Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 149 Jinshan
At night, outside the solemn-looking Padmanabhaswamy Temple, several people in dark clothes carrying various equipment slowly approached the temple.

In order not to attract attention, they first wandered around the temple casually. After making sure that no believers came late at night, they gathered outside the temple.

This ancient temple, called Padmanabhaswamy Temple, unexpectedly has its own garrison, which makes it more difficult to explore the internal structure of the ancient temple. The personnel involved in the operation not only have to try their best to understand the structure and layout of the temple and find the most likely place to bury the treasure, but also have to pay attention to the patrol of the garrison inside the temple.

Once discovered, there would be only one last resort, which was to storm the ancient temple and loot it before the British colonial government could react.

But if this is done, no matter whether there is treasure inside the ancient temple, the mission of digging for treasure will be over.

If it is confirmed that there is a treasure inside this temple, then the subsequent treasure hunting plan must be very cautious. Because in the vast India, there is not only one ancient temple, but there are many ancient temples scattered all over the country.

Even though not all temples contain rich treasures, there are always some temples that contain treasures from hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

If they could dig a few more, perhaps the debt owed by the Spanish government could be almost paid off.

Although the temple has its own garrison, these are obviously formed by the temple itself and are completely insignificant compared to the elite soldiers carefully selected by the Spanish government.

After simply calculating the patrol time of each monk, several agile operatives quickly slipped into the temple in the dark during the breaks in their patrols.

This temple has a very long history and covers a very large area. It is called a temple, but it is not just a simple temple, but a huge complex of buildings connected by multiple buildings.

The large size of the temple also made it easier for the operators to hide. However, after searching most of the temple, the operators still did not find any possible places where the treasure might be buried.

Most of the temple buildings are open to the public, and believers from outside often come to worship and visit. It is basically impossible to bury treasures in these places. If there are any, they would have been known to these Indian civilians and then spread to the British.

The British have not yet discovered the treasure inside the temple, which also proves that if there is a treasure, it must be hidden in those remote places, that is, the innermost part of the temple.

Sure enough, after a careful search, several operatives finally found a very dilapidated building in the innermost part of the temple.

Compared with the buildings outside, this more dilapidated building is obviously older. The buildings outside have more or less signs of renovation, but this dilapidated building not only has no signs of renovation, but it is even obvious that few people come here.

The area in front of the building is overgrown with weeds, and if it were left in the wild it would look like an abandoned house.

But if it is placed inside the huge temple, it looks a bit strange. The entire temple is not only large in area, but also very magnificent in architecture.

This also shows the influence of religion in India. While most Indian civilians are unable to get enough food and are barely surviving, these temples are all built magnificently. The contrast makes people think deeply.

"Damn, this should be it." Scotty and Val were successfully selected into the task force to explore the temple because of their agility.

Seeing this dilapidated building in front of him, which stood out very conspicuously in the magnificent temple, Scotty stopped immediately and looked at Val beside him.

"We may really be about to discover the temple treasure." Val also nodded, obviously suspicious of this building: "Let's go in and take a look first."

Because it is located at the innermost part of the temple complex and few people come here, it makes it easier for the task force to investigate this dilapidated building.

After going around to the front of the building, everyone immediately discovered something even more wrong.

Although the entire temple complex has its own garrison, the overall garrison is not large. The patrol team only has more than 20 people, and they only patrol the periphery of the temple. There is no patrol force inside the complex.

But inside this obviously dilapidated building, there were actually several monks standing guard at the door. If this was really just an ordinary dilapidated building, why would there be people standing guard here?

These few people on guard have already proved the specialness of this building, and also made everyone in the action team immediately confirm their original idea, that is, the temple treasure is very likely inside this building.

In order not to alert the enemy, after exploring the entire temple complex and determining where the treasure was buried, the people who were exploring the temple looked at each other and then chose to retreat in tacit understanding.

The treasure cannot be moved by just a few of them, and the plan to dig for the treasure requires all the operators to work together.

In addition, the monks and garrison forces inside the temple also need to be dealt with, so that the treasure can be excavated unscrupulously.

Another thing is that some force needs to be reserved to deal with the believers who come to worship. If a large number of Indians gather to watch, even if the treasure is dug up, it will be impossible to take it out of India in public.

It may be cruel for Indians, but there is no way around it. In fact, the temples here contain legendary treasures.
In order not to alert the enemy and avoid attracting the attention of the British colonial government, all Indians who approached the temple would not be able to get out alive.

This treasure-digging operation was not that simple. In order to ensure that all the operators could return to Spain safely, a trap was set for the British in advance during the journey from Spain to India.

These operatives basically have no Spanish features, and can only be identified as Europeans at a glance. Some of them even look more like British and French, which is one of the traps set by the operative team for the British.

In addition, all operators used English and French when communicating with local Indian villagers.

It doesn’t matter even if Indians don’t understand English. After all, this is a British colony, and there must be Indians who can understand English.

The third trap is the evacuation route after digging up the treasure. The operators will not evacuate directly to Spain, but will divide the treasure into several batches and go to the Philippines, Singapore and Australia respectively.

Then they disguised themselves as merchant ships from different countries, and after sailing in twists and turns, they stayed in Spain for a short time, and then sailed to different countries.

Under the confusion of the three major traps, it was impossible for the British to find sufficient evidence to indicate that the force digging for the treasure came from Spain.

As long as there is no sufficient evidence, even if the British know that it was the Spanish who did it, they will have no way to deal with it.

After all, sufficient evidence is needed at the diplomatic level to accuse a country. If the British did not have sufficient evidence, the Spanish government would not panic even if they accused it.

Unless the British are willing to fight the Spanish government, this accusation without actual evidence will have no impact on the Spanish government.

These operatives who sneaked in quietly returned along the original route and reunited with the main force.

After determining the exact location of the treasure, the next step is actually very simple.

All the operatives were divided into two parts. The main force entered the temple to dig for treasures and transferred them to other places using transportation tools that had been prepared in advance.

The remaining small group of people stayed outside the temple to deal with the Indians who came to the temple, so as to buy more time for the action team inside the temple.

In order not to attract the attention of the Indians and the British colonial government, the treasure hunt lasted only 24 hours at most. After 24 hours, regardless of whether the treasure had been completely moved, the operators were not allowed to stay in the temple.

It was still the rather dilapidated building, and the guards in front of the building who were almost asleep.

The official operation has begun, and the operatives will not be polite to the guards and monks in these temples.

All patrol teams encountered along the way were eliminated by the operatives, leaving no one alive.

Taking advantage of the cover of night, several operatives quietly sneaked up behind the guards of the dilapidated building. The guards who were about to fall asleep did not notice the operatives' movements at all.

He took out a dagger and lightly wiped the guards' necks, and several guards fell down like boneless people.

Because the interior of the temple had been explored in advance, it was found that there was almost no defense force in the innermost part except these few guards.

So after killing these guards, the operatives rushed into the dilapidated building in search of the so-called treasure.

The contrast is even greater. The exterior of the building is extremely dilapidated, and even looks like it is about to collapse.

But when entering the building, the statues one after another seemed to be regularly maintained, with almost no dust. "Inspect separately, and don't miss any clues. Report any findings immediately. I think we are not far from finding the treasure." The lieutenant colonel in charge ordered.

Everyone nodded slightly and began to disperse to look for the treasure.

The soldiers from the army called in by the government obviously had little experience and could only carefully check every floor tile and every gap.

The intelligence officers from the Royal Security Intelligence Service were obviously more experienced. They began looking for possible entrances to the basement and even various mechanisms.

Because according to common sense, it is impossible for treasure to be hidden on the ground. It is more likely to be buried underground or in a basement.

All they had to do was find the mechanism or entrance to the basement, and they would find the location where the treasure was buried. As for how to dig out the treasure, that was the job of these soldiers.

Although they cannot carry heavy weapons, they can still carry micro explosives. If they really cannot find the entrance to the treasure, they can only try to find the treasure by blowing up the building.

Anyway, the nearest city to the temple is several kilometers away. If only micro-explosives were used, even if the sound of the explosion could be heard, it would be impossible for the Indians to suspect the temple at the first time.

By the time they investigated the temple, the operatives had already dug out the treasure and fled.

Boom boom boom!
Suddenly, an intelligence officer discovered something was wrong. Almost all the surrounding floor tiles were solid, but this one tile made a hollow sound when knocked.

"Maybe here!" The intelligence officer whispered that he had found a clue.

Everyone gathered in an instant, looking towards the floor tile pointed by the person who spoke.

Boom boom boom!
The sound of the hollow tile caught everyone's attention, and the lieutenant colonel in charge gave his own orders: "Pry it open! The treasure is likely under this tile."

With everyone's joint efforts, the floor tiles were quickly pried open.

There was no soil beneath the tiles, but a dark staircase leading directly down.

"Treasure! It's really a treasure!" Everyone was delighted, and everyone realized that there was a high possibility that the treasure was buried underneath.

There are basically only two things buried underground, either a corpse or treasure. If it is a tomb, there is no way anyone is guarding it.

Although the entrance to the treasure had been discovered, the lieutenant colonel did not rush to give orders, but instead threw two torches into the entrance.

After waiting for about a minute and finding that the torches were not extinguished, he nodded and ordered, "Send two smaller ones down first to see what's going on."

Following an order, two soldiers who were obviously thinner slowly walked down the stairs with torches.

As the two walked further and further away, the bright light of the torch became dimmer and dimmer.

After an unknown amount of time, the two slowly approached the stairs, wiped the sweat off their faces, and reported happily, "Sir, there is a complete corridor below. One side leads to the statue inside the building, and the other side is a secret room deeper inside.

However, these secret rooms all have extremely thick stone doors, and we have not yet found a mechanism to open them."

In order to avoid revealing his identity, the lieutenant colonel in charge of commanding the operation ordered all personnel to call him and the deputy commander sent by the royal family "Mr." instead of any specific position or name.

The lieutenant colonel nodded, not caring about the stone door of the secret room.

If there is really no other good way to open the stone door, you can also choose to use blasting.

Although there were no electric drills in this era, a hand drill could also perform the same function as an electric drill, but it would just take longer.

You only need to drill a deeper hole in the stone door and install micro-explosives in the hole, and a stone door several tens of centimeters thick can be easily blown up.

Considering that the security was most likely buried underground, and there were most likely a large number of stone doors in the underground secret room, the operatives carried enough hand drills and micro explosives before the operation.

After making sure there was enough oxygen under the stairs, the lieutenant colonel led a group of people down the stairs to find a way to open the stone door.

After walking along the dark passage for a while, I found several secret rooms blocked by stone doors along the way.

"There are a total of 6 secret rooms. If all of them contain the so-called temple treasures, I'm afraid our operation this time can be successfully completed." The lieutenant colonel smiled and nodded, very satisfied with the number of secret rooms below.

The good news is that the stone doors of these six secret rooms are all equipped with mechanisms. Perhaps the Indians never considered that such a secret room would be found by others. The switches of the stone doors are right next to the stone doors. Although they are not conspicuous, they are not secret either.

The two soldiers who came down to investigate the situation may have been so excited that they did not notice the switch next to the stone gate, but such a switch could not be hidden from the eyes of the large army.

I went back to the door of the first secret room and gently pressed the stone door switch. I only heard a click, and then there was no other response.

The lieutenant colonel was stunned for a moment, and tried to push the stone door, and was surprised to find that the stone door could be pushed.

Everyone stepped forward and slowly pushed the stone door open. Under the illumination of the torches, the gold in the secret room shone with a golden color, illuminating everyone's eyes.

"Gold, it's gold!" All the operators were immediately excited, staring blankly at the mountains of gold and gold products in front of them.

The commander, the lieutenant colonel, walked up quickly, picked up an ordinary gold ornament from the gold mountain, and after carefully identifying it, he nodded and said, "It should be real gold. This is really a huge fortune."

Looking around, in addition to the very conspicuous gold mountain in the middle of the secret room, there is also a gold elephant more than one meter tall on the left, and a large number of gold and silver coins from different periods and several gold crowns inlaid with diamonds on the right.

In other corners, there are countless jewelries and other metals. The various gold and silver products are dazzling, as if you are in the kingdom of gold and silver.

"My God! How rich are these Indians? It's hard to imagine. If we can control India as a colony, we can definitely build a navy like the Royal Fleet." Seeing the countless gold, silver and treasures in front of him, the lieutenant colonel couldn't help but say.

The reason why Spain has not developed its navy is precisely because of its lack of financial resources. After losing its American colonies, Spain has already had a hard time just maintaining its existing military size, not to mention the need to build new ironclad ships every year.

It is also because of financial shortages that Spain has not built any ironclad ships in the nearly five years since the outbreak of the revolution in 1868.

Facing the mountain of gold before him, what the lieutenant colonel saw was not the endless wealth, but one magnificent Spanish warship after another.

"Be quick and don't miss any gold and silver products. The more wealth you move out of here today, the more military funds the government will invest in the army tomorrow.

Also, I don't want anyone to have dirty hands. Once we ship all these things back to China, we will naturally get a generous reward.

But if someone thinks that he should have a share of these things, don’t blame me for being rude.”

What they have before them is a mountain of real gold and silver. Even soldiers loyal to Spain cannot be completely guaranteed to have clean hands.

To be on the safe side, this time the government soldiers and the royal intelligence officers will work together to ensure that they do not hide anything from each other.

After all, it was not a big place, and with hundreds of people supervising each other, it was possible to ensure that most of these treasures were safely transported back to Spain.

Even if someone could hide it, they couldn't hide much. Carlo and Prime Minister Primo didn't intend to investigate further unless someone was too greedy.

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(End of this chapter)