Located 20 kilometers west of Lisbon, the Sintra Mountain is composed of a series of narrow peaks with lush vegetation, with granite tops. The Sintra Mountain extends from Lisbon to the Atlantic shore, and the Sintra City is at the foot of the north side, enjoying a beautiful and charming Mediterranean climate. Since the 11th century, the Sintra Mountain has always been a resort of the Catholic Church and the Portuguese royal family. Many Lisbon nobles have built beautiful villas in the city and between the mountains, and the same superior environment has attracted wealthy and artists to live here.

Until the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, those beautiful royal palaces, towering castles and exquisite villas almost instantly turned into rubble and ruins. The once highly respected vacation holy land, Sintra City was ruined and corpses were everywhere. Half a century later, the early 19th century, the capital Lisbon, with the support of the entire country's financial resources, had recovered from the earthquake. At the same time, the decline of Sintra has not been fundamentally changed. In fact, this summer resort has been ruthlessly forgotten by the world.

However, there are exceptions in everything, and there will still be nobles who favor the charming and elegant environment of the Sintra Mountains. The old Duke of Cadaval, who once served as the Minister of Seal of the Portuguese court, invested in rebuilding the private castle palace in the Sintra Mountains in 1786. The entire project took 8 years and cost 60 million riyals of gold. Just one year before the completion of the project, the old Duke unfortunately passed away, and his heir, the young Duke of Cadaval, became the first owner to enjoy this gorgeous palace.

The huge amount of money for the reconstruction of the palace castle came from the rich diamond resources mastered by the Kadaval family in the Brazilian colonies. The grandfather of the old Duke of Kadaval, a major officer who had served in the Portuguese army, was ordered by the King of Portugal to find new gold mines in Brazil in the 1720s. On an occasional day, when the major supervised soldiers rushing gold in the river, he noticed some strange "river pebbles". The experience of diamonds accumulated during his service in India prompted the Portuguese officer to associate these seemingly useless stones with priceless diamonds.

Soon, the savvy Portuguese major picked up some of the "river pebbles" and sent them to Lisbon for identification, which proved that they were indeed unprocessed natural diamonds. With their long-term good relationship with the Portuguese royal family, the Cadavar family paid a large amount of taxes to the king every year, and then obtained the long-term mining rights of this piece with rich diamond veins resources (Bragonza, Brazil).

Before the advent of Brazilian diamonds, the sources of diamonds in Europe were mainly concentrated in the French, Portuguese and British Indian colonies. The diamonds transported from India to Europe every year ranged from 2,000 to 5 kilocarats, and Venice has always been the most important diamond processing and trade distribution center in Europe. By 1730, diamonds from Brazil completely dominated the diamond trading market in Europe and even the world.

By the end of the 18th century, Brazil's diamond production exceeded 50,000 carats per year. However, the rapid increase in diamond production caused the price of diamond rough stones to be reduced a lot. But even so, dazzling and beautiful diamonds were still luxury goods that princes and nobles and wealthy merchants could enjoy. At this time, London, England had gradually replaced Venice in the Mediterranean and became the world's largest diamond trading center, and the diamond processing center was located in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Through the mining and sales of diamonds, the wealth accumulated by the Kadaval family has expanded rapidly in just a few decades, and has reached a level that it is as rich as a country.

Andrew Desai also likes these shining kings of gems, perhaps one of the many reasons he sent troops to Portugal. However, unlike other powerful and wealthy people who enjoy a luxurious life, Desai rarely regards diamonds as a symbol of power, status and honor. He neither places the hardest and most expensive "stone" in the world above his crown and scepter, nor makes it into extremely gorgeous diamond necklaces, pendants and rings to please the ladies.

What travelers really need is the important use of this elemental crystal with the highest hardness, the highest thermal conductivity, maximum compression strength, and very low thermal expansion, and chemically extremely stable chemically. In the early 19th century, when many high-hardness alloys had not yet appeared on a large scale, diamonds, which were naturally expensive industrial raw materials, were widely used by engineers from various countries hired by Desai for many industrial fields such as lathe tools, drill tools, grinding, bearings, wire drawing dies, indenters, saw blades, optical precision instruments, etc.

In the first half of 1810 alone, the scientific research laboratories represented by the Hruna Ordnance, metallurgical processing and mining, consumed a total of nearly 300 carats of diamonds, and this number will not be less than 600 carats throughout the year. It is expected that in 1811, the total demand for diamond raw materials by the state industry is at least five times that of 1810, about three kilocarats.

Even after decades of the continued decline in European diamond prices, three-kilocarat-weight industrial diamonds were placed on the London gem market, worth no less than 1 million pounds, or about 100 million riyals. This huge expense is for the Regent, who has always lacked money in his pocket, feels that he is being blackmailed by shameless profiteering because this transparent "stone" is too expensive.

Like Emperor Napoleon, who was unwilling to pay the bill, Desay also liked to use guns and cannons as trading chips as appropriate as the right time. After his army successfully entered Lisbon, the regent sent a diamond receiver to successfully loot thousands of carats of diamond raw materials from the royal treasures and national vaults in the capital of Portugal. What is most worth mentioning is that there are three excellent large diamonds in this batch, with weights of 200 carats, 300 carats and 500 carats respectively.

When Colonel Passel and others brought these diamonds and returned to Catalonia with other spoils, military and political officials, including Prime Minister Say, were deeply attracted by these extremely beautiful and cute transparent stones. However, when the powerful learned that these beautiful diamonds would be cut into small pieces by craftsmen for industrial consumption in manufacturing, everyone seemed extremely angry.

Soon, Prime Minister Say proposed an internal motion, which immediately received response from others. They immediately deprived the diamonds of industrial use and used as private property of the royal family. The largest three diamonds will be embedded in the crown and scepter of the king and queen after processing the finished product. As for the diamond raw materials that were urgently needed in the Hruna Ordnance and other places, the omnipotent Regent will find a way, or buy them from the London gem trading market with real money or send military agents to plunder in Lisbon.

In order to be more convincing, the Nine-man Group also entrusted Cabinet Secretary-General Kasapa the next day.

Anthony brought the above diamonds to the Palace of Manresa and gave the original explanation of the proposal to Miss Litisia, hoping to get her support. The result is self-evident, because from ancient times to the present, no beauty-loving woman can resist the brilliant brilliance emitted by beautiful diamonds.

After learning about the ridiculous move of the nine-person special joint meeting, Desai, who was far away in Lisbon, was a little amused. The travelers who pursued the principle of pragmatism still underestimated the strong temptation of diamonds to people. In addition, Desai had to order the gendarmerie to strengthen the diamond plunder in Lisbon, and the Kadavar family, which controls nearly half of the Brazilian diamond trade, became the main target. According to the agreement reached by Desai and the Lisbon Parliament, the property of many noble and wealthy merchants fleeing to Lisbon was not protected by the laws of the occupying army.

....

After dusk, Lieutenant Jacques and Sergeant Victor stared quietly at the Cadaval Palace five hundred meters away for a long time. This palace adds infinite beauty to the surrounding scenery. The pink Cadaval Palace located on the emerald green hills shows a dazzling, peculiar and pretentious figure, making it look like a paradise-style castle.

In addition, there are trails, porches, turfs, trenches, fixed suspension bridges, colorful cross windowsills and dark red towers, forming a castle that combines Moorish, Gothic, French and Portuguese architectural styles.

It should be noted that these descriptions belong to the beautiful vision of the Kadaval Palace. If you walk to the palace and observe it closely, visitors will definitely find that the gorgeous palace of the past is almost abandoned, the walls are seriously damaged, and weeds are everywhere. The numerous luxurious furnishings in the palace have long disappeared, and all valuable things have been robbed.

During the First Portuguese War, when General Juno's troops occupied Lisbon, Duke Cadaval and his family fled to the distant Brazilian colonies with the Portuguese royal family, and the unattended Cadaval Palace became an ideal place for some French officers to seek trophy. In 1808, when the British army successfully recovered Lisbon, Duke Cadaval returned to Portugal.

However, after that, the hereditary nobleman, who was still rich and wealthy, did not spend money to continue to repair his palace and always lived in his official residence in Lisbon in a low-key manner. In August this year, with the arrival of the French army commander of Desay, Duke Cadavar and his family once again chose to escape, changing their destination from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to London, England.

This morning, the military police received a line that the lights and flashing figures in the Cadaval Palace last night seemed to be a woman. Soon, the military police sergeant Victor informed Lieutenant Jacques of the Military Intelligence Bureau, and the two gathered a 50-man gendarmerie team. Before nightfall, they secretly lurked around the palace, preparing to capture members of the Cadaval family who were hiding here at any time.

The night was bright, and the moonlight shone on the spires and domes of the palace. The tired Victor rubbed his eyes and decided to give up surveillance of the castle in front of him. He sat upright on the grass, looked around the fields, and listened to the croaking insects and frogs in the fields. Beside the sergeant, Lieutenant Jacques's face seemed a little excited, with some impulse or excitement in his expression, as if he was eagerly looking forward to the arrival of a lover.

"Joseph, rest for a while, the brothers are watching." Victor whispered to the devoted and tireless Jacques. "It's not yet 8 o'clock, and the man in the palace wants to show up, at least after ten o'clock in the night."

Jacques lowered his head and looked at his comrades sitting on the grass. He frowned, hesitant, and murmured in a low voice: "Hey, I really hope to see her again, and I hope she would not appear here. After all, the orders of the Regent cannot be violated!"

The "she" mentioned by the lieutenant was named Donna Kadaval, the eldest daughter of Duke Kadaval. A few years ago, Donna married a nobleman in Porto, but soon after, the count's husband passed away. Donna then became a young and wealthy widow, and returned to her home in Lisbon last year. It was during that time that Jacques, as the official of the business agency in Catalonia in Lisbon, met, met, and finally fell in love with the widowed Donna at a banquet.

It was not until February and March this year that the identity of Jacques's agent of the Military Intelligence Agency was accidentally exposed that he had to flee from Lisbon in a hurry. Before leaving, Jacques had no time to say hello to Miss Donna.

Victor grinned and said, "Hehe, men and women are always so sentimental, well, extremely stupid. According to my advice, if Miss Donna really appears, you might as well tie her to the transport ship that is about to leave. Don't forget that you are the intelligence officer around the Regent. If anyone dares to stop you, I believe that Lieutenant Colonel Poch will not."

"You are such an idiot!" Jacques rolled his eyes at the unscrupulous sergeant. He would not accept such a terrible and ridiculous suggestion. The Regent has always strictly controlled his trusted followers. Forcing a robbery of women will only ruin Jacques' bright future.

Victor was just kidding. He remembered a big question about his vital interests and asked, "Oh, by the way, dear Lieutenant Jacques! When will you help me with my transfer to the Military Intelligence Bureau?"

"Damn bastard, you have already dealt with. You can come to me to report it before leaving the day after tomorrow!" Jacques replied.

"Haha, this is almost the same!" The sergeant smiled excitedly, but his voice always felt a little loud in the quiet night.

"Worry, Victor, you idiot!" the lieutenant cursed in a low voice.

...

As Sergeant Victor expected, until 10 pm, the dim candlelight in the abandoned palace was lit again, and a figure who felt like a young woman kept flashing on the stained glass on the second floor of the castle.

Under the joint command of Lieutenant Jacques and Sergeant Victor, dozens of fully armed military policemen divided into two routes and quickly surrounded the front and rear door exits of the castle palace. They rushed to the broken first-floor hall, and the two leading officers walked up the dusty marble stairs, and the rest of the military police continued to be responsible for the alert below.

Jacques and Victor were holding revolvers in their hands, quietly approaching the room shining with candlelight.

"Donna!" Jacques shouted. When the woman turned around, he saw another beautiful and lovely angelic face.
Chapter completed!