Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 141: Two Pillars of Military Industry (Two Chapters in One)

Although the current Royal Guarnizo Shipyard has long lost its former glory, it is very important for Spain's future development plans.

For Carlo, this is also the first military shipyard under his control. It is not only of extraordinary significance, but also of inestimable strategic value.

Although a large number of land powerhouses were born in this era, including Russia, the former bulldozer of Europe, France, the former overlord of Europe, and Germany, the current world's number one land power.

But without exception, these countries were unable to impact the glory of the British Empire. The British, with the most powerful navy, firmly sat on the throne of the world's number one. They could watch the competition and fighting between European countries with a smile and dominate the situation in Europe as the victor.

The biggest reason for this situation is the British naval lead over other powers.

In other words, in this era, if you do not have a relatively strong navy, you will not be able to exert influence on the outside world.

Isn't Germany strong after defeating the French? Of course it is strong. But in the eyes of the British, the current threat of the Germans is even lower than that of France and Russia.

France and Russia at least have a large navy, while the Germans only have a seemingly strong army. However, no matter how strong the army is, it cannot cross the ocean. The English Channel and the Royal Fleet are the guarantee of the strength of the British Empire, which is why they do not care about the threat from Germany.

If the navy is so important, why do only a very small number of countries have large-scale navies?
The reason is very simple, that is, establishing a navy requires a large amount of financial investment as well as human and material resources.

In any era, the establishment of a navy requires a lot of cost. The battleships of the sailing warship era were not easy to build. They required towering trees that were hundreds of years old, as well as the careful craftsmanship and design of craftsmen to build a warship that could sail in the sea and even fight in the ocean.

Ironclad ships are a greater test of each country's industrial level. The steam turbines that provide power for warships and the naval guns that are the main output of firepower are the crystallization of industrial development to date.

Building a warship requires not only a large number of advanced equipment, but also a large amount of steel. This also means that some countries with weak industries are unable to build warships themselves.

Moreover, it is not enough to have such technology, but also to have sufficient experience in shipbuilding. Warships are not disposable items, they need to be used for a long time and even go through several naval battles.

If the design of a warship has some hidden problems due to lack of experience, they may not be visible under normal circumstances, but once a war occurs, they may endanger the safety of the entire warship.

In addition, the cost of a warship is as high as hundreds of thousands of pounds, and the naval officers and soldiers on the warship also require a lot of materials and time to train.

If it is not an industrial power or an economic powerhouse, the navy of this era is really not something that an ordinary country can handle.

Besides, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard is the largest shipyard in Spain and has rich experience in building warships.

Although it was a bit lonely in the era of transition from sailing ships to ironclad ships, it had built ironclad ships for the Spanish government and had some relevant experience.

It is also because of this that Carlo paid more attention to the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard and saved Spain's few excellent shipyards in the field of ironclad ships.

After obtaining all the shares of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard from the government, Carlo decided to expand the shipyard immediately. In three years, he transformed the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard into the largest shipyard in Spain, with the ability to build the latest ironclad ships.

The good news is that with technical assistance from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and some support from France, it is easy for the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard to have the ability to build the latest ironclad ships.

The only difficulty at present is the size of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, which has been reduced again and again due to the increasing losses of the shipyard.

70 years ago, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard was the largest shipyard in the Iberian Peninsula, building dozens of powerful sailing warships for Spain.

But 70 years later, in 1872, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard had shrunk by half, with the number of employees at the shipyard being less than 300.

Although the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard theoretically had the ability to build ironclad ships, with a workforce of less than 300 people, it would take more than a year and almost two years to build an outdated ironclad ship, let alone build the latest type of ironclad ship.

If the shipyard really relies on taking foreign orders to make money with such a construction speed, it may not be able to support the expenses of the entire shipyard.

On October 1872, 10, Carlo and Butler Loren went to the port of Guarnizo in northern Spain to inspect the current condition of what was once the largest shipyard in Spain.

Because the shares of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard were previously in the hands of the government, the government naturally had no time to take care of the development of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, and it was basically left in a free-range state.

The current director of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, Antonio Monari, is a guy with very mediocre abilities.

It can be said that the decline of Spain's four major shipyards was affected by various reasons.

The biggest reason is the weakness of Spain itself, which has led to the Spanish government's repeated reduction of its attention to the navy and basically no development of the navy.

After the four major shipyards lost orders from Spain, if they wanted to survive they could only find ways to obtain warship orders from abroad, or to build civilian ships needed by the public.

But the tonnage of civilian ships is very small, the smallest is only a few tons. When military ships have evolved into ironclad ships, most civilian ships are still wooden ships wrapped in iron sheets, or even without iron sheets.

There is not much money to be made from building such civilian ships. With the decreasing income, the shipyards can only reduce their scale helplessly and even wait for the day of bankruptcy.

As the largest shipyard in Spain, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard has extensive shipbuilding experience and once possessed the most advanced shipbuilding technology.

According to common sense, such a large-scale shipyard would not fall into such a situation even if it lacked domestic orders.

After all, there are still a large number of countries in the world that can become partners. As long as one or two ironclad ships can be sold every year, it can help the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard maintain its expenses.

But it is obvious that neither the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard under the control of the Bourbon royal family nor the shipyard under the control of the provisional government had a better factory director to save the enterprise.

The shipyard declined along with Spain, and naturally it could not compete with traditional powers such as Britain and France.

Spain's shipbuilding industry is now completely supported by its past foundation, and its overall scale is gradually shrinking.

If Spain's overall size was not still relatively strong, and if it were not for the fact that it had not been in decline for a long time, perhaps the Spanish shipbuilding industry would not even be able to compete with a country like the Netherlands.

But if you think about it carefully, the Dutch were once the overlords of the sea. They also have a rich foundation in shipbuilding, so building ironclad ships is no problem.

If the Netherlands' land area and population were not so small, the country would be more competitive in navy and shipbuilding.

Back to the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, now that all the shares of the shipyard have been acquired, the next natural step is to let the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard return to the top of the Spanish shipbuilding industry and expand the overseas market in the field of Spanish military shipbuilding.

Although Spain does not need to build ironclad ships at present, it does not mean that other countries do not need ironclad ships to show off.

The Royal Guarnizo Shipyard is located in the Bay of Santander, in a small port between the Carbargo and Mariánio Peninsulas.

From the overall location point of view, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard is located in the north of Spain, facing the Bay of Biscay. Another large shipyard, El Ferrol, is located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, directly facing the Atlantic Ocean.

There is also a large shipyard located in the east of Spain, facing the Mediterranean Sea. The three shipyards are arranged in a triangle, but most of them face the Atlantic Ocean, because there used to be a vast Spanish colony there.

50 years ago, the port of Guarnizo was still quite prosperous. But with the decline of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, the port of Guarnizo has returned to its former state of a small village. After arriving near the Guarnizo Shipyard, Carlo's first reaction was the decline of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

However, this can also be considered good news. When Spain builds warships in the future, it will be more convenient to block the news.

Carlo went straight into the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard and met the current director of the shipyard, Antonio.

Well, Antonio gave Carlo a very bad first impression, and Carlo became more determined to replace the shipyard's growth candidate.

The Royal Guarnizo Shipyard is very important to the royal family and the future development of Spain. The selection of the shipyard's director is of paramount importance and can even determine the future development direction of the shipyard.

"Your Majesty, as you can see, this is the existing dock of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard. We are repairing a sailing warship for the navy, and it is expected to be completed within half a month." Antonio introduced the current situation of the shipyard to Carlo with a smile on his face. He obviously did not expect that he only had last few days left in his career as factory director.

"Does the current Royal Guarnizo Shipyard still have the ability to build ironclad ships? In other words, how many tonnage of warships can the existing shipyard build? How long does it take to build a most advanced ironclad ship?" Carlo asked his questions one after another, and these questions were also Carlo's biggest concerns.

"Of course we have the ability to build ironclad ships, Your Majesty." Antonio nodded quickly and replied, "We still have the largest dock, and the largest warship that can be built is 6200 tons.

But because we haven't built an ironclad ship for a long time, please forgive me for not being able to give you an exact construction time. But if the whole factory is working at full capacity to build an ironclad ship, I think it can be completed in three and a half years. "

Carlo shook his head, obviously even more disappointed with this answer.

If the construction time of an ironclad ship alone takes three and a half years, plus the subsequent sea trials and training time, it may take more than five years for the entire warship to be combat-ready from the start of construction.

Five years was too long, not to mention that it was just to build one ironclad. If several ships were built at the same time, perhaps the era of pre-dreadnoughts would have arrived just as the ironclads had begun service.

"How many workers does the shipyard have now? How many of them are skilled workers?" Carlo asked. "If the royal family increases its investment in the shipyard, can the shipyard have a complete development plan?"

Director Antonio quickly replied: "There are currently more than 200 workers in the shipyard, of which nearly a quarter are skilled workers.

If Your Majesty wants to expand the scale of the shipyard, it only costs 500 million pesetas, and I can expand the scale of the shipyard to more than a thousand people within three years. "

Carlo nodded and said nothing more.

The inspection of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard ended quickly, and Carlo had a more detailed plan in mind.

If the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard wants to develop, it must have a more capable director to take charge of the entire shipyard. Director Antonio may have certain abilities, but compared to Carlo's expectations, it is completely insufficient.

But after all, he is an old man who has worked for the shipyard for a long time, so Carlo will not be too heartless.

Director Antonio will have two choices: either go to another shipyard under government control to continue his position as director, or go to another government department to take up a less important position.

After leaving the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, Carlo immediately made a request to Butler Loren: "Butler Loren, do you have a suitable candidate for the director of the shipyard?"

"Not yet, Your Majesty. But I will select suitable candidates for the shipyard director within Spain. Please give me some time and I will submit a list of candidates to you." Butler Loren replied.

Italy is just starting out in the shipbuilding industry, so if you really want to find talent, you have to go to Spain. If you compare the shipbuilding foundation, there are really few countries that can compare with Spain.

Carlo nodded. The development of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard could not be completed in a short period of time, so there was no need to rush to select the director.

Antonio can also temporarily stay in the position of director until a new and more suitable candidate is determined. If the subsequent development of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard meets Carlo's expectations, Antonio may continue to stay.

But if the development of the shipyard still does not meet Carlo's expectations, or even makes Carlo more and more disappointed, then Carlo will have no choice but to replace it with someone better.

Although Carlo left the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, he left a small group of people to help the shipyard sort out its financial situation and complete the expansion.

If the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard's financial situation is sound, the next step would be to allocate funds to the shipyard.

Carlo had only one request, which was to restore the scale of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard as much as possible with sufficient financial support, and to regain the ability to build the most powerful ironclad ships.

Three and a half years of shipbuilding time is too long. The time for building a warship needs to be compressed to at least two years to meet Carlo's expectations.

After completing further reforms of the shipyard, we can then take the ironclad ship designs designed by the shipyard to look for buyers around the world.

Buyers for ironclad ships might even be found within Europe, such as the two powerful countries that have only completed unification in recent years.

Germany and Italy were unified only in recent years, and they will definitely develop their naval power in the future. Especially Germany, after defeating France, it has become a veritable top European power and the world's number one army country.

But Germany's navy is too weak, and even its current navy is smaller than Spain's.

A big reason for this is that the Kingdom of Prussia paid more attention to the army and neglected the navy. The Kingdom of Prussia obviously could not handle both the army and the navy at the same time. Coupled with the pressure from the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia was forced to pay more attention to the army.

But now after the unification of the German region, Germany has a stronger industry and economy, and is also qualified to manage both the army and navy.

It is very difficult to manage both the army and the navy at the same time, and even the British Empire only managed to do it with difficulty. The strength of the Royal Fleet is unquestionable, but the strength of the British Army, while not weak, is not too strong either.

Spain has done it before. During the British Empire, Spain not only had the most powerful navy, but also had the top army in Europe.

The Spanish phalanx was once famous and even captured the King of France. In its heyday, Spain was the undisputed overlord of Europe, with both its navy and army being world-class and having impressive military records.

At present, the British have only achieved a hegemonic level of strength in the navy, and their army is only at the level of a medium-sized power.

But this is pretty good. After all, Britain is just an island country, and it does not need to maintain such a large army to protect its own national security.

The expansion of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard requires a lot of money, but this is not a big problem.

After several years of development, Carlo has accumulated more and more assets.

The income from the two major banks, the Spanish National Bank and the Royal United Bank, alone was enough to cover the expenses of the Guards Division and the Royal Palace.

All the income from Carlo's many factories was used to expand or invest in more industries. Even if the total value of the royal assets is not over 100 million, it is definitely tens of millions of pesetas.

It would be no problem to take out a few million pesetas to help the shipyard expand. Even if the shipyard still makes a loss in the next few years, it would not be a big deal for Carlo.

The Royal Guarnizo Shipyard and the Royal Arsenal are Carlo's confidence in the military industry. In the future, Spanish military technology will rely on these two leading military enterprises.

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(End of this chapter)