novelraw Chapter 137: Visitor From France
Chapter 137: Visitor From France
Compared to those guys expelled from the army, the officials kicked out of officialdom were far more pitiful.
The government would not provide them with any jobs, and for some officials with extremely serious corruption, it would even pursue their previous responsibilities.
However, the effects were visible to the naked eye. The rectification of officialdom made all Spanish officials feel insecure, not only greatly reducing corruption, but also significantly improving administrative efficiency between the cabinet government and the regional governments.
If previously the decrees promulgated by the cabinet government needed several weeks to be implemented in various places, now it took at most one week to see the implementation of decrees in various places.
In fact, the regional governors and city mayors had no choice but to cooperate. After the performance appraisal legislation was promulgated, the promotion of any legislation could affect their performance appraisals.
Unless they really did not care about their future in officialdom, they had to pay attention to the various tasks promulgated by the cabinet government and improve their political achievements as much as possible within compliance.
Spain was after all a country with a small area, and it was easy to review the assessment situations of officials in the regions and cities.
In other words, if any official wanted to falsify in the performance appraisal, even if they could deceive the assessment department, they might not be able to deceive the review by the cabinet government and parliament.
Prime Minister Primó had also stated in advance that anyone found falsifying or engaging in fraud in the performance appraisal would be dealt with as endangering national security, not only dismissed from office but also have all property sealed.
Although Prime Minister Primó only gave a verbal warning, it still drew attention from many Spanish officials. There was no way around it; since becoming prime minister, Primó had acted swiftly and decisively.
The reform had raised the butcher’s knife even to the nobles and the church, and Spanish officials did not think they had a status comparable to the nobles and parliament, so they naturally did not dare to provoke Prime Minister Primó’s authority.
If they ran into Prime Minister Primó’s butcher’s knife, that would really be courting death. What Prime Minister Primó lacked most right now was a chicken to kill to scare the monkeys, and many officials understood this reasoning.
Why had the Catholic Church in Spain remained silent multiple times when facing the impact of government reforms? Because it did not want to be that chicken.
Pushing reforms required great boldness from Prime Minister Primó, which also meant that the first force under Prime Minister Primó’s butcher’s knife would face punishments even harsher and more cruel than imagined.
At the same time as Prime Minister Primó wielded the knife against officialdom, Carlo was also expanding the scale of his Royal Knights at the same time.
The so-called Royal Knights was actually a special force specifically provided for noble scions to improve their personal abilities and resumes.
The members who could join the Royal Knights were basically Spanish noble scions, that is, forces naturally standing on the king’s side.
Carlo attached great importance to the cultivation of these noble scions. If these guys had excellent abilities, they could help him in the future.
Carlo not only invited excellent professors from the Madrid Royal Military Academy to serve part-time in the Royal Knights, but also carefully prepared training experiences for every knight in the knight order.
The current Royal Knights was essentially an elite education venue for noble scions, cultivating them into the excellent senior officers that Carlo needed.
In the Royal Knights, in addition to receiving military and cultural courses of various levels, they also had to learn noble etiquette courses, art courses, equestrian courses, swordsmanship courses, religious courses, and other knowledge.
The number of knights in the Royal Knights had now broken through a hundred, most of whom were sons of dukes and grand dukes, with only a few sons of marquises and counts able to squeeze in.
There was no way around it; the funding expenses for such elite noble education were also very high, and it was naturally impossible to open it to all noble scions at present.
All the nobles in Spain added up to several thousand if not ten thousand, and all noble scions might exceed ten thousand.
Even if not many under 20 were eligible for education, there were at least several thousand in scale.
Providing elite noble education to these several thousand people would require more funds than maintaining a division of guard troops.
For Carlo at present, it was naturally best to limit the number of the knight order as much as possible and prioritize cultivating the sons of dukes and grand dukes.
However, in the future, the Royal Knights would still need to expand on a large scale. Because the number of new aristocrats would increase in the future, and these new aristocrats did not have such strong foundations.
Spain’s old aristocrats could afford the expenses of cultivating their children because they had sufficient foundations and could bear any costs for educating their children.
But the property of new aristocrats was far inferior to that of old aristocrats, and they would also lag one step behind in educating their children.
New aristocrats were equally important to Carlo. Since new aristocrats were likely unable to afford the expenses of elite noble education, Carlo could only expand the scale of the Royal Knights as much as possible and include the scions of new aristocrats in the elite noble cultivation system.
Moreover, compared to the scions of old aristocrats, the descendants of new aristocrats would have higher loyalty to Carlo.
After all, the nobility titles of old aristocrats had nothing to do with Carlo; they could only choose to be loyal to Carlo because he was the king of Spain.
But new aristocrats were different. The nobility titles of new aristocrats came from Carlo’s enfeoffment; everything they had was granted by Carlo, so their loyalty to Carlo would naturally be higher.
Moreover, compared to old aristocrats, they had no choice. Old aristocrats still had a lot of property to be rich gentlemen, but if new aristocrats did not cling to the king, they were just small landlords with noble titles, incomparable to the property of old aristocrats.
The Royal Knights generally recruited noble scions over 12 years old. They would receive four years of elite noble education in the Royal Knights and undergo more than two years of training.
After completing all education and training, they would be assigned to serve in the guard or Royal Army, or engage in other professions.
But no matter where they worked, their future potential would not be low. The nobles knew this, so not only did they have no rejection of the establishment of the Royal Knights, but they tried every means to stuff their sons into the Royal Knights.
Of course, those stuffed in were generally second sons or those further back in line. The eldest son would definitely inherit the title in the future, while second sons had less property and might as well join the Royal Knights for more opportunities.
Although the Royal Knights focused more on military cultivation, it would not neglect the cultural education of noble scions.
If there were noble scions more suited to civil service than military work, Carlo did not mind cultivating them in the direction of officials.
Anyway, after these noble scions entered the army or officialdom, they would also strengthen the royal family’s influence in those places.
This was the advantage of Europe’s noble system: no matter how high a noble’s status, they ultimately had to be loyal to the king.
Because without the king, the noble system would cease to exist; the king and nobles were highly bound together, and the king was the greatest noble in the noble system.
After this army reform, the scale of the Spanish army would become even larger. Just the home army and colonial army together approached 150,000 men, and adding the guard would even approach 170,
The military expenses for such a massive army could be maintained, but the pressure on the logistics department would also multiply.
Carlo also wanted to strengthen training for each troop, and in the future, the consumption of bullets and cannonballs would increase. Under all these factors, it was necessary to make certain changes to the logistics system in the troops.
Following the traditional logistics system, it would probably be unable to meet the current operational needs of the troops.
Just transporting cannonballs would give logistics a headache, not to mention that breech-loading rifles had a faster rate of fire, and bullet consumption would also increase several times.
There was not much that could be done at present, only to strengthen local logistics management systems as much as possible, do a good job in transportation, and meet the needs of troops in various places for weapons and equipment.
Fortunately, troop expansion required a long time, and plus the time needed for weapon production, logistics still had a long time to make changes.
In addition to expanding the scale of the Royal Knights, Carlo also established the Royal Pharmaceutical Company, specifically engaged in biological technology research and drug research and development.
To promote the establishment of this company, Carlo paid a great price to hire many top experts in biology and medicine from across Europe, inviting them to work in Spain.
The chips offered were full of sincerity. In addition to higher income than their original salaries, there was also a house in Madrid, and certain shares in the pharmaceutical company, etc.
Although the shares given to them were not much, the Royal Pharmaceutical Company would definitely be a large enterprise in the future, and even a tiny share would not have low value.
It was precisely because of such generous rewards that several top biologists and medical experts in the European scope were indeed attracted.
In addition to having them serve in the Royal Pharmaceutical Company, Carlo also had them serve as honorary professors in Spain’s medical colleges, cultivating more talents in biology and medicine for Spain.
Current medical technology was still too backward, leading to low newborn survival rates and affecting Spanish population growth.
A considerable portion of newborns died each year from various diseases; these were all future Spanish population, so saving them was naturally better.
Carlo’s requirement for the pharmaceutical company was to engage in as much medical research and development as possible, no matter what type of drugs; research what could be researched first, and manufacture what could be manufactured.
In the short term, Carlo did not consider making the pharmaceutical company profitable. Even in the long term, Carlo had not thought about how much income the pharmaceutical company could generate.
The main purpose of establishing the pharmaceutical company was strategic: by laying out the research and development of certain important drugs in advance, Spain could maintain a world-leading position in the field of medical technology.
What Carlo did not expect was that at the end of September 1872, the Spanish government welcomed an unexpected guest.
Yes, this guest was the famous Adolf— no, Adolphe Thiers, the first president of the Third French Republic and currently France’s highest ruler.
Of course, the reason Thiers was renowned in Europe, besides suppressing a certain movement, was that he personally signed the diplomatic document for the indemnity of 5 billion francs to Prussia.
Perhaps Parisian citizens did not expect that their action, launched because of opposition to the government’s weakness toward Prussia, ultimately made the government even weaker toward Prussia.
Of course, the French government also had an extremely tough side. It was just that the Third Republic’s toughness was shown to the Parisian citizens’ movement, and through cruel and bloody suppression, Thiers successfully became renowned throughout Europe.
How cruel was the suppression scene at that time? French newspapers once reported the massacre scene: “A blood canal flowed from a barracks into the Seine River, polluting hundreds of meters of river water and forming a narrow blood river.”
Yes, it was that famous riverbank of the Seine River.
This suppression of the Parisian citizens lasted a full month, with more than 30,000 killed and over 100,000 exiled or imprisoned.
However, although the Parisian citizens’ movement was suppressed, the French government internally was still quite chaotic.
The governments and media of many countries were not optimistic about the Third French Republic, because the lifespan of republicanism in France was not long.
The power of the French Royalist Party was extremely strong, strong enough to easily destroy the republican system.
It was just that the Royalist Party was internally divided into several factions: the Legitimists supporting the Bourbon Dynasty, the Orléanists supporting the House of Louis Philippe, and the Bonapartists supporting the Bonaparte family.
If these Royalist factions united, they would occupy the majority of seats in the French National Assembly and could easily restore the empire through the National Assembly and re-establish an empire for France.
But unfortunately, these three Royalist factions supported different families, and France could only have one emperor, meaning there could be no compromise between the three Royalist factions.
It was worth mentioning that Thiers himself claimed to be a royalist. He wanted to restore France’s empire on one hand, but on the other hand feared that placing an emperor over the French people would lead to renewed opposition.
Because of the fierce conflict between supporters of republicanism and monarchy, plus many French people’s dissatisfaction with the government’s cowardice toward former Prussia, now Germany, and the cruelty of suppressing the revolution, etc., France’s interior was now very chaotic.
To suppress the French people’s revolution, Thiers had gone all out. He promulgated a law requiring 2 to 5 years imprisonment for anyone propagating a certain ism, and also sealed all trade unions, canceling freedoms of publication and association.
To repay the 5 billion francs indemnity promised to Prussia, the Thiers government issued a large amount of national debt, and each time over-issued.
Plus massive loans to capitalism, to date, more than half of the 5 billion francs had been repaid by the French government.
This was quite exaggerated. 5 billion francs was not a small amount; for the Spanish government, it was simply an astronomical figure.
According to the Spanish government’s fiscal revenue, repaying such an indemnity would take at least over 20 years. Even constantly issuing national debt and borrowing from civilian capital, it would be impossible to clear it within 15 years.
But the French government managed it, which also proved one thing: the development of French capital and the scale of industry and economy remained very large, which was also the reason France became a superpower.
It was just that, although the French government could scrape together 5 billion francs in a short time, it did not mean that 5 billion francs was unimportant to them.
The French government had taken on a large amount of national debt for this, and the heavy economic burden also fell on the French people.
At the same time, capital gained a lot of power through lending to the government. France was already gradually transitioning to capitalism, and the impact on France’s future development was extremely far-reaching.
Back to Thiers’ visit to Spain.
This matter was quite sudden; even Prime Minister Primó only learned of it the day before Thiers arrived in Spain.
When Carlo learned of this news, Thiers was already about to arrive in Madrid.
Fortunately, Carlo did not need to personally receive him; Prime Minister Primó’s identity and status were sufficient to welcome President Thiers.
For the arrival of this French president, although Carlo was somewhat caught off guard, upon careful thought he knew his intention.
There was no way around it; the current development of the situation somewhat exceeded the French government’s expectations.
Looking closely at the current development of the European situation, it was undoubtedly fatal for France. First, France completely failed in the competition with Prussia, and the status of hegemon on the European continent had fallen into German hands.
Secondly, the isolate France policy proposed by German Chancellor Bismarck seemed to be taking shape.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia were negotiating certain matters, which immediately made the French anxious. If the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia reached a certain compromise, the biggest conflict on the European continent would become the Germany-France conflict.
And the Austro-Hungarian Empire was continuously showing goodwill to Germany; did this not also mean that the Austro-Hungarian Empire would lean toward Germany?
Of course, Germans would not refuse the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s goodwill, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire could provide great help in isolating France.
At the same time, Italy was an ally of Prussia before Germany’s establishment, and Germans had not abandoned Italy as an ally.
The Spanish and Italian royal families were the same family, and had an alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with marriage alliance relations.
In the worst case, Germans were highly likely to form a four-power alliance including Germany, Germany-Austria-Italy-Spain, completely isolating the French in Western Europe.
If Germans really achieved this step, the French would not need to talk about development. To the north of France were the Low Countries trio, Britain, France, Germany all had influence in the Low Countries trio, and France could not dominate alone.
All neighboring countries left only Switzerland as a neutral country, and to the south, the route to colonizing Africa might be jointly cut off by Spain and Italy.
The French had to try every means to avoid the occurrence of the four-power alliance, otherwise France’s future development would suffer a devastating blow.
And among the four-power alliance, the easiest to approach at present was Spain.
Why say that? The Austro-Hungarian Empire was actively leaning toward Germany, and France could not win over the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Italy was Germany’s ally, and also eased contradictions with the Austro-Hungarian Empire because of recapturing southern South Tyrol.
Instead, the French stood on Italy’s ceded Savoy region; look at the Italian royal family’s family name, it was Savoy!
Under such circumstances, winning over Italy was extremely difficult, and Italy’s direction of colonizing Africa happened to conflict with France.
The remaining Spain, although allied with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and family with the Italian royal family, fortunately had no major relations with Germany.
At present, as long as Spain and Germany’s alliance could be avoided, at least France could ensure through Spain that it would not be completely blockaded.
There was also good news that the British would prevent Spain’s colonization of Morocco, and Spain needed a powerful ally to help itself.
Germans might not be willing to offend Britain for Spain, but the French did not care about that.
France itself was already in jeopardy, so it naturally had to try every means to win over Spain, thereby breaking the blockade route set by Germans against France.
Five thousand five hundred words two-in-one chapter, seeking support!