"Ah Hai, come and give me a hand! There's something good in this box! There's porcelain inside, and it might even be intact!"
"Where, where? Is there really a complete piece of porcelain? Brother Yu, I heard that Song Dynasty porcelain is incredibly valuable. It can fetch tens or even hundreds of millions at auctions. If there really is a complete piece, then we're going to be rich!"
"By the way, Brother Fisherman, we're salvaging things from a shipwreck. After we bring them back, you won't make us hand them over, and then give us a banner and a 500 yuan reward, will you?"
"Um, I don't think so. Although cultural relics found within our territory belong to the state, we are in international waters now, and anything salvaged here belongs to us."
"As long as it's our own, that's fine, Brother Yu. If we really manage to find a few complete porcelain pieces this time, can I keep one?"
"You're keeping one? What do you need the porcelain for?"
"It's used for flower arranging. I see people on TV using porcelain vases to hold flowers, and they look quite nice."
"Flower arrangement... um... whatever makes you happy. If you have a lot of intact porcelain pieces, then I'll give you one."
Upon seeing the contents of the box, Bai Yu immediately called over Wang Hai, who was standing nearby.
Then the two brothers started chatting as they pulled the wooden box out of the pile of boxes.
What really interested the two brothers was the ownership of the porcelain.
Just as Wang Hai had worried, they couldn't possibly go through all the trouble of finding a salvage boat to go out to sea, not to mention how much money it cost.
From their initial salvage plan, to finding a salvage vessel, then to using an exploration ship to search for traces of the shipwreck, and now to the ongoing salvage operation...
The whole process took several months, and the time cost was far more significant than the monetary cost.
After all, you should take a look at who's involved in salvaging this shipwreck. Bai Yu, needless to say, is a national-level athlete with countless achievements and three companies under his name.
Given his earning power, it would be very apt to describe him in one sentence: he makes hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in no time.
Wang Hai is a shareholder of Yuxue Company. He owns shares in three companies that start with the name Yuxue. If Yuxue Company makes money, it means he can also make money, and his net worth is also considerable.
Li Shuang, the vice president of the live streaming division of Yuxue Company, earns an annual income of tens of millions of yuan, including bonuses.
Considering the value of the three of them, the time cost they incurred is no less than the economic cost.
So if the salvaged porcelain were nationalized, the three brothers would definitely not agree, not even if they were given a banner and a bonus, or their costs were reimbursed.
The reason Bai Yu said that it was highly unlikely to be taken away was because before setting sail, he had consulted the company's legal department to inquire about the final ownership of the sunken ship after salvaging it in international waters.
Regarding this, the company's legal team concluded that whoever salvaged it owns it.
That's why Bai Yu spent a lot of money to hire a professional team to go out to sea to salvage the shipwreck.
...
With Bai Yu and Wang Hai's efforts, they quickly pulled out the intricate box, and then the two brothers, one in front and one behind, prepared to carry it away.
However, as the two brothers lifted the box, the feeling it gave them was quite different. The box, which didn't look very big, was surprisingly heavy to lift.
"Wow, this box is quite heavy. I hope you can bring me some good news and not make my efforts in vain."
"Brother Yu, there will definitely be good news."
"Absolutely!"
Then the Bai brothers carried the box up the steps, preparing to move it out and take a look.
Getting into this cabin is easy, but getting out is not so easy.
Ultimately, the hatch was just too small, and the cabin had been erected, plus the two brothers were carrying a wooden crate.
With a combination of factors, including the two brothers and Li Shuang's help from outside, it still took them half a day to move the box out.
Without the slightest hesitation, the three brothers loaded the box onto the lifeboat and immediately sailed away.
The camera then shifts to the three Bai brothers back on the deck of the salvage ship.
Now comes the moment of witnessing a miracle. Whether there are any intact porcelain pieces inside the box or not, they will find out once they open the box.
"Brother Yu, what are you doing? Hurry up and open the box! We're waiting to see if there's anything good inside."
"Phew, don't rush me. I'm just a little nervous. Let me catch my breath first, and I'll start driving right away."
As the final moment approached, and the moment of truth was about to be revealed and witness a miracle, Bai Yu was actually feeling a little nervous and hesitant to open the box.
However, it must be said that the carpentry skills of the ancients were truly amazing. The wooden box in front of them looked a bit simple, but after turning it over and over several times, they still couldn't find a single nail.
All the joints of this box are connected by snap-fit mechanisms; you can open the box by simply prying it open with a stick.
Although the method to open it was simple, and Bai Yu had the tools in his hand, he was now somewhat hesitant to start.
His main concern was that if he opened it, he would find another pile of broken porcelain inside, which would be quite disappointing.
Fortunately, Bai Yu has a very good ability to adjust his mindset. He has seen all kinds of storms. It's just a box. There are no complete porcelain pieces in it. There are still a bunch of other boxes.
Bai Yu then took a deep breath, inserted the stick in his hand into the gap of the box, and with a gentle push, the lid of the box made a very muffled 'bang' sound, and then Bai Yu opened the lid.
Perhaps because the boxes had been submerged in seawater for a long time, the wood had fully absorbed the seawater. Furthermore, Bai Yu handled the boxes very gently, afraid of breaking the porcelain inside.
That's why the sound is so dull and not crisp at all.
Seeing that the lid had been pried open, Li Shuang and his companion, who were already prepared, immediately stepped forward to catch the lid and opened it directly.
Once the box was opened, the first thing that caught the eye was a round, blue and white porcelain piece.
Most importantly, the exposed part of this porcelain is perfectly intact, without any flaws, not even a crack or a gap.
"Wow, Shuangzi, Ahai, it seems like we've really hit the jackpot! This bottle is intact!"
“Bottle? Brother Yu, I feel like this porcelain piece looks like a jar. Look at how fat its belly is, doesn’t it look like an ancient wine jar?”
"No, no, Shuangzi, you're wrong. Ancient wine jars weren't like this; they were all different colors."
"Ah Hai, the kind of wine jar you're talking about is the kind you see in inns on TV. Those are all low-end stuff. A porcelain wine jar like this is definitely high-end."
In ancient times, social interactions and gift-giving were common practices. Perhaps these wine jars were specifically designed to hold fine wine for gift-giving!
"Giving gifts? It doesn't seem like that's impossible, huh? Hey, Yu-ge, what are you doing?"
While Li Shuang and Wang Hai were arguing about the purpose of the porcelain, Bai Yu had already started working on it.
Inside this box, apart from a piece of porcelain that was partially exposed, the rest of the space was almost entirely filled with seaweed.
I don't know what's going on. There isn't much seaweed in the cabin, but there's a lot of seaweed in this box.
"What a pity. There were four pieces of porcelain in this box, but only this one is intact. The other three are broken. I don't know how this one survived."
As Bai Yu spoke, he used both hands to take out the only intact piece of porcelain.
To be fair, Li Shuang's guess was quite accurate on one point: the shape of this porcelain piece really does resemble a wine jar, the kind used in ancient inns to store Daughter's Red wine.
They are about the same size, about 30 to 40 centimeters tall, narrow at the top, wide at the bottom, and fat in the middle. The diameter of the middle belly is about 30 centimeters, definitely the shape of a big fat man.
Unlike the wine jars in movies and TV dramas, this porcelain piece only resembles a wine jar in shape. However, its color and the designs on it are much more attractive than those rustic wine jars.
Moreover, this porcelain piece has a lid. Where do wine jars get lids? Aren't they all stoppers made of red cloth or something similar?
However, Bai Yu and the others did not know much about porcelain, and they could not determine what this piece of porcelain was used for.
However, this did not stop them from putting the porcelain away. Immediately, Bai Yu asked Wang Hai to go to the storage room and bring out a bunch of boxes.
This voyage is for salvaging a shipwreck, and one that contains porcelain fragments at that.
Before setting sail, Bai Yu and his companions naturally made thorough preparations, such as preparing boxes to store porcelain.
After all, it's better to be safe than sorry; making more preparations is always a good idea.
In addition, to prevent the ship from rocking during transportation and causing secondary damage to the porcelain, Bai Yu and his team brought a lot of foam, making thorough preparations.
Wang Hai quickly selected a suitable box from the pile of boxes. Then Li Shuang used a knife to cut a lot of foam and stuffed it into the box, protecting the porcelain and fixing it inside so that it could not move at all.
Besides this one complete piece of porcelain, Bai Yu and the others also collected all the remaining broken pieces of porcelain in the box, leaving not even the smallest fragment behind.
After all, these broken porcelain pieces were all in the same box, so one thing is certain: these broken porcelain pieces were the result of three other broken porcelain pieces.
If we take it back and have some professionals piece it together, it should be possible to restore it.
It's much easier than piecing together the hundreds or thousands of pounds of broken porcelain inside the ship's cabin.
Besides the broken porcelain, Bai Yu also made some other discoveries in the box, namely, there were quite a few deep-sea tiger prawns inside.
These guys somehow got into the ship's hold, then crawled into the wooden crates and made their home there.
There were six tiger prawns in a small wooden box, the largest of which weighed almost half a pound. These guys lived off the seaweed in the box.
.............
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