Chapter 280

Although the new warship submitted by the Royal Guanizo Shipyard looks very powerful, building four capital ships at once also caused the cabinet government to erupt into a fierce quarrel.

Investing more than 100 million pesetas in the navy also means that the financial budgets of other government departments will be reduced by a total of more than 100 million pesetas.

It is precisely for this reason that various departments fell into quarrels; no one wants their financial budget to be cut too much, thereby affecting the department's development plan.

In the end, Carlos made the final decision directly, agreeing to the construction plan for four ironclads proposed by the defense department.

Building four ironclads requires 72.8 million pesetas in funds, of which the cabinet government provides 55 million pesetas, and the defense department itself gathers the remaining 17.8 million pesetas.

Because Spain plans to launch a war against the Ashanti Federation next, this has led to an increase of nearly 20% in the military budget of the defense department compared to usual.

Squeezing out 17.8 million pesetas is still no problem, not to mention that this money does not have to be paid all at once.

Spain's shipyards have experienced so many years of development and have long since gotten rid of the embarrassing situation where no shipyard had the ability to build ironclads when Carlos first became the King of Spain.

In addition to the current largest Royal Guanizo Shipyard in Spain, the shipyards in Spain that have the ability to build ironclads also include the Valencia United Shipyard, the El Ferrol Royal Naval Shipyard, and the Cartagena Shipyard.

However, these three shipyards belong to government management and operation. Except for the Valencia United Shipyard, where the royal family has nearly half of the shares, the royal family does not have too many shares in the other two shipyards.

This includes the El Ferrol Royal Naval Shipyard. Although the shipyard's name contains "Royal Navy," in reality, it does not have much to do with the royal family or the navy.

The largest shareholder of the El Ferrol Royal Naval Shipyard is the Spanish government, the second largest shareholder is the El Ferrol municipal government, and the Spanish Royal Navy has less than 10% of the shares.

The reason why it was named the Royal Naval Shipyard is that the rise of El Ferrol was entirely due to Spain establishing a naval base here, and the earliest shipyard also belonged to the navy. However, with the decline of the navy, the shares of the shipyard had long been sold off for the most part.

All the shipyards in Spain that have the ability to build ironclads have official status, and private shipyards do not yet have the ability to build ironclads.

Ironclads are the most advanced warships of this era, and it is not so easy for private shipyards to build ironclads.

The warships that Spain's largest private shipyards can build at present are only of the light cruiser type, and the tonnage generally does not exceed 3,000 tons, belonging to small and medium-sized warships.

In addition to undertaking small-scale orders from the military, the way private shipyards make money is mainly through orders for civilian ships.

Although the tonnage of civilian ships is generally not large, it does not take long to build small civilian ships. As long as there are enough orders, these private shipyards can still make money.

With more and more colonies in Spain and the scale of some colonies becoming larger and larger, the development of the maritime transport industry is also becoming more and more prosperous.

This has also led to a golden period for the development of Spanish shipyards, especially under the support of the government, Spain's shipbuilding industry has already achieved some success and is enough to rank among the top in Europe.

Along with the shipbuilding plan, the naming of the class for this brand-new warship design was also determined.

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

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

From the naming of the ironclads, one can also see how hard the Spanish government is working to shape the national spirit.

Carlos's expectations for Spain's sea and land forces are just like the naming of these ironclads. The comprehensive combat effectiveness of Spain's sea and land forces can be weaker than those super great powers, but they must possess the courage to fight without fear of death.

Sometimes courage is more important than equipment. If the equipment is the same, then whichever side possesses more tenacious courage will be able to exert more powerful combat effectiveness.

As the saying goes, when two armies meet in a narrow path, the brave one wins. Carlos does not want the army he spent a great price to carefully train to eventually become cowards who are afraid of death.

Spain's population is inferior to European great powers, so it can only improve the combat effectiveness of its sea and land forces in this way to make up for the gap with other great power countries.

Regarding the construction plan for these four ironclads, the Spanish government still does not intend to keep it secret.

Even with these four ironclads added, the strength of the Spanish fleet is still not enough to shake the British. Even without mentioning shaking the British, there is still a very long gap from the British Royal Fleet.

Britain controls India, which can bring a large amount of financial income to the British government every year. This has also led to the British government investing an exaggerated astronomical figure in the construction of the navy, and it has built a total of three ironclads in the last two years alone.

Don't look at building three ironclads in two years as not a big investment; the problem is that the British construction progress almost never stops.

Spain has only 5 ironclads so far, and the British only need four years to build the total number of ironclads possessed by the Spanish Navy.

This is also the reason why Carlos does not intend to keep it secret; even if the British know that the four ironclads Spain is building are all first-class combat forces, they don't have to worry that the Spanish Navy will pose a threat to the Royal Fleet.

Unless Spain builds more than ten ironclads in one breath, but such an investment would be unbearable even for the British Empire, let alone Spain, which has fewer colonies.

Although Spain has four shipyards that can build ironclads, the government does not intend to carry out the construction of these four ironclads at the same time.

After the funds arrive, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard will be the first to build two ironclads. As Spain's largest shipyard, the Royal Guanizo Shipyard can accommodate up to three ironclads being built at the same time.

It's just that the number of employees in the shipyard is limited, and coupled with relevant restrictions, the more warships started at the same time, the longer the time required for the construction of each warship will be.

If only one ironclad is started, it can be launched within a year at the fastest, and it will not exceed two years at the slowest, with an average speed of about a year and a half.

But if three ironclads are started at the same time, the launch time for each ironclad will be delayed to more than two years, and it is even very likely to reach a slower level of two and a half years.

Even if only two ironclads are started at the same time, it is impossible to reach an average speed of a year and a half. This also means that if Spain's brand-new warships want to be launched, they will have to wait until the second half of 1883 at the earliest.

The sea trial of the warships also requires a long time, and it will take until about 1885 at the earliest for the Matador-class ironclads to be officially incorporated into the Spanish Navy fleet.

In order to save time as much as possible, the first two ironclads will be built at the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, and the latter two warships will be built at the Valencia United Shipyard and the El Ferrol Royal Naval Shipyard, respectively.

Although the scale of the two shipyards is much worse than that of the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, because only one is built, the final progress can barely keep up with the progress of the Royal Guanizo Shipyard.

It is expected that in 1885 to 1886, Spain will welcome the service of four ironclads at once.

This also means that Spain can maintain its naval status until the pre-dreadnought era, and then climb the technology tree fiercely in the pre-dreadnought era, seeking to surpass the naval powers ranked ahead of it.

Just as all pre-dreadnoughts became inferior products once dreadnoughts appeared, once pre-dreadnoughts appeared, all ironclads instantly became broken junk full of loopholes.

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

Germany's emphasis on the navy will also become higher and higher, but at this time, they are not yet ready to provoke the status of the British Empire's navy.

This also means that Germany currently has no plans to vigorously develop the navy, and Germany's goal is only to build the navy to a level that matches Germany's status.

France goes without saying. France has industrial capability and scientific research capability, but because of the low investment in military expenditure, France's navy will eventually be surpassed by Germany, and Spain also has hope of surpassing the French Navy in the pre-dreadnought era.

Of course, even if pre-dreadnoughts cannot achieve the surpassing of France, Spain still has one more chance in the dreadnought era.

Precisely because of the emphasis on pre-dreadnoughts, Spain does not intend to build ironclads after the Matador-class ironclads.

These four Matador-class ironclads are enough to ensure that Spain's naval power remains in the world's top five, and the pre-dreadnoughts that follow are the capital warships that Spain will vigorously build.

This is also the reason why the Spanish government intends to make this shipbuilding plan public. If this shipbuilding plan is not made public, Spain's next large-scale construction of capital warships will have to wait until the pre-dreadnought era.

Revealing some plans for building capital warships can effectively strengthen national self-confidence, which is still very necessary for Spain at present.

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 people.

The former Spanish Empire on which the sun never sets relied on Spain's powerful navy and vast colonies. Currently, Spain has already built colonies of considerable scale. If it can build a powerful navy again, wouldn't it be a modest revival of the former Spanish Empire on which the sun never sets?

Think about it carefully, Spain's current colonies are distributed in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, so it is actually not wrong to call it an empire on which the sun never sets.

Compared to the British attitude of "divide and rule," Carlos did not intend to incorporate these indigenous people into Spain's colonial rule.

Large-scale colonization of Africa would bring a disadvantage, which was the risk of the country being "blackened." France in history was like this; as black people continuously entered France, France transformed from a white country into a country where white and black people lived together.

As everyone knows, babies born from black people and all other people are black, which actually means that France is very likely to become a European country where black people occupy the majority or even the vast majority of the population in the future.

Regarding this point, Spain had to be highly guarded. In fact, every race has more or less shortcomings, whether it is the white people who currently consider themselves noble or the yellow people who are currently suffering from oppression, which is human nature.

But compared to these two races, black people have many shortcomings, and many of them are fatal, which is the reason why Carlos rejects black people.

First, black people are generally lazy and rude. Compared to honestly farming to get food to fill their stomachs, black people prefer simple and crude ways to obtain income, such as robbery and theft.

When they are the lowest race in the country, their harm is not that great. Once the world begins to attach importance to human rights and countries have to grant them human rights, the harm of black people will immediately appear.

When large-scale robbery and theft occur, it will cause panic and chaos in the entire society, and even cause racial opposition, increasing the risk of national division.

Besides this, the germs carried by black people are also various. This is not discrimination against black people, but a reality in the true sense.

Africa's sanitary conditions are extremely poor, whether now or in the future; black people do not attach importance to sanitary conditions at all, which also creates various possibilities for the spread of disease.

At the same time, infectious diseases like AIDS, which everyone talks about, also spread from Africa.

It is said that the earliest AIDS virus was discovered in gorillas; as for how such a virus spread from gorillas to humans, that would have to be asked of what the Africans at that time were thinking.

The consequences of AIDS are already quite serious, but this is not the only fatal virus that Africa has spread to the world.

Including the Ebola virus, which was quite serious in later generations, these are all fatal viruses originating from Africa.

Carlos not only would not consider incorporating Africans into Spain's colonial rule, but would even consider effectively clearing the number of black people in Spain's existing colonies to avoid terrible events of African germs spreading to Spanish colonies through contact with black people.

Although frequently erupting into war with these African indigenous people would increase Spain's military spending, looking at the bright side, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army would also increase accordingly.

War with African indigenous people is certainly not as effective as regular war with European countries, but it can also let Spanish soldiers see blood and feel the cruelty on the battlefield.

Currently, the only colony that needs large-scale war against indigenous people is the Gold Coast; the Congo territory does not need large-scale external expansion for the time being.

The reason is also very simple: the southward expansion direction of the Congo territory has been blocked by the colony swap plan between Carlos and Portugal, and currently, it can only expand to the north or northwest.

But blind expansion is not a good thing; the area of the Congo territory is too huge, and it is also very troublesome to manage.