Empire Rising: Spain

The establishment of a plantation in Congo will take a long time to yield results. Although the tropical crops and fruits can be harvested two or even three times a year, it is still necessary to establish the plantation system, clear the land, and complete the planting.

According to the current progress, there won’t be any results within the next three months. However, Carlo is not in a hurry, after all, the development of agriculture in Congo and the exchange of Spanish land by the nobility is something that inherently requires a long time to complete.

After arranging matters in Congo, Carlo turned his attention back to Spain. The royal family currently possesses sufficient assets, and more than 200 million in available funds signifies that the royal family still has enough strength to invest in an industry.

It’s not just the simple 200 million available funds. Some of the diamonds and jewels from the Temple Treasure can flow into the market over time, holding a value higher than their actual worth.

Moreover, that small portion of gold can be exchanged for a multiple of cash in the hands of the Currency Issuing Committee. Coupled with the continuous income from the royal industries, not to mention investing in one industry, even investing in several industries a year would not pose any financial problems, as long as the steps are not too large.

Because Spain’s private capital is not strong at this time, the royal family’s investment is crucial for the development of various industries in Spain.

The infusion of a large amount of funds can promote the rapid development of certain industries, and if it’s some relatively critical industries, it will be of vital help to Spain’s future.

Therefore, the royal family’s money must be invested in relatively critical industries to provide more effective assistance and lay a solid foundation for the future strength of Spain.

Actually, without even thinking, the first industry the royal family needs to invest in is the shipbuilding industry.

Spain, being a country with many coastlines and owning colonies across the continents, must pay attention to the development of its navy and sea power.

Although the shipbuilding industry does not represent the ability to build warships, it supports the lower limits of military shipyards. If a country’s shipbuilding industry is underdeveloped, it would be challenging to build an excellent military shipyard through its efforts.

Conversely, if a country’s shipbuilding industry is quite developed, even without the help of other countries, it can still rebuild an excellent military shipyard through a developed shipbuilding industry.

Though these processes are fraught with difficulties, a country with more developed shipbuilding will be more successful in the military shipbuilding field.

Even though Spain’s shipbuilding industry is not lacking, with large and small state-owned and private shipyards, except for the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard, which Carlo invested in saving, there is currently no other military shipyard with the capability to build ironclads.

Additionally, the majority of private shipyards are technically backward, only capable of building wooden warships or old-fashioned steamships. These ships are fine for civilian use, but completely become targets for the enemy when used militarily.

Spain’s future naval development cannot solely rely on the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard. If the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard were destroyed, wouldn’t it mean that Spain would completely lose the capability to build the latest ironclads?

Considering all these factors, Carlo decided to vigorously invest in the development of Spain’s shipbuilding industry, assisting state-owned and private civilian shipyards in gaining more advanced civilian ship building experience and integrating some civilian shipyards to build a new medium to large military shipyard.

This shipyard does not need to have the capability of building ten-thousand-ton ironclads like the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard. Serving as an emergency replacement for Royal Guanizuo Shipyard’s main battleships, and existing as Spain’s second-largest military shipyard during peacetime, the goal of this new shipyard is to have two docks capable of building warships exceeding 7500 tons.

The Royal Guanizuo Shipyard is located in Santander Bay, Cantabria, while the new shipyard must be located on the Mediterranean coast to ensure that both shipyards won’t be simultaneously bombed and destroyed by the enemy.

After much consideration, Carlo finally decided to locate the new shipyard in Valencia City, in the Valencia Region. It is also the large port nearest to Madrid in a straight line.

Why not place it in the larger port of Barcelona? The main reason is that Barcelona already has an industrial zone. If there were to be another medium to large shipyard, it would inevitably be bombed by enemies during war, which is unavoidable.

However, that being said, the development of the shipbuilding industry cannot rely solely on the efforts of the royal family; the Spanish government must also do its part.

The current Spanish government is not poor, and after consideration, Carlo ultimately had Steward Loren formulate a “Spanish Shipbuilding Industry Development Plan” and brought this plan to the cabinet to meet Prime Minister Prim.

It had been a long time since Carlo saw Prime Minister Prim, and his first impression was that Prime Minister Prim looked even older.

Prime Minister Prim was born in 1814 and is only 61 years old now. Perhaps because the Spanish reforms have exhausted too much energy, Prime Minister Prim looks older and more deteriorated than Duke Serrano, even though he is four years younger than him.

If Carlo didn’t know Prime Minister Prim’s age, he might have thought the old man in front of him was a senior citizen in his seventies or eighties.