Empire Rising: Spain

Carlo stayed in Barcelona for two days before leaving for other cities for inspection.

As the King of Spain, Carlo had the largest number of palaces among all the nobles in Spain. Apart from the largest Madrid Palace, Carlo owned a large number of royal palaces, castles, and estates throughout Spain, ensuring he never had to worry about accommodation anywhere.

In Barcelona, Carlo also owned a relatively small royal palace. Although it was described as relatively small, it was more than enough to accommodate the entire royal family.

Similar buildings to the Barcelona Royal Palace are numerous across Spain, all of which were constructed by rulers at different times throughout Spanish history and have now become Carlo’s private property.

Just how extravagant was the number of palaces Carlo owned? In the area around Madrid alone, excluding the Madrid Royal Palace, Carlo still owned one palace, two castles, and two estates.

These more discreet castles and palaces served as the private residences for members of the royal family, providing a greater degree of privacy protection for them.

Although the scale and luxury of the Madrid Royal Palace are unparalleled in Spain, due to its location in the city center, it cannot offer much privacy.

The happenings inside the palace easily spread throughout Madrid, which is not favorable for the royal family members. Therefore, some more remote estates and castles provided them with more choices.

Traveling west from Barcelona, Carlo visited the capitals of several states: Zaragoza in Aragon State, Pamplona in Navarre State, Oviedo in Asturias State, Santiago in Galicia State, and after a brief half-day stop in Valladolid, the capital of Castilla y León, he returned to Madrid.

Through this inspection tour, Carlo set foot in most of Spain’s administrative regions. Apart from the overseas Balearic Islands and Canary Islands, as well as Extremadura State and Andalusia State, all regions in Spain were included in Carlo’s tour.

The entire inspection lasted over a month, and the results were quite positive. In states with significant changes like Barcelona, Navarre, and Asturias, plans for the merger and reorganization of state governments were more than halfway completed.

The most noteworthy among them was the governments of Navarre State and Asturias State.

Both states were formed from mergers of two or three large regions, thus requiring a mix of the original regional governments.

The formation of state assemblies also required merging the assemblies of other regions, which was a very complex task.

Matters such as positions of state government officials and seats in the state assembly were troubling issues for each state.

These issues also hindered the progress of administrative reforms. Only after Carlo personally visited these states and addressed specific problems could the political reform proceed smoothly.

First and foremost, Navarre State, formed by merging three regions, faced the most arduous task in forming its government and assembly.

Among the three regions that made up Navarre State, two were Basque-populated areas. Logically, most government officials of Navarre State should be Basques, and the state assembly should follow a similar rationale.

However, the naming of Navarre State instead of Basque naturally indicated that the Spanish Government did not intend to grant Basques too many assembly seats.

The local Basque-Spanish disputes also deadlocked the formation of Navarre State’s government and assembly, significantly slowing down the merger of the three regions.

Once Carlo arrived in Pamplona, the capital of Navarre State, he personally intervened in the formation of the state government and assembly and addressed several issues arising in the process.

For instance, regarding the issue of assembly seats, the newly merged Navarre State would conduct fresh elections across the state to elect new assembly members instead of completely incorporating all members from the previous three regions.

Regarding government officials, the state government was primarily made up of officials from the original Navarre region. The governors of the Basque and La Rioja regions temporarily served as deputy governors of Navarre State, pending changes to relevant positions at the next gubernatorial election.

For Basques, Carlo’s arrangements were undoubtedly a disaster. However, due to Carlo’s personal oversight, they found it challenging to resist such arrangements.

Carlo’s decisions were not without just cause against Basques.

The merged Navarre State had a population of 1.51 million, of which fewer than 700,000 were Basques.

With the Basque population not even reaching half, what grounds did they have to demand a majority of assembly seats? Moreover, the new state’s name was Navarre, so it was only natural that the state government was dominated by officials from the original Navarre region.

The original Basque region, being the party merged into the new state, naturally could not provide the main body of officials for the new Navarre State.

Carlo spent the longest time in Navarre State, staying there for about a week.

Evidently, Carlo’s personal oversight proved highly effective. By the time he left Navarre State, the formation of the state government was complete, and the preparation for the state assembly elections was underway.