Chapter 0948 – Surfacing (I)

“Boss, hey, you …… I love you to death.”

Zhuang Rui brought Clyde after looking at the three rooms equipped with torpedo launchers and artillery respectively, Clyde’s big gaping mouth simply couldn’t close, it was too much to hug Zhuang Rui and kiss him.

“Clyde, merchant ships are not allowed to carry heavy weapons, aren’t you afraid of being checked out?”

Zhuang Rui was a bit puzzled by Clyde’s performance, in his thought, Clyde should be worried to expound to himself about the harmfulness of these weapons, but he didn’t realize that this old guy was going to react in this way.

According to the convention of the International Maritime Organization, merchant ships are not allowed to be equipped with heavy weapons, because if a merchant ship can carry weapons, then how to distinguish between merchant ships and warships? It was a threat to the sovereignty of all countries.

“Dear boss, there’s nothing to be afraid of, oh god, I still can’t believe that all these weapons are ours.”

Clyde was obviously a little over excited, after seeing Zhuang Rui’s face, he then got serious and said, “Every merchant ship is routinely inspected only when it enters the harbor, usually when it goes to an unfamiliar port, the inspection is a little bit stricter, but this ship has been parked in Macao for twenty years, there is no guy who is interested in it anymore.”

After listening to Clyde’s explanation, only then did Zhuang Rui come to the realization that he had equipped himself with weapons in a haphazard manner, completely not expecting there to be an incoming port inspection.

Zhuang Rui shook his head, he was really ignorant! If this is found out, I’m afraid that no port in the world will accept their cruise ship.

Merchant ships are not completely unable to carry weapons for self-defense, according to the provisions of international law, merchant ships, even if they carry weapons, but also not just fire, must be in the case of the first attack by the opponent has the right to counterattack, they carry weapons are also passive means of coping with only.

Moreover, merchant ships carrying weapons can also be hijacked, Clyde told Zhuang Rui an example, not long ago, a North Korean cargo ship was hijacked in the waters of the Indian Ocean, when the ship’s personnel have weapons, but still by the sophisticated pirates disarmed.

However, this cruise ship was too famous in Macau, so Clyde didn’t care if the ship was fitted with heavy weapons or not, in his opinion, these weapons would make the safety of the cruise ship further guaranteed.

After Clyde’s emotions stabilized, he suddenly remembered a question and looked at Zhuang Rui and asked, “By the way, boss, the explosion in the morning, was it caused by a torpedo bomb?”

“Oh, I’m not sure about this, maybe they weren’t very lucky and the ammunition on their own ship exploded.”

Zhuang Rui laughed and spread his hands with an innocent expression, but his look already explained the problem, and Clyde finally understood, dare I say that the pirate ship was not escaping, but it sank right into this sea in front of him.

After Clyde heard Zhuang Rui’s words, he couldn’t help but clench his fists and said viciously, “Fantastic, boss, let’s go slower when we return to our voyage, I want to take out all the pirates in Malacca.”

Zhuang Rui said unhappily, “Come on! These weapons must not be used unless you have to, a torpedo round costs hundreds of thousands of dollars!”

Looking at Clyde’s righteous indignation, Zhuang Rui is very skeptical, this old man will not be captured by the pirates have been popped in the ass before, right? How to hear the word “pirates”, like a chicken blood like excitement?

To know, the sea is rarely see women, and the most concentrated place of homosexuality is the sea crew. If this Clyde shaved off his beard, he must have been a handsome young man when he was young.

Thinking of this, Zhuang Rui couldn’t help but shiver, and his gaze when looking at Clyde became that much different.

“Hehehe, boss, those pirates can be rich people, pirates rob merchant ships, we rob pirates, it’s only natural!”

Clyde’s words made Zhuang Rui dispel his doubts, otherwise he really didn’t feel assured to give this ship to a captain with a special fetish, just that Clyde’s idea was too much wishful thinking.

Zhuang Rui cried and laughed and said, “Come on, Clyde, you are the captain of this salvage ship, our mission is to explore, to hunt down ancient shipwreck treasures, not to do what those damn soldiers do.”

Not to say anything else, just the speed of this cruise ship, it is far from being able to compare with those small ships, it can’t be torpedoed every time they meet without saying anything, right? Zhuang Rui didn’t have that many torpedoes for consumption.

Seeing that Clyde still wanted to speak, Zhuang Rui quickly waved his hand and said, “Alright, go find Li Zhen and tell him that it’s what I said, have this set of monitoring facilities connected to the captain’s room, so that in the future you can control it in real time as well.”

“Thank you, boss ……”

Zhuang Rui’s move was undoubtedly handing over the control of the entire ship, although Clyde didn’t know what it meant to die for a friend, but at the moment he was under the mind to sell his life to Zhuang Rui.

“Don’t say those useless, now also count on the ship’s crew to work, you go to send a notice, tell them that the pirates will not come back, so that they can work at ease, but …… the ship’s weapon system, or to keep it secret.”

Clyde was so panicked before, not to mention the crew below, Zhuang Rui was afraid that if he didn’t agree to return to the ship, it was estimated that those crew members could unload the dinghy and row themselves back.

After hearing Zhuang Rui’s words, Clyde also realized the seriousness of this matter, and immediately went to the captain’s office to send a notice.

To say that Clyde’s authority in this ship, really is not generally high, his voice out, those who are disturbed in the heart of the crew, all calmed down.

As for those platform staff, is not a big reaction, the pirate attack to bring them just a novel experience and later bragging capital, and even a lot of people in order not to see the pirates and grudging it!

After everyone on board rested for a day, the work of salvaging the wreck continued to unfold, making a salvage plan was a rather tedious thing, making Zhuang Rui and several experts feel a bit exhausted.

Because the wreck is more than two thousand meters under the sea, and there are a large number of valuable cultural relics, so want to overall salvage, its difficulty, definitely not less than the salvage of the Titanic, although the volume of the two difference of countless times.

Finally three days later, in Zhuang Rui’s insistence, the program was finally formulated, the wreck was named “Maritime Silk Road I” and the salvage operation is called “Maritime Silk Road I salvage plan”!

“Quickly, put another thirty floats down, yes, drain the air, to ensure that in the first time, all the floats can be filled with gas at the same time.”

Two more days passed, all the preparations were ready, from four-thirty in the morning, the ship’s staff was busy, the roar of the machines spread far and wide.

Zhuang Rui’s salvage ship was busy, the large platform had been moved to the surface, one hundred and sixty floats had been sunk into the sea, every forty floats as a unit, all the ropes were connected together.

And the two underwater robots were now busy, through the platform maneuvering, the two robots needed to bolt four strands of special ropes to the ancient shipwreck at the bottom of the sea, and this work alone had been carried out for two days.

It should be known that although the ancient wreck looked sturdy, the location where it was tied down had to withstand the pulling force of the floats, and in case it couldn’t withstand it, not only would the hull be damaged, but those things on the ship, would also suffer catastrophic damage.

“One group, one group, report on preparations.”

“Reporting to the Chief Commander, all preparations are complete, ready for surfacing.”

“Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, group two is ready.”

“Report to the commander-in-chief, groups three and four are ready.”

There were a total of four groups controlling the floats, and the deep water robots that had completed their tying work took a specially made fishing net with a length and width range of over forty meters.

This fishing net was originally a pull net used for fishing and pulling boats, it was made of steel wire and rope, exceptionally tough, and this was also Zhuang Rui’s special contact with the Macao side to have it specially sent to him.

“Mr. Zhuang, what do you think? Can we start?”

In the monitoring room on the platform, although Zhang Gong was acting as the chief commander, he still had to listen to Zhuang Rui’s instructions, after all, this was the real boss.

After these two days of arguments, Zhang Gong was also exceptionally impressed with Zhuang Rui, a young man who had never carried out deep sea salvage before, actually knew all the details like the back of his hand.

What made Zhang Gong admire even more was that Zhuang Rui had accurately found four reinforcement points just through the images sensed back by the underwater robot, and after two days of testing, it was shown that these four reinforcement points could withstand the pulling force brought about by the floats.

“Start!”

Zhuang Rui’s heart is also a little excited, China’s shipwreck salvage technology has always been very backward in the international arena, for the field of deep sea salvage, it is even worse than the developed countries, their own this attempt, will also open a new chapter in China’s deep sea salvage technology maturity.

Of course, although the ship is registered in Panama, and here is also the high seas waters, but Zhuang Rui will still be this act as a national behavior.

Zhuang Rui had already contacted his mentor, Prof. Zhou, and it was estimated that tomorrow at the latest, Prof. Zhou would arrive with a group of underwater salvage experts.

“Ready group one, two, three, four, inject one-third of the air in the float, start!”

With Zhang Gong’s order, the huge inflation pump on the cruise ship let out a heavenly roar, a specially connected hose rapidly expanded, and air was passed through the hose into the more than one hundred floats.

Due to the buoyancy of the floats themselves, they only sank to a depth of more than two hundred meters in the sea, and after the air entered the floats, more than one hundred floats immediately slowly floated upwards.

The ropes connecting the floats to the wrecks also slowly began to tense up from their flimsy state.