Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 72: Spain Short On Manpower

After the Franco-Prussian War ended, the European situation also entered a period of calm.

Of course, the reason the situation was calm was that the troublemaking British Empire had no time for other matters due to Ireland’s autonomy movement.

The official name of the United Kingdom is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Kingdom of Great Britain is composed of England and Scotland.

This also led to the United Kingdom domestically having problems similar to those of Spain. Apart from the dominant ethnic group of Englishmen, Scots and Irish do not seem to fully acknowledge the government’s rule.

However, at this time, the British Empire was undoubtedly the world hegemon, the most powerful naval country. Relying on the glory of the Victorian era, it briefly suppressed the Irish and Scots’ desires for independence.

While the British had internal problems, the French were licking their wounds after the war, and the Germans had obtained a large sum of funds and began developing industry, other European countries also came their most golden development time.

More than two months passed quickly, and the main building of Gramme’s electricity laboratory that Gramme had been longing for was finally completed.

Under Gramme’s urging, the Royal Electricity Research Project smoothly moved to the new experimental main building and officially began research on generators.

If posterity mentions direct current and alternating current, people will first think of Edison and Tesla’s current war.

But in fact, direct current and alternating current were born very early; it was just that the early exploration stage consumed too much time and did not attract the attention of governments of various countries, which is why the large-scale application of electricity was only realized at the end of the 19th century. Why say this?

Gramme can be said to be a quite outstanding talent in the electricity field. His contributions to electric energy in the 19th century were at the top five level.

But such a talent was not valued in France; there were many talents like Gramme, including the world-famous Nicholas Tesla more than a decade later.

The first thing after moving to the new laboratory, Gramme decided to build one AC generator and one DC generator respectively, and then explore how to use electric energy from them.

Although the pioneers Faraday and Henry had already established the principles and feasibility of manufacturing generators in this field, the generators they manufactured were mostly used only for experiments and did not prove whether electric energy could be used practically.

Gramme decided to continue the exploration of Faraday and Henry, striving to discover cheap electric energy that could be practically utilized as soon as possible, to repay Carlo’s support for him.

Carlo actually had some knowledge reserve in the electric energy field. Of course, this so-called knowledge reserve was just common knowledge in posterity.

After hundreds of years of exploration by pioneers like Gramme, people in posterity could enjoy such convenient and easy-to-use electric energy more than 100 years later.

Carlo even knew the accidental story of Gramme promoting the electric power industry. At an exposition, when Gramme installed two generators, he accidentally connected the wires wrong and sent the electricity generated by the generator back to another engine.

It was this accident that made electric energy rapidly become practical; the scientists present were ecstatic, as the practicalization of electric energy they had pursued for many years was achieved so simply.

A generator is a generator, but it can also become an electric motor. This discovery made electricity this energy source rapidly become one of the most important energy sources of the Second Industrial Revolution and changed the whole world afterward.

However, all this had to wait until Gramme manufactured his own generator. After all, only with things can there be an excuse to propose one’s ideas; without actual proof, the rationality cannot be demonstrated, so it is better to wait until there is a generator and let Gramme operate it in practice to see if it is really true at a glance.

The Royal Engine Company and Gramme’s electricity laboratory were almost next to each other. It is called an engine company, but it is actually more like an engine research office.

Both are his own enterprises, so Carlo would not favor one over the other and naturally had to inspect both.

Compared to the electricity laboratory over there, the engine research office here was much quieter.

This was also unavoidable. Although the main researcher in the electricity research room was only Gramme, there were quite a few technical talents, which were completely sufficient to assist Gramme.

On the engine laboratory side, all told, only Daimler, Benz, and Maybach had the relevant R&D capabilities, and discussions were also conducted by these three.

Although these three were top-notch in the fields of cars and engines, it was obviously impossible to achieve accomplishments in the engine field relying only on them three.

Carlo also set his next goal for himself, which was to gather as many senior talents as possible for the electricity laboratory and mid-to-low-level talents for the engine laboratory.

In Carlo’s mind, both laboratories should at least be equipped with 3 to 5 scientists plus dozens of technical talents with certain knowledge reserves as assistants.

As the research projects in the laboratories become more advanced, the staffing of the laboratories is also constantly growing.

It is only now that everything is still in the startup stage, so having fewer people is manageable. This also constantly reminds Carlo that Spain is still too short of talents in related fields.

Moreover, it is not just the electricity field and engine field; including the chemical industry, physics and chemistry fields, and other industries, Spain needs a large number of mid-to-low-end talents to fill the gaps.

Thinking of this, Carlo could no longer sit still.

Carlo called the director of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, Cadillac, and gave him a new task: to go to European countries to find those destitute scientists and technical talents and invite them to immigrate to Spain.

If large-scale immigration were opened, it would be a burden for the current Spanish government.

The incomes of a large number of domestic farmers have not yet improved, and attracting a large number of immigrants at this time would, in the eyes of Spaniards, just be robbing their jobs?

Therefore, apart from attracting a small number of laborers from Italy, Carlo did not plan to have the Spanish government open immigration channels to attract a large number of immigrants.

The laborers introduced from Italy engage in relatively extreme physical work, which is exactly the kind of work Spanish farmers are unwilling to do.

This would not dissatisfy Spaniards, after all, these jobs were not within their choice range to begin with.

It is precisely considering the problem that immigration would cause conflict with Spaniards that Carlo had Cadillac precisely seek out those destitute scientists and technical talents, introducing a batch of much-needed mid-to-low-end talents for Spain currently through quality over quantity, while also finding scientists for Spain who might be poached.

First update, seeking support! Currently confirmed to go on sale this Friday, author is stockpiling manuscripts, brothers, how many days do you want to see the author do explosive updates?