Chapter 268: Layout of Naval Construction

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

This was indeed the case; to express their sincerity, the British government paid the 5 million pounds to the Spanish government on the very day the treaty was signed. Because the pound sterling was the most valuable currency in the world at the time, Spain did not reject the British government's proposal to pay in pounds.

5 million pounds may not seem like much, but in reality, it was worth 130 million pesetas, which was not a small sum of capital for any country.

Within the Spanish government, there was a fierce argument over the use of these 5 million pounds. In the end, it was Gao Da who made the final decision, opting to use the 5 million pounds for the development of the Spanish Navy.

Of course, this so-called naval development was not simply about building warships, but about researching a more advanced and powerful warship system to ensure that the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Navy always remained at the forefront of the world.

If it were only used to build warships, 5 million pounds would be enough for Spain to build 10 Revival-class ironclads. Combined with Spain's existing naval scale, it could be said that, apart from the British and French navies, it could almost vie for the throne of the world's third-strongest naval power.

But doing so would clearly treat the symptoms rather than the root cause. More importantly, the era of battleships—that is, the pre-dreadnought era—was about to arrive.

Gao Da hoped even more that Spain could gain sufficient advantages in the pre-dreadnought era, taking the opportunity to build the Spanish Navy into one of the world's top three strong forces.

After the pre-dreadnoughts came the era of dreadnoughts. If Spain could seize both of these great eras of warship transformation, it would not be impossible to become a naval power second only to the British Empire in one fell swoop.

For a relatively closed country like Spain, naval strength was more important than army strength. The Pyrenees were already a natural barrier; as long as a few fortresses were built to stabilize the defenses on both sides of the Pyrenees, European countries would be unable to launch an attack on Spain from the continent.

In this way, Portugal would become the only country capable of posing a threat to Spain on land. Considering the vast disparity in strength between Portugal and Spain, it would be very difficult for Portugal to defeat Spain in a land war, or one could even say there was simply no hope.

This also meant that if Spain could build a powerful navy, it would have the hope of contending for more interests and would no longer fear the super powers of the British, French, and German level.

Take Britain, for example; although it was the world's number one, the threat Britain posed to Spain was not that powerful.

As long as Spain could seize the two opportunities for warship transformation to significantly improve its naval strength, Spain would have the hope of recovering Gibraltar or even fully occupying Morocco during the time when Britain was too busy to attend to other matters.

If the ambition were even greater, Spain could withstand the pressure and directly annex Portugal. After successively annexing Portugal and Morocco, Spain would officially become a super power on the level of Britain, France, and Germany, and would never again have to fear the threat of the British.

This 5 million pounds of capital would be divided into two parts. 2 million pounds would be used to build three ironclads and dozens of small and medium-sized warships to strengthen the existing Spanish military and secure its position as the world's fifth-strongest naval power.

The remaining 3 million pounds would be invested entirely into Spain's existing major shipyards, through the joint research and development of these shipyards, to design more advanced ironclads or even strategic ships.

Only after the battleships were designed would it be time for Spain to mass-produce its navy. By then, Spain would have long since significantly promoted the development of its industry and economy through electricity, and even if a naval arms race were to unfold, Spain would be qualified to have the last laugh.

After reaching an agreement with the British, the Spanish side was also making full preparations for abandoning the Cuba colony.

The colonial government in Cuba was already carrying out transfer work, and the population transfer had already begun long ago.

Except for the Black population, all residents of the Cuba colony could apply to the colonial government to move to the Spanish mainland or other colonies. The Spanish government would treat these people equally, and they would be exempt from the assessment period in Spain's immigration policy, directly obtaining Spanish citizenship.

After all, Cuba had a population of over one million. Although a considerable number of Whites and Blacks were dissatisfied with Spanish rule, there were also some who were relatively accepting of the Spanish colonial government.

After all, to put it bluntly, no matter how cruel Spanish colonial rule was, it would never turn its blade against its own people.

Under Spanish colonial rule, the only ones whose lives were truly in danger were the Blacks; the Whites were at most exploited for some of their income.

If the Blacks in the Cuba colony were truly dissatisfied with Spanish colonial rule in the real sense, then most of the Whites were merely dissatisfied with the colonial government's harsh exploitation of them; they were not opposed to Spain in the true sense.

Of course, all of this no longer mattered to Spain. Once the colonial handover was completed, Cuba would have nothing to do with Spain.

The officials of the Cuba colonial government would be arranged to go to the Spanish mainland or other colonies; in any case, theoretically, the number of Spain's colonies was still increasing, and the officials would not have to worry about having nowhere to go.

As for the population willing to move to the Spanish mainland and other colonies, a portion of them would be arranged to go to the three British colonies in West Africa.

Since they had already acquired three British colonies, the Spanish government would certainly want to keep these three colonies firmly in its own hands.

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

Of course, those Portuguese immigrants might also submit to Spanish rule. Compared to colonists from other European countries, they had no communication difficulties with Spanish colonists, and their cultures were relatively similar, making them clearly more compatible.

Especially in the British Gold Coast, this land possessed quite a few Portuguese. If the Portuguese could be absorbed into Spanish colonial rule, it would allow Spain to quickly control the situation in the British Gold Coast.

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

If these three colonies could be completely controlled, Spain would have the hope of acquiring over a million square kilometers of land in southern West Africa.

Coupled with the Congo territory and the Guinea colony, if they could be connected into one piece, Spain's colonial achievements in Africa would be no less than France's, and it would even have the hope of becoming the country with the most occupied land in Africa after Britain.

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

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

The reason for such a stark disparity in land division was primarily the distance between the great powers and Africa, as well as the time spent colonizing Africa.

There were only four great powers that could cross the Mediterranean to reach Africa: 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 furthest away.

Coupled with the fact that Italy's unification came late and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's focus had previously been mainly on the German region, the colonial progress of these two great powers in Africa was quite slow, or one could even say they had achieved nothing.

Germany and Russia had sufficient strength, but Germany's unification also came very late, and because colonizing Africa required traveling a very long distance, there was no major progress in their colonization of Africa.

Russia was even less worth mentioning. Between Russia and Africa lay the Ottoman Empire, which had once been a vast empire spanning three continents; it was completely impossible for Russia to cross the Ottoman Empire to colonize Africa.

Even now, it was impossible for the Russians to colonize Africa. The Ottoman Empire would not agree, and the British would not agree either.

Precisely because of these points, among the great powers, the only ones left with the conditions and strength to colonize Africa were Britain, France, and Spain.

Of course, if small countries were also included, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and other countries also had their own colonial plans for Africa.

However, because these small countries were too weak, their colonial plans would not be respected by the great powers.

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

There was nothing wrong with the Portuguese proposing such a colonial plan, but their colonial plan happened to conflict with the north-south connection proposed by the British.

The Portuguese Pink Map plan blocked Britain from connecting the land between Egypt and South Africa, and the British Empire was certainly unwilling to allow that.

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

Faced with the blatant threat from the British government, the Portuguese government ultimately chose to back down, which also severely damaged the prestige of the Portuguese royal family.

From this point, one could see that the great powers did not care at all about the colonial plans of small countries. If it did not affect their own colonial plans, it was fine, but as long as it had any impact on their own colonial plans, the great powers had all sorts of ways to make small countries back down.

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

Originally, the Spanish government only intended to connect the Guinea colony and the Congo territory to open up a Spanish colony in Central Africa with an area of several million square kilometers.

But now, after receiving the three British colonies, Spain's colonial map in Africa would directly double, and in addition to the Congo territory, there was hope of annexing the entire Gulf of Guinea coastline.

Logically speaking, the British would not so easily give up all their colonies in West Africa and create a vast colonial empire in the Gulf of Guinea.

There must be a reason why the British could easily give up the three West African colonies, and the reason was that the French also had a large number of colonial strongholds in the Gulf of Guinea.

Britain had established three colonies in the West African region, and France also possessed several large colonies on this land.

Next to the British Gambia colony was the French Senegal colony, and next to the British Gold Coast was the French Gold Coast.

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

Coupled with the colonial conflict between Spain and France over Morocco, it could be expected that in the coming decades, various conflicts and disputes would erupt between Spain and France regarding the colonization of Africa.

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

As for whether France and Spain would unite to partition West Africa together, that was almost impossible.

A union between two countries had an important prerequisite: that there was another more powerful country lurking. With Britain having completely abandoned its West African colonies, the opportunity for a union between France and Spain had been lost.

This was an era of the law of the jungle; counting on a 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 absence of a larger competitor, Spain and France were each other's competitors in the West African region.

The British government also believed in its own diplomatic means; under the interference of the British government, France and Spain would never reach any relevant compromise in the West African region.

France and Spain constantly erupting in colonial conflicts and influencing each other's colonial plans was precisely the British goal.

If they could use such a plan to influence the second and third colonial powers in one fell swoop, for Britain, as the number one colonial power, wasn't this the best plan?

Gao Da naturally saw through the British goal, but unfortunately, there was no good way to resolve such an open conspiracy.

The reason Britain believed that Spain and France would erupt in colonial conflicts was because they believed that Spain and France would not give up their colonization of Africa.

Unless Spain or France were willing to give up their existing colonies, disputes would inevitably erupt between the adjacent colonies of the two countries.

As it happened, all three of the French colonies in West Africa were connected to Spain's existing colonies. In such a situation, if France and Spain did not erupt in colonial conflicts, one could only say that God had interfered with the diplomatic decisions of the two countries.

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

This actually meant that neither Spain nor France had a way out; if they wanted to colonize West Africa, they had to force the other side to back down.

For Spain, there was another trouble, which was that the dispute between the British Gold Coast and the indigenous Ashanti Empire in the north had been completely inherited by Spain.

This was not a conflict between the British government and the local indigenous people, but a conflict between the Gold Coast colony and the local indigenous people. Since Spain had acquired the Gold Coast colony, it naturally had to fight the Ashanti Empire to protect the safety of the Gold Coast.

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

The indigenous country did not pose much of a threat to Spain; dispatching 1 to 2 colonial garrison regiments would be enough to protect the safety of the Gold Coast.

Spain had a full 6 colonial garrison regiments deployed in the Cuba colony, which was just enough to dispatch 2 colonial garrison regiments to each of the 3 newly acquired colonies to maintain local order and security.

2 colonial garrison regiments possessed a force of 4, 00 men; they might be somewhat insufficient in strength to fight other European countries, but if used only to maintain local order and security in the colonies, it was absolutely completely sufficient.

Not to mention that each colonial garrison regiment was also equipped with 3 artillery pieces; with sufficient ammunition supply, 6 artillery pieces plus a force of 4, 00 men were more than enough to easily defend against an attack by an indigenous army of less than 20, 00.

(End of this chapter)