousand dollars!"
A sumptuous banquet has been prepared on the ship to replenish the strength of the hard-working divers who have been diving for more than 10 hours. Others have also been arranged to be guest physiotherapists to relieve stress.
"Boss, are there really 500,000 silver pesos in these boxes? It looks like there are a lot of boxes." Long Wu was very curious about the fruits of his labor and couldn't help but ask.
Gu Kun reassured cautiously: "I have estimated that there should be some after all. The current cargo has been 30 tons, but 80% of it is corn and potatoes. I have sealed them and put them in a museum in the future.
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If you think about it, you will understand. A Galen ship of more than a thousand tons only transported 10 tons of silver. There must be a lot of worthless cargo in ballast. But don’t be discouraged. Potatoes and corn are also worth fishing for. They all have history.