Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 180 Congo Territory Established
The birth of Juan Fernando Jr. was the final step for Carlo to integrate into the world.

After having his own children, Carlo gained a sense of recognition for the world and was truly willing to work hard for himself, his wife and children, all his family members, and all Spaniards.

Making Spain great again will no longer be a slogan, but a goal that must be achieved, a milestone that concerns the royal family's own interests.

During the first month after little Juan Fernando was born, Carlo was almost always by Queen Sophie and the little one's side.

Queen Sophie's body also recovered under the careful care of Carlo and the servants. This is also the advantage of natural childbirth, that is, recovery is faster.

But even though he had recovered, Carlo wouldn't be stupid enough to rush into doing something happy with Sophie after just one month.

Anyway, Carlo has two little maids to enjoy, so Queen Sophie's health will naturally be restored first.

For the development of the Spanish royal family, the more children Carlo has, the better. This will not only prevent the royal family from facing extinction one day in the future, but also allow the royal family to expand and control more important positions through some royal family members.

The royal family’s current assets amount to hundreds of millions of pesetas. As long as there is no reckless extravagance, it is impossible to squander all of this wealth.

Under such circumstances, the more children Carlo has, the more people will be able to effectively manage these properties. Compared with outsiders, it is obviously more reassuring to have capable royal family members controlling these companies.

Even in some cases, Spanish princes still had the opportunity to become kings of other countries through king elections, allowing the Savoy dynasty to spread to more countries.

If the House of Savoy was just an ordinary royal family in northern Italy before, the House of Savoy now owns two major powers, Italy and Spain, and has become one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Europe.

Although it is not as famous as the Habsburgs and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha families with a long history, it is already well-known among the European royal families.

The birth of Juan Fernando Jr. seemed to have brought good luck to Carlo. Spain's colonization of the Congo region became very smooth. In a short period of time, the colonial outposts expanded to more than 150, almost covering the discovered fertile Congo Plateau.

The good news is that this plateau upstream of the Congo River is very suitable for growing food and has certain development value.

There are currently nearly a thousand Spaniards living here. If the army is included, there are almost 3000 people living near the Congo Plateau.

The railway that runs through the Baka people has been completed, which greatly facilitates the transportation of supplies from the Guinea colony to the Congo Plateau.

After discussions, Manuel, the head of the Spanish colonial force sent to Congo and the commander of the garrison stationed in Congo, both agreed that Congo now had the conditions to establish a territory, that Spain's sovereignty over Congo was deeply rooted, and that other countries could not deprive it of its sovereignty, nor could they refute the fact that Spain had occupied Congo.

When the news reached Spain, Prince Juan Fernando was exactly one and a half months old.

Because an agreement has been reached with the government on how to deal with the Congo region, and the colonization of Congo is currently going smoothly.

Therefore, after consultation with the cabinet government, Carlo decided to make public Spain's rule and sovereignty over Congo as soon as possible, and to establish the Congo Territory directly under Carlo's rule.

On July 1875, 7, the Spanish government officially announced that Spain had established more than 14 colonial outposts in the upper reaches of the Congo River, officially completing the occupation of the upper Congo River plateau.

Spain will establish the Congo territory based on these more than 100 colonial outposts, and the territory will be ruled by King Carlo of Spain.

This news once again made the front-page headlines in Spain, second only to the birth of Carlo's eldest son a month and a half ago.

Of course, this is in Spain. Outside of Spain, this news was even more popular than the birth of Carlo's son. It was not only closely watched by royal families of various countries, but also caused discussions among many Europeans.

The Spanish were naturally happy to see this. Although the establishment of the Congo Territory had little to do with them, who wouldn't want to see their country expand its territory and its land area become larger and larger?

Besides, establishing colonies is also beneficial to the Spaniards to a certain extent.

The establishment of colonies meant that the Spanish government could obtain a large amount of cheap raw materials from the colonies and could also make rational use of the local indigenous people. After all, this was hard-earned free labor.

Although the Spanish government abolished slavery long ago, what was the difference between these local natives and slaves if they were given a certain amount of food and extremely low wages?

It's just a nice-sounding name, but for those capitalists, they have countless ways to exploit these natives and make them their free labor.

Perhaps the country that was most shocked by Spain's establishment of the Congo territory was Portugal, which had already occupied the Kingdom of Congo for a long time.

It is completely correct to say that Portugal is the country closest to Congo. Even Portugal's West African colonies were established by seizing land from the Kingdom of Congo.

Going down the river from the newly established Congo territory of Spain, at the estuary, you can see the long-declined Kingdom of Kongo and Portugal's West African colonies.

The Portuguese were shocked and even puzzled that Spain was able to establish territory in the upper reaches of the Congo River without telling them.

The Portuguese didn't even know when the Spanish discovered the land upstream of the Congo River. After all, they had been operating in Congo for a long time and had not been able to go deep into the Congo River to discover new land.

You must know that at that time, the European countries' colonial progress in Africa was only a negligible percentage, and there was only one real large colony, which was the Cape Colony established by the British in South Africa.

Apart from the Cape Colony, Portugal's colonies in West Africa, such as West Africa and Mozambique, were mostly simple colonies formed by the union of some coastal outposts.

Apart from these areas, European countries' colonial expansion into Africa basically remained near the coast, or in a few excellent ports.

There are many reasons for this, the first and most important of which is the various viruses and diseases on the African continent. These viruses blocked the explorers’ steps and indirectly prevented the mineral resources and fertile land of the African continent from being discovered by European colonists.

There is also the difficulty of colonizing the African continent, and the fact that a considerable part of Africa is not really worth colonizing.

In addition, the population of European countries has not yet experienced a blowout growth, which ultimately led to the fact that European countries' colonial development of Africa has remained at a relatively preliminary scale. Almost no European country has colonized deep into the African continent. After all, this is not cost-effective in the eyes of most people.

Take the Spanish colonization of Congo as an example. Although Spain gained a large piece of land, the price it paid was also not small.

Whether it was forming an exploration team or building a railway and a colonial outpost, Carlo's expenses were not low. The subsequent maintenance of the Congo territory also required a steady stream of expenses. For a long time, the income brought by the Congo territory was negative growth and would be in a state of loss for a long time.

This situation may not improve until the mineral resources in the interior of Congo are developed on a large scale and transported to the port by rail.

Fortunately, the railway from Congo to the Guinea colony has been almost completed, and perhaps it will take only a few years for the Congo colony to bring positive benefits to the royal family.

Italy and Austria-Hungary successively expressed congratulations on Spain's establishment of the Congo territory. Because of the kinship between the two countries and the Spanish royal family, the Italian and Austro-Hungarian governments were also in a honeymoon period with the Spanish government and their relations were relatively close.

In addition, the Congo River Basin had no interests in either country, so their congratulations to Spain were sincere. In particular, the royal families of Italy and Austria-Hungary, Vittorio Emanuele II and Franz Joseph I, both sent personal congratulatory messages, clearly supporting Spain's establishment of the Congo territory.

In fact, other countries did not have much reason to oppose the establishment of the Congo Territory, because Spain had indeed established more than 150 colonial outposts, and there was sufficient evidence to prove that Spain was the first explorer and colonizer to arrive in this land.

Under such circumstances, it was difficult for other countries to interfere with Spain's colonial activities. After all, the people closest to this area were the Portuguese, but even the Portuguese had not discovered this land.

The remaining countries are farther away than the other. What can they do? Are they going to travel thousands of miles to interfere with Spain’s colonization?
Even the British, who had always been wary of Spain, remained silent after Spain announced the establishment of the Congo territory.

For the British, the Congo Territory is not a very important matter for the time being. Even if this land has many resources and a large area of ​​arable land that can be developed, it will take a long time to develop and utilize.

Perhaps after Spain has fully developed this land, the British will be able to obtain it through other means, or get a share of it.

The British did not take this seriously, and as a younger brother of the British, Portugal naturally had no way to deal with it.

More importantly, Portugal has just reached some cooperation with Spain not long ago, which also makes them helpless against Spain.

King Louis I of Portugal had no choice but to intensify his colonial efforts in Congo, trying to control as much of the land in the lower reaches of the Congo River as possible within Portugal's West African colonies before the Spanish colonial forces moved south.

After the announcement of the establishment of the Congo Territory, Spain's colonial development of Congo has become apparent.

Almost on the same day, the Spanish government dispatched more colonial troops and construction teams to help the newly established Congo territory build more complete railways and strengthen the connection between the Congo territory and the Guinea colony.

Because the Congo Territory is located on the African continent, its access to the sea still depends on the port of the Guinea colony. This also makes the railway from Guinea to the Congo Territory a very important transportation route. Before the railway from the Congo Territory to the Congo River estuary is built, the railway here will directly affect the survival of the Congo Territory.

At least in the short term, the Congo territory cannot achieve self-sufficiency and needs to transport large amounts of supplies from the outside world to make up for the consumption of the colonists in the colonial outposts.

Fortunately, there are also many local indigenous tribes, and these indigenous people can also serve as free labor to help Spain better develop local land.

After the establishment of the Congo Territory, this vast plateau land in the upper reaches of the Congo River became the territory that truly belonged to Kalo.

However, Carlo did not have the same brutal ideas as the Belgian King Leopold II in history. Belgium could not control such a large land as Congo, which led to the Belgian royal family's policy with only one theme, that is, to exploit Congo in every possible way and make profits from the land of Congo and ship them back to Belgium.

But for Carlo, Spain had enough power to control Congo. At least before the complete collapse of the colonial system, Spain had enough time to control the land and manage some areas worth developing.

When developing these areas, the local indigenous population was still very useful. They were natural free labor and could help Spain build railways more efficiently, reclaim farmland, and mine local mineral resources.

They could even transfer the hatred of the local indigenous peoples to some of the indigenous peoples with vested interests by having the indigenous peoples manage the indigenous peoples, thereby reducing the hatred of the local indigenous peoples towards the Spaniards.

But then again, no matter what the policy for developing Congo is, the ultimate beneficiaries are only the Spanish.

These local indigenous people will be forever excluded from the borders of Spain, and they will never be able to become Spanish citizens.

For Carlo, once these natives have exhausted all their available value, it will be time for Spain to abandon them without hesitation.

In order to prevent Spain from being stained with ink one day in the future, Carlo can only start with himself, resolutely preventing black people from entering Spain and resolutely preventing the Iberian Peninsula from being stained with ink.

Almost on the same day that the Congo territory was declared established, Spain once again strengthened its naval construction.

Of course, what is being built this time are not ironclad ships of several thousand tons or even nearly ten thousand tons, but auxiliary warships of varying tonnages, which are used to form an ocean-going fleet with ironclad ships as the main combat force.

After the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard took over the civilian shipyard purchased from the United Kingdom, it had sufficient design drawings and relevant information on these small and medium-sized warships.

这次主要建造的辅助型军舰，包括7艘标准排水量1250吨的近海巡逻舰，3艘标准排水量超过3300吨的巡洋舰以及1艘标准排水量4750吨的主力巡洋舰。

Among them, the offshore patrol ships and cruisers are relatively conventional. Although the design refers to the British ideas, it is generally still the mainstream construction concept of European countries.

The only special one is the main cruiser with a displacement of 4750 tons. Although it is called a cruiser, it is actually no different from some smaller ironclad ships.

However, this cruiser gave up a certain armor thickness. While having a smaller tonnage, it was equipped with shipborne main guns of the same caliber as the Fuxing-class ironclad ship, making its firepower at the same level as the ironclad ship.

Such a cruiser is fully capable of joining the main fleet in a decisive battle, and can even play a certain role in a naval decisive battle with its powerful firepower equivalent to that of an ironclad ship.

In addition to these three types of auxiliary warships worth mentioning, there are also several hundred tons of coastal gunboats, inland patrol boats, etc., which need no further explanation and are almost a necessity for the fleet.

The good news is that because the tonnage of these warships is not large, even if a total of 11 warships of thousands of tons are built, the overall cost is only slightly more expensive than building an ironclad ship.

This is also one of the reasons why ironclad ships are expensive. After all, a fleet cannot be formed by relying on only one ironclad ship. A large number of warships for other purposes are also needed to form a mixed fleet formation.

The news that Spain started building warships again became popular in China for a while, but received little attention abroad.

After all, these are auxiliary warships to support the ironclad ships. After building the ironclad ships, Spain will definitely build these small warships for other uses.

However, after that, the Spanish Navy completely stabilized its position in the top five in the world. Although it is impossible to improve to fourth, the fifth place in the world also proves Spain's previous foundation.

Carlo certainly would not be satisfied with the current achievements of the Spanish Navy. According to the scale of Spain's existing colonies, the current fleet size certainly could not meet Spain's actual needs.

The mainland and the southern Moroccan colonies can share a fleet, but it can only cover these two regions. It is difficult for the mainland fleet to exert influence on Cuba, which is separated by the Atlantic Ocean, or Guinea and Congo, which are separated by half of Africa.

Not to mention the Philippines, which is almost halfway around the world. If the Philippines was not so big before, the Spanish government would not have paid so much attention to it.

But now, the East Indies colony has gained a foothold in Kalimantan, and will even begin plans to colonize New Guinea.

This also made the East Indies urgently need a small-scale fleet to protect the safety of the colonial coast, while also better helping the colonies in colonial development and defending against the British and Dutch in the area.

By this calculation, Spain needs at least two fleets to meet actual needs. However, given Spain's current financial capacity, it is already a bit difficult to maintain a fairly large fleet, and the real naval expansion may have to wait for several years.

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(End of this chapter)