Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 207 Ironclad Ship Launching

When people learned through various means that Carlo was going to organize a bullfighting competition in the new year, they immediately cheered, and some Spaniards who loved bullfighting were even more excited about it.

There is no doubt that the Spanish people love bullfighting. During the bullfighting season from March to October, almost every bullfighting show is packed.

Someone once commented on the Spanish people's love for bullfighting: "Spanish people can be late for any event, but bullfighting is not one of them."

This statement is not an exaggeration, especially in several southern regions of Spain, such as Andalucia.

As the most populous region in Spain, Andalusia has the most bullrings and the most fanatical bullfighting fans in Spain.

Generally, excellent bullfighters can be rewarded with the bull's ears and tail. In the bullrings in the Andalusia region, bullfighters who are popular with the audience can not only circle the arena, but also pass through the "Prince's Gate" of the bullring under the enthusiastic cheers and witnesses of the audience.

Although such rewards attract bullfighters from all over Spain, it is not easy to qualify to pass through the "Prince's Gate".

There are three matadors and six bulls in a bullfight, and each matador has two chances to fight the bull.

In order to qualify to pass through the "Prince's Gate", the bullfighter must win the favor of the audience in two bullfighting performances and obtain at least three bull ears and a bull tail to have the opportunity to pass through the "Prince's Gate".

It is true that bullfighting is extremely harmful. The reason why Spanish people worship bullfighters is that bullfighters dare to face the great risks in the process of bullfighting.

The bulls used in bullfighting arenas are wild bulls of pure bloodlines, generally healthy adult bulls with violent temperaments selected from North Africa.

Because their hot tempers and aggressive nature are not the result of human training, these bulls are extremely dangerous, making bullfighting an activity with a very high probability of casualties.

It is foreseeable that as Carlo promotes bullfighting across Spain, the number of Spaniards killed in bullfighting each year will increase at an extremely fast rate, reaching hundreds or even thousands in a short period of time.

But these shortcomings are acceptable to Carlo because bullfighting can also bring more benefits to Spain.

Without considering external factors such as weapons and equipment, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army is not bad among the great powers, and is still stronger than Russia and Italy.

With the influence of bullfighting on the bravery of the Spanish people, Carlo was confident that he could form a Spanish army with first-class or even top combat effectiveness in Europe.

With a smaller population than other European powers, all Spain could do was to improve the combat effectiveness of its army as much as possible in order to barely compete with other powerful countries.

As November approaches, Spain has received another piece of good news: the previously built Renaissance-class ironclad ship Renaissance is about to be launched.

This news also attracted the attention and cheers of the Spaniards, and became a sensation throughout Spain in a short time.

Spain did not hide the construction of this ironclad ship. Instead, the Ministry of Defense made the warship procurement plan public, and it was built openly by the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard.

The reason why it is completely public is to arouse the attention of the Spanish people and enhance the pride of the Spanish people.

Originally, according to the construction time given by the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, the construction of the Fuxing ironclad ship was expected to be completed in the summer and launched to begin the sea navigation test phase.

However, the Ministry of Defense subsequently ordered nearly 20 other small and medium-sized warships, putting all three docks of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard into production. Naturally, the construction of the Fuxing ironclad ship was delayed for several months.

The good news is that after rushed work at the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard, two 3000-ton cruisers were launched and tested together with the Fuxing ironclad ship.

Three warships were launched at the same time. In addition, this was the first time Spain launched an ironclad ship in many years, so Carlo was sure to participate in the launching ceremony in person.

On the day of the launching ceremony, part of the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard was open to the public and was crowded with curious Spanish people.

When the people saw with their own eyes the huge ship being pushed into the ocean in the distance, the Spaniards could no longer hold back the tears in their eyes and cheered and celebrated loudly.

The conventional displacement of the Fuxing ironclad ship reaches an astonishing 8600 tons, which is also in the first tier among the ironclad ships currently built by European countries.

In comparison, the Magnificent-class ironclad ships built by the British during the same period had a displacement of only 9644 tons. This proves that the tonnage of the Renaissance-class ironclad ships is already at the top of the current rankings of ironclad ships of various countries.

More importantly, the Renaissance-class ironclad ships were equipped with four breech-loading 12-inch 305mm steel naval guns. Although the caliber of the guns was not as good as the 318mm naval guns mastered by the British, the advantage was that they were breech-loading guns, and their rate of fire and shooting range were far ahead of muzzle-loading guns.

Although the British Magnificent-class ironclads had a tonnage 1000 tons more than the Spanish Resurrection-class ironclads, the main guns of the Magnificent-class ironclads were only two 11-inch muzzle-loading rifled guns, and their firepower lagged behind that of the Spanish Resurrection-class ironclads.

Overall, the combat effectiveness of the Renaissance-class ironclad ships is definitely in the first echelon of the active ironclad ships in European countries. This is also the result of Carlo's strong support for Spain's original shipbuilding system and obtaining some technology and information from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Compared with this ironclad ship with a tonnage of over 8600 tons, the two cruisers next to it with a tonnage of only more than 3000 tons seem a bit miniature.

However, since people have seen the main dish of the Fuxing ironclad ship, they naturally will not dislike the two side dishes next to it.

After the launch of these three warships, Spain's naval strength has completely stabilized in the top five in the world. Although it is only fifth, there is no possibility of competing for fourth place, but it is still in the top five after all.

More importantly, this is only the first ironclad ship built by Spain in ten years. When Spain builds more ironclad ships in the future, will Spain's naval strength remain at the fifth level in the world?

Naturally, this is the issue that the public is most concerned about and looking forward to.

At the launching ceremony of the three warships, Carlo did not act too high-profile so as not to arouse the British people's suspicion.

The British were not afraid of Spain developing its army, but if Spain focused on the development of its navy, the British would still have some concerns. After all, to put it bluntly, the British's position as the world's hegemon was entirely maintained by the navy. What they feared most was the challenge from the sea, which would affect the power and status of the British Empire.

At present, the main contradictions among European powers are the four major contradictions: the contradiction between Germany and France, the contradiction between Britain and France, the contradiction between Britain and Russia, and the contradiction between Russia and Austria.

But why did it eventually turn into a fight between Britain, France, Russia and Germany and Austria? The most fundamental reason was that Germany's naval development threatened Britain's position, so the British chose the lesser of two evils and eventually chose to cooperate with the French, who were less threatening, to defeat the Germans.

Of course, the British goal was not so simple. What they wanted to do was to solve the two major threats of Germany and France in one fell swoop in the war and ensure that there would be no other country on the European continent that could threaten their position.

The final result is also very clear. Germany was eventually defeated under the siege of Britain and France, and the French also suffered huge casualties, which ultimately led to France's poor performance in World War II.

The French surrender in World War II cannot be blamed on the French, after all, France had already suffered too many casualties in World War I. The time between World War I and World War II was only more than 20 years. When World War II broke out, there were many French people who had experienced World War I, and these people certainly did not want to experience another large-scale war like World War I.

Although Spain does not intend to be high-profile in its naval expansion, it still needs to build several ironclad ships in order to develop its navy in the next few years.

Firstly, Spain's economy has gradually improved, which can support the Spanish Navy to have more ironclad ships. Secondly, with the expansion of Spanish colonies, Spain does need a more powerful fleet to protect its colonies.

As mentioned before, although Spain has the fifth largest navy in the world, most of its warships are sailing warships, which are outdated products.

Just like the pre-dreadnought hitting the dreadnought, the sailing ship hitting the ironclad was like an egg hitting a stone.

The huge improvement brought about by technology is a gap that cannot be made up by sailing ships no matter how hard they try, which also makes Spain's status as a naval power somewhat bloated.

Although Carlo had no plans to maintain a large-scale navy, it was still necessary to replace some of the warships with new warships powered by steam turbines while Spain's economy was still developing rapidly in recent years.

The speeds of sailing ships and ironclad ships are completely disproportionate. After all, one is powered by wind and the other is powered by steam turbines.

Ironclad ships could even complete ocean voyages without sails, which was something that previous sailing warships did not have.

Unfortunately, Spain's colonies are all over the world, including America, Africa and Asia. In this case, some warships with ocean-going capabilities are very necessary to help Spain better stabilize its colonies.

If we had relied on those sailing ships, by the time we reached the more distant colonies, the colonial rebellion would probably have ended long ago.

With this idea in mind, after attending the launching ceremony of the Renaissance-class ironclad ship, Carlo immediately notified several other members of the Spanish National Defense Committee and convened a new round of national defense meetings at the Royal Palace in Madrid.

The Spanish Defense Council is an organization established by Carlo after he quelled the workers' march. In addition to electing the Minister of Defense when the cabinet changes, it is also the highest conference organization in the Spanish military.

The purpose of Carlo convening the National Defense Council meeting was very simple, which was to discuss Spain's naval expansion plan and to completely stabilize the position of the Spanish Navy at the fifth place in the world.

The candidates who attend the meetings of the National Defense Council are fixed. They are only seven people: Carlo, the Minister of Defense, the Prime Minister, the Chief of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and the Commander-in-Chief of the Guards.

Because Archduke Serrano served as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, only six people actually participated in the meeting.

The smaller the number of people in a meeting, the less debate there was. No one had any objection to Spain's naval expansion, even the commander-in-chief of the army.

The main reason for this is that the current relatively peaceful environment has limited the growth of the Spanish Army. Currently, the Spanish Royal Army has a total of 13.6 people, which is already a large number of army personnel.

If the 1.5 Guards are added, the total number of Spanish army has exceeded 15, and its comprehensive combat effectiveness is second only to the five major powers.

Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the army to expand again. Unless facing a war crisis, the army can only strive for more equipment budget so that soldiers can train boldly without worrying about the consumption of bullets.

In fact, the current Spanish Royal Army is really not stingy in terms of training. Excluding the 4.6 colonial troops, the Royal Army still has a size of more than 9 people.

Among the military expenditures announced by the Ministry of Defense every year, the training costs of these 9 soldiers account for the bulk of the total.

Don't underestimate the cost of soldier training. If each soldier conducts target practice twice a week and each target practice consumes 10 rounds of bullets, the number of bullets consumed by a soldier per week is as high as 20 rounds.

Spain has 9 Royal Army soldiers, which means that if the Spanish Army follows this ratio of target training, it will consume more than 180 million bullets per week.

180 million rounds a week means more than 700 million rounds a month. According to this ratio, the bullets used by Spanish soldiers in target practice alone consume hundreds of millions of rounds a year.

Although the actual training situation is certainly not that simple, it is enough to prove how huge the cost of daily training of the Spanish army is.

Fortunately, after years of expansion and production, the Royal Arsenal's output of weapons, equipment, ammunition and artillery shells has increased several times or even dozens of times.

Especially when the army has been fully equipped with new rifles, the Royal Arsenal only needs to retain one rifle production line to fill the daily losses of rifles, and the remaining production lines can be used to work overtime to produce bullets.

Although it was impossible to fully meet the training needs of Spanish soldiers, after all, the colonial army also had bullets to consume, and the 1.5 soldiers of the Guards were not included.

But the good news is that 70% of the bullets consumed in military training are produced domestically in Spain, and only 30% are imported.

This is also thanks to the fact that the Spanish rifles were improved from the Italian rifles, and both rifles can use the same bullets.

In this way, Spain can purchase the same type of rifle bullets in Italy, solving the problem of bullet demand caused by military training.

(End of this chapter)