Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 616 Food Plan
At this time, Carlo was very worried about the situation in Britain and France. Based on the investigation data of the Royal Security Intelligence Service, combined with economic reports from various European countries, it could be inferred that the economies of European countries would still face a significant recession throughout 1919.

The flu, coupled with the aftermath of the world war, has brought Europe and other countries around the world to the brink of economic crisis.

This is also what Carlo is worried about: once an economic crisis breaks out, Spain will hardly be able to escape such a major crisis.

Even though Spain can try to escape the impact of the economic crisis through various self-help measures, its imports and exports will be severely affected by the sluggish global economic environment, and its economic and industrial development will inevitably come to a standstill.

It's certainly a good thing that Spain can avoid regressing. Compared to other European countries where the situation is already quite serious, Spain is better able to withstand the economic crisis.

In addition, Carlos enjoys immense prestige among the Spanish people, so even if an economic crisis breaks out, Spain can minimize its impact by investing heavily in infrastructure.

But stagnation is, in fact, regression. With Spain's industrial and economic development booming, Carlo did not want an economic crisis to arrive prematurely, even though the current economic crisis would severely impact Britain, France, and the United States.

The good news is that the economic recession in European countries has been somewhat alleviated thanks to the US providing $10 billion in interest-free loans.

Unlike in the past, German industrial products did not sweep across Europe at this time; European markets were flooded with industrial products from Spain and Britain.

This was well reflected in France. Although the World War had ended three and a half years prior, the wounds of that war were not so easily healed.

France suffered heavy losses during the World War, with the highest casualties among European countries outside of Russia.

The sharp decline in population led to a rapid decline in French industry and economy, and even though the French government tried to save industry after the war, it was powerless to reverse the situation.

Even more critically, the industries of France's two neighbors, Britain and Spain, were not affected during the World War.

Even Spain's industry grew rapidly during the World War; after all, the Allied powers weren't just called the world's factory for nothing.

Under such circumstances, French domestic companies are simply unable to compete with factories in Spain and the UK.

According to data from 1918, Britain's annual steel production reached 969 million tons, and its annual pig iron production reached 914 million tons.

Spain's annual steel production is 876 million tons, and its annual pig iron production is 967 million tons.

Compared to these two industrial giants, France's industrial scale appeared pitifully small. In 1918, France's steel production was only 187 million tons, and its pig iron production was only 146 million tons, far less than the 341 million tons and 415 million tons produced before the outbreak of World War II.

Such data is extremely exaggerated. Compared to 1910, France's industry today has not only not increased at all, but has actually decreased by more than half.

Even more critically, there is no sign of improvement in French industry. With a flood of industrial products from Spain and Britain entering the French market, numerous factories and businesses are rapidly going bankrupt, and the number of unemployed workers is rising.

Based on current trends, France's industrial scale will continue to shrink over the next two years.

Before the World Wars, France was an industrial power on par with Spain. Its current predicament is simply a product of fate.

Given the current economic situation in Britain and France, an economic crisis is inevitable. It may not arrive in the short term, but it will definitely come as expected in a few years, which is something the Spanish government needs to actively address.

The first step in dealing with the economic crisis is to increase Spain's food production as much as possible, ensuring that no Spaniard goes hungry during the crisis.

For Spain, there is no need to worry about increased food production leading to lower food prices. Firstly, Spain's population is growing rapidly, which means that its annual food consumption will increase.

Secondly, Spain has already reached export agreements with many countries for grain, so there is absolutely no worry about selling its grain.

Especially in Russia, which was embroiled in civil war, grain production was in a complete mess, and the country was heavily reliant on imports to ensure its domestic food supply.

Increasing grain production at this time will not only allow Spain to have enough food to cope with the economic crisis, but also allow the Spanish government to earn more foreign exchange earnings, so that it will have enough funds to build infrastructure when an economic crisis breaks out in the future.

When it comes to food production, the West African colonies are an indispensable part.

With the Moroccan colony fully localized, the West African colonies have become the focus of the Spanish government's localization efforts, and are currently the colonies that generate the highest annual revenue for the Spanish government among all its colonies.

This figure may change after the oil in the Omani colony is extracted, but before that, the West African colonies were absolutely Spain's most important colonies, without exception.

Unfortunately, with the development of agriculture in Spain's West African colonies, the grain output of the West African colonies has come to account for half of Spain's total grain output.

While a large part of this is due to the Spanish government changing its domestic crop distribution, reducing some grain production and shifting to the cultivation of vegetables and fruits.

However, this does not diminish the importance of the West African colonies. For Carlo, the West African colonies must be localized and will become Spanish overseas states or overseas territories in the future.

While it is said to be the localization of the colonies, one of the most important tasks that cannot be ignored is to reduce the local population and relocate the Black people.

In the early stages of agricultural development in the West African colonies, the local Black population played a vital role. In fact, due to a shortage of local Black labor, Spain transported a large number of Black workers to the West African colonies. These Black people cultivated vast tracts of land, which contributed to the relatively well-developed agricultural sector in the West African colonies.

This is why these Black people made significant contributions to the agricultural development of the West African colonies. Although the future West African colonies would not accommodate Black people, Carlo was still willing to give them a choice.

These black people could choose to go to other Spanish colonies, such as the colony of Guinea and the territory of Congo.

These two colonies were located in the far reaches of Central Africa, and Spain would not attempt to localize them in the short term. Even in the long run, these colonies were not the targets of Spanish localization.

The reason is simple: these two colonies were vast and home to tens of millions of Black people. Indigenizing these colonies was extremely difficult; the task of relocating Black people alone would have kept the Spanish government busy for decades.

Spain will try to control these two colonies as much as possible. After the colonial system collapses in the future, Spain will exploit the value of the two colonies and then plan to make them independent, using economic infiltration to indirectly control these two countries.

This is precisely why the Black population in Guinea and the Congo territories poses no threat to Spain. In fact, Spain hopes for a growing Black population in these two colonies, as a larger population translates to a larger market.

Besides going to the two African colonies of Spain, the black natives of the West African colonies could also choose to go to other parts of Africa or to the United States across the ocean.

If they choose to travel to the United States, the Spanish government can arrange an ocean liner to escort them all the way to the US.

Anyway, the United States is willing to accept Black people, and Carlo doesn't mind helping Americans and making the US population grow even faster.

Given the impact of the flu on America's reputation, the number of immigrants to the United States will likely decrease significantly for many years to come.

Thinking about it this way, Carlos's continuous shipments of Black people into the United States were actually helping the country.

After all, population is very important to a country, and the size of the population directly affects the strength of the country.

After the Spanish government offered them their own options, local Black people began choosing their destinations. And it's true, the United States does hold immense influence for some Black people. The fact that the US is the only developed country that legally recognizes Black people is a major draw for these African Blacks.

Although the United States only publicly acknowledges the legal rights of Black people, it doesn't make this public. This leads many Black Africans to have unrealistic expectations of the United States, naturally hoping to settle there and become proud citizens, rather than slaves despised by everyone.

Since a significant number of indigenous Black people wished to go to the United States, Spain naturally agreed to their request. After compiling a list of Black people willing to travel to the United States, Spain quickly organized a large number of transport ships to transport these Black people to the United States in batches.

The United States currently has lax immigration regulations, and illegal immigration is quite common. Spain's large-scale transport of Native American Blacks to the United States naturally couldn't have gone through official U.S. immigration channels.

Fortunately, there are smuggling channels all over the United States, so transporting not only hundreds of thousands of Black Native Americans, but even millions would be an easy task.

This can be seen from the population growth in the United States before World War II. While Spain's population growth from 1661 million in 1869 to 5900 million today is quite remarkable, for the United States, such a rate of population growth is trivial.

In 1869, the United States had a population of just over 4000 million. By 1918, the population had reached 1.05 million, an increase of more than 6500 million.

The rapid growth of the United States’ population is inextricably linked to immigration from Europe and illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa.

The prosperity of the United States attracts not only large numbers of white Europeans, but also many Asians and Africans. However, compared to white Europeans who generally immigrate legally, most Asians and Africans enter the country illegally, which makes it easier for them to settle in the United States.

The United States does not have strict regulations on these illegal immigrants. Generally, after they have lived in the United States for a period of time, their status will be recognized by the US government.

It was precisely the United States' laxity in its control over illegal immigrants that allowed Spain to easily transport large numbers of Black people to the United States.

Between 1917 and 1919, Spain transported more than 120 million Black Native Americans to the United States, contributing to the country's population growth.

With the addition of Black indigenous people who migrated to other Spanish colonies or other parts of Africa, the West African colonies had now largely completed the migration of Black people.

With most Black people leaving the West African colonies, the colonies no longer needed to strictly block white-populated areas to prevent Black infiltration.

Although the large-scale migration of Black people affected the labor force in the West African colonies to some extent, the Spanish colonies in the Philippines effectively mitigated this shortcoming.

Between 1917 and 1919, Spain received more than 50 immigrants from its African colonies and other parts of Asia.

These immigrants from Asia will be a good replacement for the local Black population, serving both as a labor force and as a source of population security.

What the West African colonies lack today is the same level of education and healthcare as the native states, as well as infrastructure.

Infrastructure development was manageable, but improving education and healthcare was more challenging. The West African colonies suffered from a severe shortage of skilled personnel, so they had to transfer educational and medical professionals from Spain to the colonies to improve local education and healthcare.

Books and medical supplies had to be transported from mainland Spain, which meant that the education and medical environment in the West African colonies could never catch up with that of the Spanish mainland.

Fortunately, the requirement for localization was not to catch up with mainland Spain, but to ensure that the residents of the colonies had a living environment similar to that in mainland Spain, allowing them to enjoy better medical and educational resources and the same welfare benefits as Spanish citizens.

From this perspective alone, the localization process in the West African colonies went quite smoothly. Because it was a very important grain-producing region for Spain, the local food prices in the West African colonies were very low, and the people did not have to worry about going hungry.

Although educational and medical supplies were relatively scarce, Spain was continuously shipping large quantities of supplies to its West African colonies, so basic education and medical care were not a problem.

Perhaps the biggest difference lies in the entertainment environment of the West African colonies.

Entertainment activities in Spain include bullfighting, football matches, basketball games, and movies.

These recreational activities greatly enrich the daily lives of the Spanish people and allow them to pursue their hobbies and interests amidst their busy schedules.

However, the people in the West African colonies could not enjoy the same entertainment environment as the local people.

There were no bullfights to watch in the West African colonies. While there were basketball and football matches, they were small-scale competitions held between cities, and their level of excitement could not compare to that of national leagues.

In terms of entertainment, perhaps only after technological advancements will there be significant improvements in entertainment activities in the West African colonies.

The good news is that, in terms of infrastructure, the West African colonies still have a chance to catch up with the Spanish mainland.

In particular, the construction of roads and railways in the West African colonies was in no way inferior to that of mainland Spain.

The reason is simple: as Spain's most important grain-producing region, the grain from the West African colonies needed to be continuously transported to the ports and then from the ports to the Spanish mainland.

Only by constructing a large number of railways and highways could the transportation needs during the annual bumper harvest be met. This, coupled with the travel demands of the colony residents, further increased the need for railways and highways in the West African colonies.

Fortunately, the terrain in the West African colonies was relatively flat, making the construction of railways and highways relatively easy. Furthermore, the colonies had a large pool of free labor, allowing for relatively rapid construction of these infrastructures.

In a sense, a relatively close economic cooperation relationship was formed between the two Spanish colonies and mainland Spain.

The Moroccan region was responsible for producing large quantities of fertilizers for the mainland and its West African colonies. Crop cultivation is inseparable from fertilizers, which is why Spain's crop yields increased significantly.

Today, Morocco has hundreds of fertilizer plants of all sizes, which provide more than 100,000 jobs. In addition to being transported to Spain and its West African colonies, the fertilizers produced are also exported in large quantities to other European countries to generate revenue.

Morocco and its West African colonies each had their own pillar industries, which is why they were able to localize.

Without a pillar industry, even if localization is achieved, economic development is destined to lag behind that of a local economy.

Compared to Morocco and its West African colonies, Portugal lacked these advantages. Although Portugal has a large plain area, its only advantage in terms of its main economic pillars might be the cork industry.

However, the cork industry has always been limited in scale, which is why Portugal's economic development lags behind that of Spain.

After the establishment of the Spanish Empire, Carlo treated the Portuguese fairly. He also paid close attention to the economic development of the four Portuguese cantons.

In addition to regular agricultural production, Carlo also plans to establish several medium-sized industrial zones in the four Portuguese states and to improve the railway and highway infrastructure in Portugal as much as possible, ensuring that the level of infrastructure in Portugal is consistent with that in Spain.

Whether it's the localization of the colonies or the economic development of the Portuguese region, it takes several years to see results.

The good news is that Spain still has plenty of time to develop. If Britain and France can hold on for a few more years, Spain will be able to complete its initial strategic plan and be better prepared to cope with the economic crisis.

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(End of this chapter)