novelraw Chapter 148: Disguise
Chapter 148: Disguise
When Prime Minister Primó learned that the so-called treasure was located in the Indian Colony under British control, his first reaction was some surprise, but then he felt it was very reasonable.
The reason why the British are so powerful cannot be separated from those vast colonies. And among all the British colonies, the most brilliant one is the fertile land known as the pearl of the British Empire, which provides the British Government with a large amount of financial income and mineral materials, India.
But the British have not always ruled this land. Before the British, this land had large and small states, and they were the true masters of this land.
The British can obtain a large amount of income and mineral materials from India, so what about the original masters of these lands? Would their income be less?
Even if the income obtained by these large and small states each year is not as much as imagined, the accumulation over decades or even hundreds of years is still very exaggerated.
Moreover, the history of this country India is absolutely more than just decades or hundreds of years. Even just over a hundred years of wealth accumulation would absolutely be a huge figure that makes people’s hearts race.
Thinking of this, Prime Minister Primó could no longer sit still and was filled with curiosity about that legendary Indian Temple treasure.
Since they were going to the Indian Colony under British control to dig for treasure, the most important thing was to select the people responsible for digging the treasure and transportation in India.
The number of people in the team participating in the action is not large, after all, it is not easy to deceive the Indian Colonial Government and the British Government.
There are not many foreigners in India, and they are generally concentrated in a few larger colonial cities. If groups of foreigners suddenly appear in indigenous cities in India, it would easily attract the attention of those Indians and the colonial government. The team members going to India must be elite soldiers, and there must also be a reliable person to lead the team. In addition, they must go to India separately to maximize the avoidance of discovery by the Indian Colonial Government and the British Government.
The manpower selected by the government will serve as the main force, while the intelligence officers of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau will serve as assistants to jointly complete this journey across thousands of miles to search for treasure.
Carlo still has considerable trust in the people of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau. Facts have proven that making Kadir the Director of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau was a very wise choice. He attaches great importance to establishing the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, and every intelligence officer is carefully selected by him.
Especially for those elite intelligence officers, in addition to proficiently mastering combat abilities and knowledge of lurking, they also need to have a full understanding of the local customs and common knowledge of various countries around the world.
In addition, they need to be proficient in using weapons from various countries, including pistols, rifles, cannons, carriages, and some small warships that a few people can operate, etc.
In order not to let the specific details of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau be exposed in front of Prime Minister Primó, these intelligence officers performing auxiliary work will participate under the name of royal palace guards.
As for whether Prime Minister Primó and others will have suspicions, that is not something Carlo needs to consider.
February 1873, southern region of India.
Although February is still winter for most areas in the northern hemisphere, in this region in southern India, the climate is instead like midsummer.
The average temperature in January is already above 24 degrees Celsius, and by February, the average temperature has even reached 28 degrees Celsius.
The target of this Spanish action is Kerala in southern India, which faces Sri Lanka across the sea and is the southernmost region of the Indian Continent.
This is one of the most densely populated regions in India, and naturally it also has several colonial cities on a certain scale. This time, more than a hundred people are participating in the action, paired up in twos, coming to India in various ways, and finally converging in Kerala.
Because the total number of people participating in the action is only just over 100, plus they are all acting separately, the Indian Colonial Government and the British Government would never react in time.
Although India is a British colony, it is ultimately open to foreigners. Every year, thousands of tourists come from Europe, and the Indian Colonial Government naturally cannot check one by one whether they are foreign spies.
February 4th, overcast weather, no sun.
Also because there is no sun, today’s weather is quite cool, with an average temperature of only around 26 degrees.
Perhaps because it just rained yesterday, there are not many pedestrians walking on the muddy dirt road. Two intelligence officers disguised as foreign tourists walking on such a dirt road do not seem strange.
Although these two people’s actions do not look like foreign tourists, their white skin and European appearance make the Indians afraid to pay too much attention.
Don’t think that the British colonial policy is so good; their colonial policy in India is still cruel. Simply put, they don’t treat Indians as human beings at all.
This is mainly because this region of India has too much population. Even losing millions of people would not have too much impact on this region of India.
The history of British colonization of India is actually a history of blood and tears for Indians. The number of Indians who died at the hands of British Colonizers is at least several million, not to mention the indirect deaths reaching tens of millions.
In colonial cities in India, if an Indian dares to look at a British person a few more times, what awaits them might be a beating, or even being beaten to death directly.
British people don’t need to face any punishment for beating Indians to death, but if an Indian dares to fight back, perhaps even his family cannot escape British retaliation.
In such a situation, unless they are the kind of people who dare to stand up and resist British Colonial Rule, no one will pay attention to these foreigners’ actions; they wish to stay as far away as possible.
This situation instead facilitates the actions of these people sent by the Spanish Government. With their white skin and European faces, even if these Indians are puzzled, they dare not show the slightest dissatisfaction.
Of course, it is also possible that the weapons in the hands of these operatives intimidated the Indians.
It is legal for foreigners to carry guns in India, but illegal for Indians to do so. If these Europeans see an Indian dissatisfied, giving the Indian a few bullets leaves nowhere to reason.
So after seeing that these foreigners all have European faces and are carrying firearms, not a single Indian dares to stupidly step forward.
“Scottie, is there really some temple treasure here?” One of the two with foreign faces was slightly puzzled. Looking at this muddy road and those skinny Indians, he really couldn’t believe that astonishing wealth was buried here.
“Who knows? Val.” The operative named Scottie shook his head helplessly and reminded, “But this is an order. Even if there isn’t any, we have to turn this place upside down.
I hope we can find it. His Majesty the King has personally promised that if we find the temple treasure, everyone participating in the action will receive generous rewards.”
Rewarding these people participating in the action was a unanimous opinion reached by Carlo and Prime Minister Primó without much thought.
Going to the Indian Colony under British control to excavate temple treasure ultimately requires secrecy, after all, this offends the British.
If discovered by the British, even if it doesn’t lead to war, there will be considerable trouble.
The best way to ensure secrecy is to let everyone participating in the action benefit, that is, to buy them off. Although it cannot ensure that everyone will strictly keep silent, as long as the vast majority keep their mouths shut, there is no need to worry about the secret being exposed.
Moreover, the people participating in the action are all carefully selected; those big mouths who love to brag were eliminated in the first round of screening.
These participants are either soldiers extremely loyal to Spain selected by Prime Minister Primó, or intelligence officers of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau who have undergone strict training.
The possibility of these people leaking intelligence is negligible. Even if a few individuals end up leaking the secret, Spain can deny it to the death. As long as not too many leak it, it won’t cause much impact.
Although these people participating in the action are very puzzled about traveling thousands of miles to India to search for the so-called temple treasure, they don’t have too much dissatisfaction.
After all, these people are either soldiers or intelligence officers, and they naturally understand the necessity of obeying orders.
“This damn place has so many so-called temples? We’ve already checked more than a dozen temples in the past few days, none large enough to hide treasure.” The one named Val continued, “Is the intelligence from these Indians reliable? What we’re looking for is a temple, not rundown shrines about to collapse.”
“Let’s wait until we check these last few.” Scottie shook his head and said indifferently, “I hope these Indians are telling the truth, otherwise, I don’t mind killing a few to vent.”
A few days ago, the two obtained a map from local Indian villagers. As for how they got it, of course, by purchase.
After all, the entire action requires complete secrecy, and random killing could attract the attention of local indigenous people, thereby alerting the Indian Colonial Government.
There are still many tourists coming to India every year, and quite a few are interested in these places rich in local Indian culture.
The two’s request did not arouse suspicion from that Indian, especially since they offered 1 pound sterling for the purchase.
1 pound sterling is not a particularly large amount of funds in Europe, but it is quite a lot locally in India. These Indian indigenous people may not earn 1 pound sterling after a year of hard work. Faced with such a huge amount of wealth, of course they diligently listed all the nearby temples, regardless of size or age, clearly.
There are many such action squads like Scottie and Val, but they all disguised themselves with different identities.
New immigrants to India, mining exploration personnel from European mining companies, employees of trading companies, tourists coming from far away in Europe, European nobles out hunting, etc.
No matter what identity, those Indians dare not suspect, nor do they have the qualification to suspect.
After all, this land has an extremely strict caste system, and the British who rule India, as white people, stand above the four major castes.
No matter how bizarre the caste system here is, it ultimately facilitates Spain’s actions. As white people from Europe, no one dares to provoke them in the regions of Indian states.
After several days of investigation, the teams of twos and threes finally set their target on a larger local temple, the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.
“If there really is such a thing as temple treasure, I think this temple treasure is very likely hidden in this so-called Padmanabhaswamy Temple.” Scottie said to Val.
“Damn, this is not good news.” Val had a headache because the Padmanabhaswamy Temple is located between several Indian indigenous cities, and these cities have many believers going to worship every day.
This is not like those small temples investigated before, with only scattered believers from nearby villages. If the treasure is really in the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, stealing these treasures without anyone knowing would be more difficult than expected.
“Let’s rendezvous with the main force first. We must formulate an extremely detailed action plan to ensure the British won’t find out.” Val pondered for a long time and finally decided to discuss the action plan after converging with the main force.
As early as before departure, Carlo and Prime Minister Primó had repeatedly emphasized the importance of secrecy.
Being discovered by the British isn’t a big deal; at worst, they’d have to share a portion with the British. But this is exactly what Spain cannot afford, because based on the strength comparison between Spain and the British, the lion’s share would definitely go to the British.
Moreover, this temple treasure is originally in the Indian Colony under British control. If discovered by the British before it can be transported back to Spain, the British might swallow the treasure whole.
When it comes to such a massive amount of wealth, the British Government won’t be polite with Spain. Unless it can be safely transported back domestically and proper cleanup done, as long as the British don’t have too much evidence, there is no need to worry about British retaliation.
After the main force arrived at the so-called Padmanabhaswamy Temple, everyone realized that the investigations of the past few days had been in vain.
If there is treasure, it must be in this so-called Padmanabhaswamy Temple. The scale of this temple is larger than all the previously investigated temples, and it unprecedentedly has its own guard force.
If there were no secrets inside this temple, that would be strange. The current biggest problem has shifted from investigating where the temple is to how to steal the treasure from this temple.
The person in charge of leading this action is a lieutenant colonel from the military, also one of Prime Minister Primó’s confidants. Director Kadir of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau is disguised as one of Carlo’s guard officers, serving as the deputy commander of this action.
After the two met and briefly discussed, they decided to first dispatch a few agile people to sneak into the temple interior under cover of night, to first investigate the internal structure of the temple and the buildings that might bury the treasure.
Since the action requires secrecy, it naturally has to be done once and for all. If the burial location of the treasure can be determined, the subsequent actions will be simple.
But if the exact burial location of the treasure cannot be determined, the subsequent actions will be more difficult. Excavating the treasure will definitely require taking out these temple guards, or even everyone in the temple.
This also means the action time won’t be too long; all treasure must be transported out before the local colonial government reacts.