Chen Yiyang and the others felt their hearts leap to their throats.
Everyone was extrely nervous.
It’s all riding on this mont, whether they’ll make a fortune or lose their shirts.
The professionals quickly extracted the items from the wooden crate.
"Looks like copper ingots." Jack said, his tone tinged with disappointnt.
He observed the contents of the box from a distance; they appeared to be tal slted goods among bulk commodities.
The probability was high that they were copper ingots, though there was a small chance they might be iron ingots.
However, neither of these are worth much.
The modern production of such goods is enormous.
Jack had previously participated in the salvage of an ancient Middle Eastern ship. This ancient ship used to carry cargo between Huaxia.
At that ti, everyone thought it would contain priceless porcelain.
But to their surprise, upon salvage, they found iron pots purchased from Huaxia, specifically by the Middle East.
Huaxia’s high-temperature iron slting technology has been ahead of Europe by over two thousand years.
Throughout these two thousand years of history, Huaxia’s most commonly exported product was actually iron implents, not the touted porcelain and silk.
Even during the Ming and Qing dynasties, iron pots remained one of Huaxia’s most significant exports to Europe.
Jack’s team had fallen into this trap more than once.
Chen Yiyang also saw the items taken out from the tal container.
However, he did not hurry.
After all, the tips ntioned a significant return.
He was very curious now, wondering what kind of tal cargo was so valuable—could it be rare minerals?
Soon, the test results ca out.
The expert responsible for the test reported back.
"They’re lead ingots. This whole batch of cargo contains lead ingots."
Chen Yiyang didn’t have ti to speak before Jack, beside him, was already extrely excited.
"Are you sure? Lead ingots cast during Ancient Ro?!"
"Confird." The expert nodded.
"We’re going to strike it rich!"
Without any hesitation, Jack turned and embraced a still bewildered Chen Yiyang.
"We’re going to strike it rich!" Jack began to cheer wildly.
The entire Jack team was also extraordinarily uplifted.
Only Chen Yiyang and Schaefer beside him were still confused.
Lead is fairly commonplace and cheap in modern tis, right? What’s the big fortune here?
At that mont, the head of the Yangcheng salvage team quietly approached and pulled Chen Yiyang aside.
"Based on our previous survey, this cargo ship likely carries a uniform load. In other words, at least half of the cargo on this entire ship is lead ingots.
Can I contact so friends in the country to inquire about the price? If the price is right, could you prioritize selling these lead ingots dostically?"
"Honestly, I still don’t understand why lead from Ancient Ro is so valuable." Chen Yiyang asked, puzzled.
"That’s where the properties of lead co in." The head, being a science and engineering expert, imdiately began explaining to Chen Yiyang.
Lead is a high-quality material with extrely low radiation interference; it can naturally shield against radiation interference.
Thus, many nuclear radiation experints rely on lead and aluminum to ensure safety.
Because of this property of lead, many important cosmological experints require the use of low-radiation lead, or low-background materials.
But lead also has a problem.
While lead can shield against radiation, it also contains radioactive lead-210 itself.
Thus, newly mined lead cannot be used directly in experints. The half-life of lead-210 is over twenty years, and more half-life cycles are better for experintal use.
For instance, lead used to observe neutrino decay requires lead that has undergone dozens of half-life cycles.
Therefore, while lead itself is cheap, lead mined long ago becos very valuable, often with demand exceeding supply, even money can’t buy it.
Many large modern laboratories and renowned research teams use low-background lead sourced from old church drains or ruins.
Not only is it hard to find, but finding it and buying it imdiately is even harder.
Moreover, importantly, ancient Huaxia realized very early that lead was problematic, so they used it sparingly.
The most lead was found in noble bronze utensils from the Yinshang period.
Nobles from the Yinshang period liked to use bronze goblets made of lead-tin to warm wine over charcoal fires.
The famous bronze goblet used by King Zhou of Shang contained 23% lead, and he liked to drink wine from it.
One theory suggests that King Zhou went mad in his later years possibly due to this reason.
But soon, Huaxia people discovered there was sothing off about this and later added lead to arrowheads to increase the lethality.
After that, aside from the crazies who consud alchemical drugs, lead-containing utensils were rarely used.
This led to very little ancient Huaxia lead suitable for experints, most of it found in precious Yinshang period bronze utensils.
You can’t just lt down thousands of years old historical artifacts for experints.
But Ancient Ro was different.
The Romans genuinely adored lead.
Due to Europe’s prolonged unfamiliarity with high-temperature tal slting, they couldn’t slt iron.
Lead’s lting point is only over three hundred degrees, so Romans used lead extensively in pipes, coins, and utensils.
Eventually, they even crazily invented lead sugar.
Back then, Romans lacked cheap sweeteners; honey was marvelous but unaffordable for common folks.
Then the Romans discovered that lead seed to have a sweet taste.
Thus, lead sugar was born.
In modern tis, this is a toxic chemical, yet in Ancient Ro, people consud lead sugar in wine.
This caused the average lifespan of Romans to plumt.
So much so that so scholars believe the Romans later turned their military entirely over to the barbarians due to their reduced birth rates and widespread lead poisoning, unable to engage in battles.
After the fall of Ro, people realized it was highly toxic, but lead sugar’s accessibility often caused it to resurface, continuing to plague Europeans for another millennium.
"Based on the massive demand from the Ancient Romans for lead and considering this cargo ship’s size and structure."
The Yangcheng salvage team leader explained to Chen Yiyang, "I estimate that at least tens of tons of lead ingots are in this sunken ship, worth a minimum of 700 million US Dollars!"
Chen Yiyang now understood why Jack’s team was overjoyed.
Even salvaging a wreck full of artifacts wouldn’t guarantee an imdiate sale rendering hundreds of millions in cash.
But this ship filled with lead ingots would surely attract research institutions worldwide willing to pay the price once Chen Yiyang made it known!
After all, it’s a finite resource!
Realizing this, Chen Yiyang quickly called people he knew dostically to inquire about quotes for this batch of lead.
He urged the leader to quicken the pace of the salvage, lest the news leak and attract unwanted attention.
Lead ingots from the Ancient Roman sunken ship in Sardinian waters.
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