Bai Yu and his two companions only went into the cabin to move one box, and then they didn't do any more work.
As I said before, Bai Yu and his two companions are now the bosses. They hired the salvage boat, and all the people on board are now working for them.
They wanted to participate in the salvage operation and have already done the hands-on experience; let's leave the rest to the professionals.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Bai Yu and the other two can relax; they still have things to do.
That means cleaning up the boxes that other staff members brought back, to see if there are any intact porcelain pieces inside.
The workers spent a week cutting the ship's hold, which contained porcelain, into a shape that could be lifted. The lifting process itself didn't take too long, only about ten or twenty minutes.
Then it took several hours to pump the seawater out of the cabin, and now they're cleaning out the boxes inside, which has taken several more hours.
They worked from early morning until dark today to finally clear out all the boxes from the ship's hold.
However, they only cleared out the boxes; the broken porcelain inside had not yet been properly packed away.
However, all the intact porcelain pieces inside had already been packed up by Bai Yu and the others and stored in Bai Yu's crew quarters.
During this cleanup, they retrieved a total of seventy-eight intact wooden crates from the ship's hold. Of these, only twenty-three remained unopened, while the rest were all opened.
In addition, there are a number of box fragments. If these box fragments were pieced together, there would be at least several dozen.
In addition, each of the twenty-three unopened boxes contained four pieces of porcelain. However, only seven of the twenty-three boxes contained complete pieces of porcelain; the others were either broken or had some flaws, such as chips or cracks.
It is worth mentioning that these boxes containing intact porcelain all have one thing in common: they are all filled with seaweed.
There was even a box filled with seaweed and a large amount of straw, clearly indicating that the straw was used to protect the porcelain during loading.
To be honest, Bai Yu was genuinely surprised when he saw the straw.
It's important to know that this shipwreck dates back to the Song Dynasty, which is several hundred years ago. This means that the straw in the wreckage is also several hundred years old.
Moreover, among all these wooden crates, and throughout the entire cabin, there was no straw anywhere else except in this one crate.
Sometimes Bai Yu wondered if this box was from a different era than the others, otherwise how could the straw inside be explained?
So many years have passed, even if it's on the seabed, it should have decomposed by now, right?
Bai Yu didn't delve into this incomprehensible question. He simply packed up the straw and figured he could ask a professional when he got back to shore.
Besides these seven complete pieces, there are more than a dozen other broken porcelain pieces. These porcelain pieces are relatively intact, and they either have a chip or some minor problems such as cracks.
Bai Yu packed up all the porcelain pieces of this type, and put all the broken parts together.
What's left are the broken porcelain pieces, which are the hardest to clean. This is mainly because some of the boxes contain a lot of seaweed, and some of the seaweed is quite dense.
Then a situation arises where these seaweeds can cover up some smaller porcelain items, making them difficult to spot.
However, Bai Yu and his team had to make sure that all the porcelain shards in the same box were placed together, otherwise it would be awkward if they were missing a small piece when they finally pieced them together.
Anyway, it wasn't until 7:30 pm that night, when it was completely dark, that there were still more than a dozen boxes left on the deck.
However, Bai Yu and the others were no longer planning to work. They had been busy all day and it was time for them to rest.
In addition, during dinner, Bai Yu had already called his uncle and asked him to inquire whether any ships were returning to port in the next two days and could pick them up from the salvage ship on their way.
It's already quite late; today is the 27th, and National Day on October 1st is just around the corner.
Bai Yu plans to go home for this short holiday.
As for the salvage ship, they definitely won't have time for the holiday. After all, the salvage work has already begun, and they will definitely have to wait until the salvage work is finished before they can return to land.
However, in order to allow the crew members on the salvage ship to also have a holiday, Bai Yu also told his uncle to ask any other ships going out to sea to pass by the salvage ship and deliver some supplies to it.
While he couldn't guarantee other things, he could guarantee food and drink.
Bai Yu was in a hurry to go back for another reason: he wanted to take the porcelain he had salvaged back for an appraisal to see if it was valuable enough.
The same problem persists: Bai Yu and his companions don't really know much about cultural relics. Even if eight complete porcelain pieces were placed in front of them, they wouldn't be able to recognize them.
This feeling is somewhat like possessing a treasure mountain, but not knowing it's a treasure mountain.
Of course, while Bai Yu and his two companions didn't know much about these porcelains, there were some people on the salvage ship who did.
Regardless of the circumstances, the salvage operation will inevitably yield some cultural relics. While Uncle Liao and his colleagues may not be experts in this field, they certainly have some understanding of it.
Take porcelain for example. In terms of value, it's not necessarily true that a piece of Song Dynasty porcelain is valuable just because it's intact.
There's a lot to learn here. First, from the manufacturer's perspective (which is easy to understand), there are official kilns and private kilns.
Furthermore, there are many differences between official kilns and folk kilns. The value of porcelain produced by official kilns or folk kilns in different periods is also different.
Furthermore, the shape, pattern, and color of porcelain also affect its value.
Information about the manufacturer is available on all eight pieces of porcelain. However, what Bai Yu couldn't understand was why the seals on the bottom of the porcelain pieces, which were clearly from the same batch, were different.
What's going on? Did the owner of this sunken ship buy his porcelain from several different manufacturers? Did he have to compare prices from three different suppliers?
There were just too many parts he couldn't understand, so Bai Yu planned that once he returned to Sanya, he would immediately find a professional to appraise these porcelain pieces.
In particular, two of the porcelain pieces bear the inscription "Neifu" (内府), another piece is inscribed "Zhenghe Nianzhi" (正和年制), and the remaining five pieces are blank.
Strangely, porcelain pieces bearing the inscriptions "Made in the Imperial Household Department" and "Made in the Zhenghe Period" are predominantly monochrome, devoid of any patterns or designs, appearing remarkably plain.
The other five years had no inscriptions, but the colors were absolutely beautiful, mainly blue, cyan, and ink wash colors.
Although there aren't many colors, the overall design is truly beautiful, making you want to look at it a second time.
In Bai Yu's opinion, these porcelain pieces without inscriptions should be more valuable than those with inscriptions, judging solely from their appearance.
However, those two porcelain pieces bearing the inscription "Imperial Household" seem to be items that only officials, and most likely even members of the royal family, could use.
Although Bai Yu was a poor student, in ancient times only members of the imperial family and nobility could use the term "Neifu" (内府). Anyone else had to use it secretly, otherwise it would be considered an overstepping of their bounds.
But then again, if these two pieces of imperial porcelain were used by the royal family, how did they come to be known?
Were all the merchants back then so powerful that they could buy and sell royal items?
Or are they all so audacious that they dare to imitate royal items?
Regardless of the situation, Bai Yu had to commend the owner of the sunken ship.
You're really awesome! It's just that you were unlucky, and the ship sank in the end!
.............
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