Chapter 918 Both are cargo ships

The work of washing the hull of the sunken ship took about three hours.

Xiao Peng said, "As you can see, my friends in the livestream have been scouring for over three hours, and we've only been able to uncover about a quarter of the upper surface of the shipwreck. The other three-quarters is still buried deep on the seafloor. The further we go, the slower the scouring. We have two choices: either scour slowly, regardless of time, or use seabed excavation equipment—and I'm choosing neither."

The live broadcast room is full of black lines. If you don’t choose, what will you say?

Xiao Peng smiled and said, "I'm not going to salvage the entire ship. Why would I need to dig it out completely? I just need to dig out the valuables inside. But to be honest, I have a bad feeling this time."

"What bad feeling?"

"What's the problem?"

Xiao Peng explained, "It's possible these two ships didn't carry any valuable cargo. The identities of the two ships have just been confirmed. They're both British cargo ships, and their regular routes are always from England to Boston. Their main commodities include tea, cloth, and the like, which aren't valuables. In 1948, the two ships left Cork and disappeared. Now they've been found, on the seabed. Hua Chong, go to the 'Calypso' and start the hydraulic shears!"

Hua Chong's voice came over the intercom: "Boss, which can do you want to open?"

"First we'll open the 'South York Horseshoe,' then the 'Rabbit's Foot,'" Xiao Peng said to the livestream. "We call this process of de-decking a sunken ship 'opening a can.' Both ships are easy to open. You can see they're two wooden paddle steamers, very popular ocean-going vessels of that era."

"Our current ships all have propellers at the stern, but the earliest ships back then didn't have propellers like those 'duck boats' we play on in the park. They had two large rotors at the stern or on either side, driven by steam engines. Most ships had wooden hulls. Ironclad ships existed back then, but they were primarily used for military purposes. The British Navy had ironclad ships back then, and a few years earlier, they had invaded China. They had an ironclad steamship called the Maduna, which alone nearly wiped out the Qing Dynasty navy. They deployed four of these ships, but by the end of the war, their fleet had grown to fifteen. So, it's inevitable that those who lag behind will be defeated."

"By that time, Britain had already completed its industrial transformation, so many of the original wooden ships were modified and fitted with steam engines and paddle wheels to increase their speed. You've also noticed masts and other things on them. Ships at that time basically used both steam engines and sails. Well, in today's terms, they were all 'motor sailboats.'"

"You said Britain sells tea to America?"

"Are you kidding? Americans drink coffee over there!"

After reading it, Xiao Peng explained, "Well, when I was in China, I also thought that only Chinese people loved drinking tea, and the whole world drank coffee. But after reading it, I realized that this is not the case. The mainstream beverage on the planet is actually tea, not coffee. Including Europe, the main beverage is tea. From the day tea entered Europe, it became the most popular drink in Europe. For a long time, it was a symbol of status, only the nobility could enjoy it."

"The first Europeans to drink tea were actually in Italy and Portugal. However, they didn't really appreciate the taste of tea back then, but rather its medicinal properties: after all, the staple food of Europeans was meat, and the fact that tea aided digestion was universally acknowledged. In 1662, when Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza married Charles II of England, she included a chest of tea in her dowry. It was then that tea became popular as a beverage in Britain."

"To be honest, tea represented wealth, power, and status in Britain during that period! Only the upper class could afford tea. If you got any tea back then, you had to put it in a small box made of tortoise shell or sterling silver, and lock it. A servant might be fine if they broke a glass or a dish, but if you dared to steal tea? You'd be dead!"

This isn't an exaggeration. There was even an extreme and absurd incident: the French queen at the time sent people to infiltrate the British royal family to steal tea, but they were caught. This became the "Tea Heist," which caused a sensation in Europe. To this day, the British still use this incident to mock the French.

"The British love of tea has reached an exaggerated level. Have you seen 'Dunkirk'? There's a scene in it where a group of British people, their small fishing boat being pursued at sea, calm their nerves with a cup of hot tea. This isn't a funny scene, really. During World War II, when the war was raging, it was difficult for Britain to obtain supplies. However, the British quietly did something significant during the war: they purchased tea from every country they could get it from, except Japan. If you calculate the weight of British purchases from all over the world during the war, ammunition was the largest purchase, and tea was the second largest. All British warships had a mandatory daily supply of tea for all crew members. After the Netherlands was occupied by Germany, the British airdropped 75,000 tea-filled bombs to support the Dutch, who had lost their territory. Even today, most British Army tanks and armored vehicles have small boilers called 'boiling vessels' specifically designed for the soldiers to make afternoon tea!"

"In fact, coffee is the only mainstream beverage in North America, and long ago, tea was also their mainstream beverage. America's independence is directly related to their love of tea. At that time, North America was a British colony. The characteristic of Britain at that time was to make money from the colonies, regardless of the colonies' life or death. Most of the colonists who went to North America at that time were British. They inherited the British love of tea, and a large amount of British tea was sold to North America. To make more money, Britain successively enacted the Townshend Acts and the Tea Act to impose high taxes in North America. The people in North America were also anxious, and they directly launched a "tea-no-drinking movement" to drink coffee instead. Later, the "Boston Tea Party" occurred. The American people disguised themselves as Indians and dumped the British tea into the sea. Then the British enacted the Coercive Acts to deal with the North American colonists. Everyone knows what happened next. Under Washington's leadership, America became independent!"

At this point, Xiao Peng sighed and said, "I just got some new information. The South York Horseshoe is a ship belonging to the East India Company. This ship is very likely carrying tea. If that's the case... well, it's not worth salvaging!"