Rise of Empires: Spain

Time can never be paused. When people are busy, time will also be accelerated.

The second half of 1874 was quite busy for the Spanish government, which made time pass quickly and soon came to 1875.

It is worth mentioning that at the end of October 1874, Queen Sophie finally became pregnant.

The Spanish royal family is about to welcome the first prince or princess, and Carlo is in a very good mood.

Carlo and Queen Sophie got married in 1872. Why did they not get pregnant with their first child until the end of 1874?

The biggest reason is Carlo's protection of Queen Sophie. The production conditions of this era were not so developed, and having children also represented a very high risk.

By the end of 1874, when the pregnancy was confirmed, Queen Sophie was nearly 20 years old, which was a relatively suitable time for pregnancy.

Queen Sophie's pregnancy was not a trivial matter. It not only alarmed the Spanish royal family, but also the Italian royal family and the Austro-Hungarian royal family.

Carlo's father, King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy, personally sent a telegram, full of joy and happiness, and said that he would come to Spain in person after the child was born.

Franz Joseph I, Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was also very excited about this. After all, Queen Sophie is his eldest daughter, and the child in her belly is his first grandson/granddaughter.

From the relationship between the Spanish royal family, the Italian royal family and the Austro-Hungarian royal family, it can be seen that this unborn little guy will definitely be a star-studded existence in the future.

Whether it is a prince or a princess, they can be loved by the royal families of three countries, and they are a big step ahead of most people at birth.

Carlo is also very excited about his upcoming child.

Although he has been traveling to this world for several years, Carlo's sense of belonging to this world is not that strong.

The fact that he is about to have his own child also makes Carlo's sense of belonging to this world continue to increase. If Carlo's previous goal was just to make Spain a powerful country, just like playing a game to achieve his goal, then Carlo's goal now is to create better conditions for his descendants, so that they can have an extremely powerful Spanish Empire.

Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young, and they will definitely have more children in the future. Whether it is a prince or a princess, Carlo's arrangement for them will not be bad.

Even if they are not capable enough, they can ensure that they can be an extremely wealthy noble and spend their lives happily.

In addition to the good news that Queen Sophie is pregnant, there are many other good news, covering all aspects.

As time enters 1875, Spain is about to enter a new era.

The colonial rule of the East Indies colony has been initially stabilized, and the colonial garrison division dispatched to the East Indies will continue to stay in the East Indies, to be precise, Kalimantan Island, to help the East Indies better carry out colonial development.

There are two directions for the future colonial expansion of the East Indies. One is to occupy the Sultanate of Brongan to the south and border the Sultanate of Kutai under the control of the Netherlands.

The second is to focus on the El Salvador Islands and the island of New Guinea further east. The Dutch colonial rule here is not stable, and there are many indigenous sultanates outside the Dutch sphere of influence that can be conquered.

There are still large areas of land in the New Guinea Island further east that are blank areas. The disadvantage is that it has to compete with the Netherlands, Britain and even Germany for colonization.

There is no way, because the land of Southeast Asia is only so big. At present, most of the land has been occupied by Britain, France and the Netherlands, and Spain can only find these blank lands to colonize from the cracks.

However, New Guinea is an alternative after all, and the primary task of the Spanish East Indies colony is to occupy more places on the island of Kalimantan.

In order to take care of the pregnant Queen Sophie, Carlo did not attend the government's annual summary report meeting at the end of 1874.

But Prime Minister Primo still reported the complete government work content to Carlo after the meeting, and sought Carlo's opinion on the government's new development plan in 1875.

With the development of time, Carlo's royal power is also increasingly consolidated.

The most obvious point is that Prime Minister Primo has attached more and more importance to Carlo's attitude. If Carlo clearly opposed certain places, Prime Minister Primo might not be able to continue to promote it.

At present, the royal power and the prime minister's power can only cooperate with each other in a friendly manner. Once the two sides compete, there may be a situation where both sides will suffer losses.

After all, Prime Minister Primo supports the monarchy. The reason why the Kingdom of Spain can continue to maintain is due to Prime Minister Primo's efforts.

Carlo's attitude towards Prime Minister Primo is respectful. Although the competition between the royal power and the prime minister's power is inevitable, Prime Minister Primo has indeed done a lot for Spain.

Even the reason why Carlo's royal power can expand to such an extent is inseparable from Prime Minister Primo's concession.

If Prime Minister Primo's ambition at that time was a little bigger, Carlo might not be able to obtain such a high power.

According to the situation of the Spanish government at that time, Prime Minister Primo could always bypass Carlo, or even turn Carlo into a mascot with no power.

But Prime Minister Primo did not do so. This is why Carlo was willing to wait for Prime Minister Primo to retire before fighting for more power, rather than directly conflicting with Prime Minister Primo.

It is an absolute honor for the Spanish people that Prime Minister Primo was born in this era. It is also an honor for Carlo to face a politician like Primo who is not greedy for power in the early days of his rule.

The good news is that Prime Minister Primo's reforms have achieved certain results. The first five-year development plan has been a complete success, and the second five-year development plan is also going smoothly.

If nothing unexpected happens, Prime Minister Primo will be able to retire after the second five-year development plan. His ten-year cooperation with Carlo and the achievements brought to Spain by the two five-year plans may become a good story that will be circulated in Spain for a long time.

This is not an exaggeration. There are even newspapers that are promoting such things.

Some newspapers call Prime Minister Primo and Carlo the William I and Bismarck of Spain, and call the cooperation between Prime Minister Primo and Carlo the great revival of Spain.

The reason for such news is also related to Carlo's slogan at the time, "Make Spain great again!".

The eyes of the people are sharp, and they can certainly tell whether the country is developing in a good direction. Spain is not strong at present, but for the Spaniards, the period since Carlo was crowned King of Spain and Prime Minister Primo took office has been great for Spain.

"Your Majesty, we have achieved unimaginable results in the past year." On January 1, 1875, Prime Minister Primo walked into the Royal Palace of Madrid with a complete and organized government work report, and reported the good news to Carlo with a happy smile.

Carlo had expected the huge improvement of Spain in 1874.

After all, so many things were purchased from abroad, and if these things brought Spain a huge improvement. Not to mention that Spain has also strengthened its development plan and increased investment in various departments.

It is no exaggeration to say that the railways built in 1874 alone have exceeded the total of railways built in Spain from 1870 to 1871.

Carlo took the report naturally, without showing too much expression on his face, and carefully looked through the contents of the report.

Not long after, Carlo showed a more satisfied smile, and the whole person relaxed.

1874 was a year of leapfrog development for Spain, and it was also a year that narrowed the gap with the great powers. It can be said that 1874 was a dividing line for Spain.

Before 1874, Spain could only be said to be in a state of disrepair and was a power that was extremely weak, and it was even hard to say whether it was a great power.

But after the end of 1874, Spain's current industrial and economic scale and military scale can confirm that Spain is a powerful country.

Except for the five traditional European powers of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria, which still have advantages over Spain, other great powers such as the United States and Italy do not have such great advantages over Spain.

The industrial and economic scale of the United States is indeed huge, and the population is larger. But the current United States is not a military power, even after the experience of the Civil War.

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, the total size of the US Army was only more than 20,000 people. Although the total number of soldiers participating in the Civil War was as high as millions, the composition of these soldiers can be imagined.

Perhaps the Civil War can train some elite soldiers, but now more than ten years have passed, and it is unknown how much combat effectiveness these elite soldiers can maintain.

Needless to say, Italy. Although Italy has not yet produced any famous scenes, the combat effectiveness of the Italian army has always been weak.

The reason why Italy can be unified has a lot to do with Garibaldi. Garibaldi's Red Shirt Army is the Italian army with truly strong combat effectiveness, but this army is not in the hands of the Italian government.

In fact, this is also the reason why the Italian government and Vittorio Emanuele II are afraid of Garibaldi.

Even if Garibaldi himself has no ambitions or ideas, the Red Shirt Army is a powerful army that is really terrible, and it is impossible for the Italian government not to take precautions.

Compared with Italy, Spain has no such troubles. The revolutionary army that rebelled against Queen Isabel has been reorganized into the Royal Government Army, and this Royal Government Army has been reformed into the new Royal Army, which is under the control of the Spanish government, so naturally no one will worry.

Back to the topic, how fast was Spain's development in 1874?

Thanks to the purchased industrial equipment, Spain has made significant progress in industry.

Minister of Industry Canovas had reported this to Carlo in advance, and was praised and encouraged by Carlo.

The more achievements in the industrial sector, the more prestige Canovas can gain. The more prestige Canovas has, the greater his chances of running for prime minister in the next cabinet government election.

This is related to the rotation of the cabinet government after Prime Minister Primo retires, and Carlo still attaches great importance to this.

Don't forget that the largest party in Spain is the Progressive Party. Although under the leadership of Prime Minister Primo, the Progressive Party did not show too radical an attitude.

But who can guarantee that after Prime Minister Primo leaves politics, the Progressive Party will not become a radical party under the leadership of others?

The reason why Carlo has such an idea is naturally the attitude of Ruiz, the current second-in-command of the Progressive Party.

Ruiz was originally a relatively radical guy, but it was because of his strong support for reform and his prestige in the revolutionary army that Prime Minister Primo appointed him as Minister of Industry.

When he was the Minister of Industry, Ruiz showed great ability and completely secured his position as the second-in-command of the Progressive Party.

After Canovas became the Minister of Industry, Ruiz completely stood on the opposite side of Carlo. Although he did not explicitly oppose Carlo's royal power, his attitude was quite obvious, that is, he did not approve of Carlo's acquisition of power, and hoped to strengthen the constitutional system and concentrate power in the hands of the cabinet government and parliament.

If Prime Minister Primo retires in the future, the competition for the prime minister is likely to be a competition between Ruiz and Canovas.

Of course, if Archduke Serrano wants to run for prime minister, he can also be counted as one.

At present, there are only these three people in Spain who are eligible to run for prime minister. In addition, the prestige of others is indeed a little worse, and prestige may not necessarily suppress others.

In 1874, the total industrial scale of Spain increased by about 30% compared with 1873.

This level is quite exaggerated. After all, after the first five-year development plan, the industrial scale of Spain has grown significantly.

Although Spain was not an industrial power at that time, its industrial scale was also of a certain size, at least much stronger than those small and medium-sized countries.

The reason why it was able to increase by nearly one-third in just one year was that in addition to the industrial equipment and means of production purchased from various countries during the economic crisis, the government's increased investment in the industrial sector was also a very important reason.

With so much money, it would be strange if the industry did not grow on a large scale.

After all, Spain is not special to Europe, and there is no blockade of the industries of various countries. The current situation is that as long as the Spanish government is willing to spend money, the industrial scale can be greatly improved.

There is good news and bad news for this. The good news is that a lot of the purchased production equipment and means of production are still not used.

When these equipment and means of production are fully utilized, the industrial scale of Spain can achieve further growth.

The bad news is that the Spanish government borne too much expenditure in 1874, and such fiscal expenditure could only last for one year.

If such huge fiscal expenditures continued in 1875, the Spanish government would face a serious debt crisis, which Prime Minister Primo did not want to see.

So after 1875, the industrial sector could only rely on itself except for the industrial equipment and means of production it purchased, and it was impossible to rely on the government to spend money again.

The increase in industrial scale also represents one thing, that is, the increase in the total scale of Spanish workers.

Although farmers are still the majority in Spain, workers are already a group that Spain cannot ignore.

The good news is that a considerable number of Spanish workers work in royal enterprises. Under Carlo's special instructions, the welfare benefits of royal enterprises are better than those of private enterprises, forming a natural contrast with those capitalists.

According to public opinion among workers, the workers of royal enterprises are still relatively satisfied with Carlo and royal enterprises. After all, Carlo provides them with more generous remuneration and other welfare benefits than private enterprises.

Under the premise that private enterprises in Spain still adhere to the 11-hour work system, royal enterprises and some government enterprises have announced the implementation of a ten-hour work system in all their enterprises.

This is not the ten-hour work system promoted by European countries. It is a ten-hour work system that is strictly implemented without any errors.

Although European countries implemented the ten-hour work system earlier, it is not yet popularized throughout Europe.

As the saying goes, there are policies from above and countermeasures from below. Although the government has implemented a ten-hour work system, capitalists still have many means to make workers "voluntarily" stay to work overtime.

In the royal enterprises of Spain, this kind of voluntary work is not seen at all. Even the most ordinary employee can enjoy the ten-hour work system plus two days of rest per month.

This also makes the royal enterprises face a very hot scene every time they recruit. Employees of royal enterprises work less hours, but their income is higher than that of some private enterprises.

Every worker who can enter the royal enterprise is only grateful and love Carlo, after all, they know who provides their current working environment.

In the royal enterprises and factories, a large-scale discussion and collective activities will be organized every once in a while.

This not only relieves the workers from work fatigue, but also takes this opportunity to communicate with them and brainwash them subtly, so that they can accept the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism.

For the existing workers in Spain, it is still easy to brainwash them. Since Carlo was crowned as the King of Spain, the wages and working environment of the workers have been continuously improving.

They are not opposed to the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism. After all, Carlo's arrival has indeed made their living environment better, which is a fact that cannot be refuted at all.

With the efforts of many workers and the Spanish government, Spain's industry has been greatly improved.

By the end of 1874, Spain's annual steel production had exceeded 200,000 tons, which was also the plan set by the industrial department at that time.

The output of pig iron is even greater, approaching 600,000 tons. The construction of railways has increased the domestic demand for steel in Spain, and steel mills have been continuously established in industrial bases and rapidly expanded in scale.

It is worth mentioning that of the total steel production in Spain exceeding 800,000 tons, the steel mills under the royal family contribute more than a quarter of the output.

These steel mills have different names, but they all have the same prefix, that is, the word royal.

The royal family's steel mills are spread all over Spain, and the largest of them is the Royal Barcelona Steel Mill built in the Barcelona Industrial Base.

However, the scale of the Royal Seville Steel Mill and the Royal Madrid Steel Mill is not much different. These steel mills have jointly contributed nearly 200,000 tons of steel production, which is also an important part of the royal family's industrial layout.

Carlo no longer has a specific concept of the current asset scale of the Spanish royal family.

It's not that Carlo doesn't care about the expansion of the royal industry, but the current layout of the royal family in various industries is too exaggerated and can no longer be counted in detail.

The assets of these steel mills alone are as high as tens of millions of pesetas, and the annual income generated has exceeded tens of millions, which is something that the former royal family could never imagine.

The steel mill is just one of the industrial layouts of the royal family. There are also many related factories, railway companies, mining companies, oil companies, etc.

In addition to the two major banks and agricultural companies, enterprises, etc., these enterprises bring the royal family nearly 100 million pesetas of income each year.

In addition to steel production, Spain has also achieved a huge increase in coal production.

In fact, to put it bluntly, coal and iron are inseparable. The increase in steel production also means an increase in the mining volume of iron ore and coal mines. After all, only coal mines and iron mines can be refined into steel.

However, compared with the growth of steel production, the growth of coal production is not so huge. The main reason is that the impact of the economic crisis has led to a significant reduction in the price of coal.

The export price of coal in European countries is already similar to the mining price of Spanish coal mines, so there is no need to mine additionally.

After all, there are not many coal reserves in Spain, so it is still necessary to save some. When the price difference between the two is not big, Carlo prefers to import coal from abroad rather than mine coal in Spain.

The government work report submitted by Prime Minister Primo to Carlo was nearly a hundred pages long, and the content submitted by the industrial department alone was as high as dozens of pages.

The achievements of the industrial department in 1874 were too dazzling, and the improvement in all aspects was quite rapid. It took Carlo a long time to finish reading this report, but after reading the report of the industrial department, Carlo's satisfied smile on his face became even brighter.

The royal family actually made a lot of contributions to the great achievements of the industrial department.

For example, the achievements in shipbuilding submitted by the industrial department were actually the results of the expansion of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

After a long period of decline, the largest dock retained by the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard can only build medium and large warships of 6,200 tons.

But the warships designed by the shipyard far exceeded this number, which also means that the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard must undergo a new round of expansion.

The shipyard is very important for the future expansion of the Spanish navy, and Carlo also attaches great importance to it.

In fact, before the warship design drawings came out, Carlo had already decided to expand the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

After investing a lot of money, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard has two giant docks that can build 10,000-ton giant ships, and a large dock for building 7,500-ton medium and large warships.

If it took Spain 2 to 3 years to build an ironclad ship before, then with the simultaneous construction of two 10,000-ton docks, it only takes one and a half years to build an ironclad ship of nearly 10,000 tons.

Of course, this is not something that can be accomplished by simple superposition. The Royal Guarnizo Shipyard needs more skilled workers and related warship designers and engineers, and has a greater demand for talents, and senior talents are extremely scarce.

Fortunately, the royal family bought a shipyard in the UK during the economic crisis. By accepting some of the outstanding talents of this shipyard, it can alleviate the talent gap of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

In addition, the industrial sector has also made many achievements in other aspects.

But there is no need to mention these anymore. In short, the industrial sector is definitely the cabinet department that achieved the most political achievements in the Spanish government in 1874.

In addition to the industrial sector, other departments also made great achievements in 1874, such as the education sector that Carlo was more concerned about.

Of course, compared with the huge achievements of the industrial sector, the education sector is more like a partial achievement achieved steadily.

In 1874, more than one million people in Spain received literacy education, which was also the year with the largest number of people receiving literacy education since Spain began literacy education.

As for the reason, in addition to the government's increased investment in the education sector, people's income has also increased, resulting in a large number of school-age children and young people returning to school.

The current Spaniards have a much better life than before the revolution, so naturally there is no need for these children and young people who should have gone to school to continue to work in factories.

Because of this, the illiteracy rate in Spain has officially dropped below 40%, or to be precise, below 39%.

Although there is no exact ratio, it is certain that the illiterate population in Spain is less than 7 million, and most Spaniards have received simple education.

With the progress of literacy work, the difficulty of literacy is also decreasing. At the beginning, Spain was relatively short of teachers for literacy work, but now there is no shortage of teachers for literacy education.

In the past, uneducated farmers were everywhere in Spain, but now in small villages and towns, educated cultural talents are everywhere.

Those who really have not received education either stay in factories to work hard to make money, or are doing agricultural work, and they really have no time to receive education.

Although it is a good thing that the illiterate population is constantly decreasing, with the progress of literacy work, it will sooner or later enter a bottleneck period.

After all, not all illiterate people can receive education. Some are elderly and children, and some are the pillars of the family who have to make money.

After busy work, these people really have no time and energy to carry out literacy education. Carlo also understands this, so Spain's goal for literacy education has not been to eliminate it, but to reduce it to less than 20%.

For those who really cannot receive literacy education, the government can only give up. However, more efforts should be made to educate their next generation. Some of the Spaniards of this generation are no longer suitable for education, but the next generation of Spaniards will have enough opportunities to receive education.

One of the main reasons why literacy education can be carried out so smoothly is that Spain has not received too many immigrants during this period.

The Ministry of Education only needs to focus on more than 10 million Spaniards in the country. The work pressure is not that great.

If there are a large number of immigrants flowing in every year, it will be a heavy burden for the education department. After all, most immigrants have not received too good education, and these immigrants are scattered all over the country. Some of them can't even understand Spanish at all. It is very difficult to popularize literacy education.

Compared with literacy education, the construction of Spanish universities is also quite rapid.

At present, all universities in Spain have enrolled more than 7,000 college students each year.

Moreover, compared with the situation that there were less than 1,000 talents who chose physics and chemistry at the beginning, the universities in Spain now attach great importance to physics and chemistry.

According to the statistics of the education department on the number of admissions of various universities, in 1874, among the more than 7,000 college students enrolled by these universities, the number of college students who applied for mathematics, physics and chemistry exceeded 3,000.

The number of college students in construction engineering also exceeded 1,000. After all, Spain still needs college students in construction engineering in its stage of great development.

In the past, Spain did not have too effective management of domestic universities, resulting in the majors of university construction being determined according to the students' willingness to apply.

At that time, students preferred to apply for literature and art, which also led to most of the universities in Spain being related to literature and art, followed by construction engineering and medical care.

At present, Spanish universities have changed from building majors that students want to building majors that the country wants. Mathematics, physics and chemistry related majors have become the most applied majors for Spanish college students, because Spain lacks talents in this area.

Carlo's attitude towards universities is also very simple, that is, Spanish universities should cultivate more talents for the Spanish government and the country.

Universities should cultivate talents needed by their own country, not talents needed by other countries. If the universities in one's own country only think about cultivating talents for other countries, then what is the point of such universities? It is better to abolish them directly and rebuild the universities needed by the country.

It is worth mentioning that the Royal Academy of Sciences has not been established for a few years, but it has become one of the most famous universities in Spain.

After all, it is a school built by the royal family, and many famous European scientists and related scientific researchers have been invited. It is easy to become famous in Spain.

Even the Royal Academy of Sciences has a certain reputation in Europe, attracting a small number of non-Spanish students to apply.

At present, the Royal Academy of Sciences alone cultivates a lot of mathematical, physical and chemical talents for Spain every year. Most of them are practical experimental talents, and many are focused on theoretical talents, which are all lacking in Spain.

In order to help some talented but poorly-born students, Carlo established royal scholarships in all universities in Spain.

As long as you meet the three conditions of Spanish citizenship, excellent academic performance and poor family background, you can apply for the Royal Scholarship.

At present, there are only more than 20,000 students in all universities in Spain, and the Royal Bursary Fund established by Carlo can provide more than 2,000 scholarships every year, and the amount of each scholarship is more than 100 pesetas, which is equivalent to the salary of an ordinary Spaniard for more than half a year.

In fact, this is not much, and the annual expenditure of all scholarships is only 200,000 pesetas.

But this brings Carlo a great reputation. After all, one in ten college students can get a scholarship, and the probability is still quite high.

Although Carlo has the ability to provide scholarships to most or even every college student, it is not a good thing to do so.

Scholarships can only help some poor college students, and at the same time, they also let everyone understand the value of scholarships.

If most people have them, naturally no one will cherish the scholarships. After all, what you can't get is the most valuable, and only a few people can get scholarships, which can also reflect the preciousness of scholarships and the kindness of Carlo who provides scholarships.

In fact, in addition to this scholarship, the royal family's investment in education is not low.

Every university has a university cafeteria, and the royal family has additional subsidies for college students' three meals a day. These college students can spend less money to eat more sumptuous meals, which is also one of Carlo's means of winning people's hearts in college.

The college student group is still relatively important to Spain. Through scholarships and meal subsidies in college, these college students can be full of goodwill towards the royal family and Carlo.

Some of these college students will move to the top of the country in the future, and some will enter all walks of life and become various positions.

But no matter what their future is like, as long as they are full of goodwill towards Carlo in college, they are more likely to support Carlo's rule in the future.

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