Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 150 Reward: Half a Ton of Gold
Because there were six secret rooms, it took much longer to transport the treasure than the 24 hours the operators had expected.

In order to cooperate with the personnel who excavated the treasure, a small-scale force that was dealing with the believers on the periphery disguised themselves as British colonists and announced that a murder case was involved in the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, which required martial law and a 24-hour investigation.

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

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

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

Although India was a British colony, each Indian state still had its own native government. Britain would send an official similar to a liaison officer to each native government to unify the management of the Indian states.

The Padmanabhaswamy Temple is quite far away from the indigenous government of Kerala, and so far only Indian officials from local small cities have been alarmed.

These officials naturally did not dare to 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 a large state, and it would take at least a day to help the government contact the highest officials of the state and the liaison officers sent by the British.

This one day or so was the time the operators bought for themselves. When the British reacted and came to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, they would only see the temple being looted.

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

Among the six secret chambers, two of them contained the most treasures. The gold alone had accumulated into two mountains of gold, and there were also various pearl treasures and other precious items.

The remaining four secret rooms had obviously been opened in recent decades. There weren't that many gold and jewelry, but together they were equivalent to one and a half complete secret rooms.

The transportation of the treasure has now 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 Agency reached a consensus, which was to split the troops into two groups.

The first route will send a small number of elite soldiers and intelligence personnel. They will hire some local personnel and vehicles in India and blatantly transport some not-so-valuable statues, silver products and heavy objects that are inconvenient to transport to the port.

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

The reason for separating this batch of materials that are inconvenient to transport and of low value is to confuse the public and provide cover for the transportation of the real treasure in secret.

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

Generally speaking, after obtaining the temple treasure, most people would choose a shorter route to transport the treasure out of India as quickly as possible.

The British colonial government would certainly think so. They would definitely conduct a strict inspection of the road from the temple to the nearest port, and would certainly pay attention to the upright transport team on the first route.

Under such circumstances, the second transport team had a greater chance. As long as they could enter the port, the treasures could be successfully loaded onto ships, disguised as being from different trading companies in various countries, and successfully sailed out of 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 onto ships.

But the first transport team was not so lucky. After the city officials near the temple reported the status 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 convoy, which was traveling almost openly on this road, was soon discovered by the British. The convoy carrying statues and other heavier items was moving much slower than expected.

After making sure 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 size of the transport team, the First Transport Team recruited a large number of local people as labor during the journey, and even purchased many Indian vehicles.

Although the Buddha statues on the transport vehicles were simply camouflaged, Indians could see that these Buddha statues were most likely from 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 behind by the operators in order to undermine the relationship between the Indians and the British.

Just imagine, after the British learned that there were a large amount of treasures inside the temple, they would definitely re-search the temple and would not miss the heavier treasures transported by the first transport team.

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

Even if the total value of the treasures transported by the first transport team was not worth millions of pounds, it was definitely more than 50 pounds.

This is not a small fortune. For the British, it is enough to build the most powerful ironclad ship.

For Indians, this wealth is the accumulation of hundreds of years of local Indians. The treasure of the temple is not only the accumulated financial income of the local princely state government over hundreds of years, but also the donations made by local Indian believers to the temple over hundreds of years.

Although Indians did not know who excavated the temple treasure, it was definitely the British who got the first transport team to transport the treasure.

By then, as long as the news is spread a little, all the hatred of Indians can be transferred to the British.

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

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

The so-called second trick is actually other temples in India. The Padmanabhaswamy Temple can dig out such rich treasures, so what about other temples in India? Are there also a lot of treasures buried underground like the Padmanabhaswamy Temple?

Even if it was only possible, the British would definitely take practical action. As long as the British began to excavate temples in India on a large scale, it would seriously damage 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 over the years, but also challenging the Indians' beliefs in Hinduism.

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

In fact, leaving behind a portion of the treasure that was inconvenient to transport to lure the Indians and the British was a strategy that Prime Minister Primo had already decided on long before digging for the treasure.

If there were no such heavy items that were inconvenient to transport, it would be the best. But if there were such items that were inconvenient to transport, it would be better to leave them to the Indians and the British to sow discord between India and Britain.

With the early evacuation, the soldiers and intelligence personnel in the first transport team successfully evacuated before the British could surround and intercept them.

Faced with these statues and priceless treasures, the remaining Indians had no time to think about why these Europeans who claimed to be British suddenly disappeared. They were only concerned with how to distribute this unexpected wealth.

When a group of Indian civilians were even ready to risk their lives for the treasure, the British successfully appeared and successfully determined the ownership of the treasure.

Meanwhile, the second transport team had successfully loaded the treasure at the port. Because there were so many treasures, five ships were used for transportation. These five ships would go to different destinations, two of which would 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 one of the ships: "To the President, everything went well!"

The content of this telegram was indeed reporting the treasure-hunting situation to Spain, but it also contained information to confuse the enemy.

It was a day later when Carlo and Prime Minister Primo received the contents of the telegram.

There was no other way around it. Although telegraphs that could travel across oceans existed in this era, they relied on the connection of submarine cables.

As a British colony, India was naturally laid by the British. However, 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, and by the time the telegram was received, more than 20 hours had basically passed.

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

Prime Minister Primo smiled, looking forward to the huge wealth of this mysterious temple treasure. In fact, Carlo already knew the scale of the temple treasure, which was definitely beyond the imagination of others.

There are various rumors about this mysterious temple treasure. Some say the total value exceeds one trillion US dollars, while others say it is only tens or hundreds of billions of US dollars.

But just based on the fact that the first secret room exposed in later generations contained a gold belt weighing more than one ton and a gold elephant about 1.2 meters tall, it was destined that the value of this treasure would definitely not be low.

What's more, the complete Padmanabhaswamy Temple has six secret chambers, 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 contain countless treasures. Add to that the four secret rooms with smaller collections, and the complete treasure trove 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 early excavation of the temple treasure actually had the greatest impact on the relationship between Indians and the British colonial government. The British would never miss the treasure of the temple, and they would definitely conduct large-scale excavations in other temples in Britain.

Carlo also considered whether the British might discover other unknown temple treasures that would make the mighty British Empire even stronger.

But considering the various interests involved, and the fact that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was still digging up the most valuable treasures of antiques and precious metals until later generations, Carlo felt relieved.

No matter how hard the British dug, they would not be able to find treasures as priceless as the Padmanabhaswamy Temple. But once they started excavating the temple, their relationship with the Indians became uncontrollable.

Perhaps various independence movements in India will also be brought forward, which is actually a good thing for Spain. Only when the British colonial system becomes increasingly fragile will Spain have hope of regaining Gibraltar.

If Britain's colonial system had remained so stable, Britain would have been the undisputed strongest country in the world, and it would have been very difficult for Spain to retake Gibraltar.

In order to maintain complete secrecy, the five transport ships arrived at the Spanish port at night, and the port was 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 work at the new place.

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

To ensure safety, all of these treasures will be transported to the Royal Palace of Madrid. After being counted and analyzed in the palace, the government will then take away its own portion.

The advantages of transporting the treasures to the palace are, firstly, that there is enough space in the palace to store the treasures. Secondly, as one of the three largest palaces in Europe, it is reasonable that the Royal Palace of Madrid has 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 a transport team to transport their daily consumables.

There is a large warehouse area underground in the Royal Palace of Madrid, which originally housed the property of the Bourbon royal family. It became vacant after being cleared out.

Now is the perfect place to store these treasures, especially the larger gold products. Until a solution to their disposal is determined, the basement of the palace may be the safest place to store them.

In order to maintain complete secrecy, the task of counting the 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 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 the short term.

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 both visited the basement of the palace in person and saw the mountains of treasure with their own eyes.

Even Carlo, who had expected this, was surprised by the value of the treasures in the Indian temple. Apart from anything else, the one-meter-tall golden elephant alone was enough to dazzle people.

There is also a gold belt that weighs more than one ton. The value of the gold itself is already very high, not to mention the added value after it is processed into a finished product.

If it were to be sold as an antique in the future market, the value of this gold belt alone would be as high as ten figures. If the golden elephant is included, it would be enough to collect several small goals that ordinary people would never be able to draw in their lifetime.

While Carlo asked the Royal Security Intelligence Agency to supervise those people to calculate the value of the treasure, he summoned all the personnel involved in the treasure hunt in India and rewarded them as promised before.

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 treasure excavation process and no serious hidden incidents have occurred.

As for the more or less smuggled goods by some people, Carlo didn't care. After all, how much could a single person take away? At most, it was an inconspicuous gold ornament, weighing less than 100 grams of gold and worth a dozen pounds.

Even the reward Carlo wanted to give them was more than the price, so Carlo naturally had no reason to pay attention to these secretive behaviors.

Anyway, as long as it's not serious, just let it go.

Carlo was also quite generous in rewarding those who participated in the operation, giving each person a check from the Royal United Bank for 5000 pesetas.

This reward is definitely not small, equivalent to about 192 pounds and 1408 grams of gold.

Carlo's reward to the two commanders of this operation was even more generous, a check worth 1 pesetas.

The rewards given to the more than 100 operators alone amounted to nearly half a ton of gold. However, compared with the gains brought by this treasure hunt, this reward was obviously just a drop in the bucket.

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(End of this chapter)