Chapter 261: The Role of Light Bulbs

Given that both sides had the intention of peaceful negotiation, the meeting between Gao Da and Ambassador William concluded quickly.

The Dutch were unwilling to spark a more intense dispute with Spain at this time; after all, the regime change in the Netherlands required a stable environment, and the Netherlands lacked the sufficient strength to confront Spain.

As for Gao Da, he also did not wish to be too high-profile, lest he attract the attention of the British.

In fact, this conflict was entirely brought upon by the Dutch themselves. If the Dutch had not courted disaster, Gao Da would not have had much interest in the Dutch East Indies.

Although this colony had relatively high economic value, the problem was that besides Spain, the British, who truly controlled the Indian colonies, were also keeping an eye on it.

The British viewed India as a treasure, which meant that the British had to ensure the stability of the regions surrounding India to guarantee that no major problems would arise in their Indian colony.

Southeast Asia is neither too close nor too far from India, so it is quite normal for it to receive the attention of the British.

Not to mention that East Asia also possessed an extremely massive market, a market that had attracted the attention of many great powers.

According to the preliminary agreement discussed between Gao Da and Ambassador William, the so-called riot in the Sultanate of Kutai would be quelled by troops dispatched by Spain and the Lanfang Republic, and the subsequent partitioning of the land would naturally have nothing to do with the Dutch.

In addition to this, the Netherlands also needed to pay a certain amount of reparations to Spain, as the riot that occurred on the island of Jialimandandao had affected the local Spaniards.

Furthermore, the Netherlands needed to transfer at least 30 immigrant outposts located in New Guinea to Spain within three months, and these immigrant outposts had to be in the vicinity of Spain's existing outposts.

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

If the Dutch side were willing, Spain could even sign a non-aggression treaty with the Netherlands, agreeing that both sides would not infringe upon each other's colonies and would respect each other's ruling authority within their respective colonies.

After reaching an agreement with Ambassador William, the events that occurred on the island of Jialimandandao could be considered settled.

Once the army of the Lanfang Republic occupied the entire territory of the Sultanate of Kutai, the Spanish colonial garrison regiment stationed in the Sultanate of Bulungan could move south to take over this land.

After all, it was a piece of land with an area exceeding 100, 00 square kilometers, and Spain was naturally not going to be modest about it.

Gao Da was currently considering whether it would be most appropriate to fully incorporate this land into the Philippine colony or to establish a new, large-scale colony on the island of Jialimandandao.

Currently, the area of the Philippine colony had already reached as high as 440, 00 square kilometers, which was already the largest-scale colony controlled by Spain, excluding the Congo territory.

If the Sultanate of Kutai were added, the area of the Philippine colony would exceed 500, 00 square kilometers, larger than the area of Spain itself.

The indigenous population in this colony was also not small at all. The indigenous people in the Philippine region alone numbered in the millions, and when combined with the indigenous people living in the Jialimandandao region, the indigenous population of the entire Philippine colony would approach the scale of ten million, which would also increase the difficulty of governance.

Considering that establishing a new colony would increase Spain's investment costs in colonial affairs, Gao Da temporarily decided to incorporate the Sultanate of Kutai into the Philippine colony and to slow down the colonial expansion of the Philippine colony.

Moving forward, apart from New Guinea, the Philippine colony would honestly develop the land it had already occupied; it had no interest in land outside the colony and would not engage in any further colonial actions.

With the matter of the island of Jialimandandao resolved, Gao Da turned his attention to the popularization of electricity.

During Christmas last year, the "City That Never Sleeps" of Madrid became the most talked-about news in all of Europe, and even today, many media outlets mention it repeatedly.

The main reason for this was that, to this day, no other country had been able to build a "City That Never Sleeps" like Madrid; Madrid remained a one-of-a-kind phenomenon.

While the European powers led by Britain, France, and Germany were following up on their own "City That Never Sleeps" projects, Spain had already begun projects related to the comprehensive popularization of electricity in Madrid and Barcelona.

Although electricity at present could only be used for lighting, lighting could provide a great deal of convenience to humanity. Whether used for daily life or industrial production, more effective lighting was extremely useful.

Gao Da's emphasis on electricity was manifested vividly. Since the Madrid "City That Never Sleeps," all royal factories and enterprises had signed orders with the power company, not only connecting their companies and factories to electricity but also purchasing light bulbs of all sizes for lighting.

A craze for using electricity had also been set off in Spain, with everyone taking pride in being able to use a light bulb for illumination.

Although this craze had not yet swept through the civilian class, among the Spanish nobility and the capitalist class, the love for electricity and light bulbs among the dignitaries was already visible to the naked eye.

In fact, thinking about it, it felt quite normal. People of later generations were accustomed to the brightly lit cities at night; when a city experienced a power outage one day, people would also feel uncomfortable.

When people of this era felt the brightness and convenience brought by electricity, they would naturally think of every possible way to enjoy this convenience.

If one were to ask which enterprise was the busiest at such a time, if the power company claimed second place, no other company would dare to claim first.

Gao Da had long ago reminded the power company's general manager, Gram, to hurry up and produce various types of light bulbs and wires before the Madrid "City That Never Sleeps" project, preparing for the popularization of electricity in Spain.

Gram had indeed followed Gao Da's orders, producing a large quantity of light bulbs and wires in advance, and the power company had also been vigorously recruiting personnel since its establishment, all to prevent such busy moments.

But Gram had far underestimated the public's love for electricity, or rather, he had far underestimated the enthusiasm of the nobility and capitalists for enjoying electricity.

When enjoying electricity and light bulb illumination became a new fashion, the nobles actually had no choice.

Other nobles were using electricity and light bulbs; could the other nobles, as part of the same noble class, remain indifferent?

After Christmas, the power company had been in a state of being overwhelmed with orders. For Gram, he was in a state of being in pain yet happy.

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

But the problem was that the current orders for the Spanish National Power Company were already scheduled a year in advance, and even now, new orders were being generated every day.

According to the current production capacity of the Spanish Power Company, just meeting the electricity demand of the two large cities of Madrid and Barcelona might require the power company to produce diligently for more than two years.

There was no other way; Gram could only find Gao Da and request that Gao Da recruit more employees for the power company, while also helping the power company expand its production scale and improve the efficiency of the power company's electrification.

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 electricity, and some Spanish universities also had majors related to electricity, though they were not very popular.

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

If one were to add the technical workers related to electricity cultivated by those technical schools—the so-called electricians—the number of electricity-related technical talents cultivated by Spain each year could reach several hundred.

If these talents were still not enough, Spain could also recruit a certain number of talents from other countries. However, because countries had begun to attach importance to the development of electricity, it was no longer such an easy task to recruit talents now.

Fortunately, before this, Spain had already poached quite a few talents from abroad, which was also the reason why Spain was at the forefront of the power industry among various countries.

Gao Da not only attached great importance to the development of electricity and invested a large amount of funds every year, but also continuously introduced foreign talents at a time when other countries did not attach much importance to the development of electricity.

Under such circumstances, the rapid development of electricity in Spain was very normal. Without the interference of other external factors, it was very simple for a country to want to develop a certain industry with all its might.

Moreover, Spain was not a small country; with sufficient funds invested, whether it was electricity or other industries, making progress was a matter of course.

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

Metallurgical technology also included the technology for refining brass, which was the most reliable material for wires; it could not only improve power transmission efficiency but was also safer compared to other metals.

Because of the improvement in metallurgical technology, Spain's annual copper production had also obtained a certain increase. With copper production increased, the price of copper naturally fell.

The drop in copper prices also brought about a small reduction in the production cost of wires, contributing quite a bit of fuel to the development of electricity in Spain.

Spain's population was relatively small, which resulted in the fact that only the two more populous cities of Madrid and Barcelona could currently popularize electricity.

But this was not entirely bad news. Compared to populous countries like Britain, France, and Germany, precisely because Spain's population was smaller, Spain could spend less money on the popularization of electricity; wasn't the Madrid "City That Never Sleeps" the best example?

Something like a "City That Never Sleeps" certainly had to be placed in the capital, or if not the capital, then a city with relatively developed economy and industry.

Such cities would have a larger population, especially the three great powers of Britain, France, and Germany, whose capitals all had populations of over one million.

Compared to Madrid, they would have to spend at least twice the cost to replicate a "City That Never Sleeps." This was without calculating the costs of power generation and electricity usage; if those were included, the cost 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 the fact that Spain did not spend an overly expensive price to build the Madrid "City That Never Sleeps," but if that expenditure were multiplied by three, the cost would be enormous.

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

Investing a large amount of funds into a field like electricity, which had not yet shown sufficient utility, indeed required enough courage for the two old-established powers of Britain and France to accomplish.

If it weren't for Germany following up too early, I'm afraid the British could have dragged it out for a while longer. If it weren't for Britain following Germany and following up at the same time, I'm afraid the French could have dragged it out for even longer.

The popularization of electricity was, of course, a good thing for humanity. Only when electricity was popularized to major cities and industrial zones could equipment related to electricity emerge continuously and reform generation after generation.

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

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

Benz's car company was the best example.

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

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

The public could not possibly buy a car that would break down at any time, not to mention that such a car built by hand had a very high cost and was simply not something that ordinary people could afford.

Benz and others had 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.

As far as current technology was concerned, wanting to significantly improve the stability of the steam engine without 20 years or more was simply impossible.

Precisely because of this, Gao Da also temporarily did not hope for the commercial use of cars. Building a few such cars to provide to the royal family and the government was also not bad; at least the car specially supplied to Gao Da was much more comfortable to ride in than a carriage, and there would be maintenance personnel traveling with the car at all times to ensure that the car would not break down halfway, or that if it did break down halfway, there would be someone to repair it in time.

After Spain vigorously promoted the popularization of electricity, Benz also suddenly had an idea and decided to add two large light bulbs in front of the car model he manufactured to provide illumination.

The benefit of doing this was obvious, which was to give the car the ability to drive at night.

When people rode in carriages, it was difficult to provide illumination at night. Whether it was kerosene lamps or torches, it was impossible to fully illuminate the road in front of the carriage.

Moreover, the vision of horses and humans was completely different; humans being able to see clearly did not mean that horses could also see clearly. And animals were naturally afraid of fire sources; counting on torches or kerosene lamps to provide illumination for horses was better than counting on the bright round moon to reflect more light.

But cars were completely different. If at least two light bulbs could be installed in front of the car, there was hope to provide enough illumination for the person driving the car.

The car did not need to see clearly; it was enough for the person driving the car to see clearly. Doing this could not only improve the efficiency and safety of cars driving at night but also allow cars to possess functions that carriages did not have.

Counting on installing lighting equipment on carriages was unrealistic. After all, light bulbs needed electricity for illumination, and carriages were moving at all times.

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

Perhaps only the special carriages of the royal family and the government could undergo such a modification. After all, the royal carriages were already inlaid with steel plates, and their 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 high, providing illumination for a few light bulbs was no problem.

Previously, when the power generation capacity was not high, the power generation equipment installed on carriages was difficult to illuminate light bulbs with higher wattage. But now, with the increase in the power of power generation equipment, there was indeed hope to install such simple power generation equipment on carriages and cars to provide illumination for electric lights.

This was precisely the role of electricity; as long as it could facilitate people's lives, such a role was of great use.

(End of chapter)