Chapter 131 The reaction of the British East Indies (Happy New Year!)

I saw that the list was written in great detail. After various estimates, the total value of the treasure was as high as more than 40 million pounds, not counting the value of various gems and jewelry.

If these are included, the entire treasure may be worth as much as 50 million pounds, which is four times Australia's current total annual financial expenditure.

What concept? This treasure alone can support the development of the entire Australia for four years, which includes various construction and industrial development plans.

If used purely to develop the navy, this huge amount of money can build a navy at the level of a great power, even a top power like Germany and the United Kingdom.

Even if it is a dreadnought that will be expensive to build in the future due to all-round upgrades, this amount of money will be enough to build nearly twenty ships.

What is the concept of twenty dreadnoughts? Steady among the top three in the world, it even has the qualifications to challenge the German Empire and the British Empire.

In order to maintain confidentiality, all Guards soldiers and servants participating in the inventory must sign a confidentiality agreement, prohibiting any disclosure of the specific number of these treasures in any way.

After all, the origin of these treasures is not right. India is still a colony of the British Empire, which is equivalent to grabbing it from the British.

It can be expected that after this temple theft incident, the treasures held by a large number of temples in India will also be spied by the British, and even lead to larger-scale excavation and exploration.

Whether the treasures of Indian temples can be preserved into the new century as they did historically depends on whether the British are interested in the property exposed by the temples.

Arthur was far from expecting the sensation caused by the theft of the temple in India and the alarm to the British.

Just the day after the temple was stolen, when a large number of believers went to the temple to worship, they discovered tragedies around and inside the temple, as well as a large number of damaged buildings and demolished doors.

As one of the largest temples in India, the Padmanabhaswamy Temple has supreme status and fame in the hearts of nearby princely states and Indians.

Such a tragedy in such a temple not only aroused the anger and dissatisfaction of many surrounding Indians, but also attracted the attention of the British as the rulers.

If this matter is not handled well, it may even pose a great threat to British rule.

With the intervention of the colonial government, a large number of British soldiers began to swarm around the temple, searching every detail nearby and questioning every Indian in the area.

After several days of searches and interrogations, the British colonial government grasped an important clue, that is, a few days before the temple was stolen, several teams of three or four people were passing by the temple, and After the temple was stolen, there was no news.

But it is this clue that gives the officials responsible for the investigation and all the soldiers a headache.

These people come from a wide range of sources, including Australia, British New Zealand, British East Indies, British Southeast Asia, British South Africa and French Indochina. Their arrival times in India are also different, or even different. for a week.

More importantly, it is currently only certain that these people were around the temple during the time when the temple was stolen, but it does not ensure that they had the motive to commit the crime. It is not even clear where these people went.

So what if it is determined that these people are the real perpetrators? Whether it was an Indian state or British East India, if those people could not be caught, there was no way to push the investigation progress down.

While the progress of the investigation stalled, the number of remaining properties in the temple was also counted.

Although most of the remaining items are less valuable silverware, due to the large number, the total value is still as high as nearly 300,000 pounds.

This left the British in shock. If it were the complete temple treasure, then what a terrifying figure it would be.

According to the British East India colonial government's estimation of the traces of the six secret rooms that had been basically emptied, these six secret rooms originally contained at least dozens of tons of treasure.

And due to the long-term accumulation, the ground at the bottom was stained with a layer of gold powder, which is enough to prove that not only silver was accumulated in large quantities, but also gold of considerable weight.

This also made many colonial government officials begin to imagine that if it were a complete treasure house, its value should be tens of millions of pounds, right?

After thinking about it, some British people were very jealous of those who stole treasures, but because they did not know the whereabouts of those people, they passed on their jealousy and jealousy to other Indian temples.

Since this Indian temple has so many treasures, other Indian temples should also have them, right?

Even if it is not as huge as this temple, it should be easy to have a fortune of hundreds of thousands of pounds, right? Wouldn’t it be too much if you just put it all together?

It was not easy for these colonial government officials to catch those who stole the treasure, but it was still easy to organize and plan another theft in other Indian temples.

However, the question is, can Indians survive the second temple theft? The theft of the temple has made many Indians angry and dissatisfied, and they are even resisting the rule of the British colonial government.

If British officials were organizing and planning an operation to steal the temple, wouldn't it add fuel to the current situation in India?

What's more, if the Indians find out that the theft of the temple was planned by officials of the East Indian colonial government, I am afraid that the Indian independence movement and anti-colonial movement will set off one wave after another.

Thinking of this, many more sensible British officials stopped this crazy idea. For the current British Empire, stabilizing its rule in India is more important than anything else.

A stable India can bring more income to the British Empire, and its value is definitely not comparable to hundreds of millions of pounds.

But there are still some people who covet the treasures of other temples, but for various reasons, they have temporarily tolerated it.

However, because the British Empire's blockade was relatively fast, the theft of the temple was only spread around the temple, and at most it was limited to the country where the temple was located.

In order to prevent more Indians and foreign forces from knowing about it, the British stationed troops near the stolen temple and executed some of the more adventurous Indians before letting most people quiet down.

At the same time, the colonial government began to clean up the interior of the temple and conduct simple repairs around the temple to deal with the signs of theft.

This is also something that the British East India Government has no way to do. Without being able to ensure which force stole the temple treasures, blocking this news and cleaning up all traces is the only way for the British East India Government to stabilize the situation in India. Things that can be done.

Second update, Happy New Year everyone!