Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 183 Land Exchange
The total assets of the Spanish royal family's enterprises have exceeded 5 million pesetas, and the annual net profit is close to 1 million pesetas.

Carlo was quite satisfied with this, after all, the total assets of the enterprise did not include the value of the treasures obtained from the Indian temple. If the value of those treasures was added, the total assets of the Spanish royal family would be close to 10 billion pesetas.

The scale of these assets is certainly huge. If converted into the most valuable currency currently, the British pound, it would be approximately 3843.2 million pounds, or 281.7 tons of gold.

Apart from royal and imperial families with a long history such as the British royal family and the Habsburg family, there are few aristocratic families in Europe whose assets exceed Carlo.

Of course, most of the royal assets that appear to exceed 10 billion are real estate such as factories, businesses and land, as well as properties such as temple treasures that cannot be quickly converted into cash.

The royal family had less than 2 million pesetas, or just over 700 million pounds, in cash available for immediate use.

Although the Spanish royal family has become one of the richest royal families in Europe, this is not Carlo's ultimate goal. It is just a small achievement that Carlo has accomplished in the process of achieving his goal.

For a powerful king, money is something that can be easily obtained. It is not that having money is bad, but money does not represent everything. Power is more important than money.

Although Prime Minister Primo has allowed Carlo to have more access to government affairs, Carlo is not in a hurry to extend his hand to the cabinet government, but instead pays more attention to church affairs.

Religion still has considerable power in Spain. The history of the founding of Spain is also a history of blood and tears, telling the story of the brutal rule of the Arabs over Spain and the courageous resistance of Catholicism.

Spain completely drove the Arabs and Muslims out of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, after the Arabs had ruled the Peninsula for nearly 700 years.

The 700-year Muslim rule had a huge impact on the Iberian Peninsula, which made the de-Islamization process quite difficult.

During this process, the Catholic Church played an extremely important role, allowing the Catholic Church in Spain to gain considerable power and become the second largest force after the nobility.

Although the influence of the church has been greatly reduced in Spain today, the influence of religion cannot be eliminated. The Spanish Catholic Church is still a major force in Spain and has a high influence in the hearts of some fanatical Catholics.

Even in the future when science and technology are highly developed, people still believe in religion. Although some people are indeed atheists, there are also quite a few people who still believe in religion.

For Carlo, the Spanish Church is a power that must be controlled. The Church can brainwash believers and promote its own doctrines and dogmas.

If used well, the Catholic Church could become a sharp weapon in Carlo's hands, while strengthening his own rule and status.

At the Royal Palace of Madrid, Carlo met again Pedro, the current Chief Archbishop of the Spanish Church.

The archbishop, whose hair was already mixed with white, was very respectful when he met Carlo. He was a smart man, and he knew that after he bowed to Carlo last time, he no longer had the right to choose.

The Archbishop of Spain has officially become the Chief Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Spain. This position, like the Archbishop of Toledo, is appointed by the King of Spain.

This also meant that if Carlo was dissatisfied with him, he could appoint a new Spanish archbishop at any time to compete with him for the power of the Spanish Catholic Church.

Although the Archbishop of Toledo has a longer history and greater influence in Spain, the current church is ultimately at a disadvantage and it is impossible for it to win the power struggle against Carlo and the Spanish government.

"Your Majesty." Archbishop Pedro greeted Carlo very respectfully.

Carlo nodded and said with a smile, "Long time no see, Archbishop Pedro. How is the church doing recently?"

“Everything is fine, Your Majesty.” Archbishop Pedro nodded and replied respectfully to Carlo: “In Catalonia and the Basque Country, many Spanish schools have been successfully established, enrolling thousands of children and teenagers learning Spanish.

We are also vigorously promoting the use of Spanish, and we are striving to make Catalonia and the Basque Country two regions that only use Spanish in a short period of time. "

Carlo nodded, very satisfied with the church's cooperation. In some cases, the church does play a greater role than the government.

For example, if the government forcibly promotes the use of Spanish in these two regions, it will instead cause opposition from some Catalans and Basques.

However, if the Catholic Church's doctrine is modified through the church's means and the use of Spanish is expanded in a subtle way, it will not cause opposition from Catalans and Basques, but will effectively increase the local Spanish usage rate.

"That's good. I called you here for no other reason. I have decided to donate 500 million pesetas to the church in the name of the royal family for the construction of the new Iberian Cathedral. What is Archbishop Pedro's opinion?" Carlo asked with a smile.

As Carlo's newly created archbishop position, there must be a corresponding church. The church corresponding to the Spanish archbishop will be named Iberia Cathedral, located in the south of the Madrid region, north of Toledo.

It seemed that the royal family donated 500 million pesetas to the church for free for the construction of the church, but in fact, Carlo was reminding Archbishop Pedro that the church could only choose to submit to his rule at present, otherwise his position in the church would be replaced by others.

"Thank you, Your Majesty. On behalf of the Church, I thank Your Majesty and the royal family for their donation. May Spain become greater under your leadership, and the Church is willing to make a contribution to the greatness of Spain." Archbishop Pedro understood the meaning of Carlo's words, and he quickly stated his position and said very respectfully.

Carlo nodded, with a wider smile on his face: "If we want to make Spain great again, we can't do without the joint efforts of the government, the royal family, the church and all Spaniards.

Catholicism is the state religion of Spain, and this will never change and can never be changed. Archbishop Pedro, as the Archbishop of Spain and the Chief Bishop of the Spanish Catholic Church, you need to lead the church to cooperate with the government's actions and contribute to the development of Spain.

Of course, I will also remember your contribution to Spain. The royal family will not mistreat any country's heroes, and the church is definitely not just a sacrifice and contributor. The church should be the beneficiary of Spain's great achievements."

The core content of this conversation is actually very simple, which is to tell Archbishop Pedro that if the church cooperates with Carlo's rule, it will continue to maintain its position as the second largest force in Spain.

But if he did not cooperate with Carlo's rule, not only would Archbishop Pedro's own position be challenged, but even the church's position in Spain would no longer exist.

Fortunately, Archbishop Pedro was a very sensible person. He certainly understood the declining influence of the Spanish Catholic Church and naturally could not fight against the royal power and the government.

For Archbishop Pedro, instead of taking risks to fight for power with the king and the government, it is better to maintain the current power of the church and be an archbishop with little power but huge assets.

Carlo was very satisfied with Archbishop Pedro's understanding. In contrast, the Spanish nobility was not as sensible as Archbishop Pedro.

As the saying goes, there are all kinds of birds in a big forest. This is very appropriate to describe Spain's huge aristocracy.

Spain's population ranks last among the great powers, but the number of its nobles is not inferior to that of other European countries.

What’s even more terrible is that the Spanish nobles control a large amount of land in Spain, and some of the nobles with a long history hold more land than Carlo currently holds.

Precisely because they controlled a great deal of land, and due to historical reasons, some nobles did not have much support for Carlo, an outsider, and were even a little xenophobic.

Although there were some wise people like Duke Jacopo who expressed their support for Carlo from the beginning, most people remained on the sidelines, and there were even some nobles who secretly expressed their opposition.

Even at this point, when Carlo had already consolidated his throne and gained a certain amount of power, there were still a considerable number of nobles who remained outside Carlo's Royal Parliament.

The Royal Parliament was the institution that Carlo used to supervise the nobles. The fact that the nobles were outside the Royal Parliament meant that they were unwilling to be monitored by Carlo. Carlo had already made up his mind to deal with such a large noble class in Spain as soon as possible, at least to solve some of the problems.

The nobles owned too much land in Spain, and through this land they controlled a portion of the agricultural population and thus exerted their influence on the government.

If it were the mainstream Spanish nobility, it would be okay, but I am afraid of the Catalan and Basque nobles, who are one of the main sources of promoting regional autonomy.

Carlo absolutely could not accept that while holding Spanish land in his hands, he was secretly promoting autonomy for various regions of Spain.

Look at Spain in later times, the regions have become autonomous regions, which has greatly diverted the power of the Spanish government. Fortunately, Spain can still maintain its unified legal system through the monarchy, and the Spaniards make up the majority of the domestic population, which has barely maintained the stability and unity of the country.

But this still allowed the Catalans to take advantage of the loophole, and in the 21st century they even held a referendum to express their desire for independence.

It turns out that being lenient to these nobles and independentists is completely ineffective. If you give them autonomy, their next step will be to completely become independent from Spain.

Even among the Spanish nobility, corruption and other things that harm the country can breed. Carlo has no good feelings towards those nobles who do not stand with him. His only thought is to find a suitable opportunity and reason to deal with them.

Now is indeed a good time to colonize the plateau in the Congo River basin, at least to take back some land from the nobles.

How to reclaim the land?
Of course, it was through the exchange of Spanish land and land in the Congo River Basin. The Congo Territory was Carlo's property, so Carlo could certainly promote the exchange of land between the nobility and the royal family.

Spain's base is still the Iberian Peninsula. It will definitely be a good thing for the country's development if the government and the royal family have more land in the Iberian Peninsula.

It would not be a loss to exchange more Congolese land with the noble Carlo. After all, this land was originally obtained through colonization, and Carlo did not pay too much.

On the contrary, they could use the energy of the nobles to reclaim the land, speed up the colonization of the Congo River basin, and accelerate the construction of the Congo territory.

The nobles built a large number of plantations in the Congo River basin, which not only made full use of the local indigenous labor force, but also produced a large amount of agricultural crops and other cash crops to be shipped back to Spain, or shipped to other European countries and regions for sale.

This will not only promote Spain's economic development, but the land obtained by the royal family and the government can also be rented and sold to civilians, increasing the per capita arable land area in Spain, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

Of course, exchanging land is a long process. There is enough land in the Congo River Basin to exchange with the nobles, but this does not mean that the nobles are willing to exchange the Spanish land they have cultivated for many years for the uncultivated Congo land.

Even if they could exchange for several times more land, it would still take a long time to cultivate and fertilize the land. It was foreseeable that there would not be many nobles willing to exchange land in a short period of time, or even very few.

But why did Carlo think that this method could solve the problem of the nobles occupying most of the country's land? The main reason was that most of Spain's land was desert, and because of the many mountains, there were not many fertile plains that could be reclaimed into arable land.

Coupled with Spain's gradual industrialization, a large number of agricultural population were destined to move into cities and become workers or other employees.

As the agricultural population decreased, the value of the large tracts of land in the hands of the nobles became lower and lower. In addition, due to the geographical environment of Spain, most of the arable land was scattered here and there, making it difficult to carry out centralized mechanized agriculture.

Instead of doing this, it would be better to replace it with large tracts of contiguous Congolese land, employ local cheaper indigenous people as labor, and establish various crop plantations.

Coupled with a large amount of propaganda and certain guidance, many nobles will definitely be tempted to exchange Spanish land for more Congolese land.

As long as that day comes, the entire land exchange plan will be successful. The royal family and the government, who have acquired more land, can also better carry out industrialization and agricultural centralization and mechanization.

The whole process may take more than ten to twenty years to complete, but when the land exchange is almost complete and the Spanish land is centralized and mechanized, Spain's comprehensive national strength will be further improved.

If these arable lands were in the hands of peasants and nobles, the food they produced could feed at most 2500 million people. But if the land was centralized and mechanized, the food they produced could feed at least 5000 million people.

Together with the land of Portugal and Morocco, Spain will have no problem feeding a population of over 8000 million or nearly million people in the future with these three major regions.

These arable lands and grain production will also serve as Spain's capital to stand firm in the western Mediterranean and a guarantee for Spain to compete for regional hegemony.

In order to speed up the process, Carlo decided to make arrangements in advance. This was also inseparable from the efforts of newspapers and the church. After all, if he wanted to convince these Spanish nobles that Congo had a lot of fertile land, it would not be possible to convince them with just the words of the royal family.

Only when the church and newspapers publicized such things, and some nobles took the lead in entering Congo and made a fortune on plantations, would it arouse the interest of other nobles.

Fortunately, some nobles also surrendered to Carlo's rule, and the first noble to go to Congo to try out the new thing could be selected from among these more loyal nobles.

In fact, the nobles who exchanged Congo's land would not suffer any loss. Congo is an undeveloped land that can be reclaimed into a large amount of fertile arable land. In addition, Congo also has extremely rich mineral resources. The nobles will not lose money even if they come to this land and manage it with their toes.

After all, there were countless indigenous laborers here, and they were the kind of laborers who didn't need to be treated as human beings at all. The profits from exploiting these laborers were incomparable to those from farming in Spain.

"Archbishop Pedro, I believe you already know about the establishment of the Congo Territory?" Carlo, who had a full plan, looked back at Archbishop Pedro and asked with a smile.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Archbishop Pedro nodded and waited for Carlo's further instructions.

He knew that Carlo would not mention the Congo territory for no reason, there must be a specific mission.

Carlo continued: "After the exploration of the expedition team, it was found that the plateau in the upper reaches of the Congo is a fertile land that has not yet been cultivated. It has extremely rich mineral resources, a large number of natural rubber trees and other materials.

If the church is interested, I suggest that the church can organize people to reclaim the land in the Congo River Basin and establish plantations. They can also send missionaries to learn about this land. Believe me, this is an undeveloped land full of treasures. "Carlo said with a smile.

Although Carlo could also directly order the church to send people to reclaim the land along the Congo River, the people in the church might not be willing to do so.

Although they would not be so hypocritical as to pretend to obey, they would certainly be passive and lazy. It would be better to let the church personally understand the vastness and fertility of the land in the Congo River Basin, and let them go there voluntarily to cultivate the land and manage the Congo territory.

As long as it can promote the development of the Congo territory, Carlo can accept it. The church's desire to develop land in the Congo territory is certainly not free. For the fertile land in the Congo River Basin, they must also pay something, such as the less fertile arable land in Spain.

The secret actions of the church, coupled with the efforts of some nobles to take the lead and the propaganda of public opinion, will definitely attract the attention of most other nobles.

When they also noticed that the church and some nobles made a fortune in the Congo River Basin, they would naturally be tempted.

By then, there will be no need for Carlo to take the initiative. Naturally, there will be nobles who want to join in the development of the Congo territory through land exchange.

And through the sovereignty of the Congolese territory, Carlo can sit back and wait for the fish to take the bait.

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(End of this chapter)