Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 52: The Perfect Plan

“What? Prime Minister Primó was assassinated?” Hearing Butler Loren’s report, Carlo instantly lost all sleepiness and hurriedly asked: “

Is the Prime Minister alright? What’s the situation?”

For the current Spain, it was completely unable to bear the loss of Prime Minister Primó.

It was no exaggeration to say that at this moment, Primó’s importance to Spain far exceeded that of Carlo as King.

Carlo was still too young and could not make all the forces in Spain submit.

Only Primó, who came from the army and possessed enormous prestige in both military and political circles, was currently suppressing those forces with ulterior motives.

In this regard, Serrano was much inferior.

Although Serrano also came from the army and had a certain prestige in the political arena.

But Serrano leaned towards the Conservatives and did not have the support of the Reformists and the Progressive Party.

Perhaps Serrano’s personal loyalty to Carlo was higher than Primó’s, but he was not suitable to be Spain’s Prime Minister; he was more suited for a military position like Minister of War. Primó and Serrano, one civil and one military, were the best configuration for Spain at present.

Carlo did not want to see either of them have an accident.

“Prime Minister Primó was not wounded, but when the guards went to chase the assassin, they only found two corpses.” Butler Loren said with a somewhat strange expression.

“Two corpses?” Carlo was stunned for a moment, then reacted: “So they were silenced? Is there any specific clue?”

“Not yet.” Butler Loren shook his head, somewhat helplessly saying: “The guy behind the scenes was clearly well-prepared; besides the two assassin corpses whose identities couldn’t be identified, even the weapons used for the assassination were taken away.”

Carlo nodded. Since Prime Minister Primó was fine, the follow-up matters would be easy to handle.

“Investigate thoroughly for me; not a single corner of Madrid can be overlooked. I want to know exactly who wanted to assassinate our Prime Minister, exactly who wanted to destroy our reform and Spain.” Carlo said expressionlessly.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Loren nodded and went to convey Carlo’s order.

Although there were no clues, Carlo already had a rough idea in his mind about who might have assassinated Primó.

The reason for assassinating Primó was most likely still because of his reform. The current reform went against the interests of factory owners, the Church, and the nobility; the forces capable of dispatching killers to assassinate Prime Minister Primó were probably only these three.

However, it seemed that the factory owner class did not have this strength. Being able to dispatch killers and plan for silencing them meant they must have sufficiently loyal subordinates on hand.

The factory owners in Madrid who had not been purged were basically small-scale factories; they could not possibly have the strength to cultivate die-hard killers.

This also meant that the force most likely to assassinate Prime Minister Primó was one of the nobility or the Church.

Although Carlo had gained the support of most of the nobility through the Royal Council, this did not mean that some nobles had no objections to the government’s reform.

What was the best way to stop the reform? Of course, directly eliminating the person promoting the reform.

No matter who planned this assassination, it was a serious provocation to the current Spanish Government. Whether it was the nobility or the Church, it was a good thing for Carlo.

As long as he could obtain certain evidence, Carlo could openly purge the nobility or the Church.

If the previous Carlo was still worried that purging some nobles would lead to opposition from the entire aristocracy, then now, after gaining the support of most nobles through the Royal Council, as long as he ensured that the interests of the nobles supporting him were not harmed, he could basically deal with those opposing him without worry.

There was even less need to say much about the Church. The Church’s power was a hindrance to Carlo and the Spanish Government; the earlier it was purged, the more beneficial it would be for Spain.

The vast amount of land controlled by the Church also made Carlo quite covetous. Whether renting it out to commoners at low prices, rewarding it to soldiers through military merit land grants, or purchasing it to establish large royal farms, it would all be much better than continuing to be held by the Church.

As a Catholic country, Spain had enormous influence from the Church.

Only by controlling the entire Church could Carlo effectively increase his own influence and improve Spain’s stability.

The Church’s brainwashing ability surpassed the government. Using the Church to extensively propagate the idea of unifying Spain, making the commoners in Catalonia and the Basque Country accept the concept that they were Spaniards—this was also one of Carlo’s plans.

The Church’s schools could also strengthen the promotion of the Spanish language. Currently, many newspapers and enterprises in Catalonia and the Basque Country were still using local languages, which was also a reason for the constant emergence of separatists in those two regions.

Only by using the same language, Spanish, could the probability of separatists emerging in those two regions be reduced, and assimilation be maximized.

Late at night, in a certain manor.

“What? The plan failed?” The Duke of Osuna looked incredulously at the man called Shadow, asking in surprise.

“Primó’s carriage was reinforced with steel plate protection; those two killers’ weapons were simply insufficient for the bullets to penetrate the steel plate.” Shadow shook his head, saying helplessly.

“Damn it, is this what they call thorough preparation?” Hearing that the assassins had only used two ordinary rifles, the Duke of Osuna was practically laughing in anger.

If that butler hadn’t already been silenced, the Duke of Osuna might even have wanted to torment him personally.

“How was it handled? It won’t be discovered, right?” The Duke of Osuna looked at Shadow and hurriedly asked.

“It’s all been dealt with; those two rifles were also disassembled and scattered by me—no one will discover them.” Shadow said.

“That’s good. Damn Torres, he sabotaged my plan. It seems Primó can only live a little longer.” The Duke of Osuna was still regretting the failure to assassinate, showing no pity at all for dealing with his own butler.

This was actually normal; as one of the nobles with the most land, how could the Duke of Osuna have only one butler?

Torres was merely the manager of some of the Duke of Osuna’s industries in Madrid and had only been the butler of this manor for a few years, so he naturally had not yet gained the Duke of Osuna’s complete trust.

Since he was not trusted, being silenced after the assassination was only natural.

“The government should soon thoroughly investigate this assassination. Your Highness, shouldn’t you go hide outside?” Shadow suggested.

The Prime Minister being assassinated was no small matter; the government’s investigation efforts should be intense. Especially since Primó was unharmed, both the nobility and the Church were likely under scrutiny.

“No need for now. Shadow, you have to believe in your cleanup abilities.” The Duke of Osuna smiled, showing no panic at all: “Let Primó investigate; two Italians—what can he find?

Oh, perhaps when Primó discovers the assassins were Italians, we’ll have a good show to watch.

Don’t forget that the King above us is also Italian; will Primó suspect the King? It’s truly exciting, haha.”

The Duke of Osuna had meticulously prepared for this assassination.

Both assassins were Italians who entered Spain as laborers; their information before the assassination was that of ordinary people.

And this manor was one of the Duke of Osuna’s many properties; few people knew who the butler was.

Especially since Torres had only become the butler of this manor a few years ago, the people who knew about it were extremely rare.

Perhaps even if Primó turned Madrid upside down, he wouldn’t find any useful information. At that time, would fellow Italian Carlo really not be suspected by Primó?

Even if the assassination of Primó couldn’t succeed, at worst it would provoke the relationship between Carlo and Primó—this was the Duke of Osuna’s plan.

As long as the relationship between Carlo and Primó was destroyed, Carlo could not strongly support Primó’s reform, because that would greatly enhance Primó’s personal prestige.

In this way, it could still achieve the Duke of Osuna’s purpose: to prevent Primó’s reform from happening and ensure his own interests did not suffer major losses.

Even if the entire plan failed, the Duke of Osuna would have no suspicion and could wait for another opportunity to assassinate Primó—this was the so-called foolproof plan.

First update, seeking support!