Chapter 280: Umberto's Ambition

Although the new warships submitted by the Royal Guanizo Shipyard looked powerful, the decision to build four capital ships at once triggered a fierce dispute within the cabinet government.

Investing over 100 million pesetas into the navy meant that the budgets of other government departments would be reduced by a total of over 100 million pesetas.

This was precisely the reason why all departments fell into dispute; no one wanted their budget cut too much, as it would affect their department's development plans.

In the end, it was Gao Da who made the final decision, approving the defense department's plan to build four ironclads.

Building four ironclads required 72. million pesetas in funding, with the cabinet government providing 55 million pesetas and the defense department covering the remaining 17. million pesetas itself.

Because Spain planned to launch a war against the Ashanti Federation, the defense department's military budget had increased by nearly 20 percent compared to usual.

Squeezing out 17. million pesetas was not a problem, especially since this money did not need to be paid all at once.

After years of development, Spanish shipyards had long since shed the embarrassing situation from when Gao Da first became King of Spain, where no shipyard had the capability to build ironclads.

In addition to the current largest shipyard, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, Spain possessed three other shipyards capable of building ironclads: the Valencia United Shipyard, the El Ferrol Royal Navy Shipyard, and the Cartagena Shipyard.

However, these three shipyards were all managed and operated by the government; except for the Valencia United Shipyard, in which the royal family held nearly half the shares, the royal family did not hold many shares in the other two.

This included the El Ferrol Royal Navy Shipyard. Although the shipyard's name contained "Royal Navy," it actually had little to do with the royal family or the navy.

The largest shareholder of the El Ferrol Royal Navy Shipyard was the Spanish government, the second-largest was the El Ferrol municipal government, and the Spanish Royal Navy held less than 10 percent of the shares.

The reason it was named the Royal Navy Shipyard was that the rise of El Ferrol began entirely because Spain established a naval base there, and the earliest shipyard also belonged to the navy; however, with the decline of the navy, the majority of the shipyard's shares had long since been sold off.

All of Spain's shipyards capable of building ironclads were state-owned; private shipyards did not yet have the capability to build ironclads.

Ironclads were the most advanced warships of this era, and it was not easy for private shipyards to build them.

Currently, the largest private shipyards in Spain could only build warships like light cruisers, with tonnages generally not exceeding 3, 00 tons, classifying them as small to medium-sized warships.

Besides taking on small-scale orders from the military, private shipyards primarily made money through orders for civilian vessels.

Although the tonnage of civilian vessels was generally not large, building small civilian ships did not take much time. As long as there were enough orders, these private shipyards could still make money.

As Spain's colonies grew more numerous and some grew in scale, the development of the maritime transport industry became increasingly prosperous.

This led to a golden age for the development of Spanish shipyards, especially with government support; Spain's shipbuilding industry had achieved some success and was already among the top in Europe.

Along with the shipbuilding plan, the class designation for this new warship design was also finalized.

The previous generation of ironclads was named the Renaissance class, while this generation of ironclads was named the Matador-class ironclad by the Spanish government.

The code names for the four Matador-class ironclads were the Matador, the Warrior, the Courage, and the Indomitable.

From the naming of the ironclads, one could see how hard the Spanish government was working to shape the national spirit.

Gao Da's expectations for the Spanish army and navy were just like the names of these ironclads. The comprehensive combat power of the Spanish army and navy could be weaker than those of the super powers, but they must possess the courage to face death without fear.

Sometimes courage is more important than equipment; if the equipment is the same, the side with more tenacious courage will be able to exert greater combat power.

As the saying goes, "When two armies meet in a narrow path, the brave one wins." Gao Da did not want the army he had spent such great effort to train to eventually become cowardly surrenderers.

Spain's population was inferior to that of the European powers, so it could only improve the combat power of its army and navy in this way to make up for the gap with other powers.

The Spanish government did not intend to keep the construction plan for these four ironclads secret.

Even with these four ironclads, the strength of the Spanish fleet was still not enough to shake the British. In fact, it was still a long way from the British Royal Navy.

Britain controlled India, which brought a massive amount of fiscal revenue to the British government every year. This led to the British government investing an astronomical, exaggerated sum into naval construction; they had built three ironclads in the last two years alone.

Don't think that building three ironclads in two years is not a large investment; the problem was that the British construction progress almost never stopped.

Spain had only 5 ironclads in total so far, and the British could build the entire number of ironclads possessed by the Spanish Navy in just four years.

This was the reason Gao Da did not intend to keep it secret; even if the British knew that the four ironclads Spain was building were first-class combatants, they did not need to worry that the Spanish Navy would pose a threat to the Royal Navy.

Unless Spain built more than ten ironclads in one go, but such an investment would be too much even for the British Empire, let alone Spain, which had fewer colonies.

Although Spain had four shipyards capable of building ironclads, the government did not intend to build these four ironclads simultaneously.

After the funds were received, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard would be the first to build two ironclads. As Spain's largest shipyard, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard could accommodate up to three ironclads under construction at the same time.

However, the number of employees in the shipyard was limited, and coupled with relevant restrictions, the more warships under construction simultaneously, the longer it would take to build each one.

If only one ironclad was started, it could be launched within a year at the fastest, and no more than two years at the slowest, with an average speed of about a year and a half.

But if three ironclads were started at the same time, the launch time for each would be delayed to more than two years, and could very likely reach a slower pace of two and a half years.

Even if only two ironclads were started simultaneously, it would be impossible to reach an average speed of a year and a half. This meant that if Spain's new warships were to be launched, the earliest would be the second half of 1883.

The sea trials for the warships would also take a long time, and it would be around 1885 at the earliest before the Matador-class ironclads were officially commissioned into the Spanish Navy.

To save as much time as possible, the first two ironclads would be built at the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, while the latter two would be built at the Valencia United Shipyard and the El Ferrol Royal Navy Shipyard, respectively.

Although the scale of these two shipyards was much smaller than the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, because they were only building one ship each, the final progress could barely keep up with the Royal Guanizo Shipyard.

It was expected that between 1885 and 1886, Spain would see four ironclads enter service at once.

This meant that Spain could maintain its naval status until the pre-dreadnought era, and then rapidly climb the technology tree during the pre-dreadnought era, seeking to surpass the naval powers ranked ahead of it.

Just as all pre-dreadnoughts became obsolete once the dreadnought appeared, once the pre-dreadnought appeared, all ironclads instantly became riddled with flaws and junk.

As long as Spain could seize the important opportunity of pre-dreadnoughts replacing ironclads, not to mention surpassing the British Empire's Royal Navy, it could at least maintain its position as the world's fourth-largest power after Britain, France, and Germany, and seek to surpass France and Germany.

Germany's emphasis on the navy would also become higher and higher, but at this time, they were not yet prepared to challenge the status of the British Royal Navy.

This meant that Germany currently had no intention of vigorously developing its navy, and Germany's goal was only to build its navy to a level commensurate with Germany's status.

France went without saying. France had the industrial and scientific research capabilities, but because of the low investment in military spending, the French Navy would eventually be surpassed by Germany, and Spain also had hope of surpassing the French Navy in the pre-dreadnought era.

Of course, even if the pre-dreadnoughts could not achieve a surpassing of France, Spain would still have one more chance in the dreadnought era.

Precisely because of the importance placed on pre-dreadnoughts, Spain did not intend to build any more ironclads after the Matador-class.

These four Matador-class ironclads were enough to ensure that Spain's naval power remained in the world's top five, and the pre-dreadnoughts that followed would be the main capital ships that Spain would vigorously build.

This was also the reason why the Spanish government intended to make this shipbuilding plan public. If this plan were not made public, Spain's next large-scale construction of capital ships would have to wait until the pre-dreadnought era.

Revealing some plans for building capital ships could effectively strengthen national self-confidence, which was very necessary for the current Spain.

Sure enough, when the Spanish government released the news that it would build four ironclads in the next few years, it immediately caused a sensation among the Spanish public.

The former Spanish Empire on which the sun never set relied on Spain's powerful navy and vast colonies; now that Spain had built a not-insignificant colony, if it could build a powerful navy, wouldn't that be a modest revival of the former Spanish Empire on which the sun never set?

Thinking carefully, Spain's current colonies were distributed in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, so it was not wrong to call it an empire on which the sun never set.

It was just that most of Spain's colonies were relatively small in scale, making this so-called empire on which the sun never set look somewhat unworthy of the name.

Although somewhat unworthy of the name, compared to many European countries, Spain's colonial situation was already much better.

Even the powerful German Empire currently had no decent colonies. Not to mention weaker powers like Austria and Italy, which could be said to have no colonies at all.

What Gao Da did not expect was that the news released by the Spanish authorities not only caused a sensation among the Spanish, but also caused a sensation in the Italian government.

As an ally of Spain, the Italian government certainly knew the relevant design data of Spain's Renaissance-class ironclads.

The former Renaissance-class ironclads were also first-class warship designs in Europe at the time. Although not the most powerful, their comprehensive combat power was definitely among the top.

Although the Spanish government did not announce the data of the latest class of ironclads, considering Spain's good performance with the Renaissance-class, this brand-new ironclad design was bound to be a product with even better performance.

Seeing that Spain, controlled by his younger brother Gao Da, was already strengthening its naval construction, Umberto I was extremely jealous.

After unification, Italy merged the navies of the former Kingdom of Sardinia and other Italian states to establish the Italian Royal Navy, and in one fell swoop became one of the world's top eight naval powers.

At that time, the Italian Navy was ranked in the world's top five in terms of total tonnage, and the paper data was quite good.

But Umberto I, as the then-Crown Prince and now King, certainly understood that Italy's current naval strength was bloated.

Before unification, Italy was divided into several states; although these states were all very developed, how could a small state have the strength to build advanced ironclads?

Even if they had the technology to build them, they did not have enough funds to maintain them. Furthermore, relying on a single ironclad could not protect one's coastline; it required a large fleet composed of several ironclads to protect the safety of one's coast.

This led to the fact that most of Italy's existing naval tonnage was composed of small and medium-sized warships, and a considerable portion of these were coastal defense ships—in plain terms, offshore warships that could not conduct ocean-going operations.

More importantly, most of the warships that made up the Italian Navy were built ten or twenty years ago; the various designs of the warships were long outdated, and the naval guns they carried were even more backward muzzle-loading guns, which were far behind the mainstream breech-loading guns of various countries in terms of shell loading speed, range, and power.

Seeing his younger brother vigorously engaged in Spain's construction, this also stirred up Umberto I's own ambition.

He had no jealousy toward Gao Da, but wanting to imitate Gao Da to build a powerful army and navy for Italy was a genuine thought.

Originally, Umberto I's plan was to rely on Italy's own efforts to build a powerful ironclad, and then arm the Italian fleet through ironclads.

Since Spain already had the latest ironclad design, Umberto I changed his mind, hoping to purchase 1 to 2 ironclads from Spain to expand Italy's naval strength in a more effective way.

(End of chapter)