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 she 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.
Seeing the big box being pried out bit by bit, Chongzi was overjoyed. He quickly reached under the box and tried to lift it up, but an accident happened at this moment.
The crowbar supporting the old security platform suddenly slipped. As the old security platform withdrew, I also lost my center of gravity. The big box suddenly fell down, and the insect's right hand was firmly suppressed.
There was a mask on his face, and he was still underwater. I couldn't hear the cry of the insect, but I could see that he was in great pain. The insect kept struggling, trying to get his right hand out.
Lao Baotai and I immediately set about rescuing him. I used a crowbar to tilt up a corner of the big box. The insect quickly pulled out his hand. It looked like he was seriously injured.
I made a gesture to go up first and talk later.
Ten minutes later, a few of us were sitting on the boat dripping wet. Chongzi covered his right hand and grinned: "It's over. I feel like it might be twisted."
Lao Baotai said loudly: "Why are you reaching down? That box weighs at least several hundred kilograms. Can you lift it? Do you think you are Superman!"
Chongzi immediately retorted: "I'm a superman, what's wrong! I'm just helping you, I'm still fucking wrong!"
"Okay, stop arguing with me, Chongzi, do you feel like your bones are broken?"
"Probably not. It's just a twisted muscle. Now I can't use it at all."
I frowned and thought for a while and said: "You can't help, and we can't get that thing. So, let's wait here. You go back and ask a few strong brothers to bring two coils of rope. The night is long and the dream is too much. Tonight, we will This box must be brought up.”
"Why are you going back? I can just call a few brothers and ask them to come over."
I said, "With no one to guide them, how can they find this place by themselves? Besides, do you think your mobile phone has a signal?"
Chongzi took out his mobile phone from the waterproof bag and took a look at it. He cursed: "What the hell is this place? Why is there no signal at all? Then you guys wait here, I will go back and call someone right now, boss." Baotai, please give it to me."
After he and I left in the boat, the rest of us crowded into the same boat. Lao Mian didn't get into the water. He asked me curiously: "Boss, can you guess what's in that box? It's so heavy?"
A Yuan squeezed the water from her head and said, "Do you need to guess? It must be a box of treasures, maybe a box of gold bars? Brother Feng, do you think so?"
I shook my head: "It's unlikely that they are all gold bars. Gold bars were not popular in the Song Dynasty. It may be the fifty-tael silver ingot made by the government, but I can't say for sure. We won't know until we open it."
A Yuan's eyes were full of excitement, and she said: "Big silver ingot? I have never seen it before when I grow up. What does it look like?"
I thought about it and said with a smile: "Silver ingots from the Song Dynasty are shaped like a boat, wide at both ends and pointed in the middle, just like the ones you women use."
"What?" A Yuan asked doubtfully.
I turned my head and glanced at Xiaoxuan, and said with some embarrassment, "That's the thing you padded."
A Yuan suddenly understood and laughed, and Xiaoxuan couldn't help laughing either.
Ayuan complained to me: "Brother Feng, just say it clearly like sanitary napkins. I didn't even react to what you said about the pads."
