Chapter 151: Rewards of Half a Ton of Gold

Because there were a full six secret chambers, the time required to transport the treasure was much longer than the 24 hours the operational personnel had anticipated.

To coordinate with the personnel excavating the treasure, a small unit disguised as British colonists was sent to resolve the "believers" on the perimeter, announcing that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was involved in a murder case and required a 24-hour martial law lockdown for investigation.

This maneuver did indeed bluff the Indian believers in several nearby cities; as for whether the high-ranking Indians in these cities would believe it, that was no longer a concern for the operational team.

In any case, the Indians dared not offend the British. By the time they realized something was amiss, the operational personnel would have long since completed the task of transporting the treasure.

In fact, the moment the operational personnel, disguised as British, announced the blockade of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, it had already caught the attention of local Indian officials.

Although India was a British colony, the various Indian states still possessed their own indigenous governments. The British would dispatch an official, similar to a liaison, to each indigenous government to manage the Indian states in a unified manner.

The Padmanabhaswamy Temple was quite a distance from the indigenous government of the Kerala State, and for now, only the Indian officials of the small local cities had been alarmed.

These officials naturally dared not offend the British. Even if they had not received any orders from the Indian colonial government, they dared not obstruct the British operation to blockade the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Kerala State was not small; it would take at least a day or more for the local officials to contact the highest-ranking officials of the princely state and the liaison dispatched by the British.

And this day or more was precisely the time the operational personnel had bought for themselves. By the time the British reacted and arrived at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, all they would see would be a temple that had been completely looted.

It took a full two and a half days for all the operational personnel to completely loot the treasure inside the temple.

Two of the six secret chambers were piled with the most treasure; the gold alone had accumulated into two golden mountains, along with all kinds of pearls, jewels, and other precious items.

The remaining four secret chambers had clearly been opened in recent decades, so there was not as much gold and jewelry, but combined, they still amounted to one and a half full chambers.

Now, the transportation of the treasure became the biggest challenge. How to transport such a large batch of treasure from Kerala State to the port while keeping it hidden from Indian officials and the British colonial government was an urgent problem that needed to be solved.

After a brief period of reflection, the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of command and the deputy commander dispatched by the Royal Security Intelligence Agency reached a consensus: to split into two routes.

The first route would dispatch a small number of elite soldiers and intelligence personnel; they would hire some local labor and vehicles in India and brazenly transport some less valuable statues, silverware, and heavy items that were inconvenient to transport to the port.

The total value of this batch of supplies would not be very high, not even as valuable as the one-meter-tall golden elephant in the first secret chamber.

The reason for separating this batch of inconvenient-to-transport and less valuable supplies was to create a diversion and provide cover for the secret transport of the real treasure.

Under the cover of the first team, the second transport team would be disguised and move separately toward a more distant port.

Generally speaking, after obtaining temple treasure, most people would choose the closer route to facilitate getting the treasure out of India as quickly as possible.

The British colonial government would certainly think the same; they would definitely strictly inspect the roads from the temple to the nearest port and would certainly notice the first team's open and above-board transport.

Under these circumstances, the second transport team would have a greater chance. As long as they could reach the port, this treasure could be successfully loaded onto ships, disguised as belonging to various foreign trading companies, and successfully sail away from India.

As anticipated, after the transport teams were split into two routes, the entire transport process was quite smooth.

Especially for the second transport team, under the cover of the first, they easily transported a large amount of precious treasure to a more distant port and loaded it onto ships.

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-level princely state government, the Indians immediately associated it with the treasure inside the temple.

Once the Indian high-level officials knew, it was impossible for the British not to know. Consequently, with the joint efforts of the local Indians and the British, an extremely tight blockade was implemented on the roads from the temple to the nearest port.

The first transport team, which was moving almost openly on this road, was quickly discovered by the British; the transport team carrying statues and other heavy items was much slower than imagined.

After confirming that they had attracted the attention of the British, the soldiers and intelligence personnel in the first transport team began a slow withdrawal.

To expand the scale of the transport team, the first team had recruited a large number of locals as labor during their journey and even purchased many Indian vehicles.

Although they had performed simple camouflage on the Buddha statues on the transport vehicles, how could the Indians not see that these Buddha statues were likely from a nearby ancient temple?

However, at this point, the mission of the first transport team was already complete. In fact, these obvious Buddha statues and some heavier treasures were intentionally left behind by the operational personnel to damage the relationship between the Indians and the British.

Just imagine, after the British learned that there was a large amount of treasure inside the temple, they would certainly re-search the temple and would not let go of the heavier treasures transported by the first team.

Although these heavier treasures were not as valuable as finished gold products, they still held considerable value.

The total value of the treasure transported by the first team, even if not a million pounds, definitely exceeded 500, 00 pounds.

This was not a small fortune; for the British, it could build a most powerful ironclad warship.

And for the Indians, this wealth was the accumulation of the local Indians over hundreds of years. The temple treasure was not only the accumulation of the local princely state government's fiscal revenue over hundreds of years but also the donations of local Indian believers to the temple over hundreds of years.

Although the Indians did not know who had excavated the temple treasure, it was definitely the British who obtained the treasure transported by the first team.

When the time came, as long as the news was spread slightly, all the hatred of the Indians could be shifted onto the British.

After all, in the Indian colony controlled by the British, only the British themselves had the ability to excavate treasure on a large scale and transport it while keeping it hidden from the Indians.

If this was just the first move to destroy the relationship between the British colonial government and the local Indians, then the second move would be made by the British themselves.

The so-called second move was actually other temples in the Indian region. If the Padmanabhaswamy Temple could yield such rich treasure, then what about other temples in the Indian region? Would they also have a large amount of treasure buried underground like the Padmanabhaswamy Temple?

Even if it was only a possibility, the British would definitely take practical action. As long as the British began to excavate temples within India on a large scale, it would severely damage the relationship between the colonial government and the local Indians.

India possessed a very strict four-caste system, but at the same time, their worship of Hinduism was also quite fanatical.

Excavating treasure was not only plundering the wealth accumulated by local Indians for years but also provoking the Indians' faith in Hinduism.

Although most Indians would remain weak under the high-pressure rule of the British, there would inevitably be a portion of more radical Indians who would choose to resist British colonial rule with more radical means.

In fact, leaving behind a portion of treasure that was inconvenient to transport to lure the Indians and British was a strategy that Prime Minister Primo had already set before the excavation of the treasure.

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

Under the condition of an early withdrawal, the soldiers and intelligence personnel in the first transport team all successfully withdrew before the British could surround and intercept them.

Faced with these statues and highly valuable treasures, the remaining Indians had no time to think about why these Europeans, who claimed to be British, had suddenly disappeared; they only cared about how to distribute this windfall.

Just as a crowd of Indian civilians were about to cause loss of life over this treasure, the British successfully appeared and successfully determined the ownership of the treasure.

On the other side, the second transport team had already successfully loaded the ships at the port. Because there was so much treasure, it was divided among five ships for transport.

These five ships would also head to different destinations: two would head to the Philippines, one to Australia, one to Africa, and the other directly to Europe.

When these five transport ships successfully sailed away from the port, a telegram was also successfully sent from one of the ships: "Report to the President, everything is going smoothly!"

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

By the time Gao Da and Prime Minister Primo received the content of this telegram, it was already a day later.

This was unavoidable. Although this era already had telegrams crossing the oceans, they relied on the connection of submarine cables.

As a British colony, India naturally had cables laid by the British. However, the speed of sending telegrams in this era was extremely slow, and the speed of receiving the content of telegrams was also extremely slow.

Spain and India were separated by a distance of over ten thousand kilometers; by the time the telegram was received, basically more than 20 hours had passed.

But in any case, the content of the telegram that everything was going smoothly still made Prime Minister Primo and Gao Da breathe a sigh of relief.

Prime Minister Primo wore a smile, looking forward to how vast the wealth of this mysterious temple treasure was. And Gao Da actually already knew the scale of the temple treasure; it was absolutely beyond what others could imagine.

Regarding this mysterious temple treasure, there were all kinds of rumors in later generations. Some said the total value exceeded a trillion dollars, while others said the total value was only tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars.

But based solely on the gold belt weighing over a ton and the golden elephant about 1. meters high from the first secret chamber exposed in later generations, it was destined that the value of this treasure would absolutely not be low.

Not to mention that the complete Padmanabhaswamy Temple had six secret chambers, two of which had not been opened for over 100 years.

Just these two secret chambers that had not been opened for over 100 years possessed countless wealth, and combined with the four secret chambers with smaller treasure scales, the complete treasure was absolutely in the hundreds of millions.

As for whether this "hundreds of millions" was in pounds, dollars, or pesetas, that would depend on the scale of the treasure actually transported back to Spain.

Excavating the temple treasure in advance had the greatest impact on the relationship between the Indians and the British colonial government. The British would absolutely not miss the temple treasure; they would definitely conduct large-scale excavations of other temples within India.

Gao Da had also considered whether the British would discover other unknown temple treasures, making the powerful British Empire even more prosperous.

But considering the various interest relationships involved, and the fact that until later generations the Padmanabhaswamy Temple remained the treasure with the highest value of antiques and precious metals, Gao Da was relieved.

No matter how much the British dug, they could not find a treasure as valuable as the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, but as long as they started excavating temples, the relationship with the Indians would be uncontrollable.

Perhaps various independence movements regarding India would also be advanced, which was actually a good thing for Spain. Only when the British colonial system became increasingly fragile would Spain have the hope of reclaiming Gibraltar.

If the British colonial system remained this stable, then Britain would be the undisputed strongest country in the world, and it would be very difficult for Spain to reclaim Gibraltar.

To ensure complete secrecy, the arrival time of the five transport ships at the Spanish port was at night, and the port on that night would be temporarily closed for various reasons.

In the port in the dead of night, a unit that had been waiting for a long time would re-box the treasure from the transport ships and transfer it to a new location, finally completing the statistical work at the new location.

To ensure the smooth progress of the transfer work, these soldiers moving the treasure were carefully selected from the army. They not only came from different units but were also mixed to ensure that there were no acquaintances around them.

To ensure safety, all this treasure would be transported to the Madrid Royal Palace, and after being counted and tallied within the palace, the government would then transport away its own portion.

The advantage of transporting it to the palace was, first, that there was enough space in the palace to place this treasure. Second, as one of the three major palaces in Europe, it was plausible for the Madrid Royal Palace to possess priceless treasure.

The frequent transport from the port to the palace could also be fully explained; after all, besides the royal family, there were many servants in the entire palace, and it did not seem strange for them to use a transport team to transport their daily consumables.

Under the Madrid Royal Palace was a large warehouse area, which originally held the property of the Bourbon royal family and had become vacant after being cleared out.

Now it was just right for placing this treasure, especially those larger gold products; before a proper handling method was determined, the palace basement might be the safest place to store them.

To ensure complete secrecy, the task of counting this treasure was handed over to a mixed unit composed of the finance department, the army, and the Imperial Guard.

Except for the high-ranking officials of the finance department, everyone else had been reminded before arriving at the palace that the treasure here was a rare item buried in the Madrid Royal Palace, which had only been discovered by His Majesty the King in recent times.

Because those participating in the statistics were either soldiers or people from the finance department, there was no need to worry about them leaking information. The Royal Security Intelligence Agency would also keep an eye on them to ensure that in the short term, the Spanish government's actions in India would not be leaked.

Once the future Spain became strong, even if this operation were eventually learned of by the British, the British government could only treat it as a rumor.

To put it bluntly, it still depended on the strength of the country. If Spain were truly powerful, it would not need to go to India sneakily; it could completely forcibly occupy Kerala State and then openly plunder the temple treasure.

During the time the treasure was being counted, Prime Minister Primo and Gao Da both personally visited the palace basement and saw the mountain of treasure with their own eyes.

Even Gao Da, who had anticipated it, could not help but be surprised by the value of the Indian temple treasure. If nothing else, just that golden elephant over a meter tall was enough to dazzle anyone.

And that gold belt weighing over a ton; the value of the gold itself was already considerable, not to mention the added value after being processed into a finished product.

If it were sold as an antique in later generations, the value of this gold belt alone would reach ten digits. If one added the golden elephant, it would already be enough to gather several "small goals" that ordinary people could not earn in several lifetimes.

While Gao Da had the Royal Security Intelligence Agency supervise those counting the value of the treasure, he also summoned all the operational personnel who participated in the Indian treasure hunt and gave them rewards according to the previous promises.

One must know that the value of this batch of treasure was absolutely unimaginable to ordinary people. Gao Da was already very satisfied that these operational personnel could keep their original intentions in mind during the process of excavating the treasure and that no serious incidents of private embezzlement occurred.

As for some people secretly pocketing a little here and there, Gao Da did not care. After all, how much could one person take away with their own strength? At most, it was an inconspicuous gold ornament, weighing less than 100 grams of gold, worth only a dozen pounds.

Gao Da was even going to give them rewards worth more than this, so he naturally had no reason to pay attention to these secret acts of embezzlement.

In any case, as long as it was not serious, it would naturally be overlooked.

Gao Da was also quite generous with the rewards for these participating personnel. Each person received a check from the Royal Union Bank for 5, 00 pesetas.

This reward was absolutely not small, equivalent to about 192 pounds, or 1, 08 grams of gold.

For the two commanders of this operation, Gao Da's reward was even more generous: a check with a face value of 10, 00 pesetas.

The rewards for these 100-plus operational personnel alone were already close to half a ton of gold. However, compared to the harvest brought by this treasure hunt, this reward was clearly just a drop in the bucket.

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