Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 110: Chapter 100: On the Great Powers

Although more and more people actively participate in free literacy education, which is a good thing, having too many participants can also put considerable pressure on the government.

After all, both the simple schools needed for literacy education and the teachers to impart knowledge are limited. Prime Minister Prim can only strive to make more space available for literacy education and provide enough candidates for teachers as much as possible.

Since literacy education only requires simple teaching of some commonly used Spanish words, as well as some historical and cultural knowledge, simple scientific facts, and so on, anyone with a high school education or above can actually serve as a teacher for literacy education.

Prime Minister Prim directly targets those university students studying literature. Their knowledge reserve is absolutely sufficient, and teaching some relatively simple knowledge naturally comes easily to them.

And these newly entered university students are also the easiest to convince. By promoting the contribution to the country, along with a free dinner for them, many university students can be attracted to voluntarily join the literacy education work.

Of course, the government cannot use these university students for free. As long as these university students are willing to take on the role of literacy education teachers in their leisure time, the government can offer them a salary at the average annual income level of the country.

Although this sum is not much, for many university students, it is indeed a good way to create extra income.

Although many who enter university are children of wealthy families, exceptions exist where talented students come from impoverished backgrounds.

Through this way of creating extra income, they can ensure their tuition fees and continue studying at university.

Even though Spain’s literacy education is being carried out with great vigor, Carlo knows that the most successful period is only these past few years.

In these years, there were a large number of illiterate children who wouldn’t generate much income by staying at home, so naturally, people were willing to send them to simple schools for free literacy education.

But after these relatively young children and teenagers have received literacy education, those illiterate adults may not accept free literacy education.

They have jobs and need to constantly work to earn income to support their families. In their view, participating in free literacy education, although without cost, also wastes the labor force of the family.

For some families with relatively low income, the little money they earn less might cause the family’s living standard to plummet.

However, Carlo is already satisfied with such an effect.

According to Spain’s literacy rate being over seventy percent, at least 11 million people in the country are at an illiterate level. After a few years of literacy education, the number of illiterate people could be reduced to below 8 million, which is less than half of the total population.

Although there is still a gap compared with other European countries, compared to Spain a few years ago, there is undoubtedly great progress.

On January 25, 1871, Carlo was immersed in the success of spreading literacy education for just a few days when Kadir brought Carlo even better news: the task of going to the United States has been completed.

The current United States is not the powerful global policeman of later generations, but a weak country that has just ended a civil war not long ago.

It’s not that Carlo looks down on the United States; it’s just that at this time the foundation of the United States is much weaker compared to the European countries.

Although the economic and industrial scale of the United States at this time is at the level of the great powers, if other factors are not considered and they fight with real swords and guns, the United States is likely unable to beat Spain.

Spain’s weakness is relative. Compared with superpowers like the UK, France, and Germany, Spain is naturally weak.

But compared with smaller European countries such as Belgium, Netherlands, and Portugal, Spain still has considerable advantages.

Across Europe, apart from the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria suppressing Spain, even Italy cannot steadily suppress Spain.

If it weren’t for Spain long using the wealth plundered from its colonies for indulging in pleasure, then Spain might still be a strong colonial empire at this time.

Of course, if only the gains from the colonies and the scale of existing colonies are looked at, Spain is still the world’s third colonial empire, second only to the two superpowers of UK and France in terms of colonization.

Although one by one the colonies in America are becoming independent, Spain’s influence on these former colonies still exists.

Currently, except for the three countries of UK, France, Germany that crush Spain in terms of population, industry, economy, and military, there are few countries left that Carlo pays attention to.

Tsarist Russia seems to be strong, but like the once Kingdom of Spain, it has already decayed to the bone.

The reforms of Alexander II appear to have given Russia a shot in the arm, but actually, they only changed the surface, without altering the decayed foundation within Russia.

History has long verified the success or failure of Alexander II’s reforms, and Tsarist Russia’s reign actually has less than 50 years left.

Austria-Hungary seems strong, but in reality, it has innumerable internal problems. The transformation of the Austrian Empire into Austria-Hungary has already revealed problems within the country; Austrians can no longer stop the rise of Hungary, and how long this dual monarchy country can exist entirely depends on whether Hungarians are willing to continue under the empire’s rule.

The two future rising powers, the United States and Japan, actually pose limited threats to Spain. The United States is strong not because it has tremendous industrial and economic strength, but because it crazily sucked blood from Europe during the two world wars and absorbed many technological talents from Europe.

Without these advanced technologies and talents from Europe, regardless of how large its industry and economy are, the U.S. is merely considered an upstart in the eyes of Europeans.

Now that Carlo has come to the era when the United States has not yet risen, naturally it’s impossible to let the United States rise as in history.

Moreover, the United States as a country does not appear as strong as it presents. Whether it’s racial conflicts between black and white people, contradictions among large number of immigrants, or disagreements between the southern and the northern regions in the United States, these are all deadly issues for a country with a history book waiting to be written.

The American Civil War is actually a microcosm of domestic conflicts in the United States during this era. The Civil War did not resolve this contradiction but merely suppressed it through martial means.

Unless the United States can quickly rise to become a world-dominating level country, allowing all immigrants to have a sense of identity with the U.S. far greater than opposition to the U.S. Government, it might possibly suppress certain group conflicts and contradictions domestically.

But if the United States cannot quickly become one of the world’s top three superpowers, these domestic contradictions will remain until they are resolved or erupt.

Such problems do not only appear in the United States; they also occur in countries that have become established post-colonial states and continuously absorb immigrant populations.

If immigrants only come from one country, there are not so many contradictions; it’s merely the conflicts between the colonies and the mother country.

But in the case like of the United States, which continuously absorbs immigrants from all over Europe, even including many immigrants from Asia and Africa due to the slave trade, it is truly a spectacular show.

Of course, the task to go to the United States that Kadir mentioned is naturally not to establish good relations with the United States Government, nor does Carlo intend to fraternize with the United States Government.

Not to mention, last year’s issue of the Cuban Colony’s independence movement definitely involved American interests.

If Spain hadn’t stabilized rapidly domestically, and Carlo hadn’t dispatched Marshal Serrano, who served as the Governor of Cuba, to personally lead the troops to Cuba to suppress the rebellion, the war of independence might have lasted for several years, severely impacting Spain’s economy, just like in history.

It must be noted that Spain’s fiscal income each year is no more than 300 million Pessetas, and historically suppressing the rebellion in Cuba cost 700 million Pessetas.

This indicates that the Spanish Government needs to allocate over half its fiscal income to military expenses each year to successfully suppress Cuba’s independence uprising.

What did the Spanish Government get in return? A colony in Cuba longing even more for independence, with an economy mostly devastated.

At present, Spain needs to develop quietly, otherwise Carlo would have found a way to create trouble for the U.S. Government long ago.

Currently, the Cuban Colony still belongs to Spain, and the Americans surely will not give up on coveting the Cuban Colony.

Fortunately, the United States at this moment does not possess such strong industrial or economic strength, and the Spanish Government is not weak; the U.S. Government does not have the guts to wage war against Spain.

Historically, the United States waited until 1898, even proposing to Spain the request of spending 100 million US Dollars to purchase the Cuban Colony in advance.

Although that’s nearly 30 years later, the US Dollar at that time was not cheap, almost equivalent to 20 million Pounds.

It should be noted that 1898 was during the pre-dreadnought era, that is, the battleship era. Building one of the then most powerful main battlecruisers only cost over one million Pounds.

The willingness of Americans to offer 20 million Pounds was enough to allow Spain at that time to build a navy among the world’s top eight, showing that Americans were still somewhat unconfident about their capabilities at that time and had some regard for Spain.

However, after the outbreak of war, the performance of the Spanish Government shocked the then insufficiently confident United States, causing the U.S. Government to seize not only the Cuban Colony but also the few remaining large colonies of Spain in the Philippines, turning the Spanish Colonial Empire into history.

Since the Spanish-American War, Spain’s colonies have shrunk to only a few smaller regions in Africa. This eventually led Spain to focus its gaze on Morocco, where it must confront the pressure from the United Kingdom and France head-on.