Xiang Yang kicked the guns in disdain. "The Hanyang rifles in the anti-Japanese war dramas are several times more powerful than this gun. This gun is only enough to scare people or shoot smaller birds like sparrows."
Xiang Yang ignored these guns. These completely abandoned guns were of no use to Xiang Yang. He would be disgusted if he sold them as scrap, and it would be difficult to explain the effort he put into fishing them out. Xiang Yang certainly would not want them.
Xiang Yang swam directly from the abandoned guns to the deeper part of the cabin.
He saw rows of neatly arranged black boxes.
"Could the boxes be filled with gold and silver?" Xiang Yang swam towards the black boxes excitedly. Looking at the number of these black boxes, if they were filled with gold and silver, that would be a terrifyingly huge sum of money.
After years of ravages, the locks on these boxes have long been worn out by time and are no longer vulnerable to attack.
Xiang Yang exerted a little force and opened a box.
In the box, there are some black things that are either long strips or fan-shaped, and look a bit like charcoal. They are hard when pressed, just like real charcoal.
Xiang Yang's face changed, and he immediately knew what the things in the box were, and also immediately knew the approximate time period when the ship sank to the bottom of the sea.
Xiang Yang opened all the boxes one by one, and his face turned ashen.
These boxes are all filled with things similar to charcoal, but the "charcoal" in some boxes is black, and in some boxes it is dark gold.
In fact, these black and dark gold "charcoals" are opium, which is mentioned in history textbooks, commonly known as opium. It comes from the capsule of the poppy plant and contains more than 20 alkaloids, which can be divided into phenanthrene and isoquinoline.
Opium is black or brown depending on its origin. The dark golden opium is formed after the brown opium is soaked in sea water.
"This ship should have sunk to the bottom of the sea around 1840." Xiang Yang returned to the cabin expressionlessly, picked up the copper globe, and swam towards the surface of the sea without looking back. As for the sinful things in those boxes, Xiang Yang planned to bury them forever at the bottom of the sea.
Back on the boat, Zhang Qicheng was teasing the Steller's sea eagle.
Zhang Qicheng was startled when he saw Xiang Yang coming up with a huge globe. Then his face changed and he exclaimed, "Brother Xiang, did you find a shipwreck under this sea?"
"No, we only found this globe, a copper handicraft. Boss Zhang, can you give me an estimate of its value?" Xiang Yang said.
Zhang Qicheng clapped his hands quickly, then rolled up his sleeves, and found the bronze globe. However, he did not look at the globe immediately. Instead, he asked Xiang Yang, "Have you looked around? Since there is this thing under the sea, there is a high probability that there is a shipwreck nearby."
"We've looked for it, but there's no trace of the sunken ship." Xiang Yang said bluffingly.
Chen Qingsheng beside him also said: "There is no way there is a shipwreck near this sea area. We have been wandering under the sea for an entire afternoon and have not seen anything."
As he spoke, Chen Qingsheng squeezed his head in front of the globe and asked in confusion: "This looks like a globe, Captain, where did you get it?"
"It's right under our boat, in the seaweed, so you didn't notice it. I just happened to find it." Xiang Yang said vaguely.
The crew members were also discussing:
“This should be a work of art, right?”
"No, it's an antique."
"Wrong, it's a cultural relic."
"What you said is wrong. It is a national treasure."
... ...
Xiang Yang's forehead was filled with black lines when he heard this. A globe made in a foreign country with foreign language markings on it is not even a cultural relic, so how can it be considered a national treasure
But it should be an antique. Xiang Yang waited quietly for Zhang Qicheng's answer.
Zhang Qicheng held the globe and looked at it for a long time, then asked someone to bring two towels to clean the globe.
"How is it? Have you figured out anything?" Xiang Yang asked.
Zhang Qicheng shook his head. "It's hard to say. After all, everyone has their own expertise. I don't know much about antiques, so I can't say exactly how much it's worth. But I just like old things. How about selling this globe to me? I'll give you 50,000 yuan."
Xiang Yang was immediately disappointed when he heard this.
It turns out that Zhang Qicheng doesn’t understand this either.
"No, I want to keep it for myself." Xiang Yang said.
These old items are all gone if one is missing. It is not easy for Xiang Yang to get one. Fifty thousand yuan is not a huge sum of money for Xiang Yang now, so he is not willing to spend money.
"No." Zhang Qicheng said quickly, "Do you think 50,000 yuan is too little? How about this, I'll add another 30,000 yuan to make it a good number, 80,000, and just give me the globe."
Xiang Yang shook his head immediately after hearing this. Actually, he was still a little hesitant in his heart. He was not sure which one was more valuable, 50,000 yuan or such a thing. He would rather keep a piece of junk at home.
But now that he heard that Zhang Qicheng was willing to pay more, Xiang Yang knew that he had made the right choice in collecting it.
The so-called antiques are worth how much they are worth depending on the price the investor is willing to pay.
If it is an old item, no one will be willing to buy it, even if experts say it is worth 100 million.
On the contrary, if an antique is liked by a wealthy owner, even if experts determine that it is worthless, its market value can be tens of millions.
Since Zhang Qicheng was willing to raise the price of this bronze globe after he had already made an offer, it proved that it was worth at least 80,000 yuan. Xiang Yang was not short of the 80,000 yuan now. Once this bronze globe was sold, it would be gone. Of course, Xiang Yang was reluctant to sell it.
"No, I'm going to take this globe back and hide it away. I'll treat it as a family heirloom." Xiang Yang said.
Zhang Qicheng was immediately disappointed. After thinking for a while, he said, "Okay, if you ever want to sell it, feel free to contact me. I'm willing to pay the price no matter when or how the experts judge it."
Xiang Yang smiled and nodded, but he knew in his heart that no matter what time it was, no matter how the experts evaluated it, he would never sell this globe.
And even if he wanted to sell it, Xiang Yang would definitely not go to Zhang Qicheng, but would choose to put the globe in the auction house.
These things are very popular in auction houses.
Some time ago, someone fished out a Zippo lighter from the 1930s from the sea and put it up for auction at the Longcheng Auction House. As a result, such an old-fashioned lighter was treated as a work of art with collectible value and sold for a sky-high price of 200,000 yuan.
Scarcity makes things valuable. Xiang Yang thought that this copper globe must be even rarer than the Zippo lighters from the 1930s, right