Chapter 272: The Death of the Tsar

After the Spanish government fully mobilized Portugal's desire to merge its West African and Mozambique colonies, the Spanish government occupied the dominant position in the negotiations.

It is worth mentioning that the current King of Portugal, Luis, also contributed to the colonial exchange negotiations between the two Iberian nations.

As the King of Portugal, Luis could not resist the temptation of expanding his territory to acquire a large colony comparable to Brazil.

Even for Gao Da, he was similarly unable to resist the temptation of territorial expansion. This could not only effectively enhance his reputation as a king and stabilize his throne, but also bring him visible, practical benefits.

The fundamental reason why European countries were keen on developing colonies was that the benefits brought by colonies were quite considerable.

For those colonies that did not yield much profit, various governments would abandon their development and shift their limited energy to more valuable lands.

Spain could still choose among multiple colonies, while Portugal only had these two relatively large colonies left; the others were small and basically had no great development value.

Under the secret guidance of the Spanish government and the vigorous promotion of the Portuguese King Luis, Spain and Portugal reached an agreement on colonial exchange.

Spain would stop colonizing lands south of the Congo Basin in the coming years and would fully support Portugal in carrying out colonial development in this region.

The Congo Basin and the regions to the south had indigenous tribes and nations of various sizes; after Portugal occupied any one of these indigenous nations, the colonial exchange with Spain should begin.

In general, Spain would exchange all lands south of the Congo Basin for several of Portugal's colonies in West Africa.

The lands Portugal abandoned included Portuguese Jin Shaoer, Portuguese Guinea, Portuguese Weida, and Portuguese Sao Tome and Principe.

It could be said that, apart from Cape Verde, Portugal abandoned all its lands in West Africa, pinning all its hopes on the merger of West Africa and Mozambique.

There was actually a reason why Portugal was willing to abandon so much land.

Firstly, these lands Portugal abandoned were all small colonies, and they were surrounded by the colonies of other great powers, making it very difficult to expand or develop them in depth.

Secondly, Portugal's land area and population were limited, and its experience in developing colonies was likewise limited.

Even Spain could not manage to develop several colonies at the same time, let alone Portugal, whose population was only one-fifth of Spain's.

For Portugal, it was certainly a priority to develop the West African colonies and the Mozambique colony. On this basis, it was not strange that Portugal was willing to abandon several colonies in West Africa.

It was only because the geographical location of Cape Verde was relatively important, and Portugal was unwilling to abandon all its West African colonies at once, that Portuguese Cape Verde was retained.

For Spain, such a land exchange agreement was completely acceptable. Once Portugal occupied any indigenous nation south of the Congo Basin, Spain could receive Portugal's colonies in West Africa one by one.

In particular, Portugal's Guinea and Jin Shaoer colonies could be directly merged with Spain's Gambia colony; the merged Gambia colony would reach an area of over 70, 00 square kilometers, which was fully sufficient to be built into Spain's granary.

Considering that Spain's major moves in the West African region would attract the attention or even the wariness of the French, Gao Da also specifically requested the Portuguese government to keep the agreement reached by both sides as confidential as possible until the colonial exchange was completed.

This was exactly what the Portuguese King Luis was thinking. Compared to Spain annexing Portugal's West African colonies, Portugal colonizing the land south of the Congo Basin was the more difficult task.

The Portuguese side did not want to complicate matters; if they could keep it secret, it would naturally create more opportunities for Portugal to promote the merger of the two colonies.

The good news was that the occurrence of a major international event immediately attracted the attention of all European countries. The small maneuvers between Portugal and Spain were naturally ignored by other European countries.

What was this major international event? It was, of course, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, which broke out within the chaotic Russian Empire.

Regarding this Tsar, the evaluations of later generations and the evaluations of the present were completely different. Later generations hailed Alexander II as a reformer and praised his reforms for extending Russia's life by several decades.

But in Russia at this time, because Russia did not achieve significant results in the Russo-Turkish War, Alexander II's reputation had already been invisibly damaged.

Those who were dissatisfied with the government shifted their hatred onto Alexander II and frantically launched one assassination attempt after another against him.

It had been only a few years since the end of the Russo-Turkish War, and the number of assassination attempts Alexander II had encountered had already exceeded double digits.

Even though Alexander II had all kinds of precautions, the enemies' assassination methods were constantly changing.

Sometimes they buried explosives under the tracks where Alexander II's special train traveled, sometimes they threw bombs at the Winter Palace where Alexander II lived, and sometimes they used firearms to ambush the motorcade in which Alexander II was traveling.

As early as 1880, the Winter Palace where Alexander II lived suffered serious damage. The Shengbidebao police caught 17 suspects related to the assassination; these 17 people were directly sentenced to hanging, and their friends and families were permanently exiled to remote Siberia.

Such cruel punishments not only failed to make these assassins retreat, but instead triggered one revenge attack after another.

Finally, Alexander II was assassinated after all. Although the Shengbidebao police strengthened the security forces around the palace, and the Tsar's Imperial Guard also dispatched troops to be stationed inside the Winter Palace.

When an accident comes, it is always so sudden; Alexander II was blown to death in a way he had never imagined.

On March 13, 1881, Alexander II took a carriage from the palace to the government, preparing to attend a routine meeting.

But this itinerary was leaked in advance, and when the motorcade arrived at a street corner, a bomb was suddenly thrown under the carriage of Tsar Alexander II.

The good news was that this bomb did not cause any injuries to the Tsar. The bomb did not even overturn the carriage; apart from delaying a little time, it seemed this assassination had no effect.

But Alexander II could not laugh for long. When he walked angrily toward the assassin caught by the guards, another bomb was thrown directly at Alexander II.

Without the protection of the carriage, Alexander II was not as lucky as last time; the bomb exploded quickly, and Alexander II was caught in the aftermath of the explosion, suffering serious injuries.

Fortunately, Alexander II remained conscious; he was not killed directly by the bomb.

Unfortunately, the injuries caused by the bomb were simply not something the medical technology of this era could solve. Alexander II remaining conscious became a kind of torture at such a time; he had to endure the pain after being wounded by the explosion, feel his body gradually weaken, and finally slowly lose consciousness.

When the European countries received the news, it was already the second day of the assassination, which was March 14.

For the European public who believed in God, 13 was indeed an unlucky number. Alexander II also died on the date of 13; perhaps sometimes it had to be attributed to fate.

As a monarch of a European great power, the death of Alexander II received the attention of all European countries.

For Austria, the death of Alexander II, who was based on reform, was definitely good news. Russia's reforms were not thorough to begin with, and after the death of the emperor who pushed for reform, the role that reform could play would naturally be even lower.

Don't forget, Russia still had a large number of nobles. Abolishing serfdom had already caused Alexander II to offend many Russian nobles; would the new Tsar risk continuing to offend the nobles to advocate for Alexander II's reforms?

The Tsar's funeral was held grandly in Shengbidebao, and basically all European countries dispatched envoys to participate in the Tsar's funeral.

After all, Russia was still one of the most powerful countries in the world; the death of the Russian Tsar was definitely big news that could shake Europe, especially given the way he died—by assassination.

Of course, compared to the late Tsar Alexander II, European countries were more concerned about the attitude of the new Tsar, Alexander III.

Russia was an autocratic state, and the Tsar possessed unparalleled power. After the change of the Tsar's throne, would Russia's diplomatic attitude usher in changes?

The relationship between Russia, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was already confusing, and European countries were all guessing whether the Three Emperors' Alliance formed by Germany would break apart.

At the moment, the change of the Russian monarch undoubtedly made the direction of the Three Emperors' Alliance even more unpredictable. The existence of the Three Emperors' Alliance also concerned whether the European situation could achieve long-term peace.

European countries were all guessing, but Gao Da, as a transmigrator, naturally knew the changes in Russia after this.

If Russia could persist in Alexander II's reforms, and even have the courage to deepen the reforms and push for comprehensive reform in Russia, Russia's combat effectiveness might be able to double.

But unfortunately, because of his father's painful and tragic end, the successor Tsar Alexander III showed an ambiguous attitude toward reform.

He still supported his father's reforms, but was afraid that he would also be assassinated and die like his father.

Even the coronation ceremony was postponed until two years later, which was also quite special among all European countries.

Generally speaking, after succeeding as king, a coronation ceremony would be held within a year. Although one was already the king of the country after obtaining the throne, the role of the coronation ceremony was to strengthen jurisprudence and declare the legitimacy of one's rule.

Alexander III only held the coronation ceremony after two years; from this aspect, one could also see that he was truly afraid of assassination.

It was mainly because such assassinations were impossible to guard against; the assassins would launch assassinations in all kinds of ways, and people would always have a day when they let their guard down.

Out of etiquette, Spain dispatched the Foreign Minister as a representative to attend Alexander II's funeral. Because the Spanish royal family had no relationship with the Russian royal family, Gao Da naturally did not need to personally rush to the scene of Alexander II's funeral.

In addition to participating in Alexander II's funeral, Spain's dispatch of the Foreign Minister was actually to reaffirm the previous cooperation with the Russian government, ensuring that the cooperation between the two countries would not be affected by the change of the Tsar.

What cooperation did Spain and Russia have? It was, of course, cooperation regarding immigration.

Although after the end of the Russo-Turkish War, Russia had stopped purchasing Spanish weapons and equipment, Spain had not stopped its actions of importing immigrants from the Russian side.

Because Spain had to pay real gold and silver currency or other valuable industrial products and technical data to import immigrants, Russia was also very willing to continue to reach cooperation with Spain.

In the two years since the end of the Russo-Turkish War, Spain had cumulatively imported more than 50, 00 immigrants from Russia, most of whom were transferred to Spain's colonies to engage in agricultural work.

It must be admitted that Russian peasants were also good hands at agricultural work. They had the characteristics of high stress resistance, being easily satisfied, and not easily resisting; looking at the whole of Europe, they were also one of the easiest groups to rule.

Under the circumstances where Spain's mainland could not afford large-scale outward migration, importing Russian immigrants became Spain's only choice, and also the most suitable choice.

Not many days after the diplomatic representative went to Shengbidebao, good news was sent back: the Russian government would not change its diplomatic policy in the short term, and Spain could still continuously import immigrants from Russia in the coming years.

This was, of course, good news; after all, Spain's development of the West African colonies in the coming years required a large number of immigrants. Not all work was suitable for the indigenous people of the colonies to do; some work still needed to be done by proper European immigrants.

The local indigenous people in West Africa only needed to be cheap labor; their main use was to do the heavy physical labor and high-mortality work, while other work had to be reserved for immigrants.

After confirming that the Russian government's diplomatic attitude would not have major changes, Gao Da was even more curious about Germany and Austria's attitude toward Russia.

Would the Three Emperors' Alliance continue? Or would Russia lean toward France, with the two major military groups forming ahead of time and colliding more intensely?

To figure this out, Gao Da requested the Royal Security Intelligence Agency to highly monitor the actions between the governments of Germany, Russia, and Austria. Once the three governments met privately in secret, it would mean that the Three Emperors' Alliance was very likely to continue, and neither Germany nor Russia had any intention of leaving the Three Emperors' Alliance.

If there were no private meetings between the three governments, and even the German and Russian governments had no communication at all, then perhaps the Three Emperors' Alliance was not far from dissolution.

(End of chapter)