With the blessing of a ship-borne wire-controlled submarine, Gu Kun's efficiency in this operation was certainly several times faster than that of the previous ships.
This is only an evaluation of the overall efficiency of salvage of the entire ship.
If we dismantle each link and look at the salvage speed of the cargo inside the ship, the difference would be at least a dozen times with or without a transport submarine.
In just four or five days of intense work, Gu Kun managed to get more than 300 tons of cargo containers, emptying out almost half of the sunken ship's hold.
The remaining boxes were all initially inspected underwater and determined to be worthless.
These can be directly pulled to the seabed and thrown away, or they can be finally salvaged together with the hull using a buoy and a winch. It is not a pity even if they are scattered during the lifting process.
In addition, in the past few days, Gu Kun also directed everyone to carry out the first pontoon demolition and lifting operation. The stern of the ship, which was basically empty of its contents, was first lifted up and placed on the "Nightingale".
Galenic sailing ships all have a tall stern, and because the stern building is a superstructure, the structural wood is often much thinner than the hull. When a Galenic ship sinks, it often breaks apart.
This ship was no exception. When the stern of the ship was on the seabed, it had been disconnected from the rear hull many times, and there were only dozens of wooden boards left connected. So Gu Kun just used the submarine's mechanical arm to dismantle it a little.
The stern of the ship was separated from the hull and fished out separately.
This is also a relatively safe approach in sailboat salvage operations, because after the stern is removed, the Galen ship will not be prone to the problem of being top-light and foot-heavy, and will not be prone to an unstable center of gravity and rollover when the entire ship is subsequently lifted.
In addition, the captain's cabin and chart room of ancient Galen ships are usually located on the stern. Although there is no cargo here, you can find a lot of archival information about the ancient ship.
"Okay, that's it for today's work. Let's have a good night's rest. Starting tomorrow, we will carry out the whole ship lifting operation."
As the stern of the ship and the last batch of valuable cargo boxes entered the cargo hold of the "Nightingale", Gu Kun announced a piece of good news that made everyone finally breathe a sigh of relief.
These days, they have been working in shifts, and they have to work as soon as they wake up. They are really tired, and everyone is eager to have a good sleep.
Gu Kun also gave out a total of at least three thousand US dollars in bonuses to each person. Gao Jianxiong and Long Wu, his close friends, received several times more than ordinary people.
There were more than 30 people on board, and the total revenue was US$200,000.
After everyone went to rest, Gu Kun returned to the captain's cabin and carefully opened several boxes containing personal belongings of ancient captains and sailors obtained from the poop, searching for items that could prove his speculations about past life memories.
He is very careful, knowing that these things have been soaked and must not be exposed to air again, so he always puts the boxes into special nitrogen glass cabinets and then operates through the glass cabinets.
This kind of glass cabinet may be difficult for ordinary people to imagine, but readers who have visited the limited exhibition treasure trove of high-end museums should be familiar with it——
It is the kind of glass with six sides that are sealed, filled with nitrogen or inert gas, but there are two round holes in the front glass, and the round holes are covered with airtight rubber gloves.
When a museum operator wants to handle the items in the glass cabinet, he can put his hands into the two round holes covered with air-tight rubber gloves, and then use the latex gloves to pick up the items inside.
Since Gu Kun is going to be in the business of salvaging ancient cultural relics, of course all these preparations have been done. He never saves money on buying equipment.
At this moment, with his hands in air-tight rubber gloves, he first looked through a shipwreck captain's logbook and several nameplates.
The first important information he confirmed was that the ship was indeed called the "Suarez", which completely matched the information he had seen in his previous life, indicating that he was right.
This is a silver ship that sailed from Acapulco to Manila in the 1580s, equivalent to the early Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. It was later fished out around 2006 by an archaeological company commissioned by the Philippine government.
The reason why this ship became famous in later generations and left many relevant records that Gu Kun found and memorized was mainly because this ship made a major overturn in the archeology of many historical details of the Spanish silver circulation trade at that time.
In the past, historical circles mainly relied on archival documents to infer the scale of Manila's silver trade at that time - the general customs declaration amount for transpacific silver ships recorded in written archives was around four to five million silver pesos.
However, many unofficial historians and historians who are inclined to conspiracy theories believe that this number should be greatly underestimated.
Because hundreds of years ago, Spain's level of governance and the ability to monitor the colonies on the mainland, which was far away from the ocean, could not be so efficient.
Those colonists, whether they were governors or mine owners, went to the other side of the world to endure hardships and open mines, not to work hard for the King of Spain. Therefore, it was inevitable for the silver mine output to be concealed at all levels and to be smuggled out together by people above and below.
However, the only documents that historians can find are Manila's customs declaration files at that time, so even if they think there is indeed concealment, they don't know what the proportion of concealment should be.
Historically, after the "Suarez" was fished out of the Philippine Sea after 2006, it showed great historical research value - the customs declaration documents on the ship showed that the number of silver coins declared was 500,000 silver pesos.
However, the silver coins actually found by archaeologists from the wreckage of the ship alone were a full 1.13 million silver pesos more than the customs declaration documents - these extra silver coins were placed in a relatively secret cabin. The captain's logbook also stated
It clearly recorded the benefits that were planned to be given to the Manila co-investigator after arriving at the port, in order to lure people into the water and conceal the report at the same time.
Therefore, on Gu Kun's boat, there were actually 500,000 silver pesos of normal imported silver coins and 1.13 million silver pesos of ancient traveling silver coins, adding up to 1.63 million silver pesos!
He didn't tell his men any of this, and he couldn't.
He can't always say: Historical documents believe that this type of ship has a customs declaration import volume of about 500,000 silver pesos, but I actually opened my eyes and knew in advance that this ship had more than 1.6 million silver pesos, right?
Since I can't explain it, I can't just pass it by in confusion.
By the way, it can also eliminate 70% of the unwillingness of subordinates, which is great.
After a rough check of the written records that he fished out, Gu Kun returned to the cabin where the cargo boxes were placed, and finally checked all the boxes.
Many boxes are covered with worthless goods on the top, but the bottom is still mainly silver coins - it can be seen that this kind of thing is not only practiced in modern times, but the Spaniards four hundred years ago were very good at it.
Sneaked away. This is all to avoid the inspectors here in Manila, and the superficial skills can be a little bit passable (of course the most critical factor is to give money to the inspectors in Manila)
This method is the same as Yuriolov covering potatoes on the M16 rifle.
The main concealed cargo on the "Suarez" were also potatoes and corn, which were relatively popular in the Americas at the time but had just begun to be introduced in Asia. This was the famous "Great Exchange of Species" in the history of navigation.
"Well, if these things could have been spread back to the mainland as soon as they arrived in Manila, maybe the Ming Dynasty would not have perished so quickly, at least not in the way it did later."
Looking at these completely carbonized and decayed residues, Gu Kun couldn't help but sigh in his heart.
He had read history books and found that the Acapulco-Manila route was opened in 1565, so sweet potatoes and corn were first introduced to Manila in the early 1570s.
The sweet potato was brought back to China in the 21st year of Wanli (1593) by Chen Zhenlong, a fallen scholar of Hu Jian who was wandering in Southeast Asia. At that time, the Spanish colonists strictly controlled the spread of sweet potatoes and corn, high-yielding crops in the Americas, and the control and inspection were very strict.
If any Chinese were caught bringing crop seeds out of the country, they would be killed by the Spaniards.
Chen Zhenlong managed to get by by weaving sweet potato vines into hemp rope.
From this perspective, ancestors Hu Jian made the greatest contribution to the growth of Chinese civilization from more than 100 million people to 400 million people.
It is a pity that the Ming Dynasty did not have time to enjoy the dividends from the complete spread of high-yielding crops, and it burped. If it were pushed from before 1593 to the 1570s, with 20 more years of breeding and reproduction, the situation might have been very different.
The founding of the Lanfang Kingdom was originally based on the canonization of Emperor Yongli more than 300 years ago, so the people of Lanfang still have some affection for the Ming Dynasty.
"These things will be moved into the Maritime Museum in the future. They will be regarded as the 'first American crops to come to Asia'. If the Chinese tourism industry rises in the future, they can be used as an attraction to attract tourists to come for pilgrimage."
Gu Kun had already thought about how to maximize the value of these cultural relics.
Maybe in a few years, he can stuff some black money and let the writer who wrote "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" or other similar best-selling books bring in some private goods to exaggerate the secrets inside.
…
The next day, after everyone had a full rest, the final salvage operation of the entire ship officially began.
Gu Kun continued to drive his submarine and cooperated with the divers to stuff hundreds of inflatable pontoons to provide reserve buoyancy into the cavity of the sunken ship.
The "Nightingale" is much larger than his previous scientific research and survey ships, with a dead weight of 7,000 tons and a load capacity of 6,000 tons.
However, the ship's own equipment and supplies take up 2,000 tons of displacement, so the maximum additional load is only 4,000.
But this is enough to hold a large galenic sailboat with a maximum total weight of 1,300 to 1,500 tons.
Under the full lift of the 500-ton buoyancy reserve pontoon and all the hoisting cranes on the ship, the entire empty hull weighing more than 800 tons rose steadily and finally surfaced.
The big ship immediately put down several small boats and towed them beside it, controlling the attitude of the sunken ship that was picked up, waiting for the seawater to drain out, so that the sunken ship could float on the water again with its own buoyancy. (The wooden ship unloaded the cargo, and the seawater drained out.
If part of it falls off, it may float)
Then, you can rely on towing to directly drag the sunken ship in from the dock landing compartment where the submarine is installed at the stern of the "Nightingale". Then close the hatch and use the water pump to drain all the seawater in the dock landing compartment.
"Get ready to return!"
——
ps: I know some book friends complain that they feel dull after reading for a longer time.
Let me be honest, my update speed is definitely faster among books in the free period. Most people’s free period is 4,000 words per day. I only compressed it to 4,000 words per day in the past week, and then later
All in all, 6,000 words per day.
Of course, this speed is definitely incomparable with those who came after it was put on the shelves. I also want to put it on the shelves, and I also want to write a little faster, but it is true that there were too many strong competitors in the past, and I couldn't compete with it. I reflect on it, and the audience for my own writing is
Not enough.
If you really don’t want to catch up on updates, after these few days of catching up, you can probably catch up on Thursday and Friday of this week, and then you can wait for a few days, such as a week, because by then, it should have been determined whether there will be a strong recommendation.
I'll come back and start slaughtering it before the book goes on the shelves on January 10th (I'm afraid some people... will forget to come back until January 10th, alas).