Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 195: Chapter 148: Reward of 0.5 Tons of Gold

Owing to the presence of as many as six secret chambers, the time required to transport the treasure far exceeded the anticipated 24 hours by the operatives.

To coordinate with the treasure excavation team, a small group disguised as British Colonists resolved issues with the devotees outside, announcing that the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was involved in a murder case, necessitating a 24-hour lockdown and investigation.

This operation indeed intimidated the Indian devotees from several nearby cities. Whether the local Indian authorities in these cities would believe it or not was no longer a concern for the operation team.

After all, Indians dared not offend the British. By the time they realized something was amiss, the operatives would have already completed the treasure transport mission.

In fact, when operatives disguised as British announced the lockdown of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, it had already caught the attention of local Indian officials.

Although India was a colony of the British, each state in India still had its own Princely State Government. The British would appoint a liaison officer to each Princely State Government to uniformly manage India’s states.

The Padmanabhaswamy Temple was at a considerable distance from the Kerala Princely State Government, alerting only Indian officials from local small cities for the time being.

These officials naturally dared not offend the British. Even if they did not receive any orders from the Indian Colonial Government, they dared not hinder the British lockdown of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Kerala is not small, and it would take at least more than a day to contact the highest officials of the Princely State and the British-appointed liaison officer.

And this day or so of time was precisely what the operatives strived for. By the time the British reacted and arrived at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, all they would find would be a temple thoroughly looted.

It took a full two and a half days for all operatives to completely plunder the temple’s interior treasure.

In two of the six secret chambers, the treasure was stacked the highest, with gold piling up to form two Golden Mountains, alongside various pearls and other precious items.

The remaining four chambers appeared to have been opened in recent decades, with not as much gold and jewelry, but altogether amounted to about one and a half complete chambers.

This has made the transportation of the treasure the biggest challenge. How to smuggle such a huge treasure from Kerala to the ports, without alerting Indian officials and the British Colonial Government, is currently an urgent problem to solve.

After a brief contemplation, the commanding Major and the deputy commander dispatched by the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau reached a consensus, to split into two groups.

The first group dispatched a small number of elite soldiers and intelligence personnel. They would hire local hands and vehicles in India, to transport some less valuable idols, silverware, and heavy items inconvenient for transport to the ports grandiosely.

The value of this batch of material wouldn’t be high, not even as valuable as the more than one-meter-high Golden Elephant in the first chamber.

The reason for designating this batch of hard-to-transport and less valuable material was also to create a diversion and provide cover for the real treasure transportation happening in secret.

Under the cover of the first group, the second transport team would be disguised and dispersed to head for more distant ports.

Generally speaking, after obtaining the Temple Treasure, most would choose a closer route to expedite shipping the treasure out of India.

The British Colonial Government would certainly think so too, and would surely rigorously check the roads from the temple to the nearest port and pay attention to the first openly moving transport team.

Under such circumstances, the second transport team would gain a bigger opportunity. As long as they could reach the port, the treasure could be loaded onto ships, disguised as belongings of various international trade companies, and successfully depart India.

As anticipated, once the transport teams split into two routes, the entire transporting process went quite smoothly.

The second transportation team, especially under the cover of the first team, easily transported a large amount of precious treasures to a more distant port and loaded them onto ships.

However, the first transport team wasn’t as fortunate. When officials from the nearby city reported the condition of the temple to higher governmental levels of the Princely State, the Indians immediately linked to the treasure within the temple.

Upon learning of this, the British were naturally informed as well. Thus, under the joint action of the local Indians and British, an extremely stringent roadblock was enforced on the route from the temple to the nearest port.

The first transport team moving conspicuously along this road was soon discovered by the British, with slow-moving transports carrying idols and other heavy items.

Upon confirming they had attracted the British’s attention, the soldiers and intelligence personnel of the first transport team began a slow retreat.

To augment the scale of the transport team, the first team recruited numerous locals as laborers during their advance, even purchasing many vehicles from the Indians.

Although the idols on the vehicles were simply disguised, the Indians could easily discern these idols were likely originating from the nearby ancient temple.

However, by this point, the mission of the first transport team was already complete. In fact, these obvious idols and some heavier treasures were deliberately left behind by the operatives, intending to disrupt relations between the Indians and the British.