134. Seven all fifty seven
After checking the coordinates on the GPS, Incheol turned off the boat.
We opened the aluminum sulphate sacks and began to shovel the aluminum sulphate and scatter it overboard.
After pouring all eight aluminum sulfate batteries into the sea over about 10 minutes, we connected the underwater drone to a cable and sent it down to the bottom of the sea.
“It is now 75 meters deep.”
At Incheol’s words, I nodded and pressed the button to turn on the light and camera.
“… … .”
The video on the laptop monitor was still blurry and nothing was visible.
Checking the monitor, In-cheol let out a long sigh as if disappointed, and I patted In-cheol’s shoulder and said.
“It’s still too early to be disappointed. Wait a little longer.”
“how much?”
I said checking my watch.
“one… Five minutes?”
Five minutes after we fixed our gaze on the screen we saw through the camera, our field of vision brightened like a lie.
“Oooh—!”
With the sound of cheers from Incheol, the Shigemitsu appeared under the lights of the lights.
The first thing I checked was whether the sunken ship had come out of the muddy mud.
The West Sea is famous for its strong currents. And, of course… The current of seawater caused by algae moves the muddy silt on the sea floor.
If the muddy mud that moves with the algae covers the boat, it becomes really difficult to get the gold bars out. Perhaps the only way is to salvage the boat out of the water.
As a result of checking the video sent by the underwater drone, the back of the ship was buried in mud… Fortunately, the entrance to the interior of the hull at the forefront of the ship was intact.
“There! there! That’s the entrance to the basement!”
Incheol said while rolling his feet, and I said while moving the underwater drone slowly toward the entrance.
“In-cheol, loosen the drone cable a little more.”
When Incheol untangled the cable, the drone moved faster, and the entrance to the basement was wide open.
It is said that on April 29, 1942, the Shigemitsu exploded and sank by an independence activist named Deoksan dispatched by the Provisional Government of Chongqing. The ship must have sank quickly after the explosion, and it is clear that the crew left the entrance open while escaping.
I moved the drone to the inside of the entrance, and the video from the drone’s camera showed the stairs going down to the first basement floor.
1st basement floor hallway.
According to the internal structural diagram of a battleship similar to the Shigemitsu that Incheol-i obtained, there are a total of 12 rooms along the corridor on the first basement floor, 6 on the starboard and the other 6 on the port.
For reference, the front of the ship is called the bow (船首) and the rear is called the stern (船尾).
Currently, the Shigemitsu is sinking with its stern tilted slightly downward. Due to this, the floor was covered with mud from the middle of the long corridor, and as the depth of the mud increased toward the stern of the ship, it eventually reached the ceiling.
Due to this, the four rooms on the stern side were completely inaccessible. Fortunately, all eight other rooms had no doors or were open, and although the exact purpose is unknown, it was clear that this was not a suitable place for gold bars or other cargo.
Incheol looked at the camera screen and said as if muttering.
“Also… I think the gold bars are on the second basement floor.”
According to the structure diagram of the ship, there are two ways to go down to the second basement level, and neither of them are normal stairs. It was a method of opening the circular hatch door on the first basement floor and going down to the second basement floor using a ladder.
There are two hatch doors, one at the bow and one at the aft end of the corridor on the first basement level, but there was no way to check the current hatch door facing the stern because it is covered under mud.
As the underwater drone moves along the corridor in the direction of the bow… Incheol and I held our breath and checked the video the camera sent.
Finally, the drone arrived at the end of the hallway, and the camera shot the floor. The floor was covered with sphagnum moss, and the sphagnum surface protruded in a circular shape where the hatch door should have been.
In other words… This means that the hatch door is closed.
In-cheol, who checked the screen, exclaimed with regret.
“ah-! Even if only this had been opened, I could have seen the gold bars with my own eyes today… . under-! It’s really worth it.”
At Incheol’s words, I shook my head and said.
“No, it is not.”
“Isn’t it?”
“The hatch door leading to the second basement is closed… Rather, it is a good thing.”
At my words, Incheol raised both eyebrows and said.
“Is that a good thing? What does that mean?”
I changed the direction of the drone to point it towards the stern, and the camera screen showed muddy mud that had accumulated up to the ceiling of the hallway.
I said pointing at the screen.
“If the hatch door had been open, this mud would not be on the first basement level… It must have been piled up in the hallway on the second basement floor.”
Incheol nodded, and I continued.
“And the hallway on the second basement floor has a lower ceiling and narrower width. So with this amount of mud, it probably filled the second basement hallway.”
For reference, the maximum depth that can be dived with scuba diving equipment is 40 meters. In other words, not only is it extremely dangerous to go down to the depth of 80 meters where Lake Shigemitsu is located, but it is impossible for even experienced divers to dig up the soil there.
This means that if the hatch door to the second basement level was open, there was virtually no other way than to salvage the ship.
At my explanation, Incheol still tilted his head and said.
“You’re going to use a bomb later? Bread from outside the ship! Can’t you just blow it up and go through the outer wall?”
The plan to use explosives… It was intended to use a small amount of explosives to remove simple obstacles such as closed doors or storage covers, but Incheol seems to have misunderstood.
I smiled and said to Incheol.
“You said the Shigemitsu was a remodeled battleship from the Japanese Navy?”
“right.”
“men and horses-! Do you know how much explosives are needed to destroy the outer walls of a warship?”
In-cheol still shook his head with a serious expression and said.
“How much do you need?”
I honestly don’t know either.
You need really powerful explosives to break through the outer walls of warships, and manufacturing and managing such explosives is not only illegal, it’s also really dangerous. You may be caught by the police before you have collected the necessary amount of explosives.
And there is a bigger problem. If the explosive force was enough to blow up the outer walls of a warship, the 39,000 gold bars inside it would burst out of the ship with the explosion.
For reference, gold is one of the heaviest metals with a specific gravity of 19.32 g/cm3. Since the specific gravity of steel is 7.85 g/cm3, gold is 2.5 times heavier than steel.
In other words, if the outer wall of the Shigemitsu was removed by an explosion, a large amount of explosive fragments would float in the water with the explosion. Of these shards, gold bars will be the first to sink to the bottom, then steel shards, followed by relatively small and light shards and finally mud.
Gold bars are buried under the rubble. Destroying a ship’s outer walls with explosives is not a good idea, as we can’t descend directly into the ocean to find gold bars.
At my explanation, Incheol nodded vigorously.
“Also! Jungho, I am so reassured that you are there. I guess I just have to do what you tell me to do! ha ha ha-!”
I took the underwater drone out of the sea, and Incheol started the boat and headed for Mokpo Port.
While Incheol was driving the boat, I sat on the back of the boat and watched the golden sun sinking into the sea.
Today I got better results than expected.
read at noblemtl.com
Now, if you prepare enough explosives to destroy the hatch door that goes down to the 2nd basement level and the 6 cargo storage doors on the 2nd basement floor… 39,000 gold bars will be waiting for us.
4 billion won… The day will soon come when this money will now be in my hands.
It feels like my heart is pounding and the adrenaline is rushing out.
“Hurray-!”
Cheers erupted without me knowing, and In-cheol, who heard my voice, stuck out his head from the cab and said:
“What’s up? Why are you screaming?”
“I just feel good. ha ha ha-!”
“You surprised me, man!”
Incheol continued to speak with a frown.
“It’s a very dangerous place! If you accidentally fall backwards, you can get caught in the screw. Don’t be anxious there, come here. I have something to ask you.”
As I entered the cab, Incheol cleared my seat and said,
“I made the water clean earlier… It sounds like magic, how did you do that?”
It’s magic… .
In fact, there was such an expression in the book ＜Water Quality Engineering> that I saw at the library last night.
‘(It is like magic to remove the suspended particles that cause the turbidity of the water by creating another suspended particle.)’
For reference, most of the small particles that cause water turbidity are negatively charged. So when these particles collide in water, they repel each other by electrostatic repulsion. As a result, the particles remain suspended in the water, making the water cloudy.
If these particles had no charge, if they collided, they would agglomerate and turn into large particles. The same result is obtained if one of the two colliding particles has a negative charge and the other has no charge. This is because there is no electrostatic repulsion between the two.
read at noblemtl.com
Now, let’s add a small amount of aluminum sulfate to the highly turbid water.
Aluminum sulfate, or alum, is a relatively common chemical that is available in drugstores under the name alum or alum.
When aluminum sulfate dissolves in water, aluminum ions (Al3+) are formed, which react with water to form small particles called aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH)3). And as can be seen from the chemical formula, these aluminum hydroxide particles are not charged.
That is, particles with no charge are created. These aluminum hydroxide particles will grow bigger as they collide with the particles floating in the water, and eventually sink to the bottom, removing the turbidity of the water.
This is the principle of flocculation treatment used in water treatment plants.
The aluminum sulfate we sprayed into the sea a while ago made countless aluminum hydroxide particles. And aluminum hydroxide particles are removed from mud particles that cause turbidity as they sink to the bottom of the sea.
When I finished my explanation, Incheol opened her eyes thinly and asked me.
“So… You mean you found that out after studying for 10 minutes in the library last night?”
“haha-! well.”
“Now I can’t say it’s great. I think it’s just normal. I need a bomb for the next step, can I study how to make a bomb in 15 minutes?”
At Incheol’s words, I smiled and said.
“Actually, I already know the whole process of making explosives.”
“Also-! Chae Jung-ho! Hey—! Jung-ho, are we going to take out gold bars next week?”
“Next week is crazy… When manufacturing and managing explosives, the most important thing is safety, safety! So, I will take the time to study safety-related materials thoroughly.”
“But how do you study? It wouldn’t be easy to find a bomb making book… .”
“It’s just a search on the Internet, what?”
At my words, Incheol nodded and said with a smirk at me.
“Our Goddess! I will only trust in God—!”