( CNN ) -- In Japanese legend they are known as The Kamikaze -- the divine winds -- a reference to two mighty typhoons placed providentially seven years apart which , in the 13th century , destroyed two separate Mongol invasion fleets so large they were not eclipsed until the D-Day landings of World War II . Marine archaeologists now say they have uncovered the remains of a ship from the second fleet in 1281 -- believed to have comprised 4,400 vessels -- a meter below the seabed , in 25 meters of water off the coast of Nagasaki , Japan . Scientists are hoping they will be able to recreate the complete Yuan Dynasty vessel from Kublai Khan 's lost fleet using a 12-meter-long section of keel . The Mongols ruled China from 1271 to 1368 . According to Yoshifumi Ikeda , a professor of archaeology at Okinawa 's University of the Ryukyus , and head of the research team , the section could go a long way to helping researchers identify all the characteristics of the 20-meter warship . `` This discovery was of major importance for our research , '' Ikeda told a news conference . `` We are planning to expand search efforts and find further information that can help us restore the whole ship . '' Discovered using ultrasound equipment , the research team says it is the first wreck from the period to have an intact hull , the planks of which are still attached to the keel with nails . Scientists say its good state of preservation -- they were even able to establish that the planks were originally painted a whitish-gray -- is due to the fact it has been covered by sand . `` I believe we will be able to understand more about shipbuilding skills at the time as well as the actual situation of exchanges in East Asia , '' Ikeda told reporters in Nagasaki . How to survive a shipwreck . More than 4,000 artifacts , including ceramic shards , bricks used for ballast , cannonballs and stone anchors have been found in the vicinity of the wreck , linking it to the Yuan Dynasty invasion fleet . Ikeda said there were no immediate plans to salvage the hull and the first step was to conserve the find by covering the sites with nets . The Kamikaze -- perhaps better known as the nickname given to the Japanese suicide pilots of the Pacific War -- were a nation-defining event for Japan and set the limits of Mongol expansion in the east . Historians say the first Chinese attempt to invade Japan in 1274 ended in disaster . Having initially engaged a numerically superior Japanese samurai force at the Battle of Bun'ei in First Battle of Hakata Bay , the Chinese retreated to their fleet of 300 ships and some 500 smaller craft after just one day of battle on land . A typhoon destroyed a third of the fleet that night and the remnants limped back to port in Korea which was then a vassal state of China . Seven years later , Kublai Khan amassed an impressive armada of 4,400 ships carrying 40,000 Korean , Mongol and Chinese troops in a bid to finally subjugate Japan . The Japanese , convinced of a second invasion , had spent the intervening years building strategic seawalls which made it difficult for the Chinese to land . Unable to gain a beachhead after initially taking the island of Iki and Tsushima , the fleet was decimated by a two-day typhoon that hit the Tsushima Straits . It is believed about 80 % of the fleet was destroyed and the Khan 's troops either drowned at sea or slaughtered on the beaches by samurai . According to a contemporary account cited in the book `` Khubilai Khan 's lost fleet : In Search of a Legendary Armada , '' by maritime archaeologist James P. Delgado , the losses were so great that `` a person could walk across from one point of land to another on a mass of wreckage '' .
Marine archaeologists have found a shipwreck dating from the 13th century off the coast of Japan . The vessel is thought to have been part of Kublai Khan 's massive invasion fleet . More than 4,000 artifacts , including pottery shards , cannonballs and anchors were found near the wreck .