At the foot of Shalu Mountain, the moonlight is faint and the water surface is sparkling. The two plastic boats are like ghosts hidden in the darkness. From time to time, the sound of the night wind blowing through the branches can be heard around them.
"Use hand signals to communicate after entering the water. Don't be left alone. If an emergency occurs, give the signal immediately. Do you understand?"
"clear!"
"Lao Mian, Xiaoxuan, you two have two tasks on the ship. One is to receive the goods, and the other is to release the news. Although there is a high probability that no one will come here, you cannot take it lightly. You must always be alert to the surrounding disturbances."
Xiaoxuan said he knew, and the old man nodded and said, "Old man, although I am old, my tricks are very bright at night, so my boss can rest assured."
I took a deep breath from my cigarette, threw the cigarette butt into the water, put on my goggles, and jumped into the water, followed closely by the others.
The water quality was very turbid, and there were almost no big fish in the water. Occasionally, a few small fish swam by. These small fish were not afraid of us unexpected visitors, but instead kept circling around us.
The deepest point of the water is nearly 20 meters, but the visibility is much higher when I dive underwater. There are many garbage plastic bags buried in the mud at the bottom. I can clearly hear my own breathing through the mask.
The gas bottle was beeping and bubbling, and I made a gesture to tell everyone to spread out and search.
"No...if there is a sunken ship, even if it is completely soaked, you should still be able to see some wreckage. Could it be that my judgment is completely wrong?" I muttered in my heart.
Suddenly, under the illumination of a strong flashlight, I saw a triangular wooden stick as thick as a bowl in the thick mud layer at the bottom of the water.
"This is......?"
Swimming over, I grabbed it with both hands and tried to pull it out of the mud, but it couldn't be pulled at all. It seemed like there was something attached to it underneath.
Isn't this... the pole of the sail?
I immediately called for others to come over and clean the mud from here down together. As a result, the clearer I got, the more excited I became, yes! This is a boat pole, made of cypress wood!
During the Song Dynasty, there were three categories: sea ships, lake ships, and war ships. This is an inland canal, and the water cannot be too deep. Considering the draft of the hull, it is unlikely that it is a sea ship or a war ship, so only Probably one of those small cargo lake boats! There were only a few types of lake boats in the Song Dynasty, including single-plank boats, square-headed boats and fish boats.
What sank here back then was most likely a single-plank boat like that.
Just imagine, Liu Yu used this river to pay tribute to the Kingdom of Jin with gold and silver treasures. There were a dozen single-board boats. There were four or five soldiers on each boat guarding more than a dozen boxes of gold and silver treasures. As he passed by, At that time, one of the boats leaked and capsized, and the things on the boat naturally sank to the bottom of the water.
Furthermore, the Yuecheng Reservoir opens its gates to release floods every year. With each massive flood release, a thick layer of silt will naturally be deposited on the river bed. This makes everything make sense.
Soon, the bow of a rotten wooden ship was exposed. The ship was buried diagonally in the mud and sand. The hull had been broken into two parts. As we continued to clean up, we soon saw the rotten ship under the planks. A large wooden box was pressed against it.
There was an iron lock as big as a palm hanging on the box. The lock was very rusty. When the bug saw this thing, he slapped me hard and looked very excited.
We are people who have seen big scenes, so I signaled to the bugs to stay calm and don’t get excited, as we still have no idea what’s going on here.
This wooden box is half buried in the mud and is very heavy! We three grown men couldn't move it even if we tried our best, it was like it was growing in the mud.
I asked Chongzi to go up and bring down three pointed crowbars. Then I, Lao Baotai and Chongzi, one person at a time, inserted the crowbars into the sand layer and used the principle of leverage to pry.
