Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 571 Lady Atoka
When Liang En searched the Internet for clues about the Santa Margarita and opened the first entry, Liang En was shocked, because the information marked on this entry proved the existence of a huge treasure.

According to the information on the Internet, the Santa Margarita was one of five treasure ships that sank in the Florida Strait in August 1622, so it naturally carried a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry.

The five sunken ships belonged to a Spanish treasure fleet composed of 29 sailing ships, and the Spanish treasure fleet refers to the organization of the Spanish Empire from the 16th century to the 18th century, which regularly travels between mainland Spain and overseas. Between the colonies, the large fleets that transported European goods to the American colonies and returned colonial products (especially gold and silver) to their home countries.

Except for valuable items such as gold, silver, gems, etc., the goods transported.It also includes a series of local specialties and trade products, such as spices, dyes, tobacco, silk, etc. The Spanish royal family can draw a fifth of the goods.

From the 16s onwards, the Spanish Treasure Fleet was carried on a regular basis.Every year, two fleets of 60~~~30 ships set sail from Seville, the most important port in the south of mainland Spain.

One is called the small fleet, which goes to Veracruz, Mexico in the spring, and some ships go to the West Indies and Honduras in the middle;

The other, called the Grand Fleet, traveled to the Colombian ports of Cartagena and Panama's Bello in August.The two fleets will rendezvous in Havana in the spring of the following year after completing their missions, and will be escorted back by warships.And carry a huge amount of gold and silver treasures on the return journey.

This is quite attractive to the hostile British, Dutch and French sailors. In 1628 and 1657, two fleets were destroyed by the Dutch and British fleets in the waters of Cuba and the Azores.

However, its lineup is often daunting to raiders.By the 18th century, Spain had been able to control the sea routes relatively tightly, so it allowed free trade in various ports in Spain and the Americas.

As circumstances changed and time passed, the Grand Fleet was decommissioned in 1740 and the Small Fleet in 1789.

In addition to this treasure fleet operating in the Caribbean Sea and the east coast of the Americas, there is another similar fleet that travels between the Philippines in Asia and Acapulco on the west coast of Mexico, known as the Manila Fleet.

This fleet is responsible for sending cargo from Asia to Mexico.Afterwards, the cargo from Asia will be transported to Veracruz and finally returned to Spain by the Caribbean Treasure Fleet.

There is no doubt that the influence of this system is world-class. For example, China is not a silver-producing country, but it can be a silver-standard country for a long time because of the Manila fleet.

Back then, these Spaniards came to China with silver from America and bought various special products in the hands of the Chinese, such as silk, ceramics or handicrafts, and then let a large amount of silver flow into China, and even changed the currency of China.

The demise of the Ming Dynasty was also related to this route. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, a 30-year war broke out in Europe.During this period, Europe's demand for silver surged, and there was no time to take into account trade with China.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty was in an inflationary period when prices rose and silver prices fell, and the demand for silver surged.At this time, a large amount of silver flowed out, and Japan's lock-up also restricted the flow of silver into China, which immediately caused severe deflation.

So during the reign of Chongzhen, there was a "silver shortage".The Ming Dynasty, which used silver as a tax tool, had difficulty collecting money, so the shortage of silver indirectly caused the financial collapse of the Ming Dynasty in the last years.

"In other words, the amount of various treasures carried in this fleet is definitely quite a lot?" After Liang En briefly explained the history related to the shipwreck, Jeanne of Arc asked a core question.

This is not to say that she is not interested in that period of history, but for those who are preparing to carry out large-scale salvage activities, what she wants to know most is how many things can be salvaged in the next salvage.

"It should be quite a lot, because the Spanish Treasure Fleet that the five sunken ships belonged to was a ship that departed from Havana and returned to the mainland of Spain, and there must be a lot of treasures on it." Liang En said with a smile.

"The most important thing is that one of these ships is called Lady Atoka. It was the largest and most powerful ship in the fleet at that time, and it was also the ship with the most treasures."

"According to the records of the year found now, 40 tons of gold and silver treasures were loaded on board, including 8 tons of gold and 500 kilograms of gems. Most of the gems are top-quality emeralds from the Muzuo Mine."

Speaking of this, Liang En had to thank the tiny difference in different worlds, because this difference made the Lady Atoka, the famous treasure ship, not found in this world.

In Liang En's original world, the process of discovering that ship was also a legend. A salvager named Mel Fisher set his sights on this ship after he became famous.

In order to find the sunken ship, Mel gave up his management work in the company, and went into the water with his wife and children to find the Lady Atoka.

Since 1969, after 16 years of continuous exploration, Mel and his family have explored almost all possible places on the seabed, and finally discovered the sinking site of the Lady Atoka in 1985.

The site of the wreck is under 22 feet of water and spread over a sandy area about 11 miles long and 100 feet wide.In order to salvage the sunken ship, the Mel family paid a heavy price.

On the one hand, the annual salvage costs 300 million US dollars, and he has consumed a huge amount of wealth in the past few decades. On the other hand, because of the salvage work, his eldest son, eldest daughter-in-law and best companion were all in a shipwreck was killed.

Because of the unremitting search for more than ten years, the story of Fisher's search for the Lady Atoka has become a Chinese story of "grinding an iron pestle into a needle" in the United States, and "looking for Atoka" has become a commonly used phrase, meaning Persevere in your dreams and you will succeed.

The treasures on the Lady Atoka are all about quantity. The tons of gold and the 30-year history of a family make it a legend in the history of treasure hunting.

In this world, the Fisher family still exists, but they didn't target the Madame Atoka, but set their target on the equally famous shipwreck, the SS Republic.

This ship was a paddle steamer during the American Civil War. She sank in a severe hurricane on October 1865, 10, during a voyage from New Orleans to New York.

Passengers and crew escaped without incident, but the ship's vast contents—including many of the necessities of everyday life for Americans in the mid-19th century—sinked to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and disappeared from history entirely.

And after a decade of searching, the Fisher of this world has finally located the missing ship and recovered more than 51 U.S. gold and silver coins, as well as about 000 other artifacts.

Unlike the situation in another world, although the entire treasure hunt process took a long time, the Fisher family only spent about 1000 million U.S. dollars, but obtained treasures worth 7500 million U.S. dollars. More importantly, no one was killed.

So it can also be said that the Fisher family in this world is no worse than their peers in another world, and for Liang En, the best thing about this change is that it creates a treasure hunting opportunity for him.

(End of this chapter)