Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 217 Inspection of Barcelona
Good times are always short-lived. After staying in Italy for a few days, Carlo finally had to leave.

After all, Carlo was already the King of Spain at that time, and Spanish affairs were the most important to Carlo.

In addition to visiting his father Vittorio Emanuele II, Carlo also planned to sign a further cooperation agreement with the Italian government, which is why Carlo stayed for several days.

Now that the cooperation agreement between the two governments has been signed, Carlo has no reason to stay in Italy any longer.

Carlo was reluctant to leave Vittorio Emanuele II, but he had no choice because state affairs were more important than anything else. Carlo was able to spare some time to visit Italy and put some of his government affairs on hold.

Although the current Spanish government seems stable, Carlo dare not bet on that possibility. Only by sitting in Spain himself can he ensure the stability and development of Spain.

The commander-in-chief of the Guard, Giotti, also returned to Rome from Garibaldi's residence, ready to follow Carlo back to Spain at any time.

In fact, Giotti and Carlo shared the same fate. Vittorio Emanuele II died of illness and overwork, while Garibaldi died of old age.

Although they knew that both old people didn't have much time left to live, unfortunately, Jyoti and Carlo obviously didn't have much time to accompany them.

To be pessimistic, perhaps the next time Carlo comes to Italy may be at the funeral of his father, Vittorio Emanuele II.

Clearing the complicated emotions from his mind, Carlo ordered the fleet to move at full speed and return to Spain as quickly as possible.

The Tenth Russo-Turkish War was definitely Spain's best opportunity for development, and Carlo did not want to waste any time.

Trade with Russia and the Ottoman Empire alone was enough for Spain to obtain a large amount of funds and other resources, not to mention that at this time the attention of other European powers was almost all on the Balkan Peninsula, so Spain would face much less resistance if it wanted to expand.

When Carlo and his group left Spain, they went through the port of Valencia, but when they returned to Spain, Carlo chose to dock at the port of Barcelona.

As for the reason, of course, it was to first visit Barcelona, ​​the second most populous city in Spain.

Since the construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base, Barcelona's development has been like riding a fast train, and its industrial economy has achieved some success.

Under the planning of the Spanish government and Carlo, to date, more than 20 Spaniards have moved to Catalonia, and a considerable number of them have settled around the Barcelona industrial base.

This has also led to a rapid growth in Barcelona's population in recent years, with a tendency to overtake Madrid.

Indeed, Barcelona's geographical location is much better than Madrid, and it also has extremely developed sea transportation, so it is very likely to surpass Madrid.

For Spain, Barcelona and Catalonia, to which it belongs, are one of the most important administrative regions in Spain and an absolutely inseparable part of Spain.

How to keep Catalonia stable and solve the troubles of the Catalans is a question that the Spanish government has been considering.

This time when he went to Barcelona, ​​Carlo also wanted to see the current situation in Catalonia and see whether some of the policies implemented by the government in Catalonia have had corresponding effects.

After arriving in Barcelona, ​​Carlo's first destination was the Barcelona Industrial Base in the suburbs.

The Barcelona Industrial Base is a key project of the Spanish government in industrial construction. In the future, Barcelona will become the industrial heart and largest industrial city of Spain.

Although the capital Madrid also has industries, some of the more polluting industries will gradually move to other regions or even outside Spain.

Carlock didn't want Madrid to become a foggy city like London. Although this was also a symbol of industrial development and civilization, such a symbol was not very healthy for people.

As the most industrially and economically developed country, the British Empire's life expectancy should not be so low in theory.

But it is precisely because of the existence of the foggy city that the average life expectancy of Londoners has been reduced. In this era, there are no corresponding anti-smog measures, nor are there masks with strong protective capabilities.

It would be strange if Londoners could live long while breathing extremely high concentrations of smog every day.

When we arrived at the Barcelona Industrial Base, the general manager of the industrial base, Angelo Orcaho, and the managers of the industrial base were already waiting respectfully.

Angelo Orcajo was a talent promoted by Carlo from the nobility. The name of the Orcajo family came from the small town of Orcajo in the west of La Mancha. Angelo's ancestor was named Baron of Orcajo, and his fiefdom was the land from the town of Orcajo to the Guadiana River in the west.

After hundreds of years of development, the title of Baron Olkaho still exists, but Angelo's family has lost most of its territory and is a truly impoverished noble family.

After Carlo arrived in Spain, he decided to select a group of down-and-out nobles from the Spanish aristocracy to serve him.

Compared to those powerful and high-ranking dukes and grand dukes, these fallen earls and marquises would be more loyal to Carlo.

In this way, Baron Angelo Orcajo entered the political arena step by step, and because of his good ability in industrial development, he was promoted by Carlo to the Seville Industrial Base.

Ancarlo did a good job in the Seville Industrial Base. When the Spanish government decided to build a larger industrial base in Barcelona, ​​Carlo gave this important task to Ancarlo and appointed him as the general manager of the industrial base.

At present, Ancarlo has done a pretty good job in the industrial base. The Barcelona Industrial Base has successfully completed the first two phases of construction and is currently in the final phase of construction.

If all three phases of construction can be completed, the Barcelona Industrial Base will become a super-large industrial base with more than 50 workers. Barcelona will also become the industrial heart of Spain, and its importance is no less than that of Madrid, the capital.

Of course, even if the construction of the third phase of the Barcelona Industrial Base has not been completed, the role of the industrial base, which has only completed two phases, cannot be underestimated.

The current Barcelona industrial base has more than 25 workers and thousands of large, medium and small factories and different enterprises.

The Barcelona industrial base accounts for more than 3% of Spain’s total industrial capacity. Its current industrial scale has surpassed that of Madrid and Seville. Catalonia is also the strongest industrial region in Spain.

Catalonia has also benefited from the rapid development of industry. As the most industrially powerful region in Spain, workers in Catalonia also have the highest income among all regions in Spain.

As of the beginning of this year, the Spanish Finance Department's statistics on the average annual income of Spaniards were around 131 pesetas, while the average annual income of the Catalonia region has exceeded this level, reaching a rather exaggerated 144 pesetas.

This is because the level is lowered by Catalan farmers and other low-income people. The average income of workers in Barcelona's industrial base has reached 165 pesetas, which is far higher than the current per capita annual income.

The continuous increase in per capita income has made Catalonia's economy quite prosperous, and the area around Barcelona is in no way inferior to the Spanish capital Madrid.

If we talk about the total economic scale of the entire region, apart from the population, Andalucia can barely be compared with it, but other regions including Madrid cannot compare with Catalonia's total economy.

The prosperity of Catalonia has also attracted a large number of domestic and foreign workers. Barcelona is also the city in Spain that receives the largest number of foreign immigrants every year.

At present, the population structure of Barcelona has undergone major changes. The proportion of true Catalans has been decreasing, while the number of orthodox Spaniards and foreign immigrants has been increasing.

This made the more extreme Catalan nationalists see the danger, but they had no way to deal with it.

The reason why Catalonia attracts domestic and foreign workers is the construction of the Barcelona industrial base. We can't stop the construction of the Barcelona industrial base, right?
You should know that the current Barcelona industrial base has more than 25 workers and can accommodate more than 25 workers in the future.

Regardless of what the Spanish government would think if the construction of the Barcelona industrial base was stopped, the opposition of 50 workers alone would be enough to disrupt the extremists' plans.

More than half of the current 25 workers are Catalans. Will these Catalans who have already entered the factories still support their plans?
With most extreme Catalans having already immigrated or been suppressed, the small number of extremists can do nothing about the current developments.

They have no power to stop the Catalans who have already entered factory work and earned higher incomes, nor do they allow this minority to destroy their good lives.

"Your Majesty, the construction of the third phase of the Barcelona Industrial Base is now coming to an end. It is expected that all construction will be officially completed and enter production within a year." Ancarlo Olcaho, the general manager of the industrial base, reported to Carlo with a smile.

The construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base has been going on for nearly seven years and has consumed the entire Spanish government and all his efforts.

At present, the achievements of the Barcelona Industrial Base are quite encouraging. Spain's industrial scale is also developing rapidly with the continuous construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base. At present, Spain's industrial scale is no less than that of Italy.

Italy is not weak in industry. Although Italy is a country that has only been unified for a few years, the Kingdom of Sardinia, Italy's predecessor, is still quite strong in industry.

The unification of Italy also integrated several industrially powerful states and regions in the north, which brought Italy's industrial scale to a new level. Catching up with Italy in industrial scale is already a very good achievement for Spain. After all, it took Spain less than ten years to achieve this goal, and it also experienced civil war and various chaos in the middle, which was not easy.

After hearing Ancarlo's report, Carlo nodded. He was very satisfied with the talents he had promoted from the vast Spanish aristocracy.

Although he is a down-and-out nobleman, Ancarlo's ability is still worthy of recognition. If the Barcelona Industrial Base can be successfully built and put into full production, it will not only be an achievement of the Spanish government, but also of Ancarlo himself.

After Canovas officially took office as Prime Minister, the position of Minister of Industry that he concurrently held was vacant, which was a good opportunity for Ancarlo to gain more experience.

If Ancarlo does a good job as Minister of Industry, Carlo would not mind letting him form a cabinet and become Prime Minister after Canovas.

After all, for all countries in this era, developing industry is the most important thing. If you do well in industry, then there will be no mistakes in national development.

With industry, you have everything. This is an eternal truth in this era. One of the main reasons why the United States and Germany rose rapidly in this era is that they quickly built extremely large industries.

Even though Britain is now the most powerful industrial country in the world, in the next 20 to 30 years, the United States and Germany will surpass Britain and become more powerful industrial countries than Britain.

Although industry does not represent everything, it is also one of the basic elements to measure the strength of a country. If Ancarlo really has quite good abilities, Carlo is willing to let him enter a higher stage and give full play to his abilities.

"Are there any difficult problems to solve during the construction of the industrial base?" Carlo asked with a smile: "Can the workers' wages and benefits be guaranteed? I don't want what happened in Madrid to happen again in Barcelona."

When it comes to the construction and development of the industrial base, Carlo is most concerned about the attitude of the workers.

The construction of industrial bases will produce a large number of workers, and the power of these workers is extremely strong. Unlike the conservative peasant class, if the interests of the working class cannot be ensured, then the interests of the ruling class may be damaged.

Carlo can see this point clearly. Anyway, the Spanish government and the royal family are not short of this little money. On the premise of ensuring the interests of the workers, what the royal family and the government have to do is to ensure the interests of the workers as much as possible and promote themselves at the same time.

"The construction of the industrial base has indeed faced many problems, but under the leadership of your Majesty and the government, most of the problems have been solved." Ancarlo did not rush to answer Carlo's question, but pretended to think seriously. After a while, he answered: "

If there is a problem that has not been solved, it is the current lack of skilled personnel. The Barcelona industrial base now has more than 25 workers, but we still have a gap in skilled personnel and skilled workers, and it is quite large.

Another thing is that the development of the industrial base is slightly different from what we expected before construction. Perhaps our Barcelona industrial base will be larger than expected."

Carlo nodded. The problem of lack of skilled personnel is not limited to the Barcelona industrial base, it is a problem faced by the whole of Spain.

Even if the government invests heavily in education, it will not produce results in just a few years.

Attracting technical talents from abroad is indeed a way to solve the problem, but it is impossible to attract technical talents on a large scale. There are very few immigrants of technical talents every year, and the total number is only a few hundred or thousands.

"The industrial base can contact various factories and enterprises to count the types of technical jobs we lack and need the most." Carlo thought for a while and gave his own solution:

After determining the types of skills that are most lacking and most needed, the government will arrange people to focus on finding these types of technical talents and technical workers.

The lack of skilled personnel is a problem faced by the whole of Spain and it cannot be solved in a short period of time. But we can first solve the more important talent shortages, and the less important ones can be solved later. "

It is impossible to solve the problem of the lack of all technical talents in the industrial base in a short period of time. However, it is still possible for the Spanish government to solve the shortage of technical talents in a certain category.

The worst that can happen is to use money. Anyway, the treatment of talents in this era is not that good, so you can still get some money by spending money.

Compared with the development of Barcelona's industrial base, sacrificing some funds is not a big deal. A complete industrial base is extremely important to Spain, let alone sacrificing some funds, even sacrificing materials and other resources is not out of the question.

Hearing Carlo's solution, Ancarlo showed excitement and said in agreement: "This is indeed a good idea, Your Majesty. This problem has troubled me for a long time. Thank Your Majesty, I can sleep well today."

"Haha." Carlo laughed. Although he knew that Ancarlo was flattering him, he was still very satisfied with this guy's attitude: "The scale of the Barcelona industrial base you mentioned may be different from our estimate. What is the actual situation?"

"In our previous estimates, the size of the Barcelona industrial base could accommodate about 50 workers, with an output of 70 tons of pig iron and 30 tons of steel.

However, according to our statistics on the scale of existing industrial bases and estimates of the construction of the third phase of the industrial base, after the industrial base is completed, the number of workers that can be accommodated will increase to about 55, and may even reach 60.

The total industrial output is also expected to increase by 10% to 15%, which means that Barcelona needs more workers. The population of Catalonia alone is not enough. "Ancarlo replied.

The construction plan for the Barcelona industrial base has been determined long ago, but there will definitely be some deviations between the plan and reality.

According to the current development and construction of the industrial base, there will be a certain gap between the fully completed industrial base and the previous estimates.

Of course, this deviation is actually a good thing. As long as the problem of workers and technical talents can be solved, the larger the industrial base, the better.

Although the industrial capacity has only increased by about 10%, for a super large industrial base with hundreds of thousands of workers, this 10% of industrial capacity means more than tons of steel alone.

The Barcelona Industrial Base is a comprehensive industrial base that includes chemical industry, heavy industry, mechanical processing industry, military industry, electric power industry, light industry and many other industrial fields. This 10% increase can even affect the total scale of Spain's industry.

After hearing Ancarlo's report, Carlo smiled and was relieved: "This is a good thing. Don't worry about the workers. There will be a steady stream of workers coming to Barcelona in the future.

You just need to complete the third phase of the construction plan. You can submit any problems you encounter to the government or come to me directly.

The construction of the industrial base is of utmost importance, and I will not allow anyone to destroy our industrial base. Ancarlo, as long as the third phase of the Barcelona Industrial Base can be successfully completed, the position of Minister of Industry in the next cabinet government will be yours. "

Ancarlo was originally a member of the Spanish aristocracy, and to Carlo he was truly one of their own.

It is precisely because of this that Carlo's emphasis on Ancarlo is visible to the naked eye, and he even promised him the very important position of Minister of Industry.

The industrial department is definitely one of the most important departments among the many departments of the cabinet. Perhaps the only two departments that can be compared with it are the defense and finance departments.

Hearing Carlo's promise of the position of Minister of Industry, Ancarlo nodded excitedly and assured Carlo loudly: "Don't worry, Your Majesty, I will supervise the smooth construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base.

Before the next cabinet government election, I will show you a complete and huge Barcelona industrial base and will never let you down. "

Carlo nodded, still trusting Ancarlo's words.

It is not easy to establish an industrial base in Catalonia. Those extreme Catalans will cause sabotage or secretly hinder from time to time.

The reason why the establishment of the Barcelona Industrial Base has been so smooth so far, in addition to the government's attention and the military's stationing, is also a very important reason why Ancarlo worked day and night for it.

According to reports from the Royal Security Intelligence Department, Ancarlo has been busy until late almost every day since he became the general manager of the industrial base.

In addition to supervising the construction of the industrial base and ensuring its construction quality, it is also necessary to keep in touch with the factories and enterprises that have already moved in to ensure their production and transportation.

Carlo did provide An Carlo with a golden opportunity, and he did seize it. He not only fully demonstrated his ability and value through this opportunity, but also gained Carlo's trust through his attitude.

At present, in Carlo's opinion, Ancarlo is a talent worth cultivating, and this is what Ancarlo wants to do.

"Have the factories and enterprises in the industrial base strictly followed the relevant provisions of the Labor Law to pay workers' wages and provide welfare benefits?" Carlo continued to inquire.

In fact, the workers’ demands are not high. They just want no salary deductions and a certain amount of rest time.

Workers are not opposed to overtime work, but what they are opposed to is overtime work that does not bring any benefits. No one is willing to work overtime without overtime pay, but if the overtime pay is sufficient, workers are of course willing to work overtime for several hours every day in the factory.

"The industrial base attaches great importance to this. Every once in a while, I will organize people to investigate all the factories and enterprises within the industrial base to ensure that they will not withhold workers' wages. So far, there has been no such problem within the Barcelona Industrial Base, and workers' working hours are strictly limited to less than 11 hours." Ancarlo replied.

6200 words two-in-one chapter, please support!

I came back late today, so the 10,000-word update will be postponed to tomorrow. As compensation, a 6,200-word chapter will be updated today. Thank you for your support!
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(End of this chapter)