Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 153 The Economic Crisis is Coming
What surprised Carlo was that after the enactment of this seemingly tough law, the impact it had in Catalonia and the Basque region was not that great.

But it is easy to understand if you think about it. After all, the troublemakers in these two regions who once insisted on regional autonomy and even national independence have long disappeared in Spanish history along with the Carlos party.

It is impossible to say that there are no nationalists in these two regions, but it is basically unlikely that these people would dare to stand up and firmly oppose the laws enacted by the government, or even incite marches and rebellions.

Although they support regional autonomy and national independence, it does not mean that they are fools. They can still see the current situation in Spain clearly, and even Prime Minister Primo is waiting for them to take the initiative to jump out so that he can catch them all in one fell swoop.

Although there were no large-scale riots, there were still some small-scale demonstrations.

However, these small-scale chaos are of no concern to the Spanish government, and can even be resolved by simply mobilizing the public security department.

In order to ensure the stability of Catalonia and the Basque region, Prime Minister Primo specifically ordered the security department to dispatch some police officers from other regions to Catalonia and the Basque region to maintain order, and at the same time urged the governments of the two regions to implement the requirements of the newly enacted bill as soon as possible.

For those who dare not stand up against the laws enacted by the government, but are unwilling to accept the laws enacted by the government, Prime Minister Primo also gave them a new option, which is to immigrate abroad.

Prime Minister Primo hates those who advocate nationalism and regional autonomy, because they will have a great impact on Spain's existing stability and will make Catalonia and the Basque region a permanent pain for Spain.

It is precisely because of this understanding that Prime Minister Primo, as a Catalan, still firmly chose to fully unify the nation, religion and language.

It would be much better if the nationalist issues in the two regions of Spain could be resolved in a more peaceful way.

For people in Catalonia and the Basque region who are unwilling to accept Spain's new policies, the Spanish government encourages them to immigrate to other places, and can even take the initiative to organize immigration teams to provide assistance to some people who want to immigrate but do not have the travel expenses.

On this basis, if there are still radical democrats in Spain who have different opinions on this law, don't blame Prime Minister Primo for being cold-blooded.

Encouraging them to immigrate is to give them the last chance: either choose to immigrate to escape Spanish laws, or stay in Spain and obediently abide by the laws enacted by Spain. There is no other choice for them.

In fact, to put it bluntly, this law does not have much impact on most Spanish civilians. Whether it is Catalans or Basques, they all believe in Christianity, which is also the religion officially allowed by Spain.

The only conflict was the widespread popularity of the Spanish language and the Spanish national concept, but these were not unacceptable to the common people.

Although this bill can effectively promote national integration in Spain and more effectively solve the national independence issues of Catalonia and the Basque Country.

But this is not without its drawbacks. As long as you immigrate to Spain, you must naturally abide by the laws enacted by Spain.

This is not so friendly to some immigrants. After all, it is not easy to get them to use Spanish quickly and admit that they are Spaniards.

To this end, Carlo and Prime Minister Primo held many discussions and finally decided to entrust the task of spreading Spanish to Pedro, who had been promoted to Archbishop of Spain, and let him be responsible for teaching Spanish to foreign immigrants.

In fact, such a task is not unfamiliar to the Spanish Church, because the Spanish Church previously controlled a large number of church schools and thereby controlled education in Spain.

However, the mission of the church is not only to spread the Spanish language, but also to spread religion.

In fact, for Carlo and Prime Minister Primo, it doesn’t matter whether they believe in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or Protestantism.

As long as they believed in the religion under the Christian system and recognized God, it would be fine. The missionary mission was obviously not aimed at European immigrants, but more at the indigenous and mixed-race residents in the Spanish colonies.

Taking into account Spain's future strategic plans, when meeting with Spanish Archbishop Pedro, Carlo specifically asked the Spanish Church to give priority to preaching to the Moroccans in the southern Moroccan colonies, and expressed that the progress of missionary work could be accelerated through certain tough measures.

Although Christianity is widely believed in Europe today, in fact, hundreds of years ago, there were still large areas of land that believed in various religions derived from the local area.

The reason why Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy were able to spread throughout Europe was not due to the gentle preaching of missionaries, but due to the relatively cruel and high-pressure missionary work of the Catholic Church and various governments.

Among them, the most famous is the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, which played an extremely important role in the widespread spread of Christianity in Europe.

The Inquisition during this period was not a real court, but rather an institution that wielded enormous power and could wantonly impose various punishments on pagans (including but not limited to confiscation of all property, flogging, imprisonment, life imprisonment, etc.).

If the pagans refused to repent, the Inquisition had the power to sentence them to death, and to use relatively cruel methods, the most common of which was burning at the stake.

Although it is impossible for the Spanish government to openly establish an institution such as the Inquisition to eliminate heresy in the colonies, it is still possible to use similar methods.

Anyway, the rule of various countries over their colonies during this period was not very glorious. They would wait until certain results were achieved in the future and then package them in a more civilized way, which would not have much impact on Spain.

It turns out that taking strong legal measures to unify Spain's ethnicity, religion and language is a better approach at the moment.

Just two and a half months after the law was enacted, it effectively rectified the linguistic chaos in Catalonia and the Basque region.

By May 1873, the only signs and words that could be seen on the streets of Barcelona and Bilbao were written in Spanish; the local language and writing had disappeared.

There are definitely some radical nationalists who expressed their dissatisfaction with such changes.

But these minorities are obviously insignificant in the face of Spain's national interests, and they were easily suppressed by the police.

Even the two infantry divisions that had been prepared in advance were useless. Most people did not have any radical objections to the bill, and the more radical ones fell under the police's guns under the government's strong suppression.

Time stopped at May 1873, 5, when the world crisis finally broke out.

The perspective comes to Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is one of the most prosperous cities in Europe and was once a world-famous international metropolis.

But since the arrival of May 5, the situation in Vienna has fallen into extreme chaos. The chaos first broke out from the Vienna Stock Exchange and then directly spread to the entire city.

How terrible is the economic crisis? In just 24 hours, the total value of all companies on the Vienna Stock Exchange depreciated by hundreds of millions of guilders (Austro-Hungarian Rhine guilders, also known as forints, 1 pound ≈ 11.7 Rhine guilders), causing many companies that were already worth more than a million to return to the pre-liberation era overnight.

According to the current more official exchange rate, the value of one million Rhine guilders is equivalent to 8.547 pounds, or 222.3 million pesetas.

Regardless of which country it is, a company with a value of more than 8 pounds is considered a large company. In this rapidly approaching economic crisis, a large number of companies in Vienna with a value of more than or close to 8 pounds are on the verge of bankruptcy, which is enough to prove the severity of the economic crisis.

The slightly larger companies were not in a bad situation and were only on the verge of bankruptcy, but the small and medium-sized companies with low value quickly went bankrupt in the economic crisis.

These enterprises were even thriving the day before, but the next day they were facing a serious bankruptcy crisis and had to announce the bankruptcy of their factories and enterprises.

The situation was so different after just one day, which caused a large number of people in Vienna to panic. People rushed to exchange their money from the bank, fearing that their money would also be lost along with the airport economic crisis.

However, this severe bank run crisis has only exacerbated the pressure faced by banks. What is more serious is that banks during this period are often less regulated by the government, and most of them are private small and medium-sized banks.

A bank of this size simply could not afford a bank run, so on the second day of the economic crisis, the residents of Vienna were horrified to discover a situation worse than corporate bankruptcies: a large number of banks also began to declare bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy of companies means that a large number of Viennese people have lost their jobs, while the bankruptcy of banks means that Viennese people have lost even their few savings. Unfortunately, due to the suddenness of this economic crisis and the huge impact it has caused, most Viennese people have suffered both.

In other words, more than half of the citizens of Vienna lost their jobs and their savings in two days and became penniless.

Although they still have houses, houses in this era are not valuable. Large cities were slowly formed during this period. Vienna's population was only close to one million, so housing prices naturally did not reach a high level.

What's more, the economic crisis has already arrived. No matter how high the housing prices are, it is impossible for anyone to use their own money to buy a house.

This also led to a fatal problem for a large number of Viennese people. They would have no source of income, and even their normal food, clothing and daily necessities became a huge problem.

Although the economic crisis first started on the Vienna Stock Exchange, it was impossible for other European countries to escape the disaster.

In less than a week, the economic crisis quickly swept through the stock exchanges of other countries, led by London and Paris, and even two small and medium-sized stock exchanges in Spain were affected to a certain extent.

"Carlo, is this the impact of the economic crisis?" Queen Sophie of Spain sat on the stool somewhat uncomfortably, holding in her hand a newspaper newly published by a local newspaper in Vienna.

Although she married to Spain, Queen Sophie was still very concerned about the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In order to let her know what happened in the Austro-Hungarian Empire every day, Carlo had people collect all kinds of news and newspapers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and transport them to Spain as quickly as possible.

For Carlo, whose assets have already exceeded 100 million, this small expense is a drop in the bucket and is not as important as making his queen Sophie smile.

It was precisely because Sophie paid attention to major events in the Austro-Hungarian Empire almost every day that the economic crisis that broke out in Vienna not long ago naturally could not be hidden from her ears.

"This is the law of capital development, and it is inevitable, Sophie." Carlo could only nod and explained to Sophie: "However, considering the economic size of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although this economic crisis is serious, the impact it causes will not be too bad.

If the government can respond in time, the impact on Austrians should be limited to an acceptable range. "

"Spain should not be affected, right? Do we need to prepare in advance?" Queen Sophie breathed a sigh of relief when she heard that the economic crisis would not have too serious an impact on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then began to care about Spain's response to this economic crisis.

"Don't worry, the impact of this economic crisis on Spain is minimal. Spain's economy and industry are not large and will not cause an economic crisis.

Even if we are affected by the economic crisis, it is still within the acceptable range and there is no need to worry at all." Carlo said with a smile.

The economic crisis had little impact on Spain, and the Spanish government and royal family had been preparing for this economic crisis for a long time.

The dozens of tons of gold reserves contributed by the Padmanabhaswamy Temple alone can ensure that Spain will not be greatly affected by this economic crisis.

Moreover, Spain's economic and industrial development was still quite healthy, and the reason why Vienna was so severely affected was largely due to the lack of management of the stock exchange and control of the banking industry.

Banks and construction companies that were opened purely for speculation are the most vulnerable in this economic crisis.

It was precisely because these castles in the air-like companies went bankrupt quickly that the impact of the economic crisis quickly swept across Vienna.

If there were fewer of these shell companies, the impact on Vienna would not be so serious. It was precisely because of the bankruptcy of a large number of companies that the panic in the hearts of the people of Vienna was aggravated, and an uncontrollable bank run occurred, which eventually led to the bankruptcy of the banks that could have maintained order.

This problem not only occurs in this era, but will also occur in future generations.

The financial industry is very profitable, but it is also very fragile. Whether a bank goes bankrupt can even be affected by a rumor. As long as enough people believe in the rumor that a bank is going to go bankrupt, causing a bank run crisis, the bank is likely to go bankrupt.

On the other hand, even if a bank faces problems with its capital chain, it will not face bankruptcy as long as there is no bank run.

There are only two ways to prevent this kind of bank run crisis. One is that the government plays a certain regulatory role on banks to ensure that the bank's funds are not overused and always retain a portion of funds for unexpected situations.

It was precisely because of the previous economic prosperity that a large number of banks used most of their funds to speculate and make profits.

When the economic crisis broke out, they had no way of getting funds from other places for their operations. What else could a bank without money do except go bankrupt?
In fact, just as Carlo said, as long as the Austro-Hungarian government responded in time, the impact of this so-called economic crisis would not be that serious.

At least it was not a devastating blow to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The countries with the fastest industrial expansion were the most affected.

Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire had good industry and economy, its development speed in the past decade was not even among the top five in the world.

No matter how you rank the fastest-growing countries in recent years, they are all Britain, the United States and Germany. The development speed of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is even behind that of the French. This is why the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not affected too seriously.

As expected, just as Carlo expected, the impact of the economic crisis was indeed serious for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it was only a week before the economic crisis broke out.

After those banks and construction companies that only knew how to make profits through speculation went bankrupt, most of the remaining ones were factories and enterprises that focused on industry.

Although these factories and enterprises are also facing a serious bankruptcy crisis, they at least have some foundation and can hold on longer.

They also waited for the assistance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On the second day of the economic crisis, the Austro-Hungarian government announced that it would use 3 million Rhine guilders to rescue the market, and give priority to helping some important and large factories and enterprises.

As long as these large factories and enterprises can survive, the various industries that have suffered losses due to this economic crisis will always have a chance to revive.

But if these large factories and enterprises go bankrupt during the economic crisis, it will not be easy to rebuild them in the future.

After the economic crisis in Vienna was temporarily stabilized, Germany and France became the next to suffer.

Among them, Germany is the most serious. After all, Germany's development speed in recent years is one of the fastest in Europe.

After receiving 50 billion francs in friendly aid from France, Germany's industrial expansion and railway construction speed were extremely fast.

50 billion francs is 2 million pounds, which is a huge amount of money for the British Empire. It was with this money that the Germans quickly industrialized the German Empire.

In addition, due to the integration of resources and industry in the entire German region, the German Empire quickly became an industrial power and economic powerhouse in Europe.

However, such an identity will not bring any benefits during the economic crisis. On the contrary, due to the recent rapid economic and industrial expansion, Germany will suffer a more serious economic crisis.

About ten days had passed since the outbreak of the economic crisis in Vienna, and its impact had already spread to the Berlin Stock Exchange.

On the day of the impact, many companies were facing a serious bankruptcy crisis. Fortunately, the German government had been prepared for more than ten days and announced a plan to save the stock exchange market on the day of the impact.

In addition, Germany's large-scale construction has only just started a few years ago, and it has not yet reached the situation like the United States where production far exceeds demand.

Under the effective control of the German government, the impact of the economic crisis on Germany is not too serious.

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