Chapter 208: Bullfighting Activity

For the people of the 1876 era, the society of this era was really lacking in some fun. A big reason for this was that factory owners constantly exploited workers, leading to workers not having enough time to rest and entertain.

But it was undeniable that the backwardness of technology itself and the lack of various entertainment activities were also one of the reasons why people felt boring and tasteless.

Although Spain's public opinion industry also gave birth to entertainment newspapers that specifically reported lace news, not all Spanish people would buy newspapers.

Once the public did not have enough entertainment items to vent their emotions, over time, it would lead to the existence of various voices and forces opposing the government.

This also represented that Spain currently lacked an entertainment item that could mobilize the emotions of the vast majority of the public, and this entertainment item must also be warmly welcomed in Spain.

Looking at the whole of Spain, currently there was only one tradition that met such requirements, which was the bullfighting activity that had been popular in Spain for hundreds of years.

Spanish bullfighting originated from ancient religious activities and had a long history and tradition in the two Iberian countries of Spain and Portugal.

According to historical records, the ancient Roman Caesar who once ruled Spain was keen on bullfighting on horseback, and bullfighters were also seen as a symbol of bravery and good fighting.

Originally, this sport was only popular among the nobles of Spain; after all, the cultivation of bullfighting and the preparation of related activities required a large amount of funds.

But because bullfighting brought a large number of casualties to the nobles, Felipe V banned bullfighting activities among royal family members, which also allowed bullfighting activities to evolve from a noble patent to a national grand event that ordinary people could participate in.

After a long development, bullfighting had become an irreplaceable tradition in Spain and was also an activity that a large number of Spanish people were crazily keen on.

Bullfighters were seen as brave and fearless men, respected and worshipped by all Spanish people.

For Gao Da, there was nothing more worthy of promotion than bullfighting. Bullfighters themselves symbolized the spirit of bravery and fearlessness, and the more the Spanish public worshipped and respected this spirit, the more it could represent the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army.

The influence of national spirit on the combat effectiveness of the army was still very large. The combat effectiveness of the Italian army was not very strong, but it was definitely not too weak.

Why was the performance of the Italian army in the First and Second World Wars so terrible? The most important reason was that Italy's national spirit was more inclined to freedom and enjoyment, and at the same time, the national concept and sense of identity were weak, so naturally, they would not be willing to fight for the concept of Italy as a country.

Spain, which had a bullfighting tradition, obviously did not have such shortcomings as Italy. As long as it could be cultivated, even if Spain's population was not large, it could ensure that the army formed by Spanish people possessed strong combat effectiveness.

The spirit of bravery and fearlessness had a great influence on an army. When all Spanish people worshipped this spirit, what reason was there to doubt the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army?

If it could be matched with the advanced rifles and artillery that Gao Da prepared for his army, in the case of similar numbers, the Spanish army had the confidence to fight with the army of any country.

Even if the number was inferior to the enemy, as long as it relied on the defense of the Pyrenees, Spain would not fear the attack of any country.

This was the belief brought by the national spirit. When all Spanish people possessed sufficient national cohesion and sense of identity, the Spanish army would become an enemy that no country in the world would want to touch.

Promoting bullfighting besides being able to cultivate the national spirit of bravery and fearlessness, another big advantage was being able to promote the circulation of the economy.

The public watching bullfighting performances needed tickets, which would increase the probability of currency circulation and promote the growth of Spain's economy.

Bullfighting was also a major feature of Spain, attracting a large number of European people to travel and watch every year. There were no football or basketball games in this era, and bullfighting activities were already one of the few large-scale activities that could attract the public's attention.

Although bullfighting activities also had many shortcomings, compared with the benefits brought by bullfighting activities, these shortcomings were not so important.

Gao Da decided to vigorously promote bullfighting activities, on the one hand, to integrate the brave, fearless, and combative character into Spain's national spirit, and on the other hand, to let Spanish people have more entertainment activities to vent their emotions and dissipate energy, while stimulating economic exchange.

Spain's largest bullfighting arena at present was the Lerta Square located in the center of Ma Deli. In the center of Lerta Square was a circular bullfighting arena, and every year from March to October was Spain's bullfighting season.

The Lerta Bullfighting Arena could accommodate more than 3,500 spectators at most, and it was the largest bullfighting arena in Ma Deli, attracting the attention of a large number of Spanish people around Ma Deli.

The first step of Gao Da's vigorous promotion of bullfighting activities was to personally feel the charm of bullfighting activities and at the same time feel the public's support for bullfighting activities.

At the end of September 1876, Gao Da personally arrived at the Lerta Bullfighting Arena and watched the bullfighting performance specially prepared for Gao Da by the bullfighting arena.

The cheering crowd, the high-spirited bull, and the bullfighter who was determined with a red cloth together formed a shocking picture in the bullfighting arena.

Knowing that Gao Da was going to personally watch the bullfighting performance, the bullfighting arena had made careful preparations. The bullfighter performing for Gao Da was the most famous bullfighter around Ma Deli, who had been undefeated in recent years and easily defeated thousands of bulls.

Unfortunately, there was no so-called bullfighter march now. Such a shocking picture that stimulated the blood could only be used as background music with the audience's shouting and cheering and the bull's angry howling.

This also gave Gao Da a new idea: before vigorously promoting bullfighting activities, he first had to tailor a song for bullfighting activities, and the name would be called the Spanish Bullfighter March.

A majestic and powerful accompaniment, plus the bullfighter's brave, fearless, and confident bullfighting, was the perfect match.

A bullfight was not just fighting one bull, but three bullfighters appearing one after another, fighting six bulls in total.

For the safety of the bullfighters, the bullfighters were not alone, but equipped with three dart throwers and two spearmen on horseback.

After watching the whole bullfighting performance, Gao Da left the Lerta Bullfighting Arena quite satisfied, and before leaving, he did not forget to encourage the person in charge of the Lerta Bullfighting Arena.

Gao Da, as the King of Spain, personally watched the bullfighting performance at the Lerta Bullfighting Arena, which also attracted the attention of some news media.

Although the newspaper distribution of the newspaper office would be controlled, because this was not a negative news, these newspaper offices reporting the news about Gao Da watching the bullfighting performance were not blocked.

This also attracted the attention of the public; after all, during the Bourbon Dynasty, bullfighting was banned among royal family members, which was one of the reasons why bullfighting turned from a noble sport to a civilian sport.

Gao Da watched the bullfighting performance at Lerta Square, did it represent that this young king also had a certain interest in the bullfighting sport?

The public was still relatively concerned about this, and they were all curious about how the King treated this sport; after all, this was an ancient tradition of Spanish people.

After returning to the palace, Gao Da exchanged with Butler Luo Lun about the plan to promote the bullfighting sport.

Butler Luo Lun was relatively supportive of this, but also put forward his own suggestions: "Your Majesty, if you want to vigorously promote the bullfighting sport, relying on the existing number of bullfighting arenas is not enough at all.

The largest bullfighting arena around the Ma Deli region is the Lerta Bullfighting Arena, and the Lerta Bullfighting Arena only has 3,500 seats. Even counting those standing on the side, the maximum capacity of the entire bullfighting arena will not exceed 5,000 people.

If your plan is to develop the bullfighting sport into a large-scale national sport, the scale of such a bullfighting arena is far from enough.

I suggest that while vigorously promoting the bullfighting sport, build a large-scale bullfighting arena in the suburbs of Ma Deli to ensure that a single bullfighting performance in the large-scale bullfighting arena can accommodate at least ten thousand spectators.

This is not only conducive to the promotion of the bullfighting sport but also conducive to the economic exchange in the Ma Deli region. If every bullfighting performance can attract ten thousand people to watch, it can not only promote local economic exchange but also attract more tourists."

Gao Da nodded, and he was relatively recognized for Butler Luo Lun's point of view.

Spain's bullfighting tradition was very long, and various places also had bullfighting arenas built at different times. Especially in the southern region of Spain, Andalusia, it was the region with the richest bullfighting culture in the whole of Spain, and it also possessed multiple bullfighting arenas with a long history.

But no matter how long the history of these bullfighting arenas was, they had a significant shortcoming, which was that they could not accommodate more spectators.

The scale of the bullfighting arena had various differences according to the size of the city where it was located and the financial resources of the builder.

Generally, the scale of the bullfighting arena was about 2,000 to 3,500 seats, and there were also individual large-scale bullfighting arenas that could accommodate more than 4,000 people, but basically it would not exceed 5,000 people.

After all, if you want to have more seats, you can only constantly expand the area of the bullfighting arena. And those seats further away from the bullfighting arena did not have a very good viewing experience.

For the sport of bullfighting, a larger-scale national-level bullfighting arena was very necessary. The bullfighting activities held in this larger-scale bullfighting arena could also attract more attention from domestic and foreign public, and even become a representative activity of Spain.

After Butler Luo Lun put forward his proposal, Gao Da immediately expressed his affirmative attitude: "You are right, Butler Luo Lun. Bullfighters do need a large-scale bullfighting arena that can accommodate more than ten thousand spectators, and this new bullfighting arena will also become one of the representative buildings of Spain.

Butler Luo Lun, the task of building a large-scale bullfighting arena in the suburbs of Ma Deli is handed over to you. I don't care how much money it costs, but I hope that the bullfighting arena we build possesses enough Spanish characteristics and can attract bullfighters and spectators to come."

A large-scale bullfighting arena that could accommodate ten thousand spectators, once built, would immediately become a landmark building in Spain. Although this required a lot of funds, if the bullfighting activity was promoted relatively smoothly, the income brought by subsequent tickets and corresponding commercial operations would be enough to pay for the cost of building the square.

It was precisely because of this that Gao Da did not worry about the investment in building the bullfighting arena; building such a large-scale place was completely more beneficial than harmful.

Hearing Gao Da's instructions, Butler Luo Lun nodded solemnly, indicating that he understood.

Not setting limits on funds proved Gao Da's trust in him, so he naturally had nothing to say.

Building a bullfighting arena had no technical problems, and Spain's construction team also had a lot of experience in such projects.

The only relatively difficult thing was the site selection of the bullfighting arena, which not only had to be chosen in a place with relatively convenient transportation to facilitate the subsequent arrival of tourists but also had to choose a place far from the center of Ma Deli so as not to affect the future expansion of Ma Deli.

You know, Ma Deli was currently the city with the largest population in Spain, and it was expanding its population at a very fast speed.

In terms of population growth, the only one that could compare with Ma Deli was Barcelona, and these two cities were also the twin stars of Spain.

Because the population was constantly growing, the scale of the city of Ma Deli was also constantly expanding compared to a few years ago. If the site selection of the new bullfighting arena affected the subsequent expansion of the city of Ma Deli, this might be a problem in the future.

It was better to consider the problem of Ma Deli's city expansion a little earlier, which would not affect the construction and subsequent operation of the bullfighting arena, and could facilitate the expansion of Ma Deli's city, which could be said to be killing two birds with one stone.

Up to now, Ma Deli had officially become the first and only city in Spain with a population of over 500,000.

With a population of over 520,000, the capital of Spain had become a big city in name and reality, and it was also the cultural center, economic center, and religious center of Spain at present.

The population of Barcelona was only over 430,000, which was still inferior to Ma Deli. But the speed of Barcelona's population expansion was not inferior to Ma Deli at all, and perhaps one day in the future, Barcelona's population would have the hope of surpassing Ma Deli.

After all, Barcelona had the advantage of sea transportation, which Ma Deli did not possess. Ma Deli was located in the very center of Spain's territory, and its geographical location was relatively important.

But precisely because it was located inland, Ma Deli's transportation could only rely on railways and roads, which also limited Ma Deli's development to a certain extent.

The matter of the large-scale bullfighting arena was solved, and what needed to be done next was to think about how to promote the faster development of bullfighting activities.

If you want bullfighting activities to develop faster, the simplest way is to hold relatively official competitions, and at the same time prepare rich prizes, let Spain's newspaper media spread them wildly, and trigger the public to spontaneously pay attention to bullfighting competitions.

But there was bad news at present, which was that the bullfighting season in Spain was about to pass. The time for Spanish bullfighting was generally from March to October, and it was already early October, and bullfighting activities were about to end.

This also represented that if you want to vigorously promote bullfighting activities, you can only start from March of next year.

Fortunately, there were only a few months in between, which could be used to prepare for the holding of bullfighting activities, and let bullfighting activities spread to all parts of Spain in the form of news, attract more tourists and public attention, increase the attention and heat of the competition, and at the same time increase the excitement.

After a few days, Gao Da established the Spanish Bullfighting Association, specifically used to be responsible for promoting bullfighting activities and operating subsequent bullfighting events, etc.

And a few days after its establishment, the Spanish Bullfighting Association announced the first national-level Spanish bullfighting competition they had carefully prepared.

The Spanish Royal Bullfighter Competition was the official name of this competition. The whole competition would be divided into two major links, held in various parts of Spain and the capital Ma Deli respectively.

The first major link was from March to July next year, which would be held in bullfighting arenas in various regions of Spain, selecting ten excellent bullfighters from various regions of Spain, and then gathering in Ma Deli for the second round of competition.

The second major link was from August to October next year. Excellent bullfighters selected from various regions would gather in Ma Deli to present more exciting bullfighting performances in Ma Deli.

A total of three months of competition time would screen out the most excellent bullfighters in Spain. Besides the traditional rewards of applause, bull ears, and bull tails for bullfighters, the final winning bullfighter would also receive Gao Da's personal reception and the title of Spanish Royal Bullfighter.

Besides these honorary rewards, the top ten bullfighters in each region would have varying amounts of financial rewards. And after three months of competition, screening out the ten most excellent bullfighters in Spain, these ten bullfighters would receive more generous rewards, with the lowest being a check of over 1,000 pesetas.

As for the most excellent bullfighter who won the title of Royal Bullfighter, besides honorary rewards, he would also receive at least a check of over 10,000 pesetas, which was already dozens of times the annual income of ordinary Spanish people.

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 209 =====