The Rhine is the largest river in Western Europe. It originates from the northern foothills of the Alps in Switzerland, flows northwest through Liechtenstein, Austria, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and finally flows into the North Sea near Rotterdam.
Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, it has become an international shipping waterway with a navigable length of about 869 kilometers. The river is an important transportation route for the import and export of Swiss industrial products.
With the end of the war, the Rhine River has slowly begun to regain its former prosperity.
A thousand-ton cargo ship dispatched from Strasbourg sailed south in the early morning mist. This type of ship is very common on the Rhine and did not attract anyone's attention at all.
In addition to the captain, the cargo ship also had an escort officer wearing French military uniform and a middle-aged man in casual clothes who were busy in the cabin.
If you walk in, you can see the man in the cabin removing the seals on the wooden boxes one by one and replacing them with new seals.
There were clear Nazi markings on the removed seals. Obviously, these were the real Nazi treasures that the Gestapo officers transported out of Stuttgart.
"Sir, with so many people from the French transport company participating in this operation, will they be discovered?"
The captain, who was driving the boat seriously, looked at Leon, who was wearing a French military uniform and observing around with a telescope.
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"Don't worry! Our people will take care of it!"
Leon answered his subordinates' questions without even turning his head. As an old spy, this kind of killing and silencing job was too easy.
However, he had to let these French soldiers die after returning to the barracks, preferably after completing their next mission.
It’s not that we don’t dare to take action, but we hope that people won’t easily link the deaths of these soldiers to this transportation mission.
This will allow the secret to be discovered later.
As for the person who finally silenced the witness, it was the French officer Fang Lang had been looking for, Captain Gerard, the captain of the transport company.
The moment Fang Lang got the photo of Captain Gerard, many of the doubts that he had not understood before were resolved.
So Fang Lang simply removed all the original surveillance points and only needed to keep an eye on Captain Gerard.
Captain Gerard is Leon's most hidden trump card. Why doesn't he stay in the main combat force but take the initiative to transfer to the transport company as the company commander?
Why his guerrilla commander was frequently attacked, and finally this young man became the guerrilla leader.
Since he, a French officer, injured Paul, a German, the French, who did not understand the situation, would not have any suspicion at all.
When Paul discovered that the people who were monitoring him were not the French occupation forces at all, he asked Gerard, the former French guerrilla captain, to track and discover the German resistance.
The French army overheard the news about the treasure and could not detect anything unusual.
For some doubts, Fang Lang could think of countless explanations.
For example, why did you follow this guy named Leo? As a guerrilla leader behind enemy lines, it was normal for you to recognize your former enemy.
After tracking, they discovered the German resistance forces that the French occupation forces had been looking for, and overheard that they were preparing to unearth a Nazi treasure.
When the French army got hold of this information, it was natural for them to just monitor and not take any action.
Since they are all Germans and Paul's subordinates, why would Paul betray Major Robin who is a member of the resistance?
Thinking about Captain Gerard's identity as the company commander of the transport company, Fang Lang realized that the treasure exposed by Paul was simply a bait to attract attention.
Leo was obviously a subordinate abandoned by him. When Gerard followed Leo, Leo must have received a clear time to excavate the treasure.
This time will not be long, and Paul will not leave too much time for the French occupation forces to investigate.
When Leo and his men set out to dig for the treasure, the attention of the entire Stuttgart will be attracted by the Nazi treasure, and Paul will take Gerard and use the French's own transport company to transport the real treasure.
This is what Fang Lang thought after discovering that Captain Gerard was a German spy.
If Paul wanted to keep the treasure for himself or cash it in, he could only transport it to Switzerland. Only Switzerland, as a neutral country, would turn a blind eye to this treasure that was clearly a Nazi legacy.
Other countries around it might confiscate the property.
Therefore, Fang Lang concluded that even if Paul used the vehicles of the French transport company for transportation, he would never transport this batch of materials back to France.
When Colonel Chatham's adjutant introduced Fang Lang to the safe route to Switzerland, Fang Lang knew that he didn't even have to keep an eye on Captain Gerard.
Therefore, Fang Lang began to order his men to only keep an eye on the French transport convoy leaving Stuttgart while Leo and his men in France were excavating the treasure.
Personnel are deployed at several important nodes of this safety route for monitoring.
So, after our Gestapo Mr. Leon escaped from the hospital, he could no longer find the people who were following him.
The people who were following him had already been waiting in front of him for his arrival.
This made Mr. Leon keep his eyes wide open throughout the journey, but he did not find anything unusual.
The speed of water transportation is not fast. After a whole day of sailing, Mr. Leon's ship finally entered Basel, Switzerland along the Rhine River just after dark.
Basel, Switzerland is located at the bend of the Rhine River. It is a border city where Germany, France and Switzerland meet.
Mr. Leon finally breathed a sigh of relief after the ship entered Basel.
Of course, their ships did not enter the city of Basel, but continued upstream along the Rhine.
Finally, it docked at a small private pier more than 20 kilometers away from the city of Basel.
This small pier is very remote and there is not even any light at night.
Perhaps it was arranged in advance, or perhaps everyone was too tired after a day of sailing, so no one got off the ship after it docked.
What they didn't notice was that a fishing boat was returning late, and when it passed by them, more than a dozen dark figures on the boat quietly dived into the icy river water.
There was also a dark shadow on the shore slowly moving towards the pier.
Danger often appears when you think you are safe and let your guard down. Leon, the Gestapo, ultimately could not escape such a fate.
Diving underwater and fighting on ships are basic subjects for the Marines.
So, apart from a few barely audible groans in the darkness, the night soon returned to calm.
When the lights on the boat came on again, Fang Lang slowly got on board from the dock.
When he arrived at the cabin and saw the three bodies on the ground, Fang Lang recognized the guy who called himself Paul at a glance.
As for leaving the person alive and bragging to the other party about how he unraveled his plan and how he caught him, Fang Lang would not do such bragging.
After all, these are all the fun of villains, and Fang Lang is not a villain, so how could he have such boring ideas!
The most important thing is that he knows that villains often die because they talk too much. The Gestapo may use desperate means later, not to mention hurting him, even hurting the flowers and plants would not be good!
In short, Fang Lang would never admit that he valued his life.
After confirming the identity of the people on the ground, Fang Lang stopped paying attention and turned to look at the warehouse.
This is a diesel-powered cargo ship of at least one thousand tons, which can be considered a relatively new type of cargo ship.
The volume of cargo in the warehouse at this time was not small and was packed tightly.
Fang Lang knew that if it was all gold, it would definitely not be so large. He walked forward, picked up a crowbar, opened one of the rectangular crates, and found a carefully wrapped oil painting inside.
Although Fang Lang was not familiar with Western oil painting art, he understood that the paintings collected as treasures by the German Nazis were definitely not ordinary paintings.
After taking a look and confirming that I had never seen it, I stopped paying attention to it.
After unpacking a few more large boxes, Fang Lang discovered sculptures, bronze artifacts, and porcelain from his hometown. He knew that the items were correct.
However, there was no gold to be seen, which was a bit unexpected for Fang Lang.
After turning around twice, I found some small ammunition boxes placed at the bottom of the cabin, used as ballast.
Considering that there are so many warriors around, it would not be good if he was dazzled by gold, lost his mind by wealth, and had unrealistic ideas.
So Fang Lang did not open the ammunition box underneath to check.
He clapped his hands and said to everyone:
"Well, our operation this time can be considered a successful conclusion.
Congratulations in advance, we will all be rich when we return to Brazil."
Everyone smiled knowingly.
Everyone knew that their leader was not a stingy person. Since he told everyone that he had made a fortune, it meant that they would also be able to get a lot of profits from this batch of goods.
Fang Lang certainly cannot be stingy with the brothers who have been with him through thick and thin. The value of these artworks is difficult to estimate.
He planned to take out 30% of the gold in the ammunition boxes and distribute it to those who participated in the operation.
But don't think that 30% is too little. As a superior, you should predict in advance and find that you will definitely take the lion's share of this target.
The most important thing is that after these guys made a fortune, they all retired from the army, and Fang Lang suffered a huge loss.
"Thank you, sir!"
Looking at the soldiers with smiling faces.
Fang Lang smiled and said:
“Don’t be too happy too soon. There are still some uncertainties before the goods are shipped to the safe of the Brazilian bank and locked up.
If this batch of goods is discovered by other countries, our efforts may be in vain.
So, I want to remind everyone not to tell anyone about tonight’s actions, and not to tell anyone the news that you are about to get rich.
As for how much you will get, we will be able to tell you after we ship it back to Brazil and conduct a detailed statistics.
I plan to share 30% of the gold with everyone, please don’t think it’s too little.”
When everyone heard that 30% was allocated to them, they started talking about it.
Although it is still impossible to confirm what 30% is, there are not many of them.
According to the distribution, each person will have to work at least ten years less.
The most important thing is that they didn’t do anything, which made them all ecstatic.
You and I said to Fang Lang:
"Thank you, boss. You are so generous."
This is different from the time in Japan, where the Japanese wrapped the gold in copper to prevent it from being discovered, so no one knew there was gold inside.
I thought I had only obtained some bronze objects and copper bars, and I had no thoughts.
However, this time everyone knew that this was Nazi treasure, so if Fang Lang did not offer any benefits, it would inevitably make his soldiers dissatisfied.
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