Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 144 Three Major Studies to Encourage Childbirth
In fact, since getting married, Carlo has faced a new problem, which is the issue of blood inheritance.

In other words, Carlo's biggest task after marriage is actually to have children.

Not only in the royal family, but for the vast majority of aristocratic families, the first priority in inheriting the title is to have children, and the second is to find ways to expand one's own industry.

What good is a kingdom or an empire if there is no qualified heir to inherit your property?

The country will not perish, but if the family has no heirs to inherit it, it will face the situation of extinction.

There are countless examples in European history where the throne fell into the hands of a branch or even another clan due to extinction of the royal family, which made European nobles attach great importance to the inheritance of their bloodline.

It’s okay if you are not married, but if you have been married for more than three years and still have no children, you will be arranged to find out the cause of the problem.

The way to find the problem is also very simple, that is to arrange many lovers for the nobles. If the lovers can get pregnant, it proves that the noble lady has a problem.

If the lover cannot get pregnant either, then it is most likely a problem with the noble himself.

If it is a problem of the noble himself, then he needs to select a qualified heir from among his relatives in advance to inherit the title, such as the children of his brothers or sisters.

Carlo does not have such worries at present. After all, they have been married for less than a year, and because Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young, they have no plans to have children for the time being.

In fact, it all comes down to the poor medical technology of the time. In order to ensure Queen Sophie's future health, Carlo plans to wait until she is fully grown and ready before discussing having children.

In fact, it wasn’t that long. Queen Sophie was born in March 1855, and was only three months away from adulthood.

However, considering the preparations before having a child, the duration of pregnancy, etc., it will take at least two years for Carlo's first child to be born.

Out of consideration for the expansion of the royal family, Carlo would of course like to have as many children as possible. Anyway, the royal family does not have to worry about the expenses of having children, so naturally the more children the better.

It can also set an example for the Spanish people. His Majesty the King is trying hard to have children, so why shouldn't the people share the worry about the growth of the Spanish population?

Of course, if we want to make the Spanish people more enthusiastic about having children, we have to solve the troubles they will encounter after the birth of their children, that is, various expenses.

In addition to universal compulsory education of at least primary school, Carlo also intends to establish subsidies and rewards for having many children in Spain.

However, such subsidies and incentives must be discussed with the government. After all, it is the government that spends the money. If the government does not agree, there will definitely be some contradictions in the future policies in this regard.

Because population is Spain's biggest shortcoming at present, the proposal to encourage childbirth should naturally be implemented as soon as possible.

Just after Christmas, Carlo asked Jovillar Soller to present a proposal to encourage childbirth in the House of Representatives to test Prime Minister Primo's attitude.

The current parliament is controlled by Prime Minister Primo, and whether the proposal is passed or not depends entirely on Prime Minister Primo's attitude towards the proposal.

This is why Carlo asked Jovillar Soler to submit the proposal directly to the House of Representatives. If Prime Minister Primo supports it, the proposal will naturally be easily passed.

But if Prime Minister Primo does not support the proposal, it will be impossible to occupy a majority of seats in parliament even if he joins forces with other parties.

The proposal submitted to the parliament was soon known to Prime Minister Primo. Because Prime Minister Primo already knew why Jovillar Soller had pledged allegiance to Carlo, he naturally regarded the proposal as one proposed by Carlo.

First of all, Prime Minister Primo did not have much reason to reject the proposal in terms of content. The only thing worth discussing was the content of rewards and subsidies for families with many children, but this could be discussed within the cabinet government.

After all, it is Parliament that submits and amends laws, but it is the Cabinet Government that implements them.

Even if the proposal is passed by Parliament, the cabinet government still has the final say on how the bill is implemented.

I think that Jovillar Soller was able to submit this proposal in the House of Representatives with Carlo's support.

In this case, Prime Minister Primo would not refuse. He still respected Carlo, just as Carlo respected his power in the cabinet government.

Carlo knew that Spain's reforms could not be achieved without the strong support of Prime Minister Primo, and Prime Minister Primo certainly knew that the success of the reforms could not be achieved without Carlo's strong support.

The royal power still has a great influence in Spain. As a prime minister who supports the monarchy, Primo certainly hopes that he can gain Carlo's support rather than stand in opposition to the king he supported.

With the tacit approval of Prime Minister Primo, the proposal was quickly passed in parliament. Although the Progressive Party holds a majority of seats in parliament, the Conservative Party remains the second largest party in Spain.

Currently in the Spanish parliament, the Progressive Party is the absolute largest party and the ruling party in Spain. The leader of the Progressive Party is Prime Minister Primo, and the vast majority of its members are also reformists.

The second largest party is the Conservative Party, whose current representative is the current Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Canovas del Castillo, and which holds 20% of the total seats in parliament.

The third largest party is the Liberal Party, which is also the last large-scale legal political party in Spain. The ideas of the Liberal Party members are between conservative and reformist. They maintain a relatively neutral attitude towards the monarchy government, that is, neither firmly opposed nor firmly supported.

Further down the list are some small parties, which either have only one or two seats in parliament, or no seats in parliament at all. They are completely tiny parties.

The reason why the Liberal Party is the last large-scale legal political party in Spain is that there is still an illegal large-scale political party in Spain, which is the party that supported the establishment of a republican Spanish government during the revolution.

After Carlo was chosen as the King of Spain, the Republican Party was in an awkward position. They supported the republic and were in opposition to the new Spanish Kingdom government.

However, for the stability of the Spanish government and considering that Carlo had just arrived in Spain, Prime Minister Primo did not target the Republican Party, and the Republican Party is still one of the top three parties in Spain.

But during the Carlist rebellion, many Republican members supported the rebellion in Catalonia and the Basque region, which had a serious impact on the stability of Spain.

Prime Minister Primo acted decisively, declaring the Republican Party, the third largest party in Spain, illegal and banned it in Spain.

This also made the Liberal Party the third largest party in Spain, and the Republicans became a party with a large number of supporters but completely illegal.

But the good news is that since Spain's reforms and development have been going smoothly, the number of people supporting the Republican Party has been decreasing.

There are not many people who firmly support the republic, but more people who are disappointed with the original monarchy. They hope to establish a new system of government to change the situation in Spain. The real purpose is to change the current situation in Spain, not to change the government.

Since Carlo became the King of Spain, Spain has indeed been moving in a positive direction. The real income of the Spanish people has been greatly improved, which has also made those who are eager to change the situation in Spain see the benefits of the monarchy.

They also realized that it was not the monarchy that had huge flaws, but the original Spanish king who had major flaws.

This group of people gradually became reformists. They supported the Spanish royal government under the constitutional monarchy and were eager to reform some of Spain's more backward and conservative areas to make Spain stronger and more advanced.

As a result of this evolution, Prime Minister Primo's Progressive Party has become the largest party in Spain, completely crushing the Conservative Party, which has a larger audience, in terms of parliamentary seats.

Yes, although the Conservatives do not have an advantage in terms of seats in parliament, they are still the largest party in Spain in terms of the number of supporters.

Because the Conservative Party has a large number of farmers as its audience, most Spanish farmers support more conservative parties. They do not want the country to have too many changes, and it is best for nothing to happen and for them to live and work in peace.

In other words, the reform has brought practical benefits to the farmers, and has made these mostly conservative farmers not oppose the reforms in Spain. Some farmers are even eager to see more reforms in Spain.

After all, the reform actually reduced and abolished taxes. The burden on farmers was lightened, and the pressure on their lives was naturally much less.

The most obvious example of the reduction of the burden on Spanish farmers is the growth of the Spanish population. In the original Spanish Kingdom period, the annual population growth was very small, sometimes even less than 100,000 people.

This is extremely exaggerated, and it also proves that during the reign of Queen Isabella, the Spanish people did not live very well, which resulted in them having no extra energy to have children.

During Carlo's reign, as people's burdens were lightened, they naturally had more thoughts on the issue of continuing their family line.

Today's contraceptive measures are not so advanced, the technology of condoms is not mature, and they are not as thin as they are in later generations.

The common contraceptive measures used by the people were made of sheep intestines and flax. This thing was neither comfortable nor practical. The sheep intestines also had a fishy smell and were extremely uncomfortable to use.

But it is necessary to not use it. If you accidentally get pregnant, giving birth will be a life-threatening problem. Even if you give birth, the baby's survival rate is not that high.

Even if the baby survives and is healthy, raising a child is a significant expense.

In the future, Spain will definitely ban abortion completely. There is no other reason, the only reason is that the current abortion technology is too backward and the risk factor is too high.

Considering the subsidy and reward policy that the Spanish government is about to issue for families with many children, even if abortion is completely banned in Spain in the future, it will not cause too much burden to the Spanish people. Perhaps the royal family and the government can also consider jointly establishing nursing homes and orphanages to help children from poor families get a better education.

Of course, foster homes and orphanages are certainly not free. Children raised in these two institutions have two choices for the future.

Either you can directly serve the country and be exempted from all expenses in orphanages or foster homes, or you can work and earn money on your own to repay the debts you once owed.

Back to the subsidies and rewards for having more children, after being passed by parliament, they were quickly submitted to the cabinet government for implementation.

After the promulgation of the previous assessment system, the administrative efficiency of the Spanish government at all levels is going to be greatly improved. There is no way not to improve it. As long as the assessment is poor, there will be no mercy in demotion.

At present, mayors of several cities have been dismissed by the regional councils. As this concerns their own positions and future prospects, it is impossible for these officials not to take it seriously.

What the parliament passed was just a draft, and how it will be implemented will still depend on the financial situation of the Spanish government.

When the parliament passed the draft, Prime Minister Primo convened a cabinet meeting and assigned the task to the livelihood and finance departments.

After a period of discussion, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance finally came up with a more detailed bill on subsidies and rewards for families with many children.

The bill specifies that a family with two or fewer children is considered an ordinary family. On this basis, a government subsidy will be provided for each additional child.

The government subsidy is 25% of the local per capita annual income, which is about 26 pesetas based on the current national per capita annual income. The government subsidy can be received once a year or directly credited to the official bank account linked to the family.

In addition to government subsidies, there are certain rewards for families with many children. For example, if a family has more than five children, Spanish state-owned enterprises or royal enterprises will give them priority when recruiting employees.

If you have more than eight children, your name will be published in the local newspaper and you will be awarded the title of "heroic parents" by the local government.

If a couple has more than 10 children, they will be personally received by Carlo and awarded the title of "Heroic Parents" in Spain. They will also be invited to every official event organized by the Spanish government.

Although the corresponding subsidies and rewards are not very generous, some families that already have more than two children can indeed receive extra income.

Although the local 25% per capita annual income subsidy is not much, the combined annual income of several children can be almost the same as that of an adult.

With the continuous increase in per capita annual income, having more children can indeed become one of the options for the Spanish. After all, reproduction is one of the few entertainment activities for ordinary people in this era.

Considering that Spain's population and economic size are constantly changing, this bill is currently only temporarily implemented and is likely to undergo changes in the future.

This bill is not a big expense for the Spanish government. If a newborn baby can receive a government subsidy of 26 pesetas, according to the growth of the Spanish population, it is estimated that there will be about 20 newborn babies next year.

This also means that the government only needs to bear a subsidy cost of approximately 520 million pesetas to stimulate a higher level of population growth in Spain.

Even some of the newborns do not fall within the range of two or more, and the subsidy expenditure that the government needs to bear is even lower.

This is almost a case of spending little money to achieve great things. The Spanish government's fiscal revenue is constantly increasing, and 500 million pesetas is indeed not a large expense for the current Spanish government.

The Ministry of Finance did not even blink when approving the budget. If it were not for the fact that too high a subsidy was not a good thing, the finance minister would have even considered increasing some of the subsidies on top of what was stipulated in the bill to further stimulate Spain's population growth rate.

After the bill was enacted, Carlo no longer paid much attention to it.

After all, the enforcement of the bill is the government's business, and if Carlo pays too much attention to it, it will damage the current good relationship with Prime Minister Primo.

Carlo was quite confident about Prime Minister Primo. Since the bill was passed by the parliament, it proved that Prime Minister Primo was supportive of the bill.

The only possible change is the level of subsidies for families with many children in the bill. This can also be changed to a certain extent after Carlo comes to power in the future. Anyway, there is no rush.

Christmas of 1872 has passed, and Carlo is now more concerned about the upcoming economic crisis of 1873.

Fortunately, the impending economic crisis does not seem to have a major impact on Spain.

But if you think about it, it is understandable. Compared with the powerful countries, Spain's industry and economic scale are not huge, so it is natural that it is less affected.

Coupled with the reforms carried out by the Spanish government in Spain, Spain's economy is in a state of steady growth without too much exaggerated surge.

Even the production of many industries is not enough to meet the domestic demand in Spain, so naturally there is no possibility of an economic crisis.

Carlo has been paying close attention to the Spanish stock market and industrial market for a long time. He finally breathed a sigh of relief after he was sure that Spain would not suffer too serious impact from the economic crisis.

Although the economic crisis that broke out in 1873 was not large in scale, it did last for a long time and had a significant impact.

If Spain, which has just started, suffers a severe economic crisis, it will be a devastating blow to Spain's industrial and economic development.

It would also affect the time of Spain's rise. Without the impact of the economic crisis, Spain would have had the hope of completing its reforms and achieving revival before 1880.

However, if there is an impact of the economic crisis, the time to complete the reform and achieve revitalization may be delayed by more than ten years.

If this is the case, Spain will definitely miss the best time to divide Africa. Even if Spain can wait until the reform and economic recovery are completed in the future, Africa will basically be divided up by the powers, and there will be no place that can be ruled by Spain.

Since the impact of the economic crisis on Spain will not be too serious, Carlo naturally does not have to worry too much. Instead, he will focus on the development of royal enterprises, including the talents previously recruited from Europe and their research.

Currently, the royal family’s businesses include military industry, agriculture, mining and machinery manufacturing in addition to the more traditional steel and heavy industry, food industry and financial industry.

Carlo was more concerned with three areas of research: the development of machine guns and smokeless powder by the Maxim brothers, the engine development by Benz, Dahlem and Maybach, and the electrical power research by Gramm.

If any of these three studies can be successful, it will have a far-reaching impact on Spain. If all three studies can be completed, Spain can rely on these three studies to greatly improve its comprehensive national strength and make great progress in the civilian and military fields.

However, these three studies are very difficult, and it is even more difficult to achieve relatively good results.

For example, for the popularization of electricity, generators are only the foundation. We also need to study the transmission of electricity and the equipment that uses electricity.

Gram is currently trying to build a large thermal power plant to provide lighting for some of Madrid's busiest streets.

If it is determined that there is no problem with such electricity use, in the future the lines will be laid first in the royal palace and government buildings to ensure electric lighting in the royal palace and government buildings.

However, it will take a long time for electricity to be popularized. At least in the next ten years, it will be difficult for ordinary people to use electricity.

The current power plants can only generate a limited amount of electricity and cannot transmit it over long distances. This also means that if you want to popularize the use of electricity throughout Spain, you must build corresponding power plants in every city.

Especially for a large city like Madrid, several power plants may not be enough. Before the power of the generator and the problem of power transmission are solved, it is basically impossible to popularize electricity on a large scale.

The same is true for the engine developed by Benz. It is easy to invent an engine, but it will be difficult to popularize the machinery that uses the engine in the next few years.

By installing an engine on a horse-drawn carriage, a simple car can be made. However, the stability, speed and safety of such a car cannot be guaranteed, and naturally it cannot be produced on a large scale for commercial use.

Besides, the current engine power is very small, it would be better to use a few more horses to pull it.

Carlo is not in a hurry to study electricity and engines. As long as they can achieve certain results in the next 10 years and make considerable achievements in the next 20 years, Carlo will be quite satisfied.

What really made Carlo pay more attention and keep looking forward to was the machine gun and smokeless gunpowder technology developed by the Maxim brothers.

Smokeless gunpowder was developed in 1884, 12 years later. Considering Carlo's huge investment in the Maxim brothers, this time could have been shortened by a large margin.

The invention of smokeless gunpowder gave a huge boost to the development of rifles and machine guns. The Maxim machine gun might have been born earlier and become one of the heavy firepower weapons equipped by the Spanish Army.

If we can equip ourselves with machine guns earlier than other countries, we may be able to inflict heavy losses on other countries in future wars.

Especially since Spain is bound to retake Gibraltar in the future, it is necessary to work hard on the army's equipment.

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(End of this chapter)