Chapter 207: Empress of India

In the United Kingdom, besides the big news that the economic crisis had returned, there was another news that also caused heated discussion among the British public, which was the "Royal Titles Bill" promulgated in May.

This bill allowed Queen Victoria to obtain a brand-new title, which was the Empress of the Indian Empire.

Although the United Kingdom was called the British Empire, the title of the ruler of the United Kingdom was actually the King or Queen of the United Kingdom. As empires stood in Europe, the United Kingdom, as the most powerful country in Europe, finally took a step toward the empire level.

But compared with the titles of other empires in Europe, the title of Empress of India was a bit awkward.

The imperial titles of other European countries, the Tsarist Eguozheng Prefecture claimed to have inherited the title of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Aodilizheng Prefecture was formed by the merger of the Austrian Empire and Hungary, which were originally established by the Holy Roman Empire Emperor.

Although the German Empire was only an empire in the German region, the German region once possessed the imperial title of the Holy Roman Empire, which possessed reasonable legal principles.

On the contrary, the Empress of India, which the British had prepared for a long time, had its title legal principles coming from the Mughal Empire, the previous generation of rulers in the Indian region.

From the legal principles of the imperial title, the so-called Indian Empire was completely disproportionate to the imperial titles of other European countries. Europe was also a place that attached great importance to legal principles, which also made Queen Victoria face a lot of pressure when she was crowned Empress of India.

The title of Empress of India first came from the substitute title for the British Queen by the native rulers in the Indian region. When the way the British ruled India changed from the East India Company to the East India Colony, Victoria, as the British Queen, also began to firmly believe that she was the Empress of India.

Starting more than ten years ago, Queen Victoria had already become accustomed to the title of Empress of India and regarded the land of India as part of the empire under her rule.

In June 1872, when the envoy of the East India Colony prostrated and saluted Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria used the self-title of Empress of India: "As the Empress of India, I refuse to accept such etiquette."

Queen Victoria's open acceptance and love for the title of Empress of India made some nobles determined to promote Queen Victoria's coronation as Empress of India.

As early as three years ago, Queen Victoria's secretary, Frederick Ponsonby, had publicly proposed to Earl Granville to crown Queen Victoria with the title of Empress of India.

And the reason given by Frederick Ponsonby was that the title of Empress of India had long been used to refer to Queen Victoria, but it had not been publicly announced.

As Queen Victoria's secretary, Frederick Ponsonby could not spread some thoughts that the Queen did not agree with.

This also represented that being crowned Empress of India was Queen Victoria's own opinion.

The reason why Queen Victoria was so anxious to become Empress, besides her love for such a title, was another big reason that her son-in-law, Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl, had been promoted from the Prussian Crown Prince to the German Empire Crown Prince, and his father, Wilhelm I, had been promoted from the Prussian King to the German Empire Emperor.

When her son-in-law inherited the throne in the future, if she was still just the Queen of the United Kingdom, wouldn't she be one level lower than her son-in-law in terms of title level?

Among the five traditional European powers, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Tsarist Russian Empire were all empire levels, and France was a republic and was not included.

The United Kingdom, which had the strongest comprehensive strength, was only a kingdom, which was also a point that Queen Victoria was dissatisfied with.

It was precisely because of this that even though there was a lot of resistance in the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria still relied on the title bill to be crowned Empress of the Indian Empire, becoming the fourth monarch with an emperor title among European rulers.

The United Kingdom was busy crowning its Queen with an empress title, and the United Kingdom's rival, Falanxi, was not idle either.

As the United States was about to usher in the 100th anniversary of its founding, Falanxi announced that it would present a statue representing freedom to the United States. This statue was very famous in later generations, and it was the Statue of Liberty, which represented the symbol of American freedom.

This proposal was proposed by the French political intellectual Édouard de Laboulaye in 1865, and it received help from many French people, including the sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, and also received permission from the governments of both Falanxi and the United States.

It was also in this year that Bartholdi began the work of building the statue. In just a short time, he carved the torch held by the Statue of Liberty and transported the torch from Falanxi to the United States to participate in the Centennial Memorial Exhibition held in Philadelphia.

When the United States became independent a hundred years ago, the French had made a great effort. And the French a hundred years later also racked their brains to present the famous landmark Statue of Liberty to the United States; Falanxi could be said to be deeply grateful to the United States.

1876 was a relatively busy year for European countries, and it was the same for Spain.

Gao Da closely monitored the situation on the Baerganbandao, and at present, it seemed that the Russians had no intention of starting a war.

After the British added the title of Empress of India to Queen Victoria's head, they were in a hurry to prepare for the coronation ceremony in the United Kingdom.

After all, this was the imperial title of India. If the coronation ceremony was not held in India, the so-called imperial title would have no sense of existence.

One had to admire the British's attention to the situation on the Baerganbandao. Under the premise that they were already so busy at home, the British could still closely monitor the situation on the Baerganbandao, and even complete the material aid to the Ottoman Empire on time, helping the Ottoman Empire stabilize the situation on the Baerganbandao.

Seeing that the Baerganbandao could not fight, Gao Da put his eyes back on Spain, modifying the laws that had problems in Spain while accelerating Spain's development progress, moving toward the goal of making Spain great again.

For Spain, there had been many good news in the development of these few years.

First was the railway mileage.

It had been more than two years since the end of the last five-year plan, and Spain's achievements in railway construction were quite gratifying.

Since entering the second five-year plan, the average railway mileage built each year had exceeded 550 kilometers, which also made Spain's existing railway mileage reach a staggering 8,875 kilometers, with the hope of increasing the total railway mileage to over 9,000 kilometers this year.

According to the current speed of railway construction, Spain's total railway mileage breaking 10,000 would 100% be completed within the second five-year plan, and there was even hope of exceeding the goal of 11,000 railway kilometers formulated in the second five-year plan.

In terms of railway mileage, Spain had already surpassed Italy, which was once half a catty with itself, and was catching up with the five traditional European powers.

The construction of railway mileage brought not only convenience in transportation but also a series of improvements in railway-related auxiliary industries.

By radiating these auxiliary industries, stimulating the overall growth of Spain's economy was the benefit that could not be seen on the surface of building railways.

As for what could be seen on the surface, there were actually many. Including facilitating communication and cargo transportation between various regions of Spain, facilitating the Spanish government to control major regions more quickly and effectively, and stimulating population flow, etc., these were all benefits brought by railways.

Spain's total railway mileage did not count the simple railways built in the colonies. Otherwise, the total railway mileage within Spain's sphere of influence would have long exceeded 10,000 kilometers.

At present, Spain's colonies could be divided into the Cuba colony, the South Morocco colony, the Guinea and Congo colony, and the Philippines colony.

Spain had built a large number of railway and road systems in these four major colonies, among which the railways in Cuba and the Philippines were the longest.

However, with the decrease in the importance of Cuba, and after newly occupying the South Morocco colony and the Congo territory, Spain's focus on building railways in the colonies was placed on the African region.

The railways in Cuba and the Philippines were also being built, but the intensity of construction and the proportion of invested funds were obviously less compared to the other two African colonies.

It is worth mentioning that after the military guidance group arrived in Lanfang, they also planned the railway construction plan connecting the Lanfang Republic and the Spanish occupied area.

The Lanfang Republic and the Spanish occupied area were located in the southwest and northeast of Kalimantan, respectively, and it was relatively difficult to build a railway connecting the two regions.

It was impossible for the railway to pass through the Dutch colony in the far south, which also meant that there were only two choices for the railway construction between the two regions: either go north through the Kingdom of Sarawak and Brunei, or go through the middle of Kalimantan, pass through the primeval forest, and then go north along the Bulungan Sultanate to connect to the land controlled by Spain.

Going north would pass through the British sphere of influence, and going through the middle would pass through the Ilan Mountains in the middle of Kalimantan, which also made the plan of connecting the railways of the Lanfang Republic and the Philippines colony under Spanish control difficult to achieve.

The good news was that with the help of the military guidance group, the new army of the Lanfang Republic was trained quite smoothly. After a year of training, this army of about 20,000 people had officially become the main army of the Lanfang Republic.

During the army training period, the local natives and the Dutch were not without trouble. But because the number of people was small, they were soon defeated by the newly formed new army.

After all, it was an army of 20,000 people, all using muskets and cannons. Although the weapons and equipment could not compare with the main army of European countries, in Kalimantan, it was more than enough compared to those natives.

Most of the native army used cold weapons, and there were few thermal weapons. Even if they were equipped with thermal weapons, native soldiers found it difficult to understand how to use thermal weapons.

The muskets and cannons possessed by the natives were basically sold to them by the British and the Dutch, which also meant that they were extremely dependent on the ammunition supply from the British and the Dutch.

Even if they could learn how to use guns and cannons, after the bullets and shells were exhausted, they had no way at all.

And the British mainland and the Dutch mainland were separated from Kalimantan by tens of thousands of kilometers, which also meant that the weapons and equipment and ammunition supplies that these natives could obtain were limited.

In this case, it was difficult for them to pose a threat to the 20,000 new troops trained by the Lanfang Republic, unless the Dutch were willing to go out in person and transport a batch of weapons and ammunition to the colony before launching the war.

On the Philippines colony side, after unifying the entire Philippines region, Spain carried out a series of reforms and investments in the Philippines colony.

Not only strengthened the construction of railways, ensuring the colonial government's control over the colony, but also invested in some plantations and mines, letting the Philippines colony produce sufficient interests.

For the management of the Philippines colony, the Spanish government adopted a strategy of differentiation and suppression.

Separated those natives newly incorporated into the rule from the natives who originally belonged to the Philippines colony, and let the natives who originally belonged to the Philippines enjoy certain privileges.

In this way, the natives of the Philippines were not a piece of iron, which was more conducive to Spain's rule.

Those natives who obtained privileges wanted to maintain their privileges, so they had to support Spain's rule in the Philippines and at the same time fight against those natives without privileges.

And those natives without privileges faced the suppression of the privileged natives, and they would also transfer their hatred to those privileged natives.

Through the way of differentiation and suppression, let the Filipinos who should have hated the Spanish colonialists be divided into two factions internally, ensuring that they would not unite to oppose Spain's colonial rule.

In fact, in Gao Da's conception, the Lanfang Republic was also a very important link.

Although at present, the way of differentiating Filipino natives could also effectively control the Philippines, doing so was only temporary after all.

There was no big contradiction between Filipino natives, and their hatred would sooner or later return to the Spanish colonialists.

But if the Lanfang Republic also joined in, it would evolve into a contradiction between the Lanfang people and the Filipinos.

Because of the different ethnic groups and cultures, it was difficult for these two ethnic groups to unite to oppose Spain's colonial rule. Spain could also stabilize its rule in the Philippines by controlling these two ethnic groups and let these two ethnic groups become its thugs.

The future First and Second World Wars still needed a large amount of manpower to participate in the war. Spain's own population was not large, and if it could provide a large number of servant armies through the Philippines and the Lanfang people, it could reduce the loss of Spain's mainland population.

And the loss of these servant armies was acceptable to Spain. Even if the battle loss ratio was a bit worse, as long as they could contribute, the cost of forming an army was not a loss at all.

The amount of manpower loss was also related to the distribution of interests after the war. Falanxi's loss in the First World War was not shocking, almost killing a generation of Falanxi people.

The economic and agricultural losses caused were even more severe, and it was not until more than ten years after the end of the First World War that Falanxi gradually walked out of the shadow of the First World War.

But it was only walking out of the shadow. The war lost young and strong labor, and the impact on the country could not be made up in more than ten years.

The fact that Falanxi changed from a traditional European white country to a dyed country where black people occupied the majority of the population in later generations was also related to the huge losses in the First and Second World Wars.

In the First World War, Falanxi lost too much population, leading Falanxi to have to rely on the labor force of the colonies to supplement the mainland's manpower needs.

The consequence of doing so was that a large number of white people were dyed, and Falanxi eventually became a representative country where black people became the masters.

For Gao Da, he did not want to see the day when Spain was dyed. It was precisely because of this that how to minimize Spain's manpower loss in the war was a problem that Gao Da needed to think about in every way.

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 208 =====