Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 312 Battleship Ambition
In fact, when the rifles and machine guns were being upgraded, the naval generals of the Ministry of Defense also expressed to Carlo a request to build more ironclad ships.

However, this request was quickly rejected by Carlo, and there was no room for negotiation.

A few days later, Carlo gathered these senior naval commanders together and stated his requirements for Spain's next generation of main battleships.

Carlo mentioned the three words "faster, bigger and stronger" many times, and clearly required that only the warship design that met these three requirements could become the next generation of Spain's main warship.

Before the birth of Spain's next generation of main warships, the navy will not build main warships in the next few years, but will only build a certain number of auxiliary warships to expand the fleet size.

Carlo's request immediately made the senior naval officers very distressed.

Although there are only three requirements, they actually run through the design concept of naval warships.

Faster is easy to understand, that is the maximum speed of the new generation of main warships.

Spain's first two battleship designs, the Renaissance-class ironclads had a maximum speed of 13 knots, and the Matador-class ironclads had a maximum speed of 15 knots.

The speed of the Matador-class ironclad ships is currently world-class, and should be completely sufficient.

However, Carlo was not satisfied with the speed requirement for the new generation of Spanish battleships, but increased it to 18 knots.

At present, a speed of 15 knots is already considered first-class in Europe, so you can imagine how exaggerated the speed of 18 knots is. It is not an exaggeration to say that the British, who are currently the best in warship power, are unlikely to reach a speed of 18 knots.

This also means that the design of the next generation of main battleships required by Carlo will not be realized in the next few years. If Spain wants to build main battleships again, it will have to wait at least several years.

The next bigger and stronger ones are reflected in the thickness of the armor of the main warships and the caliber of the artillery they carry.

If it wants to become Spain's new main battleship, it is necessary to thicken the armor protection of the vulnerable areas of the warship as much as possible without significantly increasing the tonnage, so that the warship can withstand enemy shells in head-on confrontation.

At the same time, the naval guns carried by the warships must have sufficient firepower to penetrate the enemy's armor.

Overall, the main Spanish warships required by Carlo will surpass the most powerful ironclad ships currently available in terms of speed, armor protection and firepower.

This is also the reason why naval generals are worried. Although the imagined warships look powerful, judging from Spain’s existing shipbuilding technology, it is likely that Spain will not be able to build main warships in the next five years.

According to the default rule that naval warship technology improves slightly every year and significantly every five years, such warships may be available in five years.

Just thinking about the fact that the Spanish Navy will not make any major moves in the next five years, the naval generals couldn't help but burst into tears and envied the army's large-scale equipment replacement operation.

Although it is well aware that such requirements for main battleships are somewhat demanding for current shipbuilding technology, the Ministry of National Defense still issued a bidding notice for main battleships to several major shipyards in Spain.

What if there is a shipyard that can design a warship that meets the requirements? Even if the possibility is small, it is better than giving up directly.

What's more, the order regarding the battleship was issued by Carlo, and in the current Spain, no one could refuse Carlo's order.

The naval generals can only hope that the Spanish shipyards can be more powerful and design main warships that meet Carlo's requirements as soon as possible, so that the Spanish navy can expand again.

The major shipyards that received the navy's request were all surprised by such harsh conditions.

They asked the Navy Department many times, and the answer they finally got was that such a request was real and the Navy Department would not change its request.

There was no other way, the major shipyards in Spain could only curse while trying to design warships that met the navy's requirements.

It is much more difficult for shipyards to export warships than for military factories to export weapons and ammunition, which also leads to Spain's military factories being heavily dependent on orders from the navy.

If warships that meet the navy's requirements cannot be designed, this will not only mean that the Spanish Navy will not build main battleships in the next few years, but also that these shipyards will not receive large-scale orders in the next few years.

Although these shipyards will not go bankrupt due to the decrease in orders, they will definitely be affected to varying degrees.

In order to enable these shipyards to build warships that meet his requirements as soon as possible, Carlo ordered to increase the rewards and treatment for the shipyards that successfully bid.

As long as you participate in the Navy's bidding plan for main warships, you can get at least 50 pesetas in support funds. This fund is used to help shipyards develop and design warships. As long as it is within the scope of developing warships, the shipyard that receives this fund can use the money as it wants.

Of course, not all bad companies can get support funds. All shipyards participating in the bidding need to be reviewed by the Navy Department and must have the ability to design ironclad ships. The shipyard must at least have a dock capable of building warships of more than 5000 tons.

If there is no such regulation, there will always be some people who take advantage of the loophole and temporarily set up a small shipyard to defraud Carlo's support funds.

As long as you can design a warship that meets the navy's requirements, you will receive a bonus of 200 million pesetas and support funds of 300 million pesetas.

There is no upper limit to the prize money. For every main battleship design that meets the requirements, a reward of 200 million pesetas will be awarded.

The number of rewards you get is based on the number of ships you design. This rule is also intended to reward shipyards that are capable of designing excellent warships.

In addition to rewards and support funds for shipyards, the Navy Department will also provide different amounts of rewards to designers who personally participate in the design of warships.

Carlo's attitude was also very clear, that is, to spend huge sums of money to speed up the research and development and construction of new main warships.

In fact, from Carlo's requirements, it can be seen that what Carlo really wants is no longer an ironclad ship, but a battleship that is more powerful than an ironclad ship, or a pre-dreadnought.

Just as the birth of ironclad ships overturned the dominance of sailing ships, the birth of battleships will also overturn the dominance of ironclad ships.

Carlo was not sure exactly what year the battleship was born, but he understood that it should have been born within a few years.

After all, the dreadnought was only born in 1906. As the predecessor of the dreadnought, the pre-dreadnought must have been born earlier than the dreadnought.

After sending the relevant warship bidding notice to various shipyards, Carlo no longer paid attention to this matter.

Even if the Spanish shipyards had the ability to design a battleship, the design process for a battleship would not be too short. This is not the design of a rifle, which only has a few parts, so the design time will naturally not be long.

The design of a battleship cannot be completed without several months or even more than a year. During the design process, not only the rationality of the layout of each component must be considered, but also whether the warship composed of these guys can meet the requirements of the navy department.

At present, the tonnage of the Spanish Matador-class ironclad ships is as high as tens of thousands of tons. With the comprehensive improvement of speed, firepower and armor, the tonnage of the new battleships will be at least more than 10,000 tons.

It is not easy to design a giant battleship of more than 10,000 tons, and Carlo did not expect that Spain would be able to have a subversive battleship in just a few years.

As time came to 1885, Spain's colonial annexation plan reached its climax.

On January 1885, 1, Carlo attended a meeting of the Spanish Cabinet, listened to reports from the Colonial Affairs Department and the Defense Department on the new year's combat plan, and issued his own requirements.

Throughout 1885, Spain had to wage local wars in two regions.

The first region is the Gulf of Guinea in Africa. The Aro Union, the Kingdom of Niger, the Kingdom of Benin, the Kingdom of Dahomey and the Sokoto Caliphate are all on Spain's conquest list.

The second region is the Arabian Peninsula. Carlo plans to bring the truce states under his rule to avoid the British breaking the contract due to the long time.

The conquest of the coast of the Gulf of Guinea was of paramount importance. Spain planned to dispatch an army of 3 people consisting of three colonial divisions and five colonial garrison regiments to launch a full-scale attack on the indigenous people of the region, eliminate these indigenous peoples as quickly as possible, and expand Spanish rule to these areas.

As for the conquest of the truce states, there was no need to make such a big show. The reason was simple, that is, this land was too barren. Because it was all desert, the population of the truce states was in the tens of thousands, and it had not even reached double digits.

In contrast, Oman, next door, has a population of over one million, dozens of times that of the truce states, thanks to its mountains and small plains in the north.

To conquer this area, Spain did not even need to send out additional troops. It only needed to mobilize a small part of the Oman Colony's colonial garrison to occupy the entire truce state and incorporate it into the Oman Colony.

As for establishing a new colony, this was something Carlo had never considered at all.

Establishing a colony also requires a considerable cost, and the current size of the truce states obviously cannot support the construction of a colony.

Incorporating it into the Oman colony would also allow the British to see that Spain did not value this land, and they would no longer have to worry about Spain's conquest of this land.

While Spain, France and Germany were all making their own colonial moves, the British were also busy adding bricks and tiles to their Cairo-Cape Town connection.

But what the British did not expect was that their rapid conquest of the Sudan region instead provoked even more intense resistance from the local indigenous people.

In January 1885, tens of thousands of indigenous people suddenly launched an uprising against British colonial rule and occupied several cities before the British could react.

Because of the British's carelessness, the local natives got thousands of rifles. These natives who got hot weapons resisted more fiercely, and were ready to drive the British back to Egypt.

The indigenous uprising that broke out in Sudan instantly made the British colonies the focus of European countries. A large number of countries that had hatred against Britain all raised their own stools and watched the British make fun of them with glee.

The British did not disappoint and fought back and forth with the natives in the subsequent rebellion, successfully adding a bit of comedy to the opening of 1885.

But this cannot be blamed on the British, it is really because the geographical environment in Sudan is too bad. Not to mention Sudan, even Egypt in the north is full of deserts.

Only the small valleys along the Nile River were truly habitable, which severely restricted the advance of the British army.

Compared with the local African natives, the British army was obviously not adapted to this terrain. The local natives were very rebellious against the British, which also made it impossible for the British to use the local native army to quell the rebellion.

If Britain had placed its hopes on an army composed of local indigenous peoples, its colonial rule in Sudan would probably have collapsed in an instant.

In order to reduce British casualties, the British government could only dispatch a certain number of troops from nearby colonies such as Egypt and more distant India to quell the rebellion.

Doing so will not change the situation on the battlefield. After all, Indians are not very adaptable to such an environment.

The Egyptians were able to adapt, but they were not so obedient to the British. It was good enough that the Egyptian soldiers did not take the opportunity to rebel against the British, and it was impossible to expect them to attack the Sudanese natives.

For a while, Britain had no effective solution to the rebellion in Sudan. The British government could only continue to raise troops and weapons and equipment, secretly accumulating strength to deal a fatal blow to the local natives.

While the British were busy suppressing the rebellion in the Sudan, the German government was not idle at all.

They set their sights on the land north of Portugal's colony of Mozambique, a place called Zanzibar that had once been ruled by Oman.

Yes, it is the Sultanate of Oman that straddles Asia and Africa. As mentioned before, Oman’s decline is due to the loss of its African land, namely the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

This land is quite fertile, and because it is located on the line connecting Cairo and Cape Town in the UK, it is also a land that has been targeted by the British.

When the British government learned that Germany was carrying out large-scale colonial activities near Zanzibar, it was extremely anxious but helpless.

We have to admit that the Germans picked a good time.

Britain mobilized a large number of troops and weapons and equipment to suppress the rebellion in the Sudan region, but it was out of reach for Zanzibar.

Because of the agreement of the Berlin Conference, Zanzibar, a land that had not been colonized by any of the great powers, was a place that all the great powers could colonize.

There was nothing different about what the Germans did. As long as the Germans did not actively violate the agreements of the Berlin Conference, Britain had no way to stop the Germans' actions.

Britain can compete with the Germans in the Zanzibar region, but its military operations in the Sudan region will also be affected.

The Germans’ attitude is very clear, which is to let the British make the active choice.

Interfering with Germany's colonization in Zanzibar would make Britain's Sudanese colony even more chaotic. If they chose to quell the rebellion in the Sudanese colony first, the situation in Zanzibar would be out of control, and the Germans would most likely establish a colony here and bring Zanzibar under their colonial rule.

Faced with the aggressive Germans, the British government did not choose to back down, but chose to have it all.

On the one hand, Britain accelerated the deployment of troops in an attempt to quell the rebellion in the Sudan region in the shortest possible time.

On the other hand, Britain sent a small fleet to the Sultanate of Zanzibar to negotiate with the pro-British Zanzibar government, asking them to firmly resist the German invasion.

The Sultan of Zanzibar at this time was Hamad, a pro-British ruler supported by the British government.

After negotiating with the British ambassador, Hamad organized an army to resist German colonization without any hesitation, and launched a series of cooperation with Britain, such as purchasing weapons and supplies.

Germany had also anticipated Britain's actions. Knowing that the Zanzibar government was pro-British, Germany chose to support those Zanzibar officials who opposed Britain and turned them into pro-Germans, thus launching a protracted tug-of-war with Britain.

The colonial competition between Britain and Germany in Zanzibar was good news for Spain. Without the attention of these two colonial powers, Spain's colonial merger plan in the Gulf of Guinea would be much smoother.

Although there is another country in the Gulf of Guinea, France, which is competing with Spain for colonies, Spain's colonial annexation plan does not involve France's sphere of influence, and the French will most likely not interfere with Spain's actions, just as Spain will not interfere with France's colonization in West Africa.

In West Africa, France and Spain seem to have reached a tacit understanding.

Spain focused on colonizing the Gulf of Guinea from the Gold Coast to the Congo Territory, while France focused on colonizing the African land west of the Gold Coast and north of the Gambia colony.

Of course, France's colonies also included Algeria and Tunisia in North Africa, and even the Congo colony in the Congo River basin, as well as the Malagasy Protectorate on the East African coast, which later became Madagascar.

In February 1885, Spanish troops officially set foot in the Kingdom of Dahomey north of the Ouidah colony.

Faced with the well-prepared Spanish army, the Kingdom of Dahomey had no power to resist and was soon forcibly occupied by the Spanish army.

The Gold Coast Colony and the Ouidah Colony were thus connected, and Spain took the opportunity to merge them into one colony, collectively known as the Gold Coast.

On the other hand, the Guinea colony began to attack the indigenous countries in the Gulf of Guinea.

There are large and small indigenous countries and tribes on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. These so-called countries are not large in area, and some are only 1000 square kilometers in area.

A country of this size is considered a small country in Europe, let alone in Africa, which has a vast territory.

Obviously, when these indigenous countries faced the attack of the Spanish army, they could only be slaughtered by the Spanish army like fish on a chopping board.

In less than a month, Spain signed treaties with the Kalabari Kingdom, Akwa Akpa City-State, Oir State and other indigenous countries in the Gulf of Guinea, turning them into protectorates and incorporating them into its sphere of influence.
After occupying almost all the coastal countries in the Gulf of Guinea, the Spanish government officially announced the merger of the original Gold Coast Colony and the Guinea Colony. The two colonies were collectively called the Spanish Guinea Colony. The capital of the colony was established in Santa Isabel, and the garrison size was increased to 1 colonial division and 12 colonial garrison regiments.

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(End of this chapter)