Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 90: Major Gains

The peace talks lasted several days and ultimately, under the witness of the British, the Spanish Government and the Moroccan Government jointly signed a new peace agreement《Treaty of Ceuta》.

In addition to this peace agreement, the two governments also agreed that neither side would provoke any disputes for the next 10 years, and all conflicts should be resolved by the neutral country and the witness country United Kingdom.

The Spanish Government naturally had no objection to this requirement.

First, the British Government was not foolish; if Spain used Morocco to extort money every once in a while, the British would not yield every time.

Second, in this peace agreement, the Spanish Government had already obtained almost everything it wanted. The British would not agree to Spain obtaining land near Northern Tetuán and Tangier, and this status quo would basically not change in the next decade.

Spain’s next expansion goals should be placed in other regions of Africa, such as Guinea and Congo, rather than Morocco, which the British had already targeted.

On October 9, 1870, Prime Minister Primó found Carlo with a smile on his face and reported on the progress of the peace talks.

“Your Majesty, we have achieved our purpose.” Prime Minister Primó had a quite relaxed smile on his face, apparently very satisfied with the outcome of the peace talks.

“How is the situation? Did the British finally relent?” Carlo asked with interest.

What was called the peace negotiation between the Spanish Government and Morocco was actually decided by the British Government. Without the intervention of the British Government, this war would definitely end with the complete collapse and unconditional surrender of the Moroccan Government.

“The British are willing to concede a step on territory in exchange for our concessions on indemnity.” Prime Minister Primó smiled and said, “Unfortunately, our proposed demilitarized zone was not approved; otherwise, we could influence Northern Morocco through economic means.”

Carlo nodded, in a quite good mood: “Tell me, what did the Moroccans pay in this war?”

“The British agreed to our territorial claims west of the line from Agadir to Tata, as well as our colonial privileges in the Western Sahara region.

We will establish the South Morocco Colony in Southern Morocco and incorporate this land entirely into our colonial rule.” Prime Minister Primó replied.

Carlo nodded, quite satisfied with this result. More importantly, Spain’s Colonial Governor was also appointed by the King, and having one more colony was equivalent to strengthening the King’s power.

“Does the government have any proposals for the governor of the new colony?” Carlo suddenly asked.

Prime Minister Primó was stunned, somewhat unclear about what his King meant.

“I haven’t been in Spain for long and haven’t had prolonged contact with the Spanish Nobles. Prime Minister Primó, as a local Spaniard, do you have any good recommendations for a governor?” Carlo rephrased, smiling at Prime Minister Primó.

Carlo was temporarily not interested in this new Colonial Governor. The reason was simple: he truly did not have anyone particularly trustworthy in hand.

The Colonial Governor had considerable power. Besides being responsible to the King, he also held military command and administrative supervision over the colony.

The new colony would definitely need to dispatch an army to garrison it, and controlling the Colonial Governor was equivalent to controlling this Colonial Army.

Precisely because Carlo did not have a good candidate at this time, Carlo decided to use this Colonial Governor position for an interest exchange with Prime Minister Primó.

At least Carlo trusted Prime Minister Primó relatively more. Prime Minister Primó needed current power, while Carlo pursued future power, and there was not much conflict between the two.

Prime Minister Primó was of course aware that the Colonial Governor was directly appointed by the King. For Carlo to ask him so directly meant either extreme trust in him or a desire to reach a certain interest exchange.

For Prime Minister Primó, he was more inclined to believe the latter, that is, Carlo wanted to exchange this Colonial Governor position for some other interests.

But what interests did Carlo want to exchange for? Primó had some doubts.

“Continue talking about our war spoils in this action. How much indemnity can we obtain?” Carlo asked with a smile.

Hearing Carlo change the topic, Prime Minister Primó quickly replied: “A total of 75 million pesetas in indemnity, Your Majesty.

Our diplomatic representative wore out their lips, but the British only agreed to 75 million pesetas, not a single peseta more.”

“That’s not bad either, Prime Minister.” Carlo was quite satisfied with this amount of indemnity. 75 million pesetas was worth about 88 million pound sterling, which was also a boost for Spain’s current reform and development.

If combined with the low-interest loan from Italy, Spain’s development in the next few years would basically not lack funds.

Moreover, this 75 million pesetas was obtained for free; Spain’s expenses in the war against Morocco were less than a million pesetas.

“With this funding, can we put industrial construction on the agenda?” Carlo thought of the new industrial zone whose construction had been postponed due to lack of funds and asked.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” A smile reappeared on Prime Minister Primó’s face, already holding great hope for the success of Spain’s reform and the smooth development of industry.

“That’s good news.” Carlo smiled and nodded, holding high expectations for Spain’s power as well: “But we must not neglect our education either. I hope that while our industrial development Five-Year Plan is successfully completed, we can also reduce the domestic illiteracy rate to below 55%.”

Reducing the illiteracy rate from over 70% to below 55% might seem like only a 15% decrease, but for Spain with a total population of over 16 million, it meant at least enabling more than 5 million illiterate people to have an education level above primary school.

Although a large-scale literacy movement had already begun, reducing more than 2 million illiterate population in less than five years was still a very arduous task.

After all, most of the Spanish Government’s energy was on reform and industrial development, and while education was also emphasized, the overall funding was not much.

“I will make an effort, Your Majesty.” Prime Minister Primó nodded. He certainly knew the importance of education to national development, but the problem was that Spain’s education was not so easy to carry out now.

A literacy movement could only be effective if conducted while raising national income, so more Spaniards would be willing to accept education. If ordinary Spaniards couldn’t even afford food, who would have the mood to accept education?

This also meant that to significantly reduce the illiteracy rate, it was necessary to effectively increase average annual income, and it could not be solved simply by investing funds into education.

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