Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 151: The Value Of The Treasure And Great National Fusion

“Your Majesty, Prime Minister, after our four-day statistics, we have finally confirmed the contents of all the treasures in this batch of treasure.

Just the gold and gold manufactured goods alone amount to nearly 80 tons, plus nearly 3 tons of various precious gems and precious metals, over 500 kilograms of diamonds, and other property.

According to our conservative estimate, calculating only the value of the property itself without including the added value from antiques, the total value of this batch of treasure has already reached 900 million pesetas.

However, unfortunately, only the gold and its manufactured goods, as well as various gems, pearls, diamonds, and so on, can be directly sold. The value of the property that can be directly sold is approximately 620 million pesetas, while another nearly 280 million pesetas of property will require more time to sell.”

Butler Loren respectfully reported the secured statistical results to Carlo and Prime Minister Primó with a face full of reverence.

Hearing that the total value of the treasure had already exceeded 900 million pesetas, Carlo and Prime Minister Primó’s expressions both underwent extremely obvious changes.

While Prime Minister Primó was joyful and excited, he was also full of admiration for Carlo who provided the intelligence.

Although the value of this treasure was high, what was more important was that Carlo provided clues about the treasure, giving the Spanish Government the opportunity to obtain it.

Without the clues, this treasure would continue to be buried underground and be discovered by the British Colonial Government or Indians years later.

In the current situation, although the government could only get half of this treasure, it still had a value of nearly 450 million pesetas, almost approaching the government’s total fiscal revenue for one year. This sum of money was even more important to the Spanish Government than the 500 million franc loan from the French Government, after all, the French loan came with interest, while this treasure required no interest at all, not even repayment.

The only regrettable thing was that many of the gold manufactured goods bore fairly obvious Hindu markings, so they could only be forcibly remelted.

This would destroy the value of many gold manufactured goods, turning them from antiques of over a hundred or even hundreds of years into ordinary gold products.

But there was no way around it. If these gold manufactured goods with prominent Hindu markings flowed into Spain or other markets, they would definitely attract the attention of the British.

After all, besides India, Hinduism was not very popular in other regions. Gold manufactured goods with Hindu markings were highly likely to come from India itself, and after the temple was robbed, the British would certainly pay more attention to the circulation of gold and jewelry in markets around the world.

Since the value of the temple treasure had been roughly determined, the most important matter next was naturally the allocation between the government and the royal family.

Carlo was also very excited. According to the agreement with Prime Minister Primó, the royal family could obtain half of this treasure, that is, about 450 million pesetas of property.

The total value of all enterprises currently in Carlo’s hands was barely over 100 million, so this was equivalent to multiplying Carlo’s property several times just from this treasure excavation.

“Prime Minister Primó, since this treasure has a large amount of pearls, gems, and diamonds, how about allocating those without Hindu markings to the royal family?

The royal family can take less in gold and its manufactured goods, which would benefit both the royal family and the government.” Carlo suggested.

For the government, the gold and gold manufactured goods in these treasures were clearly more important. Those gems, pearls, and diamonds that seemed invaluable had little real use for the government.

It would be better to allocate these properties to the royal family as much as possible, first to increase the royal family’s treasure reserves, and second to allocate more gold to the government, thereby expanding the Spanish Government’s gold reserves.

“Of course.” Prime Minister Primó nodded, showing no intention of refusing.

He also knew that Carlo doing this was giving more gold reserves to the government; strictly speaking, the government was profiting.

After a simple allocation between Carlo and Prime Minister Primó, the proportions of gold and jewelry obtained by the royal family and the government were finally settled.

Out of the over 80 tons of gold and gold manufactured goods, the government obtained a full 50 tons of gold to increase the government’s gold reserves.

Although the royal family obtained only just over 30 tons of gold, the good news was that out of a total of over 5 tons of gems, pearls, diamonds, and other property, the royal family obtained a full 3 tons.

The 5 tons obtained by the government was because these properties had fairly obvious Hindu markings, making them unsuitable for immediate sale. The property with Hindu markings was split fifty-fifty between the royal family and the government, to be sold slowly at suitable opportunities in the future.

Although it was said to be a fifty-fifty split, the specific allocation certainly wouldn’t be detailed down to the peseta.

Overall, the government got a slight advantage in the allocation, but not too much. The total value of this treasure was about 930 million pesetas, and the total value of property obtained by the government reached 480 million pesetas.

The royal family got a bit less, but still 450 million pesetas, which already met Carlo’s expectations for this treasure excavation operation.

On the day the specific property allocation was confirmed, Prime Minister Primó sent people to quietly transfer the government’s share of property to more secure warehouses.

All gold with obvious Hindu markings was completely remelted, and gold without obvious markings was all stored in warehouses as the government’s gold reserves.

With this batch of new gold reserves, Spain’s Currency Issuance Committee could also prepare to issue new currency.

This was another new gain for the government and the royal family, after all, the only banks in Spain legally allowed to issue currency were two: the government-controlled National Bank and the royal family-controlled Royal United Bank.

In fact, by this calculation, Carlo profited even more. After all, the government had no shares in the Royal United Bank, but Carlo had shares in the National Bank.

To ensure the stability of Spain’s currency, the newly issued currency would definitely not flood into the market rapidly, but would be gradually released in batches.

After a brief discussion by the Currency Issuance Committee, it was decided to issue a total of 500 million pesetas over the next three years: 100 million pesetas in 1873, and 200 million pesetas each in 1874 and

If the economic crisis occurred this year, then the next three years would certainly be the period most severely affected by the economic crisis.

The purpose of issuing pesetas over these three years was actually very simple: while countries around the world suffered from the economic crisis, Spain would catch up, narrowing the gap with the European great powers as much as possible.

When other European great powers gradually emerged from the economic crisis, they would be surprised to find that Spain’s industry and economy had grown significantly, even approaching the level of the great powers again.

While the government was planning the development plan for the next three years, Carlo was also taking stock of the property obtained by the royal family in this treasure hunting plan, and together with Butler Loren, formulating more detailed plans for the future development of the royal enterprises.

Among the approximately 450 million pesetas of property obtained by the royal family, only less than 300 million pesetas could be easily sold. The remaining 150 million pesetas of property would need to wait for more suitable opportunities, or even stay in hand for the next few years.

But that didn’t matter. With up to 300 million pesetas of sellable property, it could ensure the future development of the royal enterprises, with no shortage of funds.

Among all current royal enterprises, the largest in scale was the Royal United Bank, with dozens of branches.

The Royal United Bank currently had over 30 bank branches, with total users exceeding 400,The total savings funds of the Royal United Bank had officially broken 100 million, bringing the royal family at least 10 million pesetas in net income every year.

Yes, banks make money like that. Just investing this over 100 million pesetas into industry would yield annual income of up to 10 million pesetas.

Not to mention that banks also handle loans and other businesses, with total annual income approaching 20 million pesetas. However, after deducting various expenditures, the net profit was reduced to around 10 million pesetas.

The Royal United Bank was also the enterprise with the highest annual profit among all those in which Carlo held shares. The Spanish National Bank came second only to the Royal United Bank, with annual revenue also exceeding 10 million pesetas.

However, after deducting various expenditures, the National Bank’s profit was just over 3 million pesetas. Carlo’s 45% shares could get 4 million pesetas in income, which was a drop in the bucket compared to the Royal United Bank.

This was unavoidable. Compared to the Royal United Bank established by the royal family and nobles, the internal operations of the National Bank were clearly more complex.

Fortunately, Carlo didn’t need to worry about the National Bank’s operations; he just needed to wait each year for the National Bank to finalize the income and expenditure reports and quietly await the dividends.

Compared to the two major banks, the income from various factories was lower. After all, factories unlike banks didn’t have branches everywhere; basically, all factories were counted separately.

But when all factories were added up, the income was still a non-negligible figure. The total income from all factories and enterprises currently controlled by the royal family was actually higher than the income from the National Bank’s dividends to Carlo.

In 1872, the total income from all royal enterprises and factories was nearly 20 million pesetas, of which the Royal United Bank contributed over 51%, the National Bank contributed 7%, all factories combined contributed nearly 32%, and the remaining less than 10% came from various newspaper offices and royal land rentals.

The income proportions of the royal industries actually proved the eternal truth of this era: the finance industry and real industry are always the most profitable.

Of course, another major reason was that the royal family didn’t have much land. Even though much land had been purchased from nobles and the church, the land owned by the royal family still didn’t rank among the major nobles.

But Carlo no longer cared how much land the royal family had. After all, farming in this era wasn’t very profitable anymore; what really made money was running factories and banks.

Because this treasure excavation brought huge gains, Carlo would not be stingy at all with the development of royal enterprises.

After discussion with Butler Loren, Carlo decided to allocate 100 million pesetas to promote the development of royal enterprises.

Considering that the Royal United Bank would be difficult to expand significantly in the future, Carlo focused the supported enterprises on the industrial aspect.

The supported enterprises mainly fell into three categories: heavy industry, chemical industry, and military industry.

Military industry naturally went without saying. Currently, Carlo had two major military industry enterprises: the Royal Arsenal and the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard.

With sufficient funds, Carlo’s ambitions also began to grow. Regarding the future development of the Spanish Navy, Carlo issued a new order to the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard: to devote the full strength of the shipyard to design the world’s most advanced ironclad ship, with faster speed, higher firepower, and stronger armor protection capability.

After the impact of this economic crisis ended, it would also be about time for Spain to develop its navy. According to the current ironclad ship construction costs worldwide, Spain would need at least 10 million pesetas to build each ironclad ship.

Plus the training of naval soldiers on the warships, and the specific training of naval soldiers after the warships were launched, etc., forming combat effectiveness for each warship would require at least 15 million pesetas in funds.

Considering that most of Spain’s current naval scale consisted of sailing warships from decades ago and outdated ironclads, to stably position the Spanish Navy as the world’s fifth below Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, more funds would need to be invested in the Spanish Navy in the future.

Fortunately, after this treasure excavation, the government could truly be considered wealthy. Although Carlo and Prime Minister Primó hadn’t discussed it specifically, it was certain that Spain would develop its navy in the future.

Given Spain’s current development speed, by the time the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard designed a reasonably powerful warship, it might be when Spain resumed building ironclads and stabilized its position as the fifth naval power in the world.

Whether Spain was a great power or not didn’t matter. As long as Spain could thoroughly stabilize its position as the world’s fifth naval power, the Spanish Government could proudly declare that Spain was still a powerful European great power, and no country would express opposition.

The rewards for all personnel involved in the treasure excavation operation were actually funded jointly by the government and the royal family.

Carlo had also considered granting nobility titles to the two commanders of this operation and several operatives who contributed significantly.

But considering the need for strict secrecy in this operation, it was ultimately abandoned. However, when Spain granted nobility titles on a large scale in the future, corresponding titles would still be rewarded to them based on their contributions in the operation.

It would just require them to endure for a while, which was also why Carlo increased the rewards for everyone.

Although the rewards for these people already amounted to nearly half a ton of gold, because it was jointly funded by the government and the royal family, the royal family’s expenditure was actually less than 500,000 pesetas.

Of course, the costs of this treasure excavation operation weren’t just the rewards for the operatives; there were also transportation costs for the treasure, as well as expenses for disguises and equipment for all operatives.

All these miscellaneous expenditures, even counting only the royal family’s share, still amounted to over a million pesetas.

But compared to the 450 million pesetas in income, the expenditure of over a million pesetas was obviously negligible.

The changes this batch of treasure brought to the royal family weren’t great, merely expanding investments in royal enterprises. But for the government, the role this treasure played was extremely obvious.

The previously mentioned expansion of the Spanish Army could now be carried out on a large scale with money available. Considering that the Royal Arsenal could hardly meet the weapon output for Spain’s major expansion, after comprehensive consideration, the Spanish Ministry of Defense decided to procure a batch of cannons from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to relieve the production pressure on the Royal Arsenal.

Rifles still had to be produced by the Royal Arsenal itself, after all, the Italians’ Vitali rifle was different from Spain’s Vitali rifle.

For the convenience of logistics and supply for the Spanish Army, it was more cost-effective to fully use the same rifle.

To accelerate the development of Spain’s military industry, the Spanish Government also decided to organize a group of military technology students to study in countries with more advanced military technology, led by Britain and Germany.

When these students completed their studies and returned to Spain, they could play a more crucial role in the development of Spain’s military industry and solve the problem of talent shortage in Spain’s military industry.

The reason for sending students in this area was also because most of the military industry talent from the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been taken by the Royal Arsenal.

This was unavoidable; to develop Spain’s military industry, a large military industry enterprise had to be supported as the representative of Spain’s military industry.

But this wasn’t good news for those small-scale military industry enterprises; to raise the overall development level of the military industry, sending students to other countries to enhance military industry capabilities was very necessary.

While formulating future development plans, Prime Minister Primó was also considering how to quickly advance Spain’s great ethnic integration.

Undoubtedly, this economic crisis was an opportunity for Spain to accelerate ethnic integration.

When the economic crisis erupted, countries around the world would have no time for other matters, which was also the best time for Spain to stabilize internally.

How to promote Spain’s great ethnic integration? In a certain conversation between Prime Minister Primó and Carlo, three plans were actually determined.

The first plan was the mildest, which was to promote the use of the Spanish language in Catalonia and the Basque Country through subtle influence, and to build a large number of factories in these regions to promote economic exchange between Spaniards, Catalans, and Basque people.

From the current results, the first plan might be effective, but the progress was very slow.

If relying entirely on the first plan to promote Spain’s great ethnic integration, unifying the small Catalans and Basque people would take at least decades.

Prime Minister Primó pondered for a long time and finally decided that when the economic crisis arrived, to adopt the relatively tough second plan to truly promote the integration between Catalans, Basque people, and Spaniards.

Five thousand word two-in-one chapter, seeking support!