Chapter 150 Reward: Half a ton of gold

Because there are six secret rooms, the time to transport the treasure is much longer than the 24 hours expected by the operators.

In order to cooperate with the operators who excavated the treasure, a small-scale force of believers in the periphery disguised as British colonists, announced that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was involved in a murder case, and martial law and investigation were required for 24 hours.

This operation did scare Indian believers in several nearby cities. As for whether the senior Indians in these cities would believe it, it was no longer a problem that the operation team could consider.

Anyway, Indians dare not offend the British. By the time they realized that something was wrong, the operators had already completed the task of transporting the treasure.

In fact, when the British disguised as the operators announced the blockade of the Padwanabhaswamy Temple, they had already attracted the attention of local Indian officials.

Although India is a British colony, the Indian states still have their own indigenous governments. Britain will send an official similar to a liaison officer to each indigenous government to uniformly manage the Indian states.

The Padmanabhaswamy Temple is far away from the indigenous government of Kerala. Currently, only the Indian officials in the local small city are alarmed.

These officials naturally dare not offend the British. Even if they did not know any orders from the Indian colonial government, they did not dare to stop the British from blocking the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Kerala is not small in size. It takes at least more than a day to help the government contact the highest officials of the state and the liaison sent by the British.

And this more than a day is exactly the time the operatives have bought for themselves. When the British reacted and came to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, they would only see the temple that had been looted.

It took two and a half days for all the operatives to loot the treasures inside the temple.

Two of the six secret rooms have the most treasures. The gold alone has accumulated into two gold mountains, and there are all kinds of pearl treasures and other precious items.

The remaining four secret rooms were obviously opened in recent decades. There were not so many gold and jewelry, but the total amount was equivalent to one and a half complete secret rooms.

Now the transportation of the treasure has become the biggest problem. How to transport such a large amount of treasure from Kerala to the port without telling Indian officials and the British colonial government is a problem that needs to be solved urgently.

After a brief thought, the lieutenant colonel in charge and the deputy commander sent by the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau reached a consensus, that is, to divide the troops into two groups.

The first group sent a small number of elite soldiers and intelligence personnel. They will hire some people and vehicles in India and swagger to transport some not-so-valuable idols, silver products and heavy objects that are not convenient to transport to the port.

The total value of this batch of materials will not be too high, and it is not even as valuable as the one-meter-tall golden elephant in the first secret room.

The reason for separating this batch of materials that are not convenient to transport and not very valuable is also to confuse the public and cover up the transportation of the real treasure in secret.

Under the cover of the first team, the second transport team will be disguised and dispersed to go to a more distant port.

Generally speaking, after obtaining the temple treasure, most people will choose a closer road to transport the treasure out of India as soon as possible.

The British colonial government must have thought so. They will definitely strictly check the road from the temple to the nearest port, and will definitely pay attention to the first road's open transport team.

In this case, the second transport team has a greater chance. As long as they can enter the port, these treasures can be successfully loaded onto the ship, disguised as different trading companies from various countries, and successfully leave India.

As expected, after the transport team was divided into two routes, the entire transportation process was quite smooth.

In particular, the second transport team, under the cover of the first transport team, easily transported a large amount of precious treasures to a distant port and loaded them on the ship.

But the first transport team was not so lucky. After the city officials near the temple reported the situation of the temple to the higher state government, the Indians immediately thought of the treasure inside the temple.

The Indian high-level officials knew about it, and the British naturally could not be unaware of it. Therefore, under the joint efforts of local Indians and the British, an extremely strict blockade was implemented on the road from the temple to the nearest port.

The first transport team, which was almost openly marching on this road, was soon discovered by the British. The speed of the transport team transporting the statues and other heavier items was much slower than expected.

After confirming that they had attracted the attention of the British, the soldiers and intelligence personnel in the first transport team slowly evacuated.

In order to expand the scale of the transport team, the first transport team recruited a large number of local people as labor during the march, and even purchased many Indian vehicles.

Although the Buddha statues on the transport vehicles were simply camouflaged, the Indians could not see that these Buddha statues were most likely from the nearby ancient temples.

However, at this point, the mission of the first transport team had been completed. Even these more obvious Buddha statues and some heavier treasures were deliberately left by the operatives in order to undermine the relationship between the Indians and the British.

Imagine that after the British learned that there were a lot of treasures inside the temple, they would definitely search the temple again and would not miss the heavier treasures transported by the first transport team.

Although the value of these heavier treasures is not as high as gold products, they are also of considerable value.

Even if the total value of the treasures transported by the first transport team is not as high as one million pounds, it is definitely more than 500,000 pounds.

This is not a small fortune. For the British, they can also build the most powerful ironclad ship.

For the Indians, this wealth is the accumulation of hundreds of years of local Indians. The treasures of the temple are not only the accumulated fiscal revenue of the local state government over hundreds of years, but also the donations made by local Indian believers to the temple for hundreds of years.

Although the Indians do not know who excavated the treasures of the temple, it must be the British who obtained the treasures transported by the first transport team.

At that time, as long as the news is spread a little, all the hatred of the Indians can be transferred to the British.

After all, in the Indian colonies controlled by the British, only the British themselves were capable of excavating treasures on a large scale and transporting them without telling the Indians.

If this was just the first move to undermine the relationship between the British colonial government and the local Indians, then the British would come up with the second move.

The so-called second move is actually other temples in India. The Padmanabhaswamy Temple can excavate such rich treasures, so what about other temples in India? Will there be a lot of treasures buried underground like the Padmanabhaswamy Temple?

Even if it is only possible, the British will definitely take practical action. As long as the British start to excavate temples in India in large quantities, it will seriously undermine the relationship between the colonial government and the local Indians.

India has four very strict castes, but at the same time, their worship of Hinduism is also quite fanatical.

Digging for treasure is not only plundering the wealth accumulated by local Indians for many years, but also provoking the Indians' belief in Hinduism.

Although most Indians will still be weak under the high-pressure rule of Britain, there will inevitably be some more radical Indians who choose to resist British colonial rule with more radical means.

In fact, leaving some treasures that are not convenient to transport to lure Indians and British was a strategy that Prime Minister Primo had set long before digging for treasures.

If there were no heavy items that were inconvenient to transport, it would be the best. But if there were these things that were not convenient to transport, it would be better to leave them to Indians and British to provoke relations between India and Britain.

In the case of early evacuation, the soldiers and intelligence personnel in the first transport team successfully evacuated before the British were surrounded and intercepted.

The Indians who stayed behind faced these statues and extremely valuable treasures. They had no time to think about why these Europeans who claimed to be British suddenly disappeared. They only cared about how to distribute this unexpected wealth.

When a group of Indian civilians were even going to make a fuss for this treasure, the British successfully appeared and successfully determined the ownership of the treasure.

On the other hand, the second transport team had successfully loaded the ship at the port. Because there were so many treasures, five ships were used for transportation.     These five ships will also go to different destinations, two of which will go to the Philippines, one to Australia, one to Africa, and the other directly to Europe.

When the five transport ships successfully left the port, a telegram was successfully sent from a ship: "Report to the President, everything went well!"

The content of this telegram was indeed reporting the treasure hunt to Spain, but it also had information to confuse the enemy.

When Carlo and Prime Minister Primo received the content of this telegram, it was already a day later.

There was nothing they could do about it. Although there were telegrams across the ocean in this era, they relied on the connection of submarine cables.

As a British colony, India was naturally laid by the British. It's just that the speed of sending telegrams in this era was extremely slow, and the speed of receiving telegram content was also extremely slow.

Spain and India are separated by tens of thousands of kilometers. By the time the telegram was received, more than 20 hours had basically passed.

But no matter what, the content of the telegram that everything went smoothly still made Prime Minister Primo and Carlo feel relieved.

Prime Minister Primo smiled and looked forward to how huge the wealth of this mysterious temple treasure was. And Carlo actually knew the scale of the temple treasure long ago, which was definitely beyond the imagination of others.

There are all kinds of rumors about this mysterious temple treasure in later generations. Some say that the total value exceeds one trillion US dollars, while others say that the total value is only tens of billions or hundreds of billions of US dollars.

But just based on the gold belt weighing more than one ton and the golden elephant about 1.2 meters high in the first secret room exposed in later generations, it is destined that the value of this treasure will definitely not be low.

What's more, the complete Padmanabhaswamy Temple has six secret rooms, two of which have not been opened for more than 100 years.

These two secret rooms that have not been opened for more than 100 years alone have countless wealth, plus four smaller secret rooms, the complete treasure is definitely worth hundreds of millions.

As for whether these hundreds of millions are in pounds, dollars or pesetas, that depends on the scale of the security to be transported back to Spain.

The biggest impact of excavating the temple treasure in advance is actually the relationship between Indians and the British colonial government. The British will never miss the treasure of the temple, and they will definitely conduct large-scale excavation of other temples in the UK.

Carlo also considered whether the British would discover other unknown temple treasures to make the powerful British Empire stronger.

But considering the various interests involved, and the fact that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was the treasure with the highest value of antiques and precious metals until later generations, Carlo was relieved.

No matter how hard the British dig, they will never find a treasure as priceless as the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, but as long as they start excavating the temple, the relationship between them and the Indians will be uncontrollable.

Maybe various independence movements about India will also be advanced, which is a good thing for Spain. Only when the British colonial system becomes more and more fragile, Spain will have the hope of regaining Gibraltar.

If the British colonial system continues to be so stable, then Britain will be the world's most powerful country, and it will be difficult for Spain to regain Gibraltar.

In order to keep it completely secret, the five transport ships arrived at the Spanish port at night, and the port would be temporarily closed that night for various reasons.

In the port late at night, a troop that had been waiting for a long time repacked the treasures on the transport ship and transferred them to a new place, and finally completed the statistics in the new place.

In order to ensure the smooth transfer, the soldiers who carried the treasures were carefully selected from the army. Not only did they come from different troops, but they were also mixed to ensure that there were no acquaintances around them.

In order to ensure safety, all the treasures will be transported to the Royal Palace of Madrid. After counting and statistics in the palace, the government will transport its own part.

The benefits of transporting to the palace are that there is enough space in the palace to place these treasures. Secondly, as one of the three major palaces in Europe, it is reasonable for the Royal Palace of Madrid to have priceless treasures.

The frequent transportation from the port to the palace can also be fully explained. After all, in addition to the royal family, there are many servants in the entire palace, and it does not seem strange to use the transport team to transport their daily consumables.

There is a large warehouse area under the Royal Palace of Madrid, which was originally used to store the property of the Bourbon royal family. After it was emptied, it became vacant.

Now it is just right for storing these treasures, especially those larger gold products. Before a solution is determined, the basement of the palace may be the safest place to store them.

In order to keep it completely confidential, the task of counting these treasures was given to a mixed force composed of the finance department, the army and the guards.

Except for the senior officials of the finance department, everyone else was reminded before arriving at the palace that the treasures here were treasures buried in the Royal Palace of Madrid, but they were suddenly discovered by His Majesty the King recently.

Because the people involved in the statistics are either soldiers or people from the finance department, there is no need to worry about them leaking information. The Royal Security Intelligence Agency will also keep an eye on them to ensure that the Spanish government's actions in India will not be leaked in a short period of time.

When Spain becomes strong in the future, even if this action is eventually known to the British, the British government can only regard it as a rumor.

To put it bluntly, it depends on the strength of the country. If Spain was really strong, it would not have to sneak into India. It could have forcibly occupied Kerala and then looted the treasures of the temple openly.

During the period of treasure counting, Prime Minister Primo and Carlo personally visited the basement of the palace and saw the mountains of treasures with their own eyes.

Even Carlo, who had expected it, had to be surprised by the value of the treasures of the Indian temple. Apart from anything else, the golden elephant that was more than one meter tall was enough to dazzle people.

And the golden belt weighing more than one ton, the value of gold itself is already very high, not to mention the added value after being processed into finished products.

If it is put on the market to sell antiques, the value of this golden belt alone is as high as ten figures. If the golden elephant is counted, it can already gather several small goals that ordinary people can't draw in several lifetimes.

While letting the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau supervise those people to count the value of the treasure, Carlo summoned all the operators involved in the Indian treasure hunt and gave them rewards according to the previous promise.

You know, the value of this batch of treasures is absolutely unimaginable for ordinary people. Carlo is very satisfied that these operators can keep their original intentions in mind during the process of digging treasures, and no serious hidden accidents have occurred.

As for some people's more or less secret smuggling, Carlo doesn't care. After all, how much can a single person take away? At most, it is an inconspicuous gold ornament, which weighs less than 100 grams of gold and is worth more than a dozen pounds.

Even Carlo wants to give them more than this reward, so Carlo naturally has no reason to pay attention to these secret hidden behaviors.

Anyway, as long as it is not serious, it will naturally be revealed.

Carlo is also quite generous in rewarding these participants. Each person has a check from the Royal United Bank, with a share of 5,000 pesetas.

This reward is definitely not small, almost equivalent to 192 pounds and 1,408 grams of gold.

For the two commanders of this operation, Carlo's reward is even more generous, a check with a face value of 10,000 pesetas.

The rewards given to these 100+ operators alone are close to half a ton of gold. However, compared to the gains from this treasure hunt, this reward is obviously just a drop in the bucket.

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