Chapter 120: The Development of the Military Factory

Although Prime Minister Primo and Grand Duke Serrano did not explicitly state it, their attitudes in reality already indicated their support for the Royal Military Factory.

The government is ostensibly encouraging private military enterprises to grow larger and stronger, but in reality, it also hopes for a larger-scale military factory to bolster Spain's prestige.

Regardless of whose enterprise this military factory belongs to, as long as it can develop more advanced weapons for Spain and continuously manufacture these weapons to supply the Spanish military, that is sufficient.

Spain indeed needs a leading military enterprise; a large-scale military factory can accomplish more than dozens of small ones, and the current Spain truly needs a massive military factory to fill out its facade.

This point is the same for all countries. Just like the Krupp Armament Works of the German Empire or the future Skoda Armament Works of Austria.

Only such military giants can open up the arms market; if one relies on small and medium-sized military factories to expand the arms trade, one might as well hope for foreign weapons to be sold more cheaply.

Currently, in the Spanish military industry, only the Royal Military Factory has the scale and capital to qualify as a military giant.

After all, there are no overly advanced weapons in this era; rifles and cannons are already the most commonly used light and heavy weapons.

The number of military enterprises in Spain is not small, with hundreds of factories and private workshops in total.

However, most of these military enterprises produce old-fashioned shotguns, pistols, and the like; they lack technical substance, and even the quality of the firearms cannot be guaranteed.

Even if there are military factories capable of producing muzzle-loading guns and cannons, they are destined to be unable to compare with the Royal Military Factory in terms of developing breech-loading guns and manufacturing more advanced cannons.

The current attitude of the Spanish government toward these military enterprises is to provide as much help as possible to other medium-sized military factories, provided that the Royal Military Factory is given priority support.

It would naturally be better if things could blossom in many places. But if these medium-sized military factories prove incapable of shouldering the responsibility, all efforts will eventually be concentrated on making the Royal Military Factory the leading military enterprise in Spain.

Of course, those small and medium-sized military enterprises will not be eliminated. After all, there is a market for those shotguns and pistols, and the Royal Military Factory naturally would not compete for orders for these weapons, which have lower profits and fewer orders.

After receiving orders from the military and the Imperial Guard, the Royal Military Factory entered a relatively busy state.

Although it is an enterprise that has only been established for a few years, the scale of the Royal Military Factory is the most top-tier among all military enterprises in Spain.

But if compared with larger military factories in Europe, the Royal Military Factory is still relatively small in scale at present.

The entire Royal Military Factory has fewer than a thousand employees, and there is no exact figure for its weapon production. However, based on the current production capacity of the Royal Military Factory, it can basically produce at least 500 rifles, 10 cannons, 75, 00 rounds of ammunition, and 1, 00 artillery shells per month.

Of course, this is while producing a little bit of everything. If efforts were concentrated on producing rifles and ammunition, the monthly production capacity should be able to increase to over 1, 00 rifles and 150, 00 rounds of ammunition.

From this aspect, one can also see the current scale of the Royal Military Factory; it is truly too small for Spain.

To say nothing of more, just for the 100, 00-strong Spanish army to fully re-equip with the latest Vitali M1872 rifles, it would take at least eight years even with the Royal Military Factory working overtime.

This has also led to the fact that the biggest task for the Royal Military Factory in the future is to expand its scale, increasing the number of employees to at least 10, 00 and the annual weapon production to at least 50, 00 rifles.

Currently, the production capacity of the Royal Military Factory cannot even meet the domestic demand of Spain, let alone open up the Spanish arms trade market and trade arms with other countries to earn a continuous stream of foreign exchange income.

The good news is that with technical experts from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in charge, the expansion of the Royal Military Factory will be much smoother. New employees entering the Royal Military Factory can master certain techniques after short-term training from these technical experts, and naturally, there will be no problem in putting them into weapon production.

The large-scale expansion of the Royal Military Factory was not approved before, firstly because the breech-loading guns being developed had no progress yet, and even if the military factory expanded, it would not be producing weapons.

Secondly, there were no confirmed orders from the military. If the military factory expanded to a sufficient scale but did not have a continuous stream of orders, wouldn't it just be sitting around consuming the royal family's funds in vain?

Now that there is a continuous stream of orders, it can ensure that the Royal Military Factory will not lack income in the next few years. As for the source of orders after this batch is completed, one can also set one's sights on the Americas across the Atlantic.

Breech-loading guns in Europe have only just started, and countries in Latin America naturally cannot master this technology. With the help of technical experts from Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Spain's breech-loading gun technology can be considered to be among the top tier in Europe.

The standard-issue long guns that Spain has equipped on a large scale naturally have a certain market in Latin America.

American countries such as Argentina and Mexico were once colonies of Spain. Although they became independent from Spain, they also resolved their only contradiction with the Spanish government.

Theoretically speaking, Argentines and Mexicans are of the same origin as the Spanish. Although this connection has been alienated through long-term colonization and intermarriage, compared to other countries, these people are naturally closer to Spain.

As long as the weapons from the Royal Military Factory have no quality issues, it is easy to obtain an order in these countries. Although it might not be a large-scale order, as long as it can support the Royal Military Factory, that is not a problem.

These Latin American countries combined can surely scrape together orders for tens of thousands of rifles, and coupled with the expansion and consumption of the Spanish military, as well as small orders from other regions, the Royal Military Factory will not lack weapon orders for the next five years.

Besides, even if there is a lack of orders for rifles, priority can be given to producing cannons. Moreover, ammunition and artillery shells are consumables, and there will be a continuous stream of orders generated.

The future Spanish military will place more emphasis on infantry target practice and artillery training, and ammunition and artillery shells will be consumed continuously.

These orders combined are enough to support a Royal Military Factory with a scale of 10, 00 people; even if it is in a state of loss, as long as it is not too serious, it is acceptable to Carlo.

After all, there are still many wars that the great powers of Europe will face next, and as long as Spain's weapons and equipment are not too far behind, it will still be possible to snatch an order.

The subsequent development of African colonies will also involve military actions, and Carlo has nothing to worry about regarding the development of the Royal Military Factory.

However, having said that, the expansion of the military factory cannot be carried out blindly. The expansion of these factories is always linked, and behind the expansion of one enterprise is the simultaneous development of many industries.

Take the military factory as an example. The production of rifles and cannons requires a large amount of steel, so the first step is to require the expansion of steel mills to meet the steel demand after the military factory expands.

This is not the end. A production line for rifles or cannons requires a lot of mechanical manufacturing equipment, which can also help the development of machinery manufacturing plants.

The expansion of the Royal Military Factory can not only create 10, 00 visible jobs but also create thousands or even several thousand invisible jobs.

This has a huge effect on the development of the Spanish economy and is a good thing for both the Spanish government and the public.

To say nothing of anything else, the taxes paid annually by a large factory with 10, 00 people are a huge figure. Calculated based on the current average annual income of Spaniards of about 97 pesetas, the salary that needs to be paid to these workers every year exceeds one million pesetas.

After the workers receive this income, no matter which industry they spend it in, it can continuously drive the development of the Spanish economy.

The government can also obtain a continuous stream of tax revenue from these consumption links, thereby achieving a win-win-win situation for the military factory, the public, and the government.

Of course, if we talk about who benefits the most, it might be Carlo's royal family.

The military factory is an industry of the royal family, and the salaries issued by the military factory to the workers will also make the workers grateful to Carlo.

You must know that the salaries and various welfare policies provided to workers by the royal family's industries are basically at the most top-tier level among all factories in Spain.

The ten-hour workday, monthly leave, overtime pay for holidays, etc., make Spaniards hold a very optimistic attitude toward working in the royal family's industries.

Theoretically speaking, Carlo is currently also a big capitalist. In fact, Carlo's capital far exceeds all capitalists in Spain, and his wealth can already rival some of Spain's top nobles.

If it weren't for the fact that the original land of the Bourbon royal family was confiscated by the government, the royal family would probably be the wealthiest family in Spain at this time.

However, this is also a good thing. After the public learned that the original land of the Bourbon royal family was confiscated by the government and distributed to the public through various means, their favor toward the royal family naturally increased.

Knowing that he could not get this land, Carlo naturally had to actively provide this land to the government and advocate various policies so that the public could actually enjoy the benefits.

For example, a considerable part of this land will be rented to the public at a low price, and with the reduction of agricultural taxes, the income of these tenant farmers will also increase significantly.

Although it is the government that actually rents out the land, Carlo has the help of a large number of media organizations, so the public will naturally be grateful to the royal family and Carlo.

The government cannot come out and declare that the renting of land has nothing to do with the royal family, so Carlo can enjoy a good reputation among the people without spending any cost.

Although Carlo has not made any major moves, under such accumulated influence, the current level of recognition of Carlo by Spaniards is still relatively high, and they no longer have any rejection or prejudice against this foreigner who came from afar from Italy to serve as king.

Compared with many previous kings of Spain, even if Carlo cannot be ranked as excellent, he can at least get a good grade at present.

Along with the reforms of Prime Minister Primo and the development of the Spanish economy, the achievements Carlo has obtained will continue to improve.

At least until now, Carlo is not very anxious. Now he has completely sat firmly on the throne, and no one can drive him off the throne anymore.

What needs to be done next is to exert influence in the government and the military step by step, and then wait for the moment to take over power.

After he completely takes over the power of the government and the military, Carlo must also set his own goals while maintaining the rapid development of Spain's economy and industry.

The only goal is to make Spain stronger and become a great power in Europe again, becoming a chess player in the world's chess game, rather than a pawn on the chessboard.

And the sign of whether Spain is strong and whether it can rise has only one, and that is the ownership of Gibraltar at its doorstep.

As long as Spain can recapture Gibraltar, then Spain has achieved the goal of being strong and rejoined the ranks of European great powers.

But if Gibraltar at the doorstep is still in the hands of other countries, Spain has not completed the task of becoming strong, and there will still be a distance from the European great powers.

The reason why Gibraltar is seen as the goal of Spain's rise is that Gibraltar is very important to Spain and the Spanish people.

The Spain of later generations has also never given up its claim to Gibraltar; unfortunately, the time when Spain could recapture Gibraltar has long passed, and the ownership of Gibraltar has always been one of the topics that Spaniards pay attention to.

If Gibraltar can be recaptured from the hands of the British, this will be a huge boost to Carlo's prestige. It is not an exaggeration to say that as long as Carlo can recapture Gibraltar from the hands of the British, then Carlo will become one of the greatest monarchs in the hearts of all Spaniards today, and even the "one of" can be removed.

This is a huge boost to the military morale and public sentiment of Spain, and it will also greatly increase the loyalty of all Spaniards to Carlo.

After recovering Gibraltar, even if Carlo directly declares that he wants to ascend the throne to become the Emperor of the Spaniards, not a single Spaniard will object.

Just the ability to boost public morale and infinitely increase military morale is enough to determine that Carlo must take Gibraltar.

What's more, the geographical location of Gibraltar is also very important, as it can guard the Strait of Gibraltar and cut off the shipping routes between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

However, it is precisely because of the extremely important geographical location of Gibraltar that the British also value Gibraltar very much.

If Spain wants to recover Gibraltar, it is destined to have a war with the British. The British are not fools, and it is impossible for Spain to exchange any land for Gibraltar.

Therefore, in Carlo's heart, the British have never been Spain's allies; they are not now, and they will not be in the future.

Within the entire European scope, the only ones suitable to be Spain's allies are Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they are also the countries that can actually help Spain recapture Gibraltar.

As for Italy, there is basically no need to think about it. First of all, it is impossible for Italy to go to war with the British for the sake of Spain, and they do not have much conflict with the British either.

Secondly, even if the Italian government were willing to go to war with the British for the sake of Spain, Carlo would not dare to trust the performance of the Italian government in the war.

Although Carlo is also a member of the Italian royal family, this does not mean that the relationship between Spain and Italy will be so close.

Both countries are great powers along the Mediterranean coast, and there is competition between them. In Carlo's heart, Italy is not necessarily as reliable as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Carlo has never counted on Italy to help Spain.

I forgot to ask for leave yesterday, I am very sorry. I wrote almost 1, 00 more words today, just as compensation. Thank you all for your support.

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(End of this chapter)