The Rise Of Australasia

Chapter 130: The Reaction of British East India (Happy New Year!)

The list showed in great detail that, after various estimates, the total value of the treasure exceeded 40 million pounds, not including the value of various gemstones and jewelry.

If these were included, the total value of the treasure could reach up to 50 million pounds, four times the current annual total expenditure of Australia. What does that mean? This treasure alone could support the development of Australia for four years, including various infrastructure and industrial development plans.

If used solely for naval development, this large amount of funds could build a navy at the great power level, even on par with Germany and Britain.

Even for future dreadnoughts, which are likely to be costly due to comprehensive upgrades, this fund could build nearly twenty.

What does twenty dreadnoughts represent? It puts it within the top three worldwide, even qualifying to compete with the German Empire and the British Empire.

To ensure confidentiality, all the guards and servants involved in the counting had to sign a confidentiality agreement, prohibiting any disclosure of the specific figures of this treasure in any way.

After all, the origin of this treasure is dubious, as India is still a colony of the British Empire, which makes this akin to looting from the British.

It could be predicted that following the theft at the temple, the treasures owned by many temples in India would be targeted by the British, possibly leading to more extensive mining and exploration.

Whether the treasures of the Indian temples could be preserved until the new century, as they had been in history, would depend on whether the British could resist the wealth exposed by the temples.

Arthur hadn’t anticipated the stir that the temple robbery had caused in India, nor the impact it had on the British.

Just on the second day after the temple was robbed, when a large number of believers went to the temple for worship, they discovered the tragedy around and inside the temple, as well as many damaged buildings and dismantled gates.

As one of the largest temples in India, the Padmanabhaswami Temple had supreme status and repute in the hearts of the local state and the Indian people.

The occurrence of such a tragedy in such a temple not only aroused the anger and dissatisfaction of many Indians nearby, but also drew the attention of the British, the rulers.

If this situation is not handled properly, it might pose a significant threat to British rule.

Under the intervention of the colonial government, a large number of British soldiers began to flood the area around the temple, searching every detail nearby and interrogating every Indian.

After a few days of persistent search and interrogation, the British colonial government obtained an important clue: in the days before the temple was burgled, several groups of three or four people had passed the temple, and they disappeared after the theft.

But this clue was the cause of a headache for the investigating officers and all the soldiers.

The suspects came from many different areas, including Australia, British New Zealand, British East India, British Southeast Asia, British South Africa, and French Indochina, and their arrivals in India varied by as much as a week. What’s more important is that at present it can only be determined that these people were around the temple during the burglary, but they can’t ensure that they had the motive to commit the crime, and they don’t even know where these people have gone to.

Even if these people are confirmed as the real culprits, what then? Neither the Indian states nor British East India were able to apprehend those people, resulting in a lack of progress in the investigation.

While the investigation was stalled, the remaining property in the temple was also counted.

Although most of what was left were silver utensils of little value, due to the large number, the total value still reached close to 300,000 pounds.

This shocked the British. If it were a complete temple treasure, it would be an unimaginably terrifying figure.

Based on the British East India colonial government’s estimates of the traces left in the six secret chambers that had been almost emptied out, the original six chambers contained at least a few tens of tons of treasure.

Due to the long-time accumulation, the bottom ground of the secret chamber was dusted with a layer of gold powder, proving that the treasure included not only silver, but also a significant amount of gold.

This led some colonial government officials to speculate that if it had been a complete treasury, its value could have been tens of millions of pounds, right?

The more they thought about it, some of the British started to covet the stolen treasure, but since they didn’t know the whereabouts of those people, they began to covet the treasures of other Indian temples.

Since this Indian temple had such a large amount of treasure, wouldn’t other Indian temples have some as well?

Even if they couldn’t match the colossal wealth of this temple, it should be easy for them to have a few hundred thousand pounds of wealth. Won’t it add up when piled together?

For these colonial government officials, catching those who stole the treasure is not easy, but it is very easy to plan another burglary in another Indian temple.

However, the question is, can India withstand a second temple robbery? The theft of the temple this time has already caused a lot of anger and dissatisfaction among many Indians, and there is even resistance to the rule of the British colonial government.

If a temple robbery is organized and planned by British officials, wouldn’t it be like adding fuel to the fire in the current situation in India?

What’s more, if Indians discovered that the temple theft was planned by officers of the East India colonial government, the Indian independence movement and anti-colonial movement might set off wave after wave of protest.

Upon reflection, many of the more rational British officers stopped this mad idea. For the current British Empire, maintaining stability in India is more important than anything else.

A stable India can bring more income to the British Empire, and its value is definitely not comparable to hundreds of millions of pounds.

But still, some people coveted the treasures of other temples, but for various reasons, they temporarily held back.

However, because of the fast containment action of the British Empire, news of the temple robbery only spread around the temple, at most within the jurisdiction of the state where the temple was located.

In order not to let more Indians and foreign forces know, Britain dispatched troops to the vicinity of the robbed temple and executed some rebellious Indians, which quieted down most people.

At the same time, the colonial government began to clean up the temple and made simple repairs to the surrounding area, to deal with the traces of the temple being robbed.

This is something the British East India colonial government can’t help. In the absence of certain information as to which force stole the treasure of the temple, the only thing they can do to stabilize the situation in India is to contain the news, and clean up all traces.