Chapter 261: The Role of Light Bulbs

On the premise that both sides had the intention of peaceful negotiation, the meeting between Gao Da and Ambassador William also ended quickly.

The Dutch did not want to break out into more intense disputes with Spain at this time; after all, the change of the Dutch regime needed a stable environment, and the Netherlands did not have enough strength to confront Spain.

And for Gao Da, Gao Da also did not hope to be too high-profile, thereby attracting the attention of the British.

In fact, this conflict was entirely delivered to the door by the Dutch themselves. If the Dutch did not seek death themselves, Gao Da would not have too many ideas about the Dutch East Indies.

Although this colony also had relatively high economic value, the problem was that besides Spain, there was also Britain, which truly mastered the Indian colony, paying attention to this colony.

Britain regarded India as a treasure, which also meant that Britain must ensure the stability of the areas around India to ensure that the Indian colony would not have too big problems.

Southeast Asia is not close or far from India, and it is very normal to receive attention from the British.

Not to mention that there was an extremely huge market in East Asia, and this piece of market attracted the attention of many powers.

According to the preliminary agreement negotiated by Gao Da and Ambassador William, the so-called riots in the Kutai Sultanate would be suppressed by troops sent by Spain and the Lanfang Republic, and the division of land after suppression would naturally have nothing to do with the Dutch.

Besides this, the Netherlands also needed to pay a certain amount of reparations to Spain; after all, the riots that occurred on the island of Kalimantan affected the local Spaniards.

And the Netherlands needed to transfer at least 30 immigrant strongholds located in New Guinea to Spain within three months, and these immigrant strongholds must be around the existing strongholds of Spain.

The sincerity of the Dutch apology could be described as quite sincere, and precisely because of this, Gao Da promised in person that Spain would absolutely not pursue any responsibility of the Netherlands, nor would it use this as a reason to launch a war against the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies.

Even if the Dutch side was willing, Spain could also sign a non-aggression treaty with the Netherlands, agreeing that both sides would not infringe on each other's colonies and respect each other's rule in the colonies.

After reaching an agreement with Ambassador William, the things that happened on the island of Kalimantan were considered to have come to an end.

After the Lanfang Republic's army occupied the entire territory of the Kutai Sultanate, the Spanish colonial garrison regiment stationed in the Bulungan Sultanate could go south to take over this piece of land.

After all, it was a piece of land with an area of over 100,000 square kilometers, so Spain was naturally unceremonious about this.

What Gao Da was currently considering was whether it was most appropriate to completely merge this piece of land into the Philippines colony, or to re-establish a large colony on the island of Kalimantan.

Currently, the area of the Philippines colony had already reached 440,000 square kilometers, which was the largest scale colony controlled by Spain besides the Congo territory.

If the Kutai Sultanate were added, the area of the Philippines colony would break 500,000 square kilometers, larger than the area of Spain's mainland.

The indigenous population on this colony was also not small at all. Just the indigenous people in the Philippines region reached several million, coupled with the indigenous people living in the Kalimantan region, the indigenous population of the entire Philippines colony would reach the scale of nearly ten million, and the difficulty of rule would also increase.

Considering that establishing a new colony would increase Spain's investment cost in colonies, Gao Da temporarily decided to merge the Kutai Sultanate into the Philippines colony, and slow down the colonial expansion of the Philippines colony.

Next, besides New Guinea, the Philippines colony would honestly develop the land that had already been occupied, and had no interest in land outside the colony, nor would it have any colonial actions.

The things on the island of Kalimantan were solved, and Gao Da's focus was on the popularization of electric power.

Last Christmas, the Madrid City of Night became the liveliest news in the whole of Europe, and it was repeatedly mentioned by many media until today.

The main reason for this was that until now, no other country could build a City of Night like Madrid, and Madrid was still the only one (scorpion's feces - unique) until now.

While European powers led by Britain, France, and Germany followed up on the City of Night project, Spain had already started projects related to the comprehensive popularization of electric power in Madrid and Barcelona.

Although electric power could currently only be used for lighting, lighting could also provide a lot of convenience to humans. Whether used for daily life or industrial production, more effective lighting was very useful.

Gao Da's emphasis on electric power was reflected vividly. Since the Madrid City of Night, all factories and enterprises of the royal family had signed an order with the electric power company, not only connecting electricity to the company and factory but also purchasing light bulbs of various sizes for lighting.

A wave of electricity usage also set off in Spain, and everyone was proud to be able to use a light bulb for lighting.

Although such a craze had not yet swept to the civilian level, among Spain's noble and capitalist classes, the love for electric power and light bulbs by dignitaries was already visible to the naked eye.

Actually, thinking about it, it felt very normal. People in later generations were accustomed to the bright lights of cities at night, and when one day the city had a power outage, people would also be uncomfortable.

When people in this era felt the brightness and convenience brought by electric power, they would naturally try every possible way to enjoy such convenience.

If one had to say which enterprise was the busiest at this time, if the electric power company said second, then no company would dare to claim first.

Gao Da had long reminded the general manager of the electric power company, Gram, to hurry up and produce light bulbs and wires of various models before the Madrid City of Night plan, preparing for the popularization of electricity in Spain.

Gram also indeed listened to Gao Da's order, produced a large number of light bulbs and wires in advance, and the electric power company also vigorously recruited manpower since its establishment, all to prevent such a busy moment.

But Gram far underestimated the public's love for electric power, or rather, he far underestimated the enthusiasm of nobles and capitalists for enjoying electric power.

When enjoying electric power and light bulb lighting became a new fashion, nobles actually had no choice.

Other nobles were using electric power and light bulbs; did other nobles of the same noble class have to remain indifferent?

After Christmas, the electric power company had been in a state of explosive orders. For Gram, he was in pain and happy at this time.

Although electric power at this time could only be used for lighting, it could not be denied that lighting was also an extremely important role. As a pioneer in the electric power industry, Gram still felt very happy that the things he studied were valued by the public.

But the problem was that the orders for the Spanish National Electric Power Company were already lined up for a year later, and even every day there were constant orders produced.

According to the current production volume of the Spanish electric power company, just meeting the electricity demand of the two large cities of Madrid and Barcelona might require the electric power company to bury its head in production for more than two years.

There was no way, Gram could only find Gao Da, requesting Gao Da to recruit more employees for the electric power company, and along the way, help the electric power company expand its production scale and improve the efficiency of the electric power company's power connection.

Regarding Gram's request, Gao Da naturally nodded repeatedly.

The good news was that Gao Da had always attached great importance to the development of electric power, and some universities in Spain had majors related to electric power, but they were not very popular.

Although not very popular, adding up all the universities, it was no problem to bring more than 100 talents to the electric power industry each year.

If one added the technical workers related to electric power cultivated by those technical schools, that is, the so-called electricians, the number of technical talents related to electric power cultivated by Spain each year might reach several hundred.

If these talents were still not enough, Spain could also recruit a certain number of talents from other countries. However, because various countries had begun to attach importance to the development of electric power, it was not so easy to recruit talents now.

Fortunately, Spain had already dug quite a few corners from abroad before this, which was also the reason why Spain walked to the forefront of various countries in the electric power industry.

Gao Da not only attached great importance to the development of electric power and invested a large amount of funds every year, but also constantly introduced foreign talents when various countries did not attach much importance to the development of electric power.

Under such circumstances, Spain's rapid development of electric power was very normal. Without the interference of other external factors, it was very simple for a country to want to fully develop a certain industry.

What's more, Spain was not a small country. Under the condition of having enough capital investment, whether it was electric power or other industries, achieving progress was a matter of course.

There was also good news for Spain, which was that through cooperation with the Prussian side, Spain's metallurgy technology was improved to a certain extent.

Metallurgy technology also included the technology of refining brass, which was the most reliable wire material, which could not only improve power transmission efficiency but also be safer compared to other metals.

Because of the improvement in metallurgy technology, Spain's annual copper production also achieved a certain increase. Copper production increased, and the copper price naturally fell.

The fall in copper price allowed the production cost of wires to usher in a small reduction, contributing quite a few boosters for the development of Spain's electric power.

Spain's population was small, which led to the fact that currently, only the two cities with larger populations, Madrid and Barcelona, could popularize electric power.

But this was not entirely bad news. Compared to population giants like Britain, France, and Germany, precisely because Spain's population was small, Spain could spend less capital in the popularization of electric power; wasn't the Madrid City of Night the best example?

Things like the City of Night must be placed in the capital, and if not the capital, it must be a city with relatively developed economy and industry.

Such cities would possess a relatively large population, especially the three major powers of Britain, France, and Germany, whose capitals were all cities with over a million population.

Compared to Madrid, they had to spend at least twice the price to replicate a City of Night. This had not yet calculated the cost of power generation and electricity usage; if calculated, the price they spent might be more than three times that of Spain.

This was actually the reason why Britain and France did not follow up in time. Don't look at Spain building the Madrid City of Night without spending too expensive a price; if this expenditure were multiplied by three times, the price would be huge.

Wouldn't it be better to use this money to build a huge fleet? Even if it were used in the army, couldn't it build a huge elite army?

Investing a large amount of capital in the field of electric power, which had not yet shown enough effect, for the two old powers of Britain and France, indeed required enough courage to complete.

If it weren't for Germany following up too early, I am afraid the British could still drag it out for a period of time. If it weren't for the British following Germany to follow up at the same time, I am afraid the French could still drag it out for a longer time.

The popularization of electric power was of course a good thing for humans. Only when electric power was popularized to major cities and industrial areas could equipment related to electric power continuously appear and reform generation after generation.

This did not just include electric motors, but also various other electrical appliances and mechanical equipment, which also needed to be driven by electric power.

The popularization of electric power was like opening a good start, creating a beautiful future for the development of electric power. And Spain, as a country leading in the progress of electric power popularization, also had more hope of achieving more achievements in technology and fields related to electric power.

Benz's automobile company was the best example.

In fact, as early as a few years ago, Benz had already developed an automobile prototype that could barely be applied.

But such an automobile had too many defects; it was fine for the government and royal family to purchase a few, but wanting to put it into commercial use was completely impossible.

The public could not purchase an automobile that would drop the chain at any time, not to mention that such a manually built automobile had a very high cost and was simply not something ordinary people could afford.

Benz and others conducted research for several years, and until now, they had not solved the problem of the instability of the internal combustion engine.

However, this was also very normal. If the stability of the internal combustion engine were solved, it would mean that the steam engine was about to be replaced.

Judging from the current technology, wanting to significantly improve the stability of the steam engine, without more than 20 years, it was simply impossible.

Precisely because of this, Gao Da temporarily did not expect the commercial use of automobiles. Building a few such automobiles to provide for the royal family and government was also not bad; at least the automobile specially supplied to Gao Da was much more comfortable to ride than a carriage, and there would also be maintenance personnel following the automobile to travel at any time, ensuring that the automobile would not break down halfway, or that someone would repair it in time if it broke down halfway.

After Spain vigorously promoted the popularization of electric power, Benz also suddenly had an idea, deciding to add two large light bulbs in front of the automobile model he manufactured to provide lighting.

The benefits of doing so were very obvious, which was to let the automobile possess the ability to drive at night.

When people rode in carriages, it was very difficult to provide lighting at night. Whether it was kerosene lamps or torches, it was impossible to see the road in front of the carriage clearly.

What's more, the vision of horses and humans was completely different; people being able to see clearly did not mean horses could also see clearly. And animals were born to fear fire sources; counting on torches or kerosene lamps to provide lighting for horses was better than counting on the bright round moon to reflect more light.

But automobiles were completely different. If at least two light bulbs could be installed in front of the automobile, there was hope of providing enough lighting for the person driving the automobile.

Automobiles did not need to see clearly; the person driving the automobile just needed to see clearly. Doing so could not only improve the efficiency and safety of automobiles driving at night but also let automobiles possess functions that carriages did not possess.

Counting on installing lighting equipment on carriages was unrealistic. After all, light bulbs needed electric power for lighting, and carriages were moving at any time.

If a small power generation device was installed, the carriage would become more cumbersome, and ordinary carriages simply could not achieve such modification.

Perhaps only the special carriages of the royal family and government could carry out such modification. After all, the royal family's carriages were originally inlaid with steel plates, and the volume was much larger than normal carriages.

Installing a simple power generation device on such a carriage was still possible; although the power was not large, providing lighting for a few light bulbs was no problem.

Before, when the power generation capacity was not large, the power generation device installed on the carriage was difficult to illuminate light bulbs with larger wattage. But now, with the improvement of the power generation device's power, it was indeed possible to install such a simple power generation device on carriages and automobiles to provide lighting for electric lights.

This was precisely the role of electric power; as long as it could facilitate people's lives, such a role was very useful.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 262 =====