Chapter 268: Layout of Naval Construction

Compared to the handover between colonies, the 5 million pounds used as compensation was obviously the easiest to pay.

Facts indeed proved this; in order to express their sincerity, the British government paid 5 million pounds to the Spanish government on the day the treaty was signed, because the pound was the most valuable currency in the world at present, and Spain did not refuse the British government's proposal to pay in pounds.

5 million pounds did not look like much, but in reality, it was worth 130 million Pesetas, which was not a small sum of funds for any country.

The Spanish government internally also had fierce arguments about the use of these 5 million pounds of funds, but in the end, Gao Da made the decision directly, deciding to use these 5 million pounds for the development of the Spanish Navy.

Of course, the so-called development of the navy was not simply building warships, but researching more advanced and powerful warship systems, letting the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Navy's warships always remain in the forefront of the world.

If it was only used to build warships, 5 million pounds was enough for Spain to build 10 Revival-class ironclad ships; added to Spain's existing naval scale, it could be said that besides the navies of Britain and France, it could almost compete for the throne of the world's third naval power.

But doing so was obviously treating the symptoms but not the root cause. More importantly, the era of battleships, which was the era of pre-dreadnoughts, was about to arrive.

Gao Da hoped more that Spain could obtain sufficient advantages in the pre-dreadnought era, taking the opportunity to build the Spanish Navy into a world-class top-three strong army.

After the pre-dreadnoughts, there was the era of dreadnoughts; if Spain could grasp these two major warship transformation eras, it was not impossible to become the second naval power only after the British Empire.

For Spain, this relatively closed country, the strength of the navy was more important than the strength of the land army. The Pyrenees Mountains were already a natural barrier; as long as a few fortresses were built to stabilize the defense lines on both sides of the Pyrenees, European countries could not launch an attack on Spain from the continent.

In this way, Portugal would become the only country that could pose a threat to Spain on land. Considering the huge strength gap between Portugal and Spain, it was very difficult for Portugal to defeat Spain in a land war, and it could even be said that there was no hope at all.

This also meant that if Spain could build a powerful navy, it would have hope of contending for more benefits, and would no longer fear super powers of the level of Britain, France, and Germany.

Just like Britain, although it was the world's number one, Britain's threat to Spain was not that powerful.

As long as Spain could grasp the opportunity of two warship transformations to significantly improve its naval strength, Spain would have hope of recovering Gibraltar or even fully occupying Morocco during the time Britain was unable to take care of other things.

If the ambition was bigger, Spain could also withstand the pressure to directly annex Portugal. After successively annexing Portugal and Morocco, Spain would also formally become a super power of the level of Britain, France, and Germany, and would no longer need to fear the threat of the British.

These 5 million pounds of funds would be divided into two parts; 2 million pounds of funds would be used to build three ironclad ships and dozens of small and medium-scale warships, strengthening the strength of Spain's existing army and sitting firmly on the throne of the world's fifth naval power.

The remaining 3 million pounds of funds would all be invested in Spain's existing several major shipyards, through the joint research and development of several major shipyards, designing more advanced ironclad ships or even strategic ships.

After battleships were designed, it would be the time for Spain to massively explode its navy. By then, Spain would have already significantly promoted the development of industry and economy through electricity; even if it launched a naval arms race, Spain would also be qualified to laugh until the end.

After reaching an agreement with the British, Spain was also making full preparations for giving up the Cuba colony.

The Cuba colony government side was also already conducting transfer work, and population transfer had already started early.

Besides black people, all the population of the Cuba colony could apply to the colonial government to go to Spain itself or other colonies; the Spanish government would treat these people equally, and they would save the assessment period in Spain's immigration policy and directly obtain Spanish nationality.

Cuba after all possessed a population of over a million; although a considerable part of white people and black people were dissatisfied with Spain's rule, there were also some people who were relatively recognized by the Spanish colonial government.

After all, to put it bluntly, no matter how cruel Spain's colonial rule was, it would never extend the butcher knife to its own people.

Under Spain's colonial rule, the only ones who were really in danger of life were black people; white people were at most exploited for some income.

If it was said that the black people in the Cuba colony were truly dissatisfied with Spain's colonial rule, then most white people were only dissatisfied with the colonial government's strict exploitation of them; they were not truly opposing Spain in the true sense.

Of course, all this did not matter to Spain. After the handover work of the colony was completed, Cuba would have nothing to do with Spain.

The officials of the Cuba colonial government would be arranged to Spain itself or other colonies; anyway, in theory, the number of Spain's colonies was still increasing, and officials did not have to worry about having nowhere to go.

As for the population willing to go to Spain itself and other colonies, a part of them would be arranged to the three British colonies in West Africa.

Since they had already obtained three British colonies, the Spanish government certainly wanted to hold these three colonies in its own hands.

Spain's colonies certainly also had to have a considerable number of Spanish people; for the Spanish government, Spanish immigrants were the foundation of ruling the colonies.

Of course, those Portuguese immigrants might also submit to Spain's rule. Compared to colonialists from other European countries, they had no difficulty in communication with Spanish colonialists, and even the culture was relatively close, which was obviously closer.

Especially the British Huang Jinhaian; this piece of land possessed quite a few Portuguese. If they could absorb the Portuguese into Spain's colonial rule, this could let Spain quickly control the situation of the British Huang Jinhaian.

Britain's three colonies in West Africa were relatively scattered, but the distance between them was also not too far.

If they could fully control these three colonies, Spain had hope of obtaining millions of square kilometers of land in southern West Africa.

Added to the Congo territory and the Guinea colony, if they could connect into one piece, Spain's colonial achievements in Africa would not be less than France's, and even had hope of becoming the country occupying the most land in Africa after Britain.

According to such a trend, the future partition of Africa by various powers would become a situation where Britain occupied the east, France occupied North Africa and northern West Africa, and Spain occupied the Congo and southern West Africa as well as Morocco.

Most of the land in West Africa would be occupied by Britain, France, and Spain, including strong countries like Germany, which could only pick up the rotten land that Britain, France, and Spain did not want in Africa.

The reason why there was such a huge gap in land division was that the most important reason was the distance between the powers and Africa and the time of colonizing Africa.

The powers that could cross the Mediterranean to reach Africa were only four, which were France, Spain, Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Italy's comprehensive strength was the weakest among these four countries, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the farthest away.

Added to the fact that Italy's unification time was relatively late, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's main focus before was in the German region, the colonial progress of the two power countries in Africa was quite slow, and it could even be said that there were no achievements at all.

The strength of Germany and Russia was completely sufficient, but Germany's unification time was also very late, added to the fact that colonizing Africa needed to bypass a very long distance, there was also no big progress in colonization in Africa.

Russia did not need to be mentioned even more. Russia and Africa were separated by the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Empire was once a vast empire spanning three continents, and it was completely impossible for Russia to cross the Ottoman Empire to colonize Africa.

Even now, the Russians could not colonize Africa. The Ottoman Empire would not agree, and the British would also not agree.

Precisely because of these few points, the only ones among the power countries that had the conditions and strength to colonize Africa were Britain, France, and Spain.

Of course, if small countries were also counted in it, countries like Portugal, the Netherlands, and Belgium also had their own colonial plans for Africa.

It was just because these small countries were too weak, their colonial plans would not be respected by the powers.

Just like Portugal's Pink Map plan, because they had already occupied the coastal areas of the Congo Kingdom and the Mozambique region, they once planned to connect these two areas to establish Portugal's own Great African colony.

The Portuguese putting forward such a colonial plan had no problem, but their colonial plan happened to conflict with the north-south connection put forward by the British.

The Portuguese Pink Map plan blocked Britain's connection of land between Egypt and South Africa; the British Empire certainly would not be willing.

The conflict of the two countries' colonial plans not only seriously damaged the relationship between Portugal and Britain, but even the British government issued an ultimatum to the Portuguese government.

Facing the bright and upright threat of the British government, the Portuguese government ultimately chose to retreat, which also seriously damaged the reputation of the Portuguese Royal Family.

From this point, it could also be seen that the power countries did not care about the colonial plans of small countries at all. If it did not affect their own colonial plans, that was fine, but as long as it affected their own colonial plans, the power countries had all kinds of ways to let small countries retreat.

Just like the Portuguese Pink Map plan, the British Cairo-Cape Town Red Line plan, Spain also had its own plan for the colonization of Africa.

Originally, the Spanish government only planned to connect the Guinea colony and the Congo territory to open up a Spanish colony with an area of millions of square kilometers in the Central African region.

But now, after receiving Britain's three colonies, Spain's colonial map in Africa would directly double; the colonial scope, besides the Congo territory, also had hope of annexing the entire coast of the Gulf of Guinea.

According to reason, the British would not give up all colonies in West Africa so easily, creating a vast colonial empire in the Gulf of Guinea.

There must be a reason for letting the British easily give up the three colonies in West Africa; the reason was that the French also had a large number of colonial strongholds in the Gulf of Guinea.

Britain established three colonies in the West Africa region, and France also possessed several large colonies on this piece of land.

Next to the British Gambia colony was the French Senegal colony, and next to the British Huang Jinhaian was also the French Huang Jinhaian.

Even west of Spain's Congo territory, there existed French colonies.

Added to the colonial conflict between Spain and France over Morocco, it could be expected that in the next few decades, Spain and France would break out all kinds of conflicts and disputes regarding the colonization of Africa.

This was also the reason why the British were willing to give up the West African colonies, because after the British withdrew, the colonial competition in the West Africa region would instead become more intense.

This was about whether Spain and France would unite to partition West Africa, which was almost an impossible thing.

The union of the two countries had an important premise, which was that there was another more powerful country peeping. In the situation where Britain had fully given up the West African colonies, the union of France and Spain had already lost the opportunity.

This was an era of the law of the jungle; counting on France and Spain without external enemies to unite to colonize West Africa was better than counting on France and Germany to shake hands and make peace to dominate Europe together.

In the premise of no bigger competitor, Spain and France were competitors to each other in the West Africa region.

The British government also believed in its own diplomatic means; under the interference of the British government, France and Spain basically would not reach relevant compromises in the West Africa region.

France and Spain constantly broke out colonial conflicts and influenced each other's colonial plans; this was precisely the British's purpose.

If they could influence the second and third colonial powers by relying on such a plan, for Britain, which was the first colonial power, was this not the best plan?

Gao Da naturally also saw the British's purpose, but it was a pity that such a conspiracy had no good solution.

The reason why Britain believed that Spain and France would break out colonial conflicts was because they believed that Spain and France would not give up the colonization of Africa.

Unless Spain or France was willing to give up their existing colonies, the adjacent colonies between the two countries would inevitably break out disputes.

It just so happened that the three colonies of France in West Africa were all connected to Spain's existing colonies; in such a situation, if France and Spain did not break out colonial conflicts, it could only be said that God interfered with the diplomatic decisions of the two countries.

The only colony of Spain in West Africa that was not connected to France's colonies was the Sierra Leone colony. But the south and north of the Sierra Leone colony each had a French colony, which was in a situation of being surrounded by French colonies.

This actually also meant that neither Spain nor France had a way out; wanting to colonize West Africa, they must force the other side to retreat.

For Spain, there was also a trouble, which was that the dispute between the British Huang Jinhaian and the local indigenous country, the Ashanti Empire, was fully inherited by Spain.

This was not a contradiction between the British government and the local indigenous people, but a contradiction between the Huang Jinhaian colony and the local indigenous people. Since Spain obtained the Huang Jinhaian colony, it naturally also had to fight against the Ashanti Empire to protect the safety of the Huang Jinhaian.

The good news was that although the Ashanti Empire sounded like a vast empire, in reality, it was only a small country with an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers.

Indigenous countries did not pose much threat to Spain; dispatching 1 to 2 colonial garrison regiments was enough to protect the safety of the Huang Jinhaian.

Spain deployed a total of 6 colonial garrison regiments in the Cuba colony, which could just be dispatched to the 3 newly obtained colonies, 2 for each, to maintain local order and safety.

2 colonial garrison regiments possessed a force of 4,600 people; it might be insufficient in force to fight with other European countries, but if it was only used to maintain local order and safety in the colony, it was absolutely completely sufficient.

Don't forget that each colonial garrison regiment was also equipped with 3 artillery pieces; in the situation where ammunition supply was sufficient, 6 artillery pieces plus a force of 4,600 people, it was no problem to easily defend against the attack of indigenous armies of less than 20,000 people.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 269 =====