Chinese archaeologists Friday began salvaging a ship off the coast of southern Guangdong Province believed to be a Ming Dynasty merchant vessel loaded with masses of antique porcelain.

China starts salvaging ancient vessel off Guangzhou.

The excavation team has been working to anchor the salvage ship, "Nantianshun", above the wreckage of a vessel at least 400 years old, dubbed "Nan'ao-1", in the Sandianjin waters off Nan'ao County, Shantou City.

More than 20 experts will recover the antiques on the "Nan'ao-1" by June and raise the ship wreckage by the end of the year, said Pu Gong, deputy director with the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Relics.

The salvage operations will go ahead as long as weather conditions permit, Pu said. The excavation was scheduled to begin on Sept. 26, 2009, but was postponed due to severe weather conditions, including typhoons and cold snaps.

Local fishermen found the wreck, estimated to be about 25 meters long and seven meters wide, in May 2007 buried in silt 27 meters underwater and about 5.6 nautical miles from Shantou City.

It is probably a Guangdong merchant vessel, since most of the porcelain found so far was produced by local workshops, said Cui Yong, an archaeologist with the institute.

Archaeologists said the ship may have been carrying 10,000 pieces of blue-and-white porcelain, mostly made during the reign of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1573-1620).

"It is a very interesting find because, under the rule of Emperor Wanli, China had imposed a ban on sea trade," Cui said. "The excavation of the ship will help us learn more about China's foreign trade at that time."

By the end of March 2010, the wreck site had been monitored by border police for more than 1,000 days, said Zhu Zhixiong, head of the border defense police station of Yun'ao Town in Nan'ao.

"Since May 2007, we have patrolled the area nearly 4,000 times and stopped about 93 suspicious boats," Zhu said.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage approved the excavation plan in early 2009.

Guangdong was a major center for sea trade in ancient China.

In December 2007, archaeologists salvaged an 800-year-old merchant ship loaded with valuable trading goods off the coast of Yangjiang City, Guangdong, about 600 km from Shantou.

That ship has been kept in a glass pool at a local museum, the water there duplicating the conditions in which the wreck was found.