Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 156: Chapter 135: French Visitors (Double-Length Chapter

Compared to those guys expelled from the army, the officials kicked out of the political scene were much more pitiful.

The government would not provide them with any work, and for some extremely corrupt officials, they would even be held accountable for their past actions.

However, the effects were evident. The rectification of the political arena made all officials in Spain wary; not only did corruption decrease significantly, but the administrative efficiency between the Cabinet Government and major regional governments also showed noticeable improvement.

If previously it took several weeks for the decrees issued by the Cabinet Government to be advanced across regions, now it takes no more than a week to see the implementation of decrees across various regions.

In fact, the district chiefs of major regions and city mayors had no choice but to cooperate. After the enactment of the assessment of government performance bill, the advancement of any initiative could potentially affect their performance assessments.

Unless they really do not care about their future in the political arena, they have to pay attention to the various tasks issued by the Cabinet Government and try to improve their performance as much as possible within the rules.

After all, Spain is not a large country; it is quite easy to conduct a review of the assessment of officials in various districts and cities.

In other words, if an official wants to cheat on performance assessments, even if they can deceive the assessment department, they might not be able to bypass the review of the Cabinet Government and the parliament.

Prime Minister Prim also explained in advance that if any fraud is found in the performance assessment, or if there is any fraudulent phenomenon, it will be handled as a crime against national security; not only will the official be removed from their position, but all assets will also be frozen.

Although Prime Minister Prim only issued a verbal warning, it still attracted the attention of many officials in Spain.

There’s no way around it; since becoming Prime Minister, Prim’s way of handling affairs has always been swift and decisive.

The reform even wielded a knife against the nobility and the Church, and the officials in Spain do not believe they have a status comparable to that of the nobility and parliament, and thus naturally do not dare to challenge the authority of Prime Minister Prim.

If they hit Prime Minister Prim’s butcher knife, it would really be suicidal. What Prime Minister Prim currently lacks the most is the ’chicken’ to serve as an example to ’scare the monkeys’; many officials are not unaware of this reasoning.

Why does the Church remain silent about the impact of government reforms on itself repeatedly? Because the Catholic Church in Spain does not want to be that ’chicken’.

Prime Minister Prim must have great courage to promote reform, which also means that the punishment for the first force on his butcher knife will be more severe and cruel than imagined.

While Prime Minister Prim was wielding his knife in the political arena, Carlo was simultaneously expanding his Royal Knight Order.

The so-called Royal Knight Order is actually a special unit specifically for noble youths to enhance their personal capabilities and resumes.

The members who can join the Royal Knight Order are basically noble youths from Spain, meaning they are naturally members of the forces on the King’s side.

Carlo values the cultivation of these noble youths very much. If these guys are highly capable, they can help him in the future.

Carlo not only invited outstanding professors from the Madrid Royal Military Academy to serve part-time at the Royal Knight Order but also prepared personalized training for each knight of the order.

The current Royal Knight Order is essentially a place for elite education for noble youths, molding them into the excellent senior officers Carlo needs.

In the Royal Knight Order, besides receiving various levels of military and cultural courses, they also have to study noble etiquette courses, art courses, equestrian courses, swordsmanship courses, religious courses, and other knowledge.

The number of knights in the Royal Knight Order has already surpassed a hundred, the majority of whom are the sons of Dukes and Grand Dukes, with a small number of sons of Marquises and Earls managing to squeeze in.

There is no way around it; the cost of such elite noble education is significant, and it is naturally not yet possible to offer it to all noble youths.

There are thousands of Spanish nobles, if not tens of thousands, and the noble youths may have exceeded ten thousand.

Even though those under 20 who can be educated are not numerous, there must be at least a few thousand.

If elite education were to be provided to all these thousands, the funds required would surpass the cost of maintaining a division of the Guard Army.

Currently, for Carlo, it is, of course, to limit the number of the knight order as much as possible and prioritize the cultivation of the sons of Dukes and Grand Dukes.

However, in the future, there still needs to be a large-scale expansion of the number of the Royal Knight Order. Because the number of new nobles will increase in the future, and these new nobles do not have as strong a foundation.

The old nobles of Spain can bear the cost of educating their children because they have sufficient capital and can take on any expenses related to educating their children.

But the new nobles’ properties are nowhere near those of the old nobles, and they will fall behind in their children’s education.

New nobles are equally important to Carlo. Since new nobles are unlikely to afford the expenses of elite noble education, Carlo can only expand the scale of the Royal Knight Order as much as possible, incorporating the children of new nobles into the elite noble training system.

Moreover, compared to the children of old nobles, the descendants of new nobles tend to have higher loyalty to Carlo.