Zhiyuan and three other ships sank near Dalu Island, but it is very difficult to find out the exact location. The water near Dalu Island is deep and urgent. The surface of the sunken ship is16.7m from the seabed at high tide and12.3m at low tide. Southeasterly winds often blow in summer, which is extremely unfavorable for offshore operations. The best offshore operation time is only 4 months. This is one of them. Secondly, according to the data of four shipwrecks provided by fishermen from China, Japan and Dalu Island, * * * has a sinking point of 13. It takes a lot of manpower and material resources to locate the four sunken ships in this 13 sinking point. Thirdly, from 1938 to 1939, the Japanese organized manpower to salvage and dismantle four sunken ships. These ships were seriously damaged, and there were few wrecks above the deck. Moreover, most of the silt under the deck.
In view of the above difficulties, the Salvage Office dispatched professionals from the Ministry of Metallurgy, the Ministry of Geology and Minerals, the Ministry of Petroleum and the Research Institute of Marine Underwater Engineering, and arrived at Dalu Island one after another with the most advanced side-scan sonar, sea-air nuclear precession magnetometer, high-resolution shallow profiler, high-precision navigation locator and other equipment. However, after more than a month of exploration, the positions of the four sunken ships have not yet been determined. As the on-site commander and deputy head of the expert group, Zhang Zhikui is worried. Once otitis media broke out, and pus flowed out from time to time. Chai Yongjun, director of the "Rescue Office", was admitted to the hospital because of capillary thrombosis caused by overwork.
From May/KLOC-0 to the end of June, there was no substantial progress in the maritime search and exploration in the past two months. How can this not make people anxious? Where on earth are you, Zhiyuan ship in the vast sea? The field headquarters had to decide to suspend offshore operations.
Can Zhiyuan ship be found? Withdraw or continue to search? Many comrades have doubts again. At the analysis and summary meeting of all the team members, Zhang Zhikui solemnly swore: "We will never retreat until we find the Zhiyuan ship!" And made arrangements for future work. First, we should go deep into the social investigation, and then look for a reliable, high-precision, high-resolution instrument with the function of penetrating the stratum from the relevant departments. /kloc-in July, 2000, Zhang Zhikui led a team to leave Dalu Island and began a large-scale social investigation, and went to Dalian, Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Dandong and other places.
When investigating in Heidao Town, zhuanghe city, the local fishermen immediately surrounded me when they heard that they were going to catch the sunken ship in the Sino-Japanese War. Some said that the "Jingyuan" ship sank near the old man's stone, and some said that when I was a child, I often dived into the ship to catch crabs, and once I caught a shell casing. According to many records, the "Jingyuan" ship sank dozens of nautical miles away from the old man's stone. Why did you come to Zhuanghe? But people can't believe the vivid description of fishermen, so four fishermen's forums were held in the surrounding villages.
Zhang Zhikui asked: "Why is it definitely a' Jingyuan' ship?"
Everyone almost replied in unison: "This was handed down by the sailors who were rescued that year." Judging from the situation, Zhang Zhikui decided to temporarily abandon Zhiyuan Ship and concentrate on exploring Jingyuan Ship.
Chai Yongjun re-entered the island before he recovered. In the same year, Zhang Zhikui, who was old and frail, studied together and decided to use the earth method to determine the location of the shipwreck.
At 6: 00 a.m. on August 1, the advance team, led by Zhang Zhikui, took a boat to the southwest of Laorenshi to search. The two ships dragged back and forth four times, and suddenly the cable got stuck. The diver dived into the water with tools. Divers have to touch by hand because of the poor underwater sight distance.
"I touched it!" There was a sound under the water.
"Touch what?" Zhang Zhikui asked eagerly.
"Like an iron plate, it is still uneven, about half a meter from the bottom of the sea."
The players shouted happily, "It's a boat!"
After 7 days of continuous exploration, divers found that the side plate of the sunken ship was 65 meters long and the bow and stern could not be touched. It is inserted with steel brazing, and 20 meters is buried in the mud, which is in line with the length of the "Jingyuan" ship of 82 meters, and the upper width of the fuel tank is 8.3 meters. Coupled with the destructive dismantling of the Japanese army, it is also in line with the 12 meter long ship. According to the data, there are two other shipwrecks in this sea area, one is the "Meiling" that sank during the liberation war, and the other is the local rich man Zhang Benzheng before liberation. These are excluded from sufficient evidence. What is even more gratifying is that the diver also fished out three steel riveting members, a sailor manhole with a diameter of 390 mm, and fuel residue. Zhang Zhikui invited Beijing archaeological experts to identify the salvaged cultural relics. Experts agree that this sunken ship is not a merchant ship, but a warship. Coupled with the credible legends and county records of local fishermen, the on-site commanders determined that the ship was a "Jingyuan" ship.
The "Jingyuan" ship has been found, which is very exciting for the advance team members who have withstood the test of months of wind and waves and high temperature and heat. However, in addition to the excitement, the team members feel that the pressure from all sides is increasing, because the whole world is focusing on the Zhiyuan ship.
During the investigation and visit in July, the field headquarters collected ten new doubts about Zhiyuan Ship. In the absence of more advanced detection instruments, Zhang Zhikui decided to use the traditional towing rope search method. The confirmation of Jingyuan ship gave them great inspiration, that is, the ship sank really badly, so in the new round of search, they not only lengthened the steel rope, but also hung two iron anchors on it.
Li Guibin, an 8 1 year-old fisherman from Dalushima who was dismantled by the Royal Japanese Air Force, heard that Zhiyuan Ship had not been found, and insisted on going out to sea to lead the way, saying, "I will climb if I climb"! In a calm, Li Guibin directed the boat to the Yellowstone Reef. Because of his age and long time, Li Guibin can only tell the approximate range, but he is not sure where it is. That's enough. The two ships dragged and searched intensively within the specified range and finally found two points. Because the steel cable is a target dragged 0.5 meters under the mud, divers can't touch it. It feels like iron when inserted with steel, which is exactly where the magnetometer has only a little magnetic response, but it didn't attract people's attention at that time. Could it be a Zhiyuan ship? Some people have raised questions.
"There is no doubt about mountains and rivers, and there is another village." In the evening, a phone call from a naval aviation security office suddenly called the on-site headquarters, and comrades from the aviation security office provided the positions of Zhiyuan ships preliminarily measured by the navy at 1960 and 1964. Zhang Zhikui hurried to compare the charts and found that the doubts found during the day were very consistent with the two points provided by the navy, and the two points were also 2 nautical miles apart. Comprehensive analysis shows that these two points are "Zhiyuan" and "Chaoyong". Because it is buried deep underground, it is difficult to determine which ship is Zhiyuan.
Zhang Zhikui said: "If you come to salvage next year, you can dig for evidence to confirm."
The advance team continued to fight regardless of fatigue, and found the sinking position of the "Yangwei" ship five days later.
The first maritime search operation from April 30th to August 29th lasted 122 days. In addition to the investigation, in the sea area of Dalu Island, donggang city, Liaoning Province, the instrument detected 33.36 square kilometers, the color sonar scanned 22 square kilometers, and the diving exploration was 3 1 time. From 26 possibilities, the exact location of four Chinese and Japanese sunken ships, such as Zhiyuan Ship, which has been sleeping on the seabed for more than 0/00 years, was finally determined in the southwest waters of Dalu Island, and Jingyuan was also verified.
During the expedition, Zhang Zhikui and his colleagues took a boat, took risks and drifted at sea for several months. The working and living environment is extremely difficult, and they often can't drink a mouthful of water all day. What is even more touching is that the leaders of the Party branch of Daludao Village and the villagers have given strong support from beginning to end. In addition to providing logistics and guidance, they also provided two boats for offshore exploration operations and dispatched dozens of fishermen's brothers to share the difficulties with the exploration team members, all of which were free of charge.
After the location of four century-old shipwrecks was determined, when the shipwrecks surfaced once became the focus of attention.
Zhang Zhikui said: "The next step in salvage must first solve the financial problem. More than one million yuan was paid by Chengxi Company. Salvage requires huge funds, and the company has been unable to pay; Secondly, there are technical problems. This problem can be solved. At present, the preliminary salvage plan has been designed. However, due to the serious damage to Zhiyuan Ship, the specific salvage plan must be fully demonstrated after dredging, which is much more difficult than Zhongshan Ship. "
On August 14, the mobile publicity vehicle of "Rescue Zhiyuan, Love China" of the National Rescue Zhiyuan Office left Beijing and went to more than 60 large and medium-sized cities in China, including Dalian, for publicity and fund-raising. All the proceeds from fund-raising are used for the salvage and maintenance of four ships, such as Zhiyuan.
However, how easy is it to raise tens or hundreds of millions of yuan? It is estimated that it will cost about 300 million yuan to salvage Zhiyuan Ship and build the "Yellow Sea Sino-Japanese War Memorial Hall". When this figure came out, it once caused "should it be fished?" Should it be built? "discussion. The progress of fundraising is not encouraging, but the cold water poured on the face is one basin after another, and some words are even harsh.