Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 171 1875 (Main text plus three chapters in one)

Time can never be stopped. When people are busy, time will speed up.

The second half of 1874 was quite busy for the Spanish government. Time passed quickly and soon it was 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 its first prince or princess, and Carlo is in a very good mood.

Charles and Queen Sophie got married in 1872, so why didn’t they conceive their first child until late 1874?

The biggest reason was Carlo's protection of Queen Sophie. The production conditions of this era were not so developed, and having a child 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 appropriate time to become pregnant.

Queen Sophie's pregnancy was no small 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, sent a telegram personally, his words full of joy and happiness, and said that he would come to Spain in person after the child was born.

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

Judging 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 the center of attention in the future.

Whether they are princes or princesses, they can receive the love and favor of the royal families of three countries, and are one step ahead of most people from the moment they are born.

Carlo is also very excited about the upcoming birth of his baby.

Although it has been several years since he traveled to this world, Carlo does not have a strong sense of belonging to this world.

The prospect of having his own child also made Carlo's sense of belonging to this world continue to grow. If Carlo's previous goal was just to make Spain a powerful country, like playing a game to complete his own goals, then Carlo's current goal is to create better conditions for his descendants and let them have an extremely powerful Spanish Empire.

Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young and will definitely have more children in the future. Whether they are princes or princesses, Carlo will make good arrangements for them.

Even if they lack the ability, they can ensure that they can live a safe and stable life as an extremely wealthy noble and live happily.

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

As time entered 1875, Spain was about to enter a new era.

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

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

The second is to turn your attention to 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.

Further east, there are still large tracts of blank land on the island of New Guinea, and the disadvantage is that it has to compete with the Netherlands, Britain and even Germany for colonies.

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

However, New Guinea is ultimately a backup option. The primary task of the Spanish East Indies colony is to occupy more territory 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.

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

As time went by, Carlo's royal power became increasingly consolidated.

The most obvious point is that Prime Minister Primo has paid more and more attention to Carlo's attitude. If Carlo clearly opposes certain places, Prime Minister Primo may 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 start to compete, perhaps both sides will suffer losses.

After all, Prime Minister Primo supported the monarchy, and the reason why the Kingdom of Spain can continue to exist is largely due to Prime Minister Primo's efforts.

Carlo had a respectful attitude towards Prime Minister Primo. Although competition between royal power and prime ministerial power was inevitable, Prime Minister Primo did do a lot for Spain.

Even the reason why Carlo's royal power expanded to such an extent was closely related to Prime Minister Primo's concession.

If Prime Minister Primo had been more ambitious at the time, Carlo might not have been able to gain such high power.

Judging from the situation of the Spanish government at the time, Prime Minister Primo could sideline Carlo at any time and even turn him 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 Primo was born in this era, and 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 yielded certain results. The first five-year development plan was a complete success, and the second five-year development plan is also progressing smoothly.

If nothing unexpected happens, Prime Minister Primo will be able to retire after the end of 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 story that will be passed down in Spain for a long time.

This is not an exaggeration, and there are even newspapers that are currently promoting such things.

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

The reason for this news is also related to the slogan put forward by Carlo at the time: "Make Spain great again!"

The public has sharp eyes, and they can certainly tell whether a country is developing in a good direction. Spain is not strong at present, but for the Spanish, 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 1875, 1, 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 joyful smile on his face.

Carlo had anticipated Spain's great advance in 1874.

After all, if so many things are purchased from abroad, the improvement that these things bring to Spain will be huge. 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 number of railways built in 1874 alone exceeded the total number of railways built by Spain in the two years from 1870 to 1871.

Carlo took the report form naturally, without showing much expression on his face, and carefully read the contents of the report.

Not long after, Carlo showed a satisfied smile and began to relax.

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

Before 1874, Spain could only be described as a country in ruins and an extremely weak great power. It was even hard to say whether it was a great power at all.

But after the end of 1874, Spain's existing industrial and economic scale and military size determined that it was a powerful country.

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

The US does have a large industrial and economic scale, and a larger population, but it is not a military power at present, even after the Civil War.

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, the total size of the U.S. Army was only more than 20,000. 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 was able to train some elite soldiers, but more than ten years have passed now, and it is unknown how much combat effectiveness these elite soldiers can still maintain.

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

The unification of Italy had a lot to do with Garibaldi. Garibaldi's Red Shirts were the truly powerful Italian army, but this army was not controlled by the Italian government.

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

Even if Garibaldi himself had no ambitions or ideas, the Redwood Army was a powerful army that was so terrifying that it was impossible for the Italian government not to take precautions.

Compared with Italy, Spain did not have this problem. The revolutionary army that had rebelled against Queen Isabel had been reorganized into the Royal Government Army, which was then reformed into the new Royal Army, which was under the control of the Spanish government. Naturally, no one was worried.

Back to the topic, how fast was Spain developing in 1874?

Spain has made significant progress in industry thanks to the industrial equipment it has purchased.

Industry Minister Canovas had already reported this to Carlo in advance and received praise and encouragement from 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 election of the next cabinet government.

This concerns the rotation of the cabinet government after Prime Minister Primo retires, and Carlo attaches great importance to it.

Don't forget that the largest party in Spain is the Progressive Party, although under the leadership of Prime Minister Primo, the Progressive Party has not shown an overly radical 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 someone else?
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 rather radical guy, but it was only because of his strong support for reform and his prestige in the revolutionary army that Prime Minister Primo appointed him Minister of Industry.

While serving as Minister of Industry, Ruiz demonstrated great ability and firmly secured his position as the second-in-command of the Progressive Party.

After Canovas became Minister of Industry, Ruiz completely stood on the opposite side of Carlo. Although he did not explicitly oppose Carlo's kingship, his attitude was quite clear, 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 battle for the prime ministership will most likely be between Ruiz and Canovas.

Of course, if Archduke Serrano wanted to run for prime minister, he could be considered one.

Currently, there are only these three people who are qualified to run for prime minister in Spain. Apart from them, the prestige of others is indeed a little lower, and prestige may not necessarily be able to suppress others.

In 1874 alone, the total scale of Spain's industry increased by about 1873% compared to 30.

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

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

The increase of nearly one third in just one year was due not only to the purchase of industrial equipment and means of production from various countries during the economic crisis, but also to the government's increased investment in the industrial sector.

With so much money being invested, 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 industries in various countries. The current situation is that as long as the Spanish government is willing to spend money, the scale of industry can be greatly improved.

There is good news and bad news for this. The good news is that a lot of the production equipment and production materials purchased have not been used.

Once these equipment and means of production are fully utilized, Spain's industrial scale can be further expanded.

The bad news was that in 1874 the Spanish government had incurred too much expenditure and that this level of financial support would only last for one year.

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

Therefore, after 1875, the industrial sector could only rely on itself except for the purchased industrial equipment and means of production. It was impossible to rely on the government for more money.

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

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

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

According to public opinion among workers, workers in the royal enterprises are relatively satisfied with Carlo and the royal enterprises. After all, Carlo provides them with more generous compensation and other benefits than private enterprises. While private enterprises in Spain still adhere to the 11-hour work system, the royal enterprises and some government enterprises have announced that all their companies will implement a -hour work system.

This is not the ten-hour work system promoted by European countries, but a ten-hour work system that is strictly enforced 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 and work overtime.

In Spain's royal enterprises, this kind of voluntary participation is not seen at all. Even the most ordinary employees can enjoy a ten-hour work system plus two days off per month.

This also means that the royal family's enterprises face a very hot scene every time they recruit. Employees of royal enterprises work fewer hours and their income is higher than that of some private enterprises.

Every worker who is able to enter the royal enterprise has nothing but gratitude and love for Carlo. After all, they know who provides their current working environment.

In the royal family’s enterprises and factories, large-scale discussions, exchanges and group activities are organized every once in a while.

This not only allowed the workers to relieve their work fatigue, but also provided an opportunity to have heart-to-heart talks with them and subtly brainwash them so that they would accept the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism.

It is easy to brainwash the existing workers in Spain. Since Carlo was crowned King of Spain, their wages and working conditions have been continuously improving.

They were not opposed to the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism. After all, Carlo's arrival did make their living environment better, which was an irrefutable fact.

Thanks to the efforts of many workers and the Spanish government, Spain's industry has achieved tremendous development.

By the end of 1874, Spain's annual steel production had exceeded 20 tons, a goal that was also planned by the industrial sector at the time.

Pig iron production is even higher, approaching 60 tons. The construction of railways has increased the demand for steel in Spain, and steel mills have been continuously established in industrial bases and expanded rapidly.

It is worth mentioning that of Spain’s total steel production of more than 80 tons, the royal family’s steel mills contributed more than a quarter of the output.

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

The royal family's steel mills are spread all over Spain, the largest of which is the Royal Barcelona Steel Plant built in the Barcelona industrial base.

However, the scale of the Royal Seville Steel Plant and the Royal Madrid Steel Plant is not much different. These steel plants together contribute nearly 20 tons of steel production and are also an important part of the royal family's industrial layout.

Carlo no longer has a concrete idea of ​​the current size of the Spanish royal family's assets.

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 it is impossible to make detailed statistics.

The assets of these steel mills alone amounted to tens of millions of pesetas, and the annual revenue they generated exceeded tens of millions, which was simply unimaginable for the royal family of the past.

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

Together with the two major banks and agricultural companies and enterprises, the annual income these enterprises bring to the royal family is close to 1 million pesetas.

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

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

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

The export price of coal from European countries is already almost the same as the mining price of Spanish coal, so there is no need for additional mining.

After all, there are not many coal reserves in Spain, so we should use them sparingly. When the price difference between the two is not much, Carlo prefers to import coal from abroad rather than mine coal in Spain.

The government work report that Prime Minister Primo handed to Carlo contained nearly a hundred pages, and the content submitted by the industrial department alone took up dozens of pages.

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

The royal family actually has a lot of credit for the tremendous achievements made by the industrial sector.

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

After a long period of decline, the largest dock left at the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard was only capable of building medium and large warships of 6200 tons.

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

The shipyard is very important for Spain's future naval expansion, and Carlo 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 large amount of money, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard has two giant docks that can build 7500-ton ships, and a large dock for building -ton medium and large warships.

If it took Spain two to three years to build an ironclad ship before, now with the construction of two 2-ton-class shipyards starting at the same time, it would only take one and a half years to build an ironclad ship of nearly 3 tons.

Of course, this is not something that can be accomplished simply by adding more. The Royal Guarnizo Shipyard needs more skilled workers and related warship designers and engineers. There is a greater demand for talent, and senior talent is extremely scarce.

Fortunately, the royal family purchased a shipyard in the UK during the economic crisis. By taking in some of the outstanding talents from this shipyard, they were able to alleviate the talent gap at the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

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

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

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

Of course, compared with the tremendous achievements of the industrial sector, the education sector is more like a partial achievement achieved through steady and solid efforts.

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 in Spain since the implementation of literacy education.

As for the reasons, 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 lives of Spaniards today are much better than before the revolution, so there is naturally no need for these children and young people who should be going to school to continue working in factories.

Because of this, Spain’s illiteracy rate has officially dropped below 40%, or below 39% to be exact.

Although there is no very precise ratio, it is certain that the illiterate group in Spain is less than 700 million, and most Spaniards have received simple education.

As the literacy work progresses, the difficulty of literacy is also decreasing. At the beginning, Spain was 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 educated and culturally talented people can be found everywhere in small villages and towns.

Those who have not received an education either stay in factories to do hard labor to earn money, or do agricultural work. They really don’t have much time to receive an education.

Although the continuous decrease in the number of illiterate people is a good thing, as the literacy work progresses, it will sooner or later reach a bottleneck period.

After all, not all illiterate people can receive education. Some are the elderly and children, while others are family breadwinners who have to go out to earn money.

After their busy work, these people really don’t have the 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 the 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 was able to proceed so smoothly was that Spain did not receive too many immigrants during this period.

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

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

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

Currently, all universities in Spain enroll more than 7000 students each year.

Moreover, compared with the situation at the beginning when there were less than 1000 talents choosing physics and chemistry-related majors, Spanish universities now attach great importance to majors related to physics and chemistry.

According to statistics from the education department on the number of admissions to each university, among the more than 1874 college students enrolled in these universities in 7000, the number of college students who applied for majors such as mathematics, physics and chemistry exceeded 3000.

The number of college students majoring in construction engineering also exceeds one thousand. After all, Spain still needs college students majoring in construction engineering during its stage of rapid development.

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

At that time, students preferred to apply for literature and art, which led to the fact that most universities in Spain were related to literature and art, followed by construction engineering and medical fields.

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

Carlo’s attitude towards universities is also very simple, that is, Spanish universities should train 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 universities in one's own country only think about cultivating talents for other countries, then what is the point of having 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 only been established for a few years, but it has already become one of the most famous universities in Spain.

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

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

At present, the Royal Academy of Sciences alone trains a lot of mathematical, physical and chemical talents for Spain every year. Most of them are practical experimental talents, and there are also many talents who focus on theory, which are all lacking in Spain.

To help gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds, Carlo established Royal Bursaries at all Spanish universities.

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

Currently, there are only more than 2000 students enrolled in all universities in Spain, and the Royal Scholarship Fund established by Carlo can provide more than 100 scholarships every year. The amount of each scholarship is more than pesetas, which is equivalent to more than half a year's salary for an ordinary Spaniard.

In reality this is not much, and the annual cost of all scholarships is only 20 pesetas.

But this brought Carlo great fame. After all, one in ten college students can get a scholarship, so the probability is quite high.

Although Carlo has the ability to provide financial aid to most or even every college student, doing so is not a good thing.

Scholarships can only help some poor college students, but they also help everyone understand the value of scholarships.

If most people have it, then naturally no one will cherish the scholarship. After all, what is not available is the most valuable, and only a few people can get the scholarship, which can also reflect the preciousness of the scholarship and the kindness of Carlo who provides the scholarship.

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 provides additional subsidies for the three meals a day of college students. 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 the university.

The university student group is still relatively important to Spain. Through the means of scholarships and meal subsidies at university, these university students can be made to have a favorable impression on the royal family and Carlo.

Some of these college students will rise to high levels of national leadership in the future, and some will enter all walks of life and hold various positions.

But no matter what their future holds, as long as they have a favorable impression of Carlo in college, they will be more likely to support Carlo’s rule in the future.

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(5600 words of the main text in two chapters plus 3000 words of additional chapters, a total of 8600 words, begging for support!)
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(End of this chapter)