Rise of Empires: Spain

After hearing Gerald Wilson's report, Carlo was stunned for a moment, then looked at Gerald Wilson with a happy smile and said with satisfaction: "Minister Gerald Wilson, Prime Minister Primo Have you heard the education department’s development plan report?”

"Your Excellency the Prime Minister has already heard it." Gerald Wilson nodded respectfully and replied.

"What is Prime Minister Primo's attitude?" Carlo continued to ask.

Carlo believes that he finally knows why Gerald Wilson squeezed out the previous education secretary to enter the new cabinet government. This guy's ideas on education reform are indeed very advanced, and he probably has the strong support of Prime Minister Primo.

"Your Excellency the Prime Minister is still very supportive of the Ministry of Education's plan. Of course, I also thank you for your support. Otherwise, the Ministry of Education would not be able to obtain such a large budget." Gerald Wilson said with a smile.

Originally, his plan for education reform was not so huge, but after receiving such a sufficient education budget, he also temporarily decided to modify some directions of education reform.

For example, he originally had no plan to implement the so-called dual-track education. It is enough to think about strengthening basic compulsory education in Spain and building more technical schools to cultivate technical talents.

But now that we have received so much education budget, dual-track education must be added to the list of plans.

The advantage of dual-track trading is that it increases the intensity of training technical talents, and can even train them from an early age. Technical talents who have completed basic technical education and advanced technical education can be regarded as the truly scarce high-level technical talents in Spain.

As for those technical talents trained in technical schools after two or three years, at best they can only meet the government's initial demand for talents.

But when it comes to the importance of talents, perhaps 10 junior technical talents are not as important as one senior technical talent. Even in some extremely important fields, 100 junior technical talents are not as important as one senior technical talent.

Only when Spain completely solves the need for high-level technical talents can there be no obstacles to the development of various industries.

"Very good." Carlo nodded and expressed his support without hesitation: "To be honest, I am very optimistic about the reform plan of the education department.

Minister Gerald, if you encounter any difficulties in the reform of the education sector, you can also come to me. I am looking forward to what surprises the education sector of the Second Five-Year Plan will bring me. The royal family will never treat Spain’s heroes badly, and I hope you are one of them. "

"Yes, Your Majesty." Gerald Wilson nodded very respectfully, and this impromptu conversation ended successfully.

After this conversation, Carlo was quite satisfied with the development plan formulated by the education department led by Gerald Wilson.

Although such a development plan is destined to consume a large amount of the financial budget, but then again, how can a country that is unwilling to invest too much in education be qualified to become more powerful?

A country that values ​​education may not necessarily be a powerful country, but a powerful country must value education. Relying on other countries to tap talents is doomed to fail in the long run. Firstly, other countries cannot allow themselves to tap talents. Secondly, the loyalty of these talents is ultimately a problem.

You can rest assured that the talents trained in your country can be used, which is why Carlo fully agreed with Minister Gerald's plan on education reform without thinking too much.

If Spain wants to grow into a powerful country, it must cultivate its own local talents. When Spain can rely on its own education system to meet the vacancies of high-level talents in the country, Spain can truly become powerful.

What is more pity is that Gerald Wilson is a Liberal Party member. As long as he chose the Conservative Party, Carlo would not mind pushing him to a higher position.

But then again, the Conservative Party may not necessarily be able to produce talents with long-term plans for education reform like Gerald Wilson.

If the Conservative Party is not conservative, then the Conservative Party will have no meaning in existence. Those who support reform and have more ideas about reform have long chosen the Progressive Party or the Liberal Party among the three major parties.

Apart from the royalists who support the monarchy, the only ones who can remain in the Conservative Party are the more conservative diehards who are not willing to reform.

After Gerald Wilson, the new Industry Minister Canovas and Agriculture Minister Hovillar Soler also met with Carlo and reported on the layout of the two departments in the five-year development plan.

If the arrival of Education Minister Gerald Wilson was more like an accident, then the arrival of Ministers Canovas and Hoviliar was expected.

However, compared with the reform of the education sector, what the industrial and agricultural sectors need to do is relatively simple.

With a large number of enterprises and production materials from abroad, the industrial sector only needs to smoothly digest these equipment and materials in the next few years, and at the same time attract some outstanding foreign technical talents for their own use.

Coupled with the construction of the Barcelona industrial base, the increase in the scale of Spain's industry in the next few years will be visible to the naked eye, and Canovas, the Minister of Industry, only needs to rest and earn credit.

And Hoviliar, the Minister of Agriculture, is not much different. Although Spain is not a large plain area, it is a large grain-producing country.

Besides, Spain's current agricultural situation does not need to be tossed around. It only needs to reclaim as much land as possible while maintaining the current grain production and increase the use rate of fertilizers in Spain, and grain production will naturally rise.

Besides, the situation of Jovillar, the Minister of Agriculture, is much better than that of Canovas. The government has obtained large tracts of land from the nobles and the church. After these lands were rented or sold to the people, the per capita arable land area in Spain has also been increased.

Although the credit of the agricultural department will certainly not be as large as that of the industrial department, it is one of the cabinet departments after all, and Jovillar's credit in the future will not be small.

In addition, the two are not too old. After they have enough experience in the industrial and agricultural departments, they still have the opportunity to go further with Carlo's support.

As the two most important representatives of the Conservative Party, Canovas and Jovillar also deeply understand who they should be loyal to.

After confirming that there was no problem with the development plans of the two, Carlo also encouraged them and encouraged each of them.

Before the European countries divided Africa, Spain was always considered the third largest colonial empire in the world.

The most fundamental reason is that Spain once colonized nearly half of the Americas. Yes, it is the Americas combined with North America and South America.

Spain once had four major viceroyalties in the Americas, namely the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Viceroyalty of New Granada, the Viceroyalty of Peru and the Viceroyalty of La Plata.

The territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain is the most extensive, not only including Mexico and Central America, but also large areas of the Midwest and the South Coast of the United States.

The remaining three viceroyalties are all located in South America, and the combined area occupies more than half of the total area of ​​South America. It is not an exaggeration to say that the entire South America was once under the control of Portugal and Spain.

Except for Brazil and Guyana, the entire South America was once a Spanish colony, which is why Spain is called the third largest colonial empire.

Although Spain has lost these colonies now, in the Americas, except for Cuba, which can still prove the afterglow of the Spanish colonial empire, other regions have nothing to do with Spain.

But the impact of hundreds of years of colonial rule is not so easy to erase. Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and other American countries still speak Spanish, and there are still a large number of Spaniards and Hispanics in their ethnic groups.

This alone makes it impossible for them to completely get rid of the influence of Spain. Although many Americans do not have much good feelings towards Spain due to Spain's cruel colonial rule.

But those orthodox Spaniards who immigrated from Spain to foreign countries still have deep feelings for their motherland.

Especially since these countries and regions have become independent from Spain's colonial rule, the conflicts between the locals and Spain are no longer so intense.

Instead, the Spaniards began to miss their motherland and tried their best to promote an alliance between American countries and Spain.

As for what role the Spanish government plays in it, it is unknown, but the current public opinion trend in South American countries is indeed beneficial to Spain.

Among the many countries in South America, Chile and Argentina are definitely more famous countries. Although Spain's colonies were divided into many countries, there were not many countries that eventually became regional powers. At most, there were only two, Chile and Argentina.

It just so happens that these two countries are neighbors, and both are located in the southernmost part of South America, which can be regarded as a bad fate. Precisely because the two countries are adjacent to each other, and because they were once colonies of Spain, the relationship between the two countries is not as good as imagined.

And all of this stems from the division of territory after they gained independence from Spain.

At that time, Chile and Argentina were also colonies of Spain, and the relationship between them was relatively good. After the two countries became independent, the division of territory between each other was not so detailed, but only roughly determined the main body that still followed the original colonial border division.

But how can the border between countries be defined by vague division? When the strength of the two countries is not so strong, such a vague border division is actually not a big problem.

But when the strength of the two countries gradually becomes stronger, and there is even a tendency of confrontation between them, the border division between the two countries becomes particularly important.

Because some lands in disputed areas are likely to be strategically significant buffer areas, or strategic areas with precious resources.

Although the direct conflict between Chile and Argentina in history will take more than ten years, the relationship between Chile and Argentina has already gradually broken down at this time.

Although the good relationship with Argentina was gradually broken, Chile was obviously not panicking at all. Because of the discovery of saltpeter mines in Chile, a large amount of foreign capital poured into South America to invest in the mining of saltpeter mines.

It was during the period of foreign capital influx that Chile and the British reached a relatively close cooperation and obtained a large amount of funds through the mining of saltpeter mines.

With the British as a backer, Chile naturally did not have to worry about the problems with Argentina. But the Argentines were not in such a good mood.

Looking closely at the scope of Spain's colonization in South America, Chile has already established a connection with the British and made a lot of money by mining saltpeter.

Bolivia and Peru to the north of Chile have also formed an alliance, and the two countries are not much different in strength when they unite to deal with Chile.

On the contrary, Argentina, which tasted the sweetness in the Paraguayan War, did not have a reliable ally at this time, and its development speed was far slower than Chile, which had saltpeter mines.

In addition, there is a more powerful neighbor Brazil to the north of Argentina, which doubled the pressure on the Argentine government.

After thinking about it, the Argentine government finally felt that Argentina could not sit still and wait for death. The national strength of Brazil and Chile is becoming stronger and stronger. If Argentina does not have any significant improvement, it will definitely be Argentina that lags behind in the competition in the future.

But who will Argentina cooperate with? The British are definitely impossible, because the British value Chile's saltpeter mines more.

Saltpeter mines can not only be used as arms, but also made into fertilizers. In this era, saltpeter mines are extremely important strategic resources. It is obviously impossible for the British to give up Chile's saltpeter mines, and it is impossible for them to give up Chile.

After a tour of the European powers, the Argentine government was disappointed to find that no country could reach a close cooperation with Argentina. After all, Argentina did not have any strategic resources that could attract these powers. Apart from the vast black land, Argentina seemed to have nothing to attract people.

In the end, the Argentine government turned its attention to Spain, its former colonizer. Apart from anything else, Spain's comprehensive national strength is obviously stronger than any country in the Americas. (Not counting the United States)

If Spain is willing to support Argentina, Argentina will not be at a disadvantage in the competition between South American countries.

More importantly, Argentina is originally a pure immigrant country. The domestic population is either Spanish or mixed-race Spanish, and is obviously closer to Spain.

In recent years, the voice of Argentina getting closer to Spain has become louder and louder, and it is even about to form a scale.

Although this may be instructed and guided by someone, it also represents the public opinion of Argentina to a certain extent.

The Argentine government finally decided to go with the flow and strengthen its ties with Spain, while using Spain as much as possible to enhance Argentina's strength to cope with the more intense competition in South America in the future.

When the Spanish government received the request from the Argentine government, Prime Minister Primo was inspecting the progress of various departments.

Since the second five-year development plan was officially confirmed, various departments have begun to take action. Prime Minister Primo was very satisfied with the progress of various departments, and he also had a hunch that Spain's development this year might be faster than last year.

Before the inspection was over, the diplomatic request of the Argentine government came, and Prime Minister Primo's smile became even stronger.

As for the idea of ​​strengthening ties with Spain that some people in South American countries asked for, it was of course Prime Minister Primo who spread it.

Spain can currently use these former colonies, which still have a lot of population. If they absorb a little every year, they can also contribute to Spain's population growth.

Of course, more importantly, these American countries are also a force when they unite. If Spain can regain control of these American countries, or strengthen its ties with them, it will also be good for itself.

In fact, to be honest, even the United States, where the economy and industry have been developing rapidly, Prime Minister Primo does not take it seriously.

In the eyes of Prime Minister Primo, there are not many countries that can pose a threat to Spain. At most, there are only five traditional European powers: Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria.

Prime Minister Primo does not even take Italy, the neighbor in the Mediterranean, seriously, let alone the United States, which was once a colony.

Speaking of which, the independence of the United States is less than a hundred years old. The Independence Day of the United States is July 4, 1776, and it has only been 98 years since its independence.

Spain's colonial rule in the Americas has far exceeded this time, which is why many European countries, including Prime Minister Primo, look down on the United States.

Even though the United States has developed its population, industry and economy to the level of a great power in the past hundred years of development, the Europeans' contempt for the United States will not disappear.

In the eyes of Europeans, the United States is at best just a nouveau riche. Even the culture of Americans is inherited from Europe. To put it bluntly, they are just the sons raised by the British.

It's just that this son rebelled too early and turned away from the rule of the British. But if the United States could threaten the rule of the British Empire one day, European countries would never believe it.

Today, Britain is the empire on which the sun never sets, while the United States is even ranked just before Italy in the ranking of powers in European media.

You know, Italy was unified less than ten years ago. And the Kingdom of Sardinia, the predecessor of Italy, was not even among the top ten in Europe.

This is also the reason why the Americans, who had clearly coveted Cuba for a long time, waited until Spain was completely weakened before launching the Spanish-American War.

Even before launching the Spanish-American War, the Americans persuaded the Spanish government to sell the Cuban colony to them for $150 million.

But European countries have long discriminated against the United States, and the proud Spanish government naturally could not agree to the American offer.

In fact, Cuba was already a piece of chicken ribs for Spain at that time. Although Cuba could also bring a lot of benefits to the Spanish government, the independence activists in Cuba also made Spain pay a huge price to maintain its rule.

At that time, 150 million US dollars was close to 800 million pesetas. As long as the Spanish government agreed to the American deal, it would definitely make a profit.

Taking 800 million pesetas to develop African colonies, even if it was just to strengthen Spain's military power, it would definitely be much better than guarding Cuba.

It's a pity that European countries discriminate against the United States from the heart, which also led to Spain ignoring the American request even in its weakest stage.

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