Chapter 209: Ironclad Ship Launched

When the public learned through various ways about the bullfighting competition that Gao Da was about to form in the new year, they immediately fell into cheers, and some Spanish people who loved bullfighting were even excited about it.

The Spanish people's love for bullfighting activities was unquestionable. During the bullfighting time from March to October, almost every bullfighting performance would be full.

Someone once commented on the Spanish people's love for bullfighting activities like this: "Spanish people can be late for any activity, but bullfighting competitions are not among them."

Such a statement was not exaggerated, especially in the southern regions of Spain, such as the Andalusia region.

As the region with the largest population in Spain, the Andalusia region possessed the most bullfighting arenas in Spain and the most fanatical crowds who loved bullfighting.

Generally, excellent bullfighters could receive rewards of bull ears and bull tails, and in the bullfighting arena of the Andalusia region, bullfighters who were loved by the audience could not only go around the arena once but also pass through the "Prince's Gate" of the bullfighting arena under the enthusiastic cheering and witnessing of the audience.

Although such rewards attracted bullfighters from all over Spain, it was not so easy to obtain the qualification to pass through the "Prince's Gate".

A bullfighting activity would have three bullfighters and six bulls attending, and each bullfighter would have two bullfighting opportunities.

If you want to obtain the qualification to pass through the "Prince's Gate", the bullfighter must obtain the favor of the audience in two bullfighting performances, at least obtain three bull ears and one bull tail, to have the opportunity to obtain the qualification to pass through the "Prince's Gate".

Honestly, bullfighting activities had great harm. The reason why Spanish people worshipped bullfighters was that bullfighters faced great risks in the process of bullfighting and still dared to face them directly.

The bull used in the bullfighting arena was a pure-blooded wild bull, generally a fierce adult healthy bull selected from North Africa.

Because its irritable temper and combative nature were not artificially trained, it led to the extreme danger of these bulls, and also made bullfighting activities an activity with a high probability of casualties.

It could be expected that with Gao Da's comprehensive promotion of bullfighting activities in Spain, the number of Spanish people who died in bullfighting activities every year would increase at a very fast proportion, and it could reach hundreds or even thousands of people in a short time.

But these shortcomings were acceptable to Gao Da, because bullfighting activities could also bring more benefits to Spain.

Not looking at external factors like weapons and equipment, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army was not bad among the powers, and it was stronger than the Eguozheng Prefecture and Italy.

Relying on the influence of the brave attribute brought by bullfighting activities to Spanish people, Gao Da had the confidence to form a Spanish army with first-class or even top-notch combat effectiveness in Europe.

In the case that the population was not as good as other European powers, what Spain could do was only to improve the combat effectiveness of the army as much as possible to barely contend with other powers.

As November approached, Spain ushered in another good news, which was that the Fuxing-class ironclad ship, Fuxing, built before, was about to be launched.

This news also attracted the attention and cheers of the Spanish people, and it shocked the whole of Spain in a short time.

Spain did not hide the construction of this ironclad ship, but it was openly purchased by the Ministry of National Defense and built by the Royal Naval Shipyard in an open and aboveboard manner.

The reason for being completely open was precisely to arouse the attention of the Spanish public to this and improve the national pride of the Spanish people.

Originally, according to the construction time given by the Royal Naval Shipyard, the Fuxing ironclad ship had the hope of completing the construction work in the summer and starting the sea navigation test stage after being launched.

But later, the Ministry of National Defense ordered nearly 20 other small and medium-sized warships, letting all three docks of the Royal Naval Shipyard enter a production state, and the construction of the Fuxing ironclad ship was naturally delayed by a few months.

The good news was that after the rush work of the Royal Naval Shipyard, and launched and tested together with the Fuxing ironclad ship, there were also two 3,000-ton class cruisers.

Three warships were launched at the same time, and coupled with the fact that this was the first time Spain had launched an ironclad ship after many years, Gao Da definitely had to personally participate in the launching ceremony.

On the day of the launching ceremony, part of the area of the Royal Naval Shipyard was opened to the public, and it was also surrounded by curious Spanish people.

When the public saw with their own eyes that the behemoth in the distance was pushed into the ocean, the Spanish people could no longer hold back the hot tears in their eyes and cheered and celebrated loudly.

The conventional displacement of the Fuxing ironclad ship reached a staggering 8,600 tons, which also belonged to the first echelon among the ironclad ships built by various European countries at present.

As a comparison, the displacement of the Triumph-class ironclad ship built by the British in the same period was only 9,644 tons, which had already been able to prove that the tonnage of the Fuxing-class ironclad ship could enter the forefront among the ironclad ships of various countries at present.

More importantly, the Fuxing-class ironclad ship was equipped with four breech-loading 12-inch 305mm steel naval guns. Although the caliber of the artillery was not as good as the 318mm naval gun mastered by the British, the advantage was that it belonged to the breech-loading gun, and the rate of fire and shooting distance were far ahead of the muzzle-loading gun.

Although the tonnage of the British Triumph-class ironclad ship was 1,000 tons more than Spain's Fuxing-class ironclad ship, the main guns of the Triumph-class ironclad ship were only two 11-inch front-loading rifled guns, which were lagging behind Spain's Fuxing-class ironclad ship in terms of firepower.

Overall, the combat effectiveness of the Fuxing-class ironclad ship definitely belonged to the first echelon of the active ironclad ships of various European countries, which was also the result achieved by Gao Da vigorously supporting Spain's original shipbuilding system and obtaining part of the technology and data from the Aodilizheng Prefecture, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Compared with this ironclad ship with a tonnage of over 8,600 tons, the two cruisers next to it with a tonnage of only over 3,000 tons appeared a bit mini.

However, since they saw the big dish of the Fuxing ironclad ship, the public naturally would not dislike the two small dishes next to it.

After these three warships were launched, Spain's naval strength was completely stabilized in the world's top five. Although it was only fifth, there was no possibility of competing for fourth, but at least it was top five, right?

More importantly, this was only the first ironclad ship built by Spain in ten years. When Spain builds more ironclad ships in the future, will Spain's naval strength still stop at the world's fifth level?

The question that the public was most concerned about and looking forward to was naturally this one.

At the launching ceremony of the three warships, Gao Da was not too high-profile, so as not to arouse the fear of the British.

The British were not afraid of Spain engaging in the army, but if Spain placed its eyes on the development of the navy, the British would have the worries they should have.

After all, to put it bluntly, the British Empire's status as the world hegemon was entirely maintained by the navy. What they were most afraid of was the challenge from the sea surface, which would affect the power and status of the British Empire.

The main contradictions of the European powers at present were the Germany-France contradiction, the British-France contradiction, the British-Russian Empire contradiction, and the Russian Empire-Austro-Hungarian Empire contradiction, these four major contradictions.

But why did it eventually evolve into the British-France-Russian Empire and the Germany-Austro-Hungarian Empire two sides beating each other? The root cause was precisely because Germany's development in the navy threatened the status of the United Kingdom, letting the British choose the lesser of two evils and eventually choose to cooperate with the French people, who were less threatening, to defeat the German people.

Of course, the British's purpose was not so pure; what the British wanted to do more was to solve the two heart-and-belly troubles of Germany and France in one fell swoop in the war, ensuring that there was no longer any country on the European continent that could threaten their status.

The final result was also very clear; Germany was eventually defeated under the siege of the British and France, and the French people also bore huge casualties, eventually leading to France's terrible performance in the Second World War.

Falanxi's surrender in the Second World War could not blame the Falanxi people; after all, Falanxi had already borne too many casualties in the First World War. The time between the First and Second World Wars was only 20 years, and when the Second World War broke out, there were many Falanxi people who had experienced the First World War, and these people certainly did not want to experience a large-scale war like the First World War again.

Although Spain did not intend to be high-profile in terms of naval expansion, in the next few years, the development of the navy still required building a few ironclad ships.

One was that Spain's economy had gradually improved, which could support Spain's navy to possess more ironclad ships. The second was that with the expansion of Spain's colonies, Spain indeed needed a more powerful fleet to protect its colonies.

As mentioned before, although Spain possessed the world's fifth navy, most of the warships were sailing warships, which were products that had already lagged behind the era.

Just like the pre-dreadnought ship encountering the dreadnought ship, the sailing warship encountering the ironclad ship was also like an egg hitting a stone.

The huge improvement brought by technology was a gap that sailing warships could not make up even if they puffed up their strength, which also led to the status of Spain as a naval power being a bit bloated.

Although Gao Da did not have the plan to maintain a large-scale navy, taking advantage of the period when Spain's economic development was relatively rapid in these few years, it was very necessary to replace part of the warships with new warships using steam turbines as power.

The speed of sailing warships and ironclad ships was completely disproportionate; after all, one used wind as power, and the other used steam turbines as power.

Ironclad ships could even complete ocean voyages without needing sails, which was something that previous sailing warships did not possess at all.

It just so happened that Spain's colonies were all over the world, possessing colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. In this case, some warships with ocean-going capabilities were very necessary, which could help Spain better stabilize the colonies.

If you relied on those sailing warships, by the time you arrived at the distant colonies, I am afraid the rebellion in the colonies would have long ended.

Based on this idea, after participating in the launching ceremony of the Fuxing-class ironclad ship, Gao Da immediately notified several other members of the Spanish National Defense Committee to convene a new round of national defense meetings at the Madrid Palace.

The Spanish National Defense Committee was an organization established by Gao Da after suppressing the workers' parade, and its role, besides electing the Minister of National Defense during the cabinet change, was also the highest meeting organization for Spain's military aspects.

Gao Da's purpose for convening the National Defense Committee meeting was also very simple, which was to discuss Spain's expansion plan in the navy and completely stabilize the status of the Spanish navy in the world's fifth throne.

The candidates participating in the National Defense Committee meeting were fixed, nothing more than Gao Da, the Minister of National Defense, the Prime Minister, the Chief of General Staff of the Ministry of National Defense, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guard, these seven people.

Because Duke Luo Suo, as the cabinet Prime Minister, also served as the Minister of National Defense, only six people actually participated in the meeting.

The fewer the number of people in the meeting, the smaller the dispute, and everyone had no objection to Spain's naval expansion, even the Commander-in-Chief of the Army was no exception.

The main reason for this was still because the current relatively peaceful environment limited the growth of the Spanish army. At present, the Spanish Royal Army possessed a total of 136,000 people, and the number of army personnel was already not small.

If you add the 15,000 people of the Imperial Guard, the total number of the Spanish army had already exceeded 150,000, and its comprehensive combat effectiveness was second only to the five powers.

In this case, it was very difficult for the army to expand again. Unless facing a war crisis, what the army could do was only to strive for a little more equipment budget, letting soldiers train with peace of mind, without being afraid of the consumption of bullets.

In fact, the current Spanish Royal Army was really not stingy in terms of training. Excluding the 46,000 colonial troops, the Royal Army still possessed a scale of over 90,000 people.

And in the military expenditure announced by the Ministry of National Defense every year, the training expenses of these 90,000 soldiers accounted for the bulk.

Don't underestimate the training expenses of soldiers. If every soldier conducted two target practice trainings every week, and each target practice training consumed 10 bullets, the number of bullets consumed by one soldier every week reached 20.

Spain possessed 90,000 Royal Army, which also represented that if the Spanish army followed such a target practice training ratio, the number of bullets consumed every week would exceed 1.8 million.

1.8 million per week, the number of bullets consumed in a month would exceed 7 million. According to such a ratio, the bullets used by Spanish soldiers in target practice training alone consumed as many as hundreds of millions every year.

Although the actual training situation would certainly not be so simple, this was enough to prove how huge the daily training expenses of the Spanish army were.

Fortunately, the Royal Military Factory had expanded production for many years, and the output of weapons and equipment and bullets and shells had expanded by several times or even dozens of times.

Especially in the case that the army had been fully equipped with new rifles, the Royal Military Factory only needed to retain a rifle production line to fill the daily loss of rifles, and the remaining production lines could all be used to work overtime to produce bullets.

Although it could not fully meet the training needs of Spanish soldiers, after all, colonial troops also had bullet consumption, and the 15,000 soldiers of the Imperial Guard were not counted in.

But the good news was that seven out of ten bullets consumed by army training came from Spain's domestic production, and only three came from imports.

This was also thanks to the fact that Spain's rifles were improved from Italy's rifles, and both rifles could use the same type of bullets.

In this way, Spain could buy the same type of rifle bullets in Italy, solving the worry of bullet demand caused by army training.

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 210 =====