In every country with a century-old history, in every ancient city there is always a local legend about the greatest treasure, countless treasures buried in the ground “right here somewhere here”. In Kyrgyzstan, they are looking for the treasures of Genghis Khan, in Panama - the wealth of the pirate Henry Morgan, in the Smolensk region - the treasure of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. And in the Philippines - the treasure of General Yamashita.
LEGEND OF JAPAN
General Tomoyuki Yamashita was the pride of the Japanese army. In December 1941, he led an operation to capture British Malaya and Singapore. In 54 days, the 25th Army under his command defeated the superior British forces and captured Malaya. Singapore, which was to become the central hub of the British defense in Southeast Asia, held out for only 15 days.
The Japanese took 130 thousand prisoners, which has not happened in the history of the British army either before or since. General Yamashita became a national hero and was nicknamed the Malay Tiger. The Japanese prime minister, believing that Yamashita had become too popular with the people, sent the general to Manchuria.
By mid-1944, the Americans had taken the Mariana Islands and western New Guinea. No one doubted that their next target would be the Philippines. Then in Japan they remembered the Malay tiger. But it was too late, Yamashita did not have time to prepare the archipelago for defense, 10 days after the general's arrival in Manila, the Americans landed on Leyte Island, and the battle for the Philippines began.
Giving orders and orders regarding the defense of the Philippines, Yamashita solved another, no less important task - to conceal the fabulous values that fell into his hands.
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GOLDEN LILY
The main goal of Japan in relation to the occupied territories was plunder. The occupied Philippines, Burma, Malaya, the islands of the South Seas were stripped to the skin. The plundering operation was called "Kin no yuri" (Golden Lily) and was led by the emperor's brother, Prince Yasuhito.
Currency and gold bars seized from banks, cultural values from museums and Buddhist monasteries - all this flowed to Manila and settled in the basements of Fort Santiago, a Spanish fortress of the 16th century, where the headquarters of the imperial troops were located. All this was to be sent to Tokyo, but in the summer of 1944, the Japanese fleet was no longer the master of the Pacific Ocean. US Navy ships, planes and submarines scoured the Philippine shores and sank every Japanese vessel that came in their way. Therefore, it was decided to hide all valuables in the Philippines. On the islands, pits were dug and heavy wooden boxes with gold ingots and precious stones were buried, valuables were drowned in Calatagan Bay, and they were walled up in the catacombs of Fort Santiago. Experts talk about more than 170 caches in various parts of the archipelago. The value of the hidden treasures, according to experts, ranges from $ 25 billion to $ 100 billion.
Prisoners of the British and Americans, local residents who took part in the burial of treasures, were shot. Yamashita did not spare his soldiers either. Only officers returned to Manila from secret expeditions in order to share the fate of their subordinates who had been shot by them after the maps and diagrams were drawn up to the general.
On March 3, the Manila garrison capitulated. The general went to the mountains and fought a guerrilla war with the Americans for another six months, surrendering only on September 2 after Japan signed an act of surrender. The general was tried for numerous war crimes. They asked questions about the treasures of Manila, but Yamashita, as a true samurai, chose death over dishonor and took the secret of numerous caches with him to the grave. On February 23, 1946, he was hanged.
This will be the story that the local guide tells you. One could take it as a local fairy tale, but this is not a fairy tale.
PRESIDENT MARCOS LOOKS FOR TREASURES
Mikio Matsunobe is one of the few people involved in burying treasures and survived. Here is what an 84-year-old former military intelligence major in the imperial army said:
“When we left Baguio, I was instructed to hide 10,000 gold coins. The Americans were already close, and there was no way to prepare a safe hideout. We dug ordinary holes and buried gold in them. Sometimes I had to work directly under fire.
In the 1950s I came to the Philippines, but I left with nothing. Time changed everything, and I myself did not remember the burial places very well. Several hiding places were found empty, most likely, the treasures were found by locals or Americans. So I think the rest of the treasure had the same fate."
But Ferdinand Marcos, who came to power in the Philippines in 1965, did not agree with this. After becoming president, he made treasure hunting a state affair. Intelligence officers sorted through archives and questioned witnesses. Army units combed forests and mountains. Orlando Dulay, a former governor of the Philippine province of Quirino, said he was personally present at the opening of one of the hiding places: “The treasures were taken out at night, under the protection of the military. They filled a whole truck with the recovered gems. It happened that the cache turned out to be empty, and then they took up the local residents. The President of the Philippines considered the valuables they had found to be unfairly stolen from him.
In 1971, a young locksmith Rogelio Roxas, based on the story of a former Japanese soldier, spent seven months looking for the entrance to a walled-up cave in the Baguio suburb. I searched and found. In the dungeon, he discovered the remains of Japanese soldiers, bayonets, katanas, boxes of gold bars and an almost meter-high golden statue of Buddha.
Happy Roxas could not keep his mouth shut and told his friends about his luck. Soon they “came” to Roxas, as they say. At first, the successful treasure hunter did not want to share his secret, but the president's people knew how to be convincing: on the third day of communication with them, five minutes less, the millionaire voluntarily and absolutely free of charge donated all the treasures he found to the state.
In 1988, Rogelio Roxas filed a lawsuit in the Hawaii state court, demanding the former president to return the seized valuables. After a 10-year litigation, the jury recognized the very fact of finding the treasure, its seizure from Roxas by the people of President Marcos and awarded the widow of the former President of the Philippines, who had died by that time, to pay the plaintiff $ 6 million. Rogelio Roxas still became a millionaire.
STORAGE HOUSE KORASON AQUINO
Corazon Aquino, who replaced Marcos as president of the Philippines, believed that not all 170 caches of General Yamashita had been found. She was convinced of this by the American treasure hunter Charles McDougald, who assured her that he owned the secret of 140 boxes of gold bars walled up in the catacombs of Fort Santiago.
“10-15 days,” the American assured, “and the Philippines will not only pay off the external debt, but also become the richest country in Southeast Asia!” Well, what woman, what politician can resist such a tempting proposal?
A part of the fort was fenced off, and the guides began to tell tourists the history of the fortress under the grinding of shovels and the rumble of jackhammers. The number of tunnels increased, but there was still no treasure. In February 1988, an underground collapse killed two Filipino workers. The story got into the media, a scandal erupted.
On the pages of the central newspapers, historians were lamenting about the irreparable damage caused to the historical monument of the 16th century, presenting to the public photographs of huge holes dug right in the middle of the oldest national monument. Taking advantage of the situation, Aquino's political opponents accused her of intending to pocket some of the treasures found. Members of the Philippine Congress demanded an immediate cessation of prospecting, and the excavation was halted.
THE UNCATCHABLE TREASURE OF GENERAL YAMASHITA
Many Japanese and Filipino historians are skeptical about the search for the treasures of the Malay Tiger, assuring that they never existed, and if they were, they were found long ago, and if they were not found, then they can no longer be found. And yet, for 60 years, "tourists" have constantly come to the Philippines, carefully keeping in their wallet a card purchased from "the descendants of a Japanese officer who personally participated in the burial of General Yamashito's treasures."
However, they all went home with nothing. Although … perhaps, remembering the fate of Rogelio Roxas, they, unlike him, just knew how to keep their mouths shut?
Klim PODKOVA