Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 150: Rewarding Half A Ton Of Gold

Because there were a full six secret rooms, the treasure transport time was far longer than the 24 hours anticipated by the operatives.

To cooperate with the operatives excavating the treasure, small-scale troops dealing with believers on the periphery disguised themselves as British colonizers and announced that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was involved in a murder case, requiring martial law and investigation for 24 hours.

This operation indeed intimidated Indian believers in several nearby cities, and whether the high-level Indians in these cities would believe it was no longer a concern for the action team.

In any case, Indians dared not offend the British. By the time they realized something was wrong, the operatives had long completed the treasure transport task.

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

Although India was a British colony, the Indian princely states still had their own indigenous governments. The British dispatched an official position similar to a liaison officer to each indigenous government to uniformly manage the Indian princely states.

The Padmanabhaswamy Temple was at a relatively distant location from the indigenous government of Kerala, and currently, only local small-city Indian officials had been alerted.

These officials naturally dared not offend the British. Even without any orders from the Indian colonial government, they dared not obstruct the British blockade of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Kerala had a considerable area, and reaching the highest officials of the princely state government and the British-dispatched liaison officer to help the government would take at least more than a day.

And this more than a day was exactly the time the operatives had to fight for themselves. By the time the British reacted and came to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, all they would see was a temple ransacked clean. It took a full two and a half days for all the operatives to plunder the treasures inside the temple empty.

Among the six secret rooms, two had the most accumulated treasure, with gold alone piling up into two mountains of gold, along with various pearls and treasures and other precious items.

The remaining four secret rooms had clearly been opened in recent decades, with not as much gold jewelry, but added up, they were equivalent to one and a half complete secret rooms.

This made treasure transport the biggest challenge instead. How to secretly transport such a large batch of treasure from Kerala to the port without alerting Indian officials and the British colonial government was an urgent problem to deal with.

After brief consideration, the lieutenant colonel in charge of command and the deputy commander dispatched by the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau reached a unanimous opinion: split into two routes.

The first route dispatched a small number of elite soldiers and intelligence officers, who would hire some local manpower and vehicles in India, openly transporting some not very valuable statues, silverware, and heavy items inconvenient to transport to the port.

The total value of this batch of materials would not be too high, not even as valuable as the over-one-meter-tall golden elephant in the first secret room.

The reason for separating this batch of inconvenient-to-transport and not very valuable materials was also to confuse the enemy, providing cover for the real treasure transport in secret.

Under the cover of the first route team, the second route transport team would proceed disguised and dispersed, heading to a farther port.

Generally speaking, after acquiring temple treasure, most people would choose the nearer road to quickly transport the treasure out of India.

The British colonial government would definitely think the same, strictly checking the roads from the temple to the nearest port, and certainly noticing the first route’s overt transport team.

In this situation, the second route transport team would have a greater chance. As long as they could enter the port, the treasure could be smoothly loaded onto ships, disguised as coming from various different trading companies, and successfully depart India.

As expected, after the transport teams split into two routes, the entire transport process went quite smoothly.

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

But the first route transport team was not so lucky. After city officials near the temple reported the temple’s situation to the higher princely state government, the Indians immediately associated it with the treasure inside the temple.

Once the Indian high-level knew, the British naturally could not be unaware. Thus, under the joint effort of local Indians and British, an extremely tight blockade was imposed on the roads from the temple to the nearest port.

The first route transport team, advancing almost openly on this road, was quickly discovered by the British, and the transport team carrying statues and other heavier items moved much slower than imagined.

After confirming they had attracted the British’ attention, the soldiers and intelligence officers in the first route transport team slowly withdrew.

To enlarge the scale of the transport team, the first route transport team recruited a large number of locals as labor during the march, even purchasing many Indian vehicles.

Although simple disguises were applied to the Buddha statues on the transport vehicles, Indians could easily tell these Buddha statues were likely from nearby ancient temples.

However, by this point, the first route transport team’s task was already complete. Even these obviously Buddha statues and some heavier treasures were deliberately left by the operatives to sabotage the relationship between Indians and British.

Imagine, after the British learned of the large amount of treasure inside the temple, they would definitely rescan the temple and not let go of the relatively heavy treasures transported by the first route transport team.

Although these relatively heavy treasures were not as valuable as gold manufactured goods, they still had considerable value.

The total value of the treasure transported by the first route transport team, even if not a million pounds, absolutely exceeded 500,000 pounds.

This was no small wealth; for the British, it could build the most powerful ironclad ship.

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

Although Indians did not know who excavated the temple treasure, they were certain the British obtained the treasure transported by the first route transport team.

At that time, just spreading the news a bit would transfer all Indians’ hatred onto the British.

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

If this was the first move to sabotage the relationship between the British colonial government and local Indians, the second move would come from the British themselves.

The so-called second move was actually the other temples in the Indian region. Since the Padmanabhaswamy Temple yielded such rich treasures, what about other temples in the Indian region? Might they also, like the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, have large amounts of treasure buried underground?

Even if only possible, the British would definitely take action. Once the British began extensively excavating temples in India, it would severely damage the relationship between the colonial government and local Indians.

India had quite strict four castes, but at the same time, their worship of Hinduism was extremely fanatical.

Excavating treasure was not only plundering the wealth accumulated by local Indians over many years, but also provoking Indians’ faith in Hinduism.

Although most Indians would remain weak under British high-pressure rule, there would inevitably be some more radical Indians choosing more aggressive means to resist British colonial rule.

In fact, leaving some inconvenient-to-transport treasure to tempt Indians and British was a stratagem set by Prime Minister Primó long before excavating the treasure.

If there were no such inconvenient-to-transport heavy items, that would be best. But if there were these not convenient to transport items, better to leave them to Indians and British to provoke the relationship between India and Britain.

Under the advance withdrawal, the soldiers and intelligence officers in the first transport team successfully withdrew before the British encirclement.

The left-behind Indians facing these statues and extremely valuable treasure had no time to think why these self-proclaimed British Europeans suddenly disappeared; they only cared about how to divide this windfall.

While a crowd of Indian commoners were even ready to kill over this treasure, the British successfully arrived and successfully decided the treasure’s ownership.

Meanwhile, the second route transport team had successfully loaded the ships at the port. Because there was too much treasure, it was divided into five ships for transport.

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

When these five transport ships successfully departed the port, a telegram was also successfully sent from one ship: “Report to the President, everything smooth!”

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

By the time Carlo and Prime Minister Primó received this telegram, it was a day later.

This was unavoidable. Although this era already had transoceanic telegrams, they relied on seabed cables.

India, as a British colony, naturally had British-laid cables. However, telegrams in this era were extremely slow in sending and receiving.

Spain and India were separated by over ten thousand kilometers; by the time the telegram was received, over 20 hours had usually passed.

But anyway, the “everything smooth” on the telegram still let Prime Minister Primó and Carlo breathe a sigh of relief.

Prime Minister Primó smiled, anticipating how enormous the wealth of this mysterious temple treasure would be. Carlo actually already knew the scale of the temple treasure, absolutely beyond others’ imagination.

Regarding this mysterious temple treasure, later generations had all sorts of rumors. Some said the total value exceeded tens of billions US dollars, others said only hundreds of billions or thousands of billions US dollars.

But just from the later exposed first secret room’s over-one-ton golden braid and about 2-meter-tall golden elephant, it was destined that this treasure’s value would absolutely not be low.

Moreover, the complete Padmanabhaswamy Temple had six secret rooms, two of which had not been opened for over 100 years.

Just these two secret rooms unopened for over 100 years held countless wealth, plus four secret rooms with slightly smaller scales, together the complete treasure was absolutely over 100 million level.

As for whether this over 100 million was pounds sterling, US dollars, or pesetas, it depended on the specific guarantee scale transported back to Spain.

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

Carlo had also considered whether the British would discover other unknown temple treasures, making the powerful British Empire even stronger.

But considering the various interest relationships involved, plus that even in later generations the Padmanabhaswamy Temple remained the highest-value treasure for excavating antiques and precious metals, Carlo was reassured.

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

Perhaps various Indian independence movements would also advance, which would be a good thing for Spain. Only if the British colonial system became more fragile would Spain have hope of recapturing Gibraltar.

If the British colonial system remained so stable, Britain would be the undisputed world’s strongest nation, and Spain reclaiming Gibraltar would be very difficult.

For complete secrecy, the five transport ships arrived at Spanish ports at night, and the port would be temporarily closed that night for various reasons.

In the midnight port, a long-waiting troop reloaded the treasure from the transport ships into boxes and transferred it to a new place, finally completing the inventory there.

To ensure the smooth transfer, these treasure-moving soldiers were carefully selected from the army. Not only from different troops, but also mixed formation, ensuring no acquaintances beside them.

For safety, all this treasure would be transported entirely to the Madrid Royal Palace, and after inventory in the palace, the government would take away its share.

The benefits of transporting to the palace: first, the palace had enough space to place this treasure. Second, as one of Europe’s three great palaces, the Madrid Royal Palace having invaluable treasure was passable.

Frequent transports from the port to the palace could also be fully explained, after all, besides the royal family, the entire palace had many servants, and using transport teams for their daily consumables seemed not strange.

The Madrid Royal Palace’s underground had a large warehouse area, originally holding Bourbon royal family property, now emptied and idle.

Now perfect for placing this treasure, especially those larger gold products; before determining handling methods, the palace’s basement was perhaps the safest placement.

For complete secrecy, the task of inventorying this treasure was assigned to the mixed formation troops composed of the finance department, army, and guard.

Except for the finance department’s high officials, all others were reminded before arriving at the palace that the treasure here was rare items buried in the Madrid Royal Palace, just recently discovered by His Majesty the King.

Since those participating in the inventory were either soldiers or finance department people, there was no worry they would leak intelligence. The Royal Security Intelligence Bureau would also watch them, ensuring that in the short term, the Spanish government’s action in India would not be leaked.

When future Spain became powerful, even if this action was eventually known by the British, the British government could only treat it as a rumor.

In the end, it still relied on national strength. If Spain were truly powerful, there would be no need to sneak to India; they could directly capture Kerala, then openly plunder the temple’s treasure.

During the treasure inventory period, Prime Minister Primó and Carlo both personally visited the palace’s basement to view, and saw with their own eyes this pile of treasures like mountains.

Even Carlo, who had anticipated it, could not help but be surprised by the value of the Indian temple treasure. Not to mention others, just that over-one-meter-tall golden elephant was enough to dazzle the eyes.

And that over-one-ton heavy golden braid, just the gold itself was invaluable, not to mention the added value after processing into manufactured goods.

If sold as antiques in the future market, just this golden braid’s value would already reach ten figures. Adding the golden elephant, it could already make up several small goals that ordinary people couldn’t draw in lifetimes.

While having the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau supervise those people inventorying the treasure’s value, Carlo summoned all the operatives who participated in the India treasure excavation action, and gave them rewards as previously promised.

You know, this batch of treasure’s value was absolutely unimaginable by ordinary people. That these operatives remembered their original intent during the treasure excavation process, without any serious private pocketing incidents, Carlo was already very satisfied.

As for some people pocketing a little more or less in secret, Carlo didn’t mind. After all, how much could an individual take? At most an inconspicuous gold product, less than 100 grams of gold, a dozen pounds value.

Even the rewards Carlo was giving them exceeded this amount, so naturally no reason to pay attention to these secret pocketing behaviors.

Anyway, as long as not serious, naturally let it pass.

For the rewards to these participating operatives, Carlo was quite generous. Each a check from the Royal United Bank, amount 5000 pesetas.

This reward was absolutely not small, roughly equivalent to 192 pounds sterling, 1408 grams of gold.

For the two commanders of this action, Carlo’s reward was even more generous, a check of 10,000 pesetas face value.

Just the rewards to these over 100 operatives already approached half a ton of gold. However, compared to the harvest from this treasure excavation action, this reward was obviously a drop in the bucket.

Five thousand word two-in-one chapter, seeking support!