Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 163 Current Situation in America
After hearing Gerard Wilson's report, Carlo was stunned for a moment, then looked at Gerard Wilson with satisfaction with a smile of joy, and said: "Minister Gerard Wilson, has Prime Minister Primo heard the report on the development plan of the education department?"

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

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

Carlo believed that he finally understood why Gerard Wilson had squeezed out the previous Education Secretary and joined the new cabinet government. This guy's ideas on education reform were indeed very advanced, and he probably received strong support from Prime Minister Primo.

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

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

For example, he originally had no plan to implement the so-called dual-track education. He thought it was enough to strengthen Spain's basic compulsory education and build more technical schools to train technical talents.

But since such a huge education budget has been obtained, dual-track education must be included in the plan list.

The benefit of the dual-track transaction is that it increases the training of technical talents, and can even do it from a young age. Technical talents who have completed basic technical education and advanced technical education are considered to be the truly scarce advanced technical talents in Spain.

As for those technical talents trained in technical schools for two or three years, at best they can only be regarded as solving the government's initial talent needs.

But in terms of the importance of talent, perhaps 10 junior technical talents are not as important as 1 senior technical talent. In some extremely important fields, even 100 junior technical talents are not as important as 1 senior technical talent.

Only when Spain completely solves the demand for high-level technical talents can it remove obstacles in 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 Gerard, if the education department encounters any difficulties in the reform, you can also come to me. I am looking forward to what surprises the education department can bring me in the second five-year plan. The royal family will never treat Spain's heroes unfairly, and I hope you are one of them. "

"Yes, Your Majesty." Gerard Wilson nodded 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 Gerard Wilson.

Although such a development plan is bound to consume a large amount of fiscal budget, but then again, how can a country that is unwilling to invest too much money in education be qualified to become stronger?

A country that values ​​education is not necessarily a strong country, but a strong country is definitely a country that values ​​education. Relying on the method of tapping talents from other countries is doomed to fail in the long run. First, other countries cannot allow us to tap talents as we please, and second, the loyalty of these tapped talents is ultimately a problem.

Only when we use the talents trained in our own country can we feel at ease. This is why Carlo agreed with Minister Gerard's plan for education reform without much thought.

If Spain wants to grow into a strong country, it must cultivate its own local talents. When Spain can meet the domestic high-level talent vacancies with its own education system, Spain can truly become strong.

It's a pity that Gerard Wilson is a Liberal. If he had chosen the Conservative Party, Carlo wouldn't mind pushing him to a higher position.

But then again, it is not certain that the Conservative Party will produce someone like Gerard Wilson who has long-term plans for education reform.

If the Conservative Party is not conservative, then there is no meaning for the Conservative Party to exist. Those who support reform and have more ideas about reform have already 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 continue to remain in the Conservative Party are the more conservative diehards who are not very willing to reform.

After Gerard Wilson, the new Minister of Industry, Canovas, and the Minister of Agriculture, Jovillar Soler, also asked to meet with Carlo to report on the layout of the two departments in the five-year development plan.

If the arrival of Education Minister Gerard Wilson was more of a surprise, then the arrival of Ministers Canovas and Jovillar was expected.

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

With a large number of enterprises and means of production 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.

Combined 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 sit back and reap the credit.

The Minister of Agriculture, Jovillar, is not much different. Although Spain does not have a large plain area, it is a major grain producer.

Besides, Spain's current agricultural situation does not need any major changes. It only needs to reclaim as much land as possible while maintaining the current grain production and increase Spain's fertilizer utilization rate, and grain production will naturally increase.

Moreover, the situation of Jovillar, the Minister of Agriculture, was much better than that of Canovas. The government had obtained large tracts of land from the nobility and the church, and after these lands were rented or sold to the people, the per capita arable land area in Spain also increased.

Although the contribution of the agricultural sector will certainly not be as great as that of the industrial sector, it is one of the cabinet departments after all, and the credit that Hovillar will receive in the future will not be small.

In addition, both of them are relatively young, and after gaining enough experience in the industrial and agricultural sectors, they will have opportunities to make further progress with Carlo's support.

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

After making sure that there were no problems with their development plans, Carlo also encouraged them both.

Before the European countries divided up Africa, Spain was 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 Viceroyalty of New Spain was the most extensive, encompassing not only Mexico and Central America, but also large swathes of the Midwest and South Coast of the United States.

The remaining three viceroyalties are all located in South America, and their combined area occupies more than half of the total area of ​​South America. It is no 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 no relationship with Spain anymore.

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 due to Spain's brutal colonial rule, many Americans do not have much good feelings towards Spain.

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 gained independence from Spanish colonial rule, the conflicts between the locals and Spain are no longer as intense.

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

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

Among the many countries in South America, Chile and Argentina are definitely the more famous ones. Although the Spanish colonies were divided into many countries, not many countries eventually became regional powers. In total, there are only two countries, Chile and Argentina.

The two countries are neighbors, and both are located in the southernmost part of South America, which can be regarded as a bad relationship. 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 their independence from Spain.

At that time, Chile and Argentina were both colonies of Spain, and the relationship between them was relatively good. After the two countries became independent, the territorial division between them was not so detailed, but the main body of the division was roughly determined to still follow the original colonial borders.

But how can the borders between countries be defined by fuzzy demarcation? When the two countries are not so powerful, such fuzzy border demarcation is actually not a big problem.

But when the two countries become increasingly powerful, and there is even a tendency for confrontation between them, the demarcation of the border between the two countries becomes particularly important.

Because some of the land in disputed areas may be strategically important buffer zones or strategic locations with precious resources.

Although the direct conflict between Chile and Argentina would have to wait for more than ten years in history, the relationship between the two countries had already gradually broken down by this time.

Although the good relationship between Chile and Argentina was gradually broken, Chile was 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 saltpeter mining.

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

Chile has the British as its backer, so it doesn't have to worry about problems with Argentina. But the Argentines are not in such a good mood.

Looking closely at Spain's colonial sphere in South America, Chile had already established connections with the British and was making a fortune 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 join forces to deal with Chile.

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

In addition, Argentina has an even more powerful neighbor, Brazil, to the north, which doubles the pressure on the Argentine government.

After much deliberation, the Argentine government finally decided that Argentina could not just sit there and wait for death. Brazil and Chile were becoming increasingly powerful, and if Argentina did not make significant progress, it would definitely fall behind in the competition in the future.

But who would Argentina cooperate with? The British were definitely out of the question, because the British valued Chile's saltpeter mines more.

Saltpeter can be used not only as munitions but also as fertilizer. In this era, saltpeter is an extremely important strategic resource. It is obviously impossible for the British to give up Chile's saltpeter, and therefore it is impossible for them to give up Chile.

After a round of inspection by 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 to attract these powers. Apart from the vast black soil, Argentina seemed to have nothing else to attract people.

Finally, the Argentine government turned its attention to its former colonizer, Spain. Apart from anything else, Spain's overall national strength is obviously stronger than any other country in the Americas (excluding the United States).

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

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

In recent years, the trend of Argentina getting closer to Spain has been growing louder and louder, and is even about to take shape.

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 at the same time using Spain as much as possible to enhance Argentina's strength in order to cope with the competition in South America that may become more intense 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 started 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, a diplomatic request from the Argentine government came, and the smile on Prime Minister Primo's face became even more intense.

Of course, it was Prime Minister Primo who spread the idea of ​​some people in South American countries to strengthen ties with Spain.

What Spain can currently utilize are these former colonies, which still have a considerable population. By absorbing a certain amount of population every year, they can contribute to Spain's population growth.

Of course, more importantly, these American countries united together to form a force. If Spain could regain control of these American countries, or strengthen its ties with them, it would also be beneficial to itself.

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

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

They don’t even take their Mediterranean neighbor, Italian Prime Minister Primo seriously, let alone the United States, a country that was once just a colony of theirs.

In fact, the independence of the United States is less than a hundred years old. The Independence Day of the United States was on July 1776, 7. So far, it has only been 4 years since independence.

Spain's colonial rule in the Americas lasted far longer than 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 century, Europeans' contempt for the United States will not disappear.

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

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

Today, Britain is the empire on which the sun never sets, while the United States is only ranked ahead of Italy in the European media's ranking of superpowers.

You know, it was less than ten years since Italy was unified, and Italy's predecessor, the Kingdom of Sardinia, 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 the Americans launched the Spanish-American War, they persuaded the Spanish government to sell the Cuban colony to them for $1.5 million.

However, European countries have a long history of discrimination against the United States, and the proud Spanish government naturally would 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 income to the Spanish government, Cuban independence activists also made Spain pay a huge price to maintain its rule.

At that time, 1.5 million US dollars was close to 8 million sterling. As long as the Spanish government agreed to the American deal, it would be a sure win.

Using 8 million pesetas to develop African colonies, even if it is just to strengthen Spain's military power, is definitely better than defending Cuba.

It’s a pity that European countries’ discrimination against the United States is heartfelt, which led to Spain ignoring the Americans’ requests even in its weakest stage.

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(End of this chapter)