133 The Geldermalsen

After the cooperation agreement between Wei Hua and the Soviet KGB was finalized, Wei Hua called the United States to transfer Kathleen from the U.S. to Hong Kong. All affairs in America were handed over to Mary. Kathleen arrived in Hong Kong to take over the responsibilities of the Hong Kong branch from Jesse, who was now fully focused on Wei Hua’s company operations in Greater 6, including the establishment of a solar battery factory and a foreign trade company.

Wei Hua named the newly established solar battery factory “Far Sail Solar Energy Company,” while the new foreign trade company was called “Auspicious Foreign Trade Company,” and they set up an office in the Soviet city of Vladivostok. Because these two ventures were covertly linked to domestic intelligence agencies, all formalities were completed rapidly. By early September, Wei Hua’s Auspicious Foreign Trade Company was already operational. The solar battery factory, however, still needed several months to construct the plant and install production lines.

The site chosen for the battery factory was Dalian City in Liaoning Province, where the Auspicious Foreign Trade Company was also registered. According to Wei Hua’s plan, Dalian was an excellent port. His company’s Deep Blue Ocean Shipping vessels could directly load the solar batteries onto ships at Dalian Port, then transport them along with other urgently needed Soviet domestic supplies to the Vladivostok port. The Auspicious Foreign Trade Company’s office in Vladivostok would then hand over these goods to the Soviet KGB representatives. After unloading the Soviet supplies, the Deep Blue vessels would be filled with urgently needed domestic goods purchased by the Auspicious Foreign Trade Company in the Soviet Union and return to Dalian.

This round trip would allow Wei Hua to earn a substantial amount of Renminbi. He also understood that, barring unforeseen events, his foreign trade company would grow larger, as the Soviet shortage of supplies was expected to persist until the USSR’s collapse. This represented a prime opportunity for the domestic light industry sector, one the national leaders surely would not overlook.

Since cooperation with the KGB did not require conventional commercial contracts, once Wei Hua received their affirmative response, Basha and his two comrades flew back to Switzerland. He Kangzhan hurried back to China to report to the higher-ups. Wei Hua summoned Jesse back from Greater 6, and together with Kathleen, who had just arrived from America, they listened to Wei Hua’s work plan. Afterward, Wei Hua finally relaxed completely.

A few days later, Wei Hua left Ding Peng and He Xiaoya at the company and took his newly purchased yacht out to sea alone.

A few days earlier, when Wei Hua acquired a bronze dragon head at an auction, he suddenly thought of someone—a despicable man hated by every Chinese, especially the patriotic youth: Mitchell Mike Hatcher. In Wei Hua’s original world, this man, known as “Britain’s top treasure hunter” and “the most outstanding marine explorer,” was despised by all Chinese as a thief. Hatcher had twice salvaged sunken ships in the South China Sea. The first was in May 1984, when he recovered the Dutch East India Company merchant ship “Godmarssen,” retrieving 239,000 pieces of porcelain and 125 gold bars totaling 45 kilograms, all from Nanjing, as well as two bronze cannons engraved with the East India Company’s “VOC” initials. The second was in May 1999, when he salvaged the “Tai Xing” ship, obtaining over a million pieces of porcelain.

What infuriated Wei Hua the most was that Hatcher, to inflate the porcelain’s value, had people smash over 600,000 pieces, taking only 356,000 selected ones. This was unforgivable in Wei Hua’s eyes.

It was now August 1983, and Wei Hua was determined not to let Hatcher salvage the “Godmarssen” first. Armed with the detector given by Sophia, he set out to find and raise the “Godmarssen” ahead of Hatcher. According to old East India Company archives, in the winter of 1752, the 1,150-ton merchant ship “Godmarssen” was loaded with Chinese porcelain, gold, five months’ provisions, and 112 people, sailing from Guangzhou, China, bound for Amsterdam across the Atlantic. Yet, after 16 days at sea, on January 3, 1753, it struck a reef and sank. Eighty onboard perished in the South China Sea, while 32 survivors reached Batavia a week later using two small boats. In May 1984, Hatcher spent ten weeks detecting and salvaging this ship, earning $20 million from the recovered porcelain and gold. This success greatly motivated him to undertake the 1999 “Tai Xing” salvage.

With the detector and communication data provided by Sophia, Wei Hua found the “Godmarssen” wreck site within two days. The water there was shallow, only a few dozen meters deep, so without diving equipment, Wei Hua personally inspected underwater and confirmed he had indeed located the ship before Hatcher.

However, Wei Hua was troubled over how to handle the salvage. He could organize a team himself, but that posed many challenges and risked negative perceptions from the government of Greater 6. On the other hand, the archaeological department of Greater 6 was unreliable in his eyes; the current government poorly managed cultural relics, mainly due to funding shortages, leaving many artifacts rudely stored in various museum warehouses without proper care or protection.

A week later, Wei Hua returned alone by yacht to Hong Kong. He then summoned Ding Peng and He Xiaoya from the company and said to them:

“I’ve found a shipwreck—the Dutch East India Company’s ‘Godmarssen.’ The porcelain and gold onboard are worth twenty million U.S. dollars. I’ve heard that an Australian marine salvage company also has its eyes on this ship. I want you to inquire with our superiors whether we can salvage it before the Australians make a move.”