It's the first time archaeologists have unearthed a blunderbuss - an early firearm - since the first effort began in January 2017. That dig lasted 98 days before the arrival of the flood season and yielded more than 30,000 relics. More than 1,000 of those items related directly to the Daxi Kingdom, which was founded by Zhang Xianzhong, a rebel leader during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). They offer evidence that this spot in the river was where Zhang's fleet of about 1,000 vessels was attacked and destroyed by a Ming general in 1646, two years after the dynasty's demise, said Gao Dalun, president of the Sichuan Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.

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