Chapter 102: On the Great Powers

Although it is a good thing that more and more people are enthusiastically participating in free literacy education, it also puts considerable pressure on the government if the number of participants is too high.

After all, both the simple schools required for literacy education and the teachers who impart knowledge are limited; Prime Minister Primo can only try his best to free up more space for literacy education while simultaneously providing enough teacher candidates for it.

Because literacy education only requires simple instruction in some commonly used Spanish words, some basic historical and cultural common sense, and simple scientific knowledge, anyone with at least a middle school education can actually serve as a teacher for literacy education.

Prime Minister Primo set his sights directly on those university students studying literature. Their knowledge base is absolutely sufficient, and teaching some relatively simple knowledge is naturally a task they can handle with ease.

And these university students who have just entered university are also the easiest to deceive. By simply using the banner of contributing to the country, while also providing them with a free dinner, many university students can be attracted to voluntarily join the literacy education work.

Of course, the government cannot use these university students for free. As long as these university students are willing to serve as literacy education teachers in their spare time, the government can provide them with a salary at the level of the national average annual income.

Although this money is not too much, for many university students, it is indeed a good way to create extra income.

Although many of those admitted to university are children from wealthy families, it does not exclude those talented students from poor backgrounds.

Through this method of creating extra income, they can also ensure their tuition fees and remain in university to continue their studies.

Although Spain's literacy education is being carried out vigorously, Carlo knows that the most successful years are just these first few.

In these first few years, because there are a large number of illiterate children who would not generate much income staying at home, the public is naturally willing to send them to simple schools for free literacy education.

But once these younger children and teenagers have received literacy education, those adults who are also illiterate may not necessarily accept free literacy education.

They all have jobs and need to work continuously to earn an income to support their families. In their view, although free literacy education does not cost anything, it is also a waste of the family's labor force.

For some low-income families, the little bit of money earned less might cause the entire family's living standard to drop sharply.

However, Carlo is already satisfied with being able to achieve such an effect.

According to Spain's illiteracy rate of over 70 percent, there are at least 11 million people in the country at an illiterate level. After several years of literacy education, the illiterate population can be reduced to under 8 million, which is less than half of the total population.

Although there is still a certain gap compared to other European countries, compared to the Spain of a few years ago, there is undoubtedly great progress.

On January 25, 1871, not many days after Carlo was immersed in the success of the popularization of literacy education, Kadi'er brought Carlo even better news: the mission to the United States had been completed.

The current United States is not the powerful world policeman of later generations, but just a weak country that has not long ended its civil war.

This is not because Carlo looks down on the United States; it is just that the foundation of the United States at this time is far inferior to that of European countries.

Don't look at the fact that the United States' economic and industrial scale is at the level of a Great Power at this time; if one does not consider other factors and has a real fight, the United States is highly likely to be unable to defeat Spain.

Spain's weakness is relative. Compared with super Great Powers like Britain, France, and Germany, Spain is naturally relatively weak.

But if compared with small and medium-sized European countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal, Spain still possesses a considerable advantage.

In the whole of Europe, except for Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria, which can steadily suppress Spain, even Italy cannot steadily suppress Spain.

If it weren't for the fact that Spain has long used the wealth plundered from its colonies for pleasure, perhaps the Spain of this time would still be a powerful colonial empire.

Of course, if viewed solely from the gains obtained in colonization and the scale of existing colonies, Spain is still the world's third-largest colonial empire, second only to the two super powers of Britain and France in terms of colonization.

Although Spain's colonies in the Americas have become independent one after another, Spain's influence on these former colonies still exists.

Currently, apart from Britain, France, and Germany, which crush Spain in terms of population, industry, economy, and military, there are few remaining countries that can make Carlo pay attention.

The Russian Empire looks powerful, but like the former Kingdom of Spain, it has already rotted to the bone.

The reforms of Alexander II seem to have given Russia a shot in the arm, but in reality, they only changed the surface and did not change the rotten foundation inside Russia.

History has long verified the success or failure of Alexander II's reforms; the Russian Empire's national destiny actually has less than 50 years left.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire looks powerful, but in reality, its internal problems are countless. The fact that the Austrian Empire became the Austro-Hungarian Empire already shows the internal problems of this country; the Austrians can no longer stop the rise of Hungary, and how long this dual monarchy can exist depends entirely on whether the Hungarians are willing to continue staying under the empire's rule.

The two major Great Powers that will rise in the future, the United States and the Island Nation, also pose limited threats to Spain. The reason the United States is powerful is not that it possesses vast industrial and economic strength, but that the United States crazily sucked the blood of Europe during the two world wars and took in a large number of European technical talents.

If it weren't for these advanced technologies and talents from Europe, no matter how vast the industry and economy the United States possessed, in the eyes of Europeans, it would be nothing more than a rising upstart.

Now that Carlo has arrived in an era where the United States has not yet risen, it is naturally impossible to let the United States rise as it did in history.

What's more, the United States is not as powerful as it appears. Whether it is the racial conflict between blacks and whites, the contradictions existing among a large number of immigrants, or the differences between the American South and North, it is simply too fatal for a country like the United States that can be written in a single history book.

The American Civil War is actually a microcosm of the domestic contradictions in the United States at this time. And the Civil War did not solve this contradiction; it just suppressed it through force.

Unless the United States can rapidly rise to become a world hegemon-level country, making all immigrants' sense of identity with the United States far stronger than their opposition to the U. . government, it might still be able to suppress the contradictions and conflicts between certain groups in the country.

But if the United States cannot quickly become one of the world's top three super Great Powers, these domestic contradictions will always exist until they are resolved or erupt.

Such problems do not only appear in the United States, but also in those countries that became independent from colonies and are constantly absorbing immigrant populations.

If it were just immigrants from one country, it would be fine; the contradictions would not be that many, being nothing more than the contradictions between the colony and the suzerain state.

But like the United States, which continuously absorbs immigrants from all over Europe, and even includes a large number of immigrants from Asia as well as Africans who came to the United States due to the slave trade, that is truly a grand drama.

The mission to the United States that Kadi'er mentioned is naturally not to befriend the U. . government, and Carlo has no intention of befriending the U. . government.

To say nothing else, the problem of the Cuban colony clamoring for independence last year definitely had the involvement of American forces.

If it weren't for the fact that Spain stabilized quickly and Carlo dispatched Marshal Serrano, who had served as the Governor of Cuba, to personally lead the army to Cuba to quell the rebellion, I am afraid this war of independence would have lasted for several years as it did in history and dealt a heavy blow to Spain's economy.

One must know that Spain's annual fiscal revenue is only 300 million pesetas, and historically, quelling the rebellion in Cuba cost 700 million pesetas.

This means that the Spanish government needs to invest more than half of its annual fiscal revenue into military spending to successfully suppress the Cuban people's independence uprising.

And what did the Spanish government get? A Cuban colony that is more eager for independence and whose economy has been largely destroyed.

It is just that the current Spain needs to keep its head down and develop; otherwise, Carlo would have long taken the opportunity to find some trouble for the U. . government.

The current Cuban colony still belongs to Spain, and the Americans will certainly not give up their covetousness for the Cuban colony.

Fortunately, the United States at this time does not have such powerful industrial and economic strength, and the Spanish government has not weakened, so the U. . government does not have the guts to launch a war against Spain.

The United States in history also endured until 1898, and even expressed a request to the Spanish government to purchase the Cuban colony for 100 million U. . dollars in advance.

Although it was nearly 30 years later, the U. . dollar was not cheap at that time, being worth about 20 million pounds.

One must know that 1898 was the pre-dreadnought era, that is, the battleship era. Building one of the most powerful main battleships at that time only cost a little over one million pounds.

The 20 million pounds the Americans were willing to pay was enough for the Spain of that time to build a navy in the world's top eight, which is enough to show that the Americans were still somewhat unconfident in their own strength at the time, and still had some regard for Spain.

It's just that the performance of the Spanish government after the war started stunned the then-insecure United States, and also allowed the U. . government to snatch away Spain's few large colonies, the Philippines, while seizing the Cuban colony, making the Spanish colonial empire completely history.

Since the Spanish-American War, Spain's colonies have only been left with a few relatively small regions in Africa. This also forced Spain to finally focus its attention on Morocco and to face the pressure from Britain and France head-on.

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(End of this chapter)