Chapter 28: Royal Military Academy of Madrid

Having completed his coronation, Yu Kaluo felt a massive headache.

If Spain wishes to achieve a revival, it must have a large number of talents striving for the expansion of every industry in Spain.

However, for a Spain where the illiteracy rate is as high as seventy percent, what is currently most lacking is talent, especially high-quality talent trained in formal universities and colleges.

Come to think of it, Spain has a very long history of establishing universities.

The earliest, the University of Salamanca, was founded in 1218, which is 651 years ago. Besides that, there are many other universities that have been established for hundreds of years, faring much better than those European countries that do not even have a few formal universities.

But the problem lies right here.

Despite possessing so many universities with such long histories, Spain's emphasis on the cultivation of university-level talent is far inferior to that of great powers like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria.

Previously, the Spanish government would rather waste its annual fiscal budget on places of little use than invest in education to encourage more Spaniards to apply for university.

Major colleges and universities also fail to receive sufficient educational funding support, and the cultivation of high-quality talent in Spain can be described as a complete mess.

Even in the military, the problem of talent shortages is affecting Spain at every moment.

During the previous reign of Isabella, the high-ranking officers of the Spanish military were mostly controlled by the nobility, making it very difficult for ordinary people to become high-ranking military personnel.

Although the current military was transformed from the revolutionary army and has temporarily put an end to this problem, the inability to sustain the middle and lower-level officer corps remains a huge trouble.

Moreover, Yu Kaluo also understands that this point in time marks a major shift for military affairs. The line infantry tactics that could dominate Europe during the Napoleonic era have now become tactics of "lining up to be shot."

Although the French had greater comprehensive strength than the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian War, the sheer number of French line infantry established by Napoleon III in imitation of his uncle Napoleon destined the French to have a difficult fight.

Therefore, Yu Kaluo not only wants to expand the scale of the Royal Military Academy but also wants to learn from the excellent ideas and systems of the Germans—the future world's number one army—regarding their land forces, so as to build a more powerful army and officer training system for Spain.

Of course, France is not yet completely weak, and a Spain that fully imitates Prussia is also a huge threat to the French.

For the current Spain, having one less thing to worry about is certainly better than having one more. While the new military academy will learn some systems and ideas from the Prussian Army, it will also absorb some concepts from the French Army, gathering the strengths of both German and French land forces.

After Yu Kaluo proposed the concept of prioritizing university development to Pu Limo, Pu Limo readily agreed and stated that the Spanish government would prepare more budget funding for the education department in the new year.

Yu Kaluo took the opportunity to acquire ownership of the Royal Military Academy from the government with 3 million pesetas in funding.

Pu Limo certainly understood the importance of the military academy. But for Pu Limo at this time, it was better to hand over the ownership of the military academy to Yu Kaluo, while he himself focused all his energy on the reforms of Spain.

Although this might allow Yu Kaluo to infiltrate the military with his influence through the officers trained by the military academy, that would at least be a matter for several or even a dozen years later.

By then, Pu Limo would be over 60 years old, and whether he could continue to serve as the Prime Minister of Spain would be a question.

Precisely because he was already at the advanced age of 55, realizing Spain's revival was Pu Limo's only wish; power struggles and the like were no longer important to him.

Having obtained ownership of the Royal Military Academy, Yu Kaluo was in a great mood, and his attitude toward Pu Limo shifted from initial perfunctory politeness to genuine respect.

Regardless of how Pu Limo is evaluated in history, in Yu Kaluo's eyes, the current Pu Limo is indeed a heroic figure like Garibaldi.

It is Italy's honor that it could produce a Garibaldi, and it is Spain's honor that it could produce a Pu Limo.

The only difference is that Garibaldi was viewed with hostility by the Italian government and the King because of his history of having defected to the republic. Whereas Pu Limo, because he supported the monarchy and supported Yu Kaluo becoming the King of Spain, gained Yu Kaluo's trust and strong support.

In high spirits, Yu Kaluo discussed the future development of Spanish military schools with Pu Limo, who came from a military family, and invited Pu Limo to become the honorary vice-principal of the Spanish Royal Military Academy.

Yu Kaluo would become the honorary principal of the Royal Military Academy, ensuring that all graduates of the military academy would understand exactly who it was that trained them as officers.

Considering the different needs of the Spanish military for officers, the Royal Military Academy would be split into two parts.

The main campus of the Royal Military Academy would remain in Madrid, with the function of training excellent junior officers for Spain. The student body of the main academy would come from two sources: one part being students from the Spanish public willing to apply for military school, and the other part being excellent soldiers screened from within the Spanish military.

The other part after the split would establish a new military academy in Zaragoza in the Aragon region, officially named the Royal Military Academy, Zaragoza Branch.

The purpose of the Royal Military Academy in Zaragoza would be to train senior officers for Spain; it could also be called the cradle of Spanish generals.

The two military academies with different goals would continuously train excellent military backbones and junior officers for Spain, allowing the Spanish military to maintain excellent combat effectiveness and flexible operational thinking, becoming a first-class army in Europe.

While training Spanish officers, Yu Kaluo could also ensure that these trained officers possessed higher loyalty to him.

After all, as the King of Spain, Yu Kaluo is the nominal commander and leader of the Spanish military.

In the future, the first lesson at the Madrid Royal Military Academy and the Zaragoza Royal Military Academy would be loyalty to the King and the country.

Relying on these officers who have been baptized by the ideology of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, Yu Kaluo could also exert greater influence on the future Spanish military.

If the ideology of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism were interspersed throughout the education of Spaniards from childhood to adulthood, a perfect closed loop could be achieved, increasing the loyalty of all Spaniards to the monarchical system and to Yu Kaluo.

This is also Yu Kaluo's ultimate goal for Spanish education. Only through the subtle influence and baptism from childhood to adulthood can Spaniards accept the monarchy from the bottom of their hearts and feel fanatical and loyal to Yu Kaluo from the bottom of their hearts.

Because he had already received an education at the Royal Military Academy of Turin, Yu Kaluo was still very familiar with the procedures of military academies.

After investing over 1 million pesetas in the Madrid Royal Military Academy, the Royal Military Academy quickly expanded and conducted a large-scale recruitment after simple screening within the Spanish military and among the public.

First update, asking for support!

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(End of this chapter)