Chapter 30: The Treasure Aftermath
With Tarsim's permission, Shakru immediately organized a total of 1,200 gold chains to be thrown into one of the best trucks, and then left the Padmanaba Swamy Temple with only his six beautiful swallows, and threw the share of the agreement in his hand to Tasim before leaving.
Tasim, who took the agreement casually, muttered: "Stinky boy, you are really cautious and leaky, no wonder you can make a fortune, but you are not destined to make a fortune!"
Although Tasim said so, but in his heart he wished that Shakru would leave quickly, he didn't expect that there would be so many good things in the secret room, so he signed the sharing agreement, but when he saw these mountains of treasures, he immediately regretted it, but he had been busy opening the secret room during the day. Statistics harvest, so there is no time to think crookedly, just now Sha Keru said that, he really had some other ideas in his heart, fortunately, this guy is quite interesting, just take something and leave, and the thing he takes is not anything valuable, since this is the case, then there is no need to embarrass him.
In fact, Shakru's biggest concern was not that Tasim would harm him, but that he was threatened by Hindu believers. As far as he can remember, the Kerala government wanted to sell all the treasure to subsidize the government deficit, but it was stopped by these believers.
The method of these believers to stop it is also extremely simple and crude, that is, thousands of people meditate at the door, chant and pray to protest against the government's opening of the treasures, not to mention the sale of these treasures that represent the tribute of the gods, for this non-violent and non-cooperative way of resistance, no matter who has a headache, even the British colonial government in the past, let alone the Indian government, which is still at least dressed in a coat of democracy.
So Shakru and his six bodyguards drove overnight to the city of Telivananthapuram, the nearest city to the Padmanaba Swamy Temple, where the Indian Industrial Credit Investment Bank (which is also the second largest bank in India) rented a vault and deposited all the gold.
When it comes to the love of gold, there is probably no country in the world more than India. Gold is an indispensable necessity in the lives of Indians, both rich and poor in India, will buy gold, many Indians in order to buy gold to save money, even if they do not hesitate to make ends meet.
The huge demand for gold from the Indian people has also caused many problems for the government. India imports about 1,000 tonnes of gold every year. It is impossible to accurately count the amount of gold that is smuggled through the channel, and gold has always been the largest smuggled item in India. The influx of gold has greatly increased the trade deficit. In 2013, the Indian government raised the import duty on gold to 10% in order to restrict gold imports, but even record gold prices could not stop Indians from buying gold.
Because of the huge demand and the government's import controls, a large number of ready-made gold like Shakru naturally attracted the attention of jewelers, so he was soon contacted by Rajs Trading Company, India's largest jewelry processor, and offered to buy the 6,000 catties of ancient gold in his hands.
At first, Rajis was only willing to buy at the international gold price of $400 per ounce, but Shakru was naturally unwilling, because this is only the international gold price, but there is still a 5% tariff to enter India, not to mention that he is still a serious ancient gold, which can be speculated a little higher.
But in fact, Shakru also knew that the quantity of his batch was too large for ordinary people to eat at all, and the so-called ancient gold would not be ancient gold once it was re-smelted unless the gold chain was kept as it was, so after bargaining, the deal was finally reached at $420 per ounce!
While Shakru was busy trading gold in batches with Rajis (because the amount was too large, it could only be traded in batches), the Kerala government and Tasim had already started a battle for the treasure.
First of all, under the pretext of security problems, Kerala sent troops to forcibly protect Tasim and the treasure, in fact, it wanted a piece of the pie, and it wanted the largest share.
Tasim is not a fuel-efficient lamp, and although he cannot stand up to the government head-on, he has issued a statement claiming that the temple has been besieged by terrorists and is now under the trust of government forces, so all the items that appeared on the market before the trusteeship was released are stolen by terrorists.
This immediately embarrassed the state government, because they were not qualified to sell the treasure publicly, which was tantamount to cutting off their back route, and they could not blame Tasim for this, because they were indeed under the pretext of preventing terrorists from looting and protecting the treasure.
So he had to send an "expert" to issue a document declaring that "these treasures are all donated to God, and the Varma family is only a descendant of the royal family who has the right to manage the temple, and is not qualified to possess the wealth that belongs to God!"
Immediately, Tasim also immediately began to find someone to respond, the first to come forward was the historian Sashbusha, who studied the Varmar dynasty, said: "The Padmanaba Swami Temple is the breath and life of the Varma royal family, and the treasures should continue to be kept in the temple, and all the affairs of the temple should continue to be controlled by the descendants of the Varma royal family." (Who would believe a historian who studied the Varmar dynasty in Cochin if he had nothing to do with the Varmar family?)
Others say that a world-class museum should be built on the basis of the treasure for people from all over the world to enjoy, and that this will boost Kerala's tourism industry.
But it was the Hindu believers who Shakru had feared that would really affect the situation, and these white-robed, barefoot, thousands of worshippers surrounded the entire temple, not only did not allow anyone to sell the treasure, but also did not allow the two remaining chambers to be opened, because there was said to be an underground passage connecting chamber B to the sea. If the chamber is opened, it will provoke the wrath of the gods, and the sea will pour in, flooding the entire city. Someone even turned up a news story from the 30s of the last century, saying that in 1908 someone tried to open the secret room of the temple, but was scared away by a group of cobras. According to Hindu legend, sacred places are guarded by cobras. So some believers believe that there must be a large number of cobras in the B chamber, which have guarded the chamber for hundreds of years, ready to attack those who try to enter.
For these disputes, Shaklu, who was standing on the outside, just watched as a bustle, and after selling the gold, he put his mind on promoting commercial yoga!