Empire Rising: Spain

Although the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau is not a formal organization, it holds an irreplaceable position in Carlo’s heart.

Medino took on the role of director of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau not to succeed Kadir, but to independently create a new intelligence department after becoming familiar with the precise workflow of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau.

Yes, Carlo indeed planned to establish a new intelligence department.

It’s not that Carlo didn’t trust the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau and Kadir. Kadir’s work capability and loyalty are guaranteed, and Carlo is quite confident in the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau under his leadership.

However, such an important intelligence department cannot be singular; otherwise, it makes the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau overly redundant and may cause some intelligence errors and arbitrariness.

Although such problems may not arise now, who can guarantee that the chief of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau will still be reliably loyal to the Royal Family decades from now?

Creating another intelligence department is meant to have the two major intelligence departments supervise each other, forming a complementary relationship.

Carlo has already thought of a name for the other major intelligence department: the Spanish Military Intelligence Bureau. The main focus of the Military Intelligence Bureau is straightforward, covering foreign military intelligence, dispatching spies abroad, and capturing spies domestically, among other tasks.

Once the Military Intelligence Bureau is established, the military intelligence organization within the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau can be transferred to the Military Intelligence Bureau.

The Royal Security Intelligence Bureau will then be responsible for comprehensive intelligence exploration both domestically and internationally, supervision and review of officials and members of parliament, monitoring of nobles and parliament, and more.

Upon hearing Carlo’s appointment, Medino didn’t hesitate for a moment and nodded with great respect, saying, “At your command, Your Majesty.”

Just a few days later, news of a revolt in the Philippine Colony quickly reached Spain. Because the specific actions were classified intelligence, many people were unprepared for the insurgency in the Philippine Colony.

Under the indulgence of Prime Minister Prim and Carlo, a certain level of panic even formed domestically in Spain, with members of parliament requesting the government promptly deploy troops to quell the Philippine insurgency.

Why panic? Of course, it’s the fear of the Philippines evolving into a large-scale insurgency like Cuba.

Quelling the Cuban insurgency took over six months and caused unimaginable economic damage to the Cuban Colony. Although the economic value of the Philippine Colony isn’t as great as Cuba, it remains Spain’s largest colony by size, thus holding significant importance.

After allowing the news of the Philippine insurgency to ferment for a while, the Spanish Government formally issued the orders, urgently dispatching a Colonial Defense Corps from the South Morocco Colony to the Philippines to suppress the insurgency and stabilize the situation.

The Spanish Government did not conceal the news of the Philippine insurgency, and as Spain’s neighbor, the Portuguese Government naturally became aware of the news of the uprising in the Philippines.

Having learned of this news, the Portuguese Government actually breathed a sigh of relief. At least it could ensure that, in the short term, the Spanish Government’s focus would be on the Philippines, rather than Portugal.

After loading thousands of soldiers, Spain’s transport fleet openly and grandly sailed along the African coast southward.

Actually, there is a shortcut from Spain to the Philippines, which is through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal directly to the Indian Ocean, then through the Malacca Strait to the Philippines.

But such a route obviously would not pass through Guinea, so it was abandoned from the start.

To make the choice of route seem reasonable, the point where troops from the South Morocco Colony landed was selected as Ivory Port.

This location is already near Spain’s Canary Islands, continuing southward does not appear abrupt. After all, this place already enters the Atlantic Ocean, quite distant from the Mediterranean.

The troops set out, but colonial development along the Congo River Basin has just begun. Whether constructing railroads or building more and larger colonial outposts, it all requires Guinea as a transfer point.

This also necessitates Spain increasing development efforts in Guinea moving forward to avoid arousing suspicion from others.

The Spanish Government places great emphasis on the land of the Congo River Basin. Because this land isn’t far from Spain, much closer than the Philippines.

As long as sovereignty over such lands can be smoothly obtained, future control will be much easier. Though there are many natives on these lands, Spain’s colonial policies pay little attention to these native populations.

There were once large numbers of natives in places like Cuba, Argentina, and Chile. But now, looking at those countries and regions, the majority of the population are Spaniards or Spanish mestizos, with the native population already very small, if not completely disappeared.

This policy is also Europe’s colonial policy, it is the policy of the entire colonial era.

Why doesn’t Carlo worry about colonial expansion in Africa leading to possible “darkening” of Spain? Because such possibility will hardly occur.

The reason the United States and France have been “darkened” is due to their over-reliance on black labor, allowing black labor to become a major part of their domestic population.

As black populations grow, they naturally gather to seek more power. As long as this is avoided, Spain can ensure it won’t be “darkened.”