Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

William Challoner can be regarded as a genius in the criminal world. In addition to provoking the British government, he also successfully escaped the crime after being captured and imprisoned for the first time.

It is important that the other party can do this because British law retains ancient and troublesome issues, so that if you want to prosecute criminals, you need to jump through many obstacles.

Of course, William Challoner himself was cunning enough in this regard. On the one hand, he accused the Mint of avenging his private life. He was arrested because he offended the Mint.

On the other hand, he bribed several witnesses, and the money brought by making counterfeit currency allowed him to find people with sufficient identity to prove that he was in Scotland when the crime occurred.

But in the end this outlaw was arrested and executed, because his opponent, the director of the Royal Mint, was a man even more genius than he was: Isaac Newton.

Yes, that's right, the Newton here is the great physicist and mathematician Newton. However, compared to the scholar side, few people are aware of his contributions in other aspects.

But in fact, for the British at that time, Newton's greatest contribution was not a series of scientific contributions at all, but saving the British financial industry from collapse when he served as the supervisor of the Royal Mint.

Interestingly, according to current research, Newton was able to obtain this position not because of his academic status, but because of his niece who was the mistress of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But as a great scientist, Newton unexpectedly made a huge contribution in this theoretically speaking position, which only arranged the white-collar salary of related households.

With the meticulous thinking of a scholar, he greatly improved the craftsmanship and efficiency of silver coin minting. At the same time, he arrested a series of counterfeiters, including William Chaloner, without any criminal investigation training.

When the first application for arrest failed, Newton began to use his extraordinary logical thinking ability to analyze the entire case process and closely followed the other party's every move.

However, William Challoner became underestimating his opponent because of his victory in the last battle, and even expanded his business from counterfeiting silver coins to forging Bank of England notes of larger denominations.

As a result, in the second confrontation, William Chaloner was defeated. Newton found 14 witnesses and more than 30 testimonies to accuse Chaloner of his crimes, and finally successfully sent him to the gallows.

However, before being executed, William Challoner wrote a letter begging for mercy to Newton. This letter has also become the object of study by many people in later generations.

The reason why this letter was studied by so many people is also very simple, because at that time, counterfeiting currency was a crime of treason, and the main culprit had no choice but to die. Therefore, it was obviously abnormal for William Challoner to write a letter begging for mercy at this time.

After all, Newton was only the supervisor of the mint and was not responsible for a series of legal trial issues. He was at most a public prosecutor, so it seemed a bit strange to write him a letter begging for mercy at this time.

Therefore, many people in later generations believe that William Challoner may have mastered some secrets belonging to Newton, so at the last moment he hoped to use the secrets he mastered to exchange for his own life from Newton.

This mystery has puzzled the historical community for hundreds of years, and many people even simply believe that this is just William Challoner's desperate treatment for some illness when there was really no other way.

But the lightest of the three boxes Liang En found today revealed the secret, because it contained a copy of Newton's handwriting.

"——Very good. Now the staff has simply processed the book. Next, we can take a look at what exactly Newton wrote on these documents?"

After procrastinating for more than half an hour to educate everyone about the love-hate relationship between Newton and William Challoner, the staff finally signaled to Liang En that they had finished processing the manuscript, and could now view it. content.

"This is a - very interesting paper." After looking through the paper, Liang En said to the camera lens in Hans' hand. "Because the content written in this paper is about alchemy."

"Of course, this kind of alchemy is still different from the most common alchemy methods at that time that were for the pursuit of making gold. From the manuscripts, we can see that Newton actually hoped to get in touch with the reality of the world through alchemy."

"In fact, in Newton's time, alchemy could not be regarded as a kind of metaphysics, but a method used to explore the unknown like other scientific methods."

"After all, the level of scientific development in that era was much lower than today, so alchemy was naturally an important way to understand the world. It was not completely reduced to superstition like it is today."

"From another perspective, in order to make academic progress, Newton also went a long way on the path of alchemy."

“So Newton was not only the master of alchemy in the Middle Ages, but he also elevated the theory of alchemy to an unprecedented level.

It's just that because he always believed in the particle theory, he was unable to switch from primitive alchemy to the elemental theory of contemporary chemistry. "

"For example, in this paper, Newton integrated alchemy and other knowledge."

"Take the first part of the paper as an example. He believes that the reason why celestial bodies have the wonderful property of gravity is precisely because our universe is in God's huge and wonderful crucible. Alchemy is what drives our world. The original driving force of operation——"

I have to say that it makes sense for some people to think that Newton was the most famous alchemist of that era, because in addition to the initial title, the following is an article about how to refine the philosopher's stone.

According to Newton himself in the paper, the reason why he wanted to refine this legendary item was because he believed that this item was the pinnacle product of alchemy.

And if such an item is refined, it means that he has the key to the rules of the universe created by the gods, and can then follow such clues to find the existence of the gods.

He is different from the so-called alchemists who are actually liars. Newton's alchemical treatise was more of a purely philosophical treatise than a how-to guide.

Although the various operation methods seem to describe how to use various raw materials to create philosophical mercury, and then create the philosopher's stone. But it is actually elaborating a certain philosophical theory.

However, for people watching the program through the live broadcast, what Liang En is talking about now is almost like a book from heaven. At least Hans has been reminding Liang En that his ratings are falling.

So Liang En quickly finished the content of the paper itself, and then analyzed why this paper belonging to Newton appeared in William Challoner's treasure location.

For Challoner, who had made a lot of money by counterfeiting money at the time, it was difficult to obtain something related to Newton, but it was not that difficult. So it was natural to get this treatise on alchemy.

The reason why the other party wanted to save this paper is also very simple, because at that time, alchemy was also a serious illegal act, which could be punished by death. So Chaloner obviously wanted to use this thing to blackmail Newton.

However, a series of unexpected events later caused things to change, and the secret remained hidden for hundreds of years.