The Rise Of A Billionaire 1943-Chapter 161 - 173: The Murdoch Mystery

"Why are we stopping here?" asked Lin Tai, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. Lin Tai, at twenty-one, was a year younger than Kang Guowei. As a Shandong native, he was tall, muscular, and his tanned skin radiated health.

Back home in Shandong, he had attended junior high school. After the Japanese occupied Shandong, he fled to the rear areas under the leadership of his principal, traveling from Shandong to Hubei, then from Hubei to Sichuan. He was only thirteen at the time. After joining the army last year, he had expected to fight the Japanese, but instead found himself in Europe. He had known Kang Guowei since basic training back home, and after arriving in India, they ended up in the same company. Now, one was the squad leader, the other his deputy.

Kang Guowei put down the newspaper and leaned back in his seat.

"The town up ahead hasn’t been taken by the Allies yet. The Germans may have planted mines on the road or set up an ambush. Let’s wait a bit longer."

He continued, "Let’s rest for a while. Once we’re sure it’s safe, we’ll move on."

"Captain, why don’t we send two men ahead to check things out?" suggested medic Mi Jiyuan, standing up from the back seat of the jeep. He shaded his eyes and looked into the distance. The town of Merx was right in front of them. As they waited, a group of Germans approached from afar, led by an old man. They waved a white flag as they came closer. When the old man saw the Allied uniforms, he paused in surprise, then said,

"Gentlemen, there are no more soldiers in the town. All the troops have left. Only some old people, women, and children remain."

"Are there any weapons in the town?" they asked.

"Sir, the weapons are piled up in the square."

Soon, the search team entered the town. As they loaded the hundreds of light weapons—including hunting rifles—stacked in the square onto their vehicle, Lin Tai, in somewhat awkward German, questioned some nearby villagers. From them, they learned that there had been unusual "activity" near a certain potash mine belonging to the Wintershall Mining Company. Kang Guowei immediately ordered the team to...

The district was placed under curfew, after which a small squad was dispatched to search the potash mine.

Just like the industrial and mining enterprises they had encountered along the way, the salt mine was empty—there wasn’t a single worker in sight. They quickly made their way into the Kaiseroda mine, and what they discovered next shocked everyone.

"...At 10 o’clock this morning, our men entered the mine through the main tunnel. At first, we thought this was where the Germans stored their weapons. According to intelligence reports, over a hundred vehicles had driven in and out of the mine. Later, in the main tunnel about 700 meters underground, we found 550 large burlap sacks stacked against the wall, all filled with German marks. Further in, there was a one-meter-thick brick wall, with a heavy steel vault door at its center. There might be a cellar hidden behind it."

Listening to Kang Guowei’s report, Pierre and his group arrived in front of the cellar. Staring at the solid steel vault door, Pierre’s breathing grew rapid.

Even before opening the vault, he already knew what was inside—gold!

All the gold reserves of the German National Bank were here!

This must be the legendary "Murdoch Treasure"!

"I almost forgot about this treasure..."

Perhaps it was because he had been so busy lately that Pierre hadn’t even thought of this treasure’s existence.

"I must make a note of everything I can remember next time!" Pierre thought to himself as he spoke.

"Bring the explosives!"

That modern steel vault door was impossible to pry open, and even blasting it might not work. But the brick wall surrounding the vault was much easier to destroy. It took only half a stick of yellow explosive to blow it open.

When the smoke cleared, the scene before them was like something out of Arabian Nights. Words could hardly describe it: before them was a lit chamber, 23 meters wide and 45 meters long. Inside were over 7,000 marked bags, stacked knee-high in 20 neat rows, each row about a meter apart. Many of the bags were stamped with the word "Melmer"—accounts under SS aliases. On the other side of the room, they found many wooden crates.

What was inside the crates?

Gold!

Each crate held two bars, each weighing 10 kilograms, along with hundreds of bags of gold vessels and artifacts; over 1,300 bags of gold marks, gold francs, and gold pounds; hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins; hundreds more bags of foreign currency; nine bags of rare ancient coins; and as for German mark notes, there were billions, not to mention diamonds and jewelry. In other tunnels, they found a huge number of precious artworks looted from museums across Europe and from private owners: oil paintings, prints, pencil drawings, sculptures, antique clocks, stamp albums... There were even bags of gold teeth pulled from Jews who died in extermination camps.

Just how much gold was stored here?

Pierre had no time to count.

Time—right now, the most important thing was to take away everything they could before the Allies discovered this place!

Without hesitation, Pierre gave the order.

"Everyone withdraw to the surface and set up a perimeter guard."

"Everyone" did not include Pierre himself. After his subordinates left, Pierre immediately got to work, busying himself with packing everything into his storage space.

How much was there in the mine?

Pierre didn’t know, but he had already made up his mind—not a single Reichsmark would be left behind. For one simple reason: either everything disappeared, or it would have to be reported to the Allied Command.

And the simplest solution was for everything to disappear!

Only by vanishing could everything be explained—no one would ever believe that just over a hundred men with a few dozen trucks could haul away everything here.

After all, when the Germans brought these things in, it took thousands of trucks to transport everything into the salt mine. As for now, of course, it had all vanished.

Fortunately, the storage space was large enough.

Gone. Vanished.

From then on, this would become a mystery.

A few hours later, the search team left the town as if they had never been there at all.

But of course, they had been there, and their experience would be recorded in the military diary. After all, they had confiscated a batch of light weapons, including shotguns—nothing more.

Not long after they left, Allied troops moved in. They, too, had received intelligence of unusual activity near the mine. Although some swore that gold was hidden inside, after the Allies searched the mine, they found nothing but the destroyed brick wall of the vault—nothing else at all.

Even when Allied intelligence officers found Dr. Paul Rauff, director of the German National Museum, in town—who claimed to be guarding famous paintings hidden in the mine—and also located Werner Wick, chief cashier of the German National Bank’s Foreign Exchange Department, who told the Americans that all of Germany’s gold reserves were in the mine, both men were stunned when they entered.

Where had the gold gone?

Where had the artworks gone?

Everything had clearly been in the mine, but now, it had all disappeared.

No one knew the answer. No one knew what had happened.

But in the decades that followed, countless investigations were launched into the "Murdoch Gold Disappearance Mystery," from the Allies to Germany and even among civilians.

But, no matter what, it just...

It vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed at all.

Thus, the "Murdock Gold Disappearance Mystery" became known, alongside the "Versailles Palace Collection Fire Mystery," as one of the two great enigmas of World War II.

Whether it was the disappearance of Germany’s gold reserves or the loss of the Versailles Palace treasures in the fire, both attracted a wide range of official investigations and all sorts of speculation from the public.

In the end, all clues pointed to one group: the Nazis—both the exiled Nazi fugitives and something even more elusive—the possible revival of the Third Reich.

It seemed that some people’s suspicions might have been right, that there was indeed a connection. Later, as more investigations linked together, the vanished treasure was even tied to "Hydra," nearly exposing the other side of the coin.

However, for this world, a mystery always remains a mystery.