Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 112: Military Industry Aid

One quite important matter in rectifying the banks is to integrate the existing small banks into a large united bank under government control.

Those private capitals can choose to continue joining the large united bank, and this government-controlled bank will also receive supportive policies, ensuring that future development will absolutely not result in losses.

They can also choose to exit in a timely manner, and the shares they hold after integration will be acquired by the government and the royal family, guaranteeing their costs.

As for whether they can make a fortune from this banking industry rectification, that is basically impossible. The royal family and government are not fools and naturally will not allow these private bank capitals to find loopholes during this major rectification.

While rectifying the banks, the government is also preparing to establish the Spanish National Bank. Since its establishment, the Royal United Bank has been welcomed by a large number of Spaniards, and the government naturally cannot abandon this opportunity to make big money.

Moreover, a truly official-backed bank can not only serve as a benchmark for the finance industry but also achieve control over the banking industry, so an official bank is very necessary.

After discussions with Carlo, the Spanish National Bank has officially entered the preparation phase. The royal family will invest 5 million pesetas, holding 45% of the shares in the soon-to-be-established national bank.

The Spanish government will invest 10 million pesetas, holding 55% of the shares in the national bank. The national bank’s operations will be supervised by the government, with the royal family not participating.

The Spanish National Bank and Royal United Bank will join the Spanish Currency Issuance Committee, which will control the issuance of Spanish pesetas.

In other words, the national bank and Royal United Bank will serve as Spain’s two parallel official banks, gaining the power of currency issuance and control. The government will not intervene in the operations of the Royal United Bank, and the royal family will similarly not intervene in the operations of the national bank. However, both can control the issuance of Spanish currency through the Currency Issuance Committee, aiming for win-win cooperation in the finance industry.

The purpose of this is, of course, to thoroughly control Spain’s finance industry through the cooperation of the two official banks.

No matter how powerful future bank capital becomes, it cannot surpass the union of the two official banks. With the royal family and government controlling the two bank capitals, royal capital and state capital will become Spain’s largest capitals, thereby preventing capital infiltration into the country.

For Carlo, although the establishment of the national bank will to some extent affect the business of the Royal United Bank, overall it is still not a loss.

After all, he also holds 45% of the national bank’s shares, with 45% of the national bank’s income belonging to the royal family.

Moreover, the development of the banking industry also requires competition. If the Royal United Bank dominates alone, it is not good for the development of Spain’s finance industry and is more likely to breed corruption and graft.

Of course, even with competition, corruption and graft are inevitable. To prevent this phenomenon from harming the two major banks, the Currency Issuance Committee, besides the two official banks, also includes oversight from the royal family and government departments to clear out the bad elements in the banks at any time.

That is, Carlo’s current influence over the government is not high enough; otherwise, supervision of government officials would also be put on the agenda.

Corruption occurs in every national government and is fundamentally impossible to eradicate or avoid. Although the current government originated from the revolutionary government, long-term occupation of high positions will definitely produce other ideas.

In the future, after Carlo gains certain power, he will formulate even stricter policies to exert more supervisory role over the government.

Besides the development of the banking industry, another point Carlo is quite concerned about is the development of the military industry.

After receiving military industry support from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Spain will also usher in a golden period of development in the military industry.

The development of the military industry certainly cannot rely solely on the royal arsenal; armories with government backgrounds and private armories are also quite important boosts.

The military industry sector is mainly about innovation and improvements. Developing several more armories to form a competitive situation is still very necessary, at least ensuring that under the competitive environment, Spain’s weapons will continuously update and iterate.

If the competition is not intense, the royal arsenal’s attitude toward researching new weapons will not be so strong; after all, selling old weapons can still make money, so why bother researching those more expensive new weapons?

Therefore, for the country’s development, the military industry must have competition, and the intensity of competition can only be high, not low.

Carlo would rather see his royal arsenal at a disadvantage in competition than see it dominate alone, ultimately causing Spain’s weapon development to fall behind.

The aid from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the military industry is divided into two parts.

The first part is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire will provide Spain with production lines for existing rifle and artillery technology. The reason the Austro-Hungarian Empire is willing to provide rifle and artillery production lines is actually because it has seen the backwardness of the existing rifles and cannons.

The Austro-Prussian War and Franco-Prussian War have already proven that muzzle-loading rifles are outdated products, and now it is the era of breech-loading rifles.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire domestically is also researching products related to breech-loading rifles, so it naturally does not care about the existing muzzle-loading rifles. Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire has not fallen behind the world in artillery, it is at least behind the Prussians.

The steel cannons widely used by the Prussians played a huge role in the Franco-Prussian War, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire domestically also has ideas for imitation.

This is also why the Austro-Hungarian Empire is willing to share these technologies; after all, in a few more years, these technologies will be completely obsolete.

In addition to the previous agreement with the Spanish government, Spain’s progress in these weapons over the next ten years should also be shared with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which can be considered an investment by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Of course, since it is an investment, what the Austro-Hungarian Empire pays is definitely more than this.

Besides the rifle and artillery production lines and related technologies, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will also provide a team of about 100 weapons technology experts to be stationed in Spain for five years.

This is the real investment from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, helping Spain quickly master rifle and artillery technology while jointly cooperating on research and development of new rifles and artillery.

Such cooperation is not a loss for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Using already outdated products and technology plus a portion of technical experts in exchange for Spain’s military industry progress over the next ten years.

Although Spain is not a great power and does not have too strong strength in the military industry, it still has some foundation.

Moreover, it is technological advancement over the next ten years; with the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s help, Spain might achieve certain breakthroughs in weapon technology.

Of course, even if Spain does not make too big a breakthrough in the military industry, the Austro-Hungarian Empire does not lose much. After all, these outdated products are not worth much money, and more than 100 technical experts only need to be stationed in Spain for five years.

In Carlo’s view, the military industry cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian Empire can achieve a win-win for Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. First, the more than 100 technical experts provided by the Austro-Hungarian Empire are crucial for the development of Spain’s military industry.

With these more than 100 technical experts, Carlo is confident in developing Spain’s own bolt-action rifle ahead of schedule.

Of course, these technical experts will definitely not have access to Spain’s research on machine guns. The machine gun is being developed by the father of automatic weapons Maxim and his brother, so Carlo is quite reassured.

This aspect does not need the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s help, so naturally there is no need to share technology with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The technology in rifles and artillery can still be shared with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Especially in artillery, Spain still very much needs the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s technical experts to help better learn current relatively advanced artillery design concepts.

For these more than 100 Austro-Hungarian Empire experts, Carlo naturally has no intention of letting them go. To say the least, at least half of them should stay in Spain to work after 5 years; that is Carlo’s plan.

Although poaching people like this is somewhat immoral, these more than 100 are all technical experts from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in weapon design, which is very helpful to Spain.

Moreover, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire dispatches these more than 100 people, it naturally has prepared for them to be poached. The Austro-Hungarian Empire will not fall out with Spain over these more than 100 people, so those who should be poached still need to be poached.

According to the information provided by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, most of this group of technical experts are engaged in rifle and artillery design. If they can be poached to Spain in the future, some can be selected to join machine gun research and development.

It is believed that with the help of more talent, the development of the Maxim machine gun will also accelerate. It is believed that the Maxim machine gun in this world will be born earlier and shine before World War I.

The bad news is that the royal arsenal is destined not to get all the weapons technology experts. To develop other armories, a sufficient portion of technical experts must be left for other armories.

Because there are only more than 100 technical experts, their value must be fully squeezed. They will go to several of Spain’s larger-scale armories to help these armories master the rifle and artillery technologies from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Then, based on the scale of each armory, these technical experts will be allocated, with each armory researching new rifle and artillery technology.

Considering the scale of the royal arsenal, the number of technical experts it ultimately receives will definitely be the largest. The standard rifle to be adopted by the future Spanish Army will be selected step by step from the products of these armories, picking the most excellent rifle.

The reason for involving several other armories is precisely to cultivate more armories to compete with each other. Only competition will continuously generate innovation in this industry, allowing weapon technology to iterate and progress continuously.

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