Chapter 294: Colonizing Oman

After the Portuguese government transferred the sovereignty of the Guinea colony and the Ziguinchor colony to Spain, they focused all their energy on the plan to colonize the Buonda Kingdom.

As for Spain, apart from continuing to push forward the domestic Five-Year Development Plan, all remaining energy was devoted to the West African colonial development plan.

Speaking of Spain's Five-Year Development Plan, it has currently reached the middle stage of the third Five-Year Development Plan.

Because a provisional cabinet was formed after the assassination of Prime Minister Primo, the terms of the current Spanish cabinet government and the timeline of the Five-Year Plan have become somewhat misaligned.

However, this is not a major issue; after all, besides the Prime Minister's promotion, Gao Da is also a primary driver of the Five-Year Plan.

Regardless of whether the Spanish Prime Minister changes, the Spanish government is always committed to pushing the Five-Year Plan forward.

On August 18, 1882, Gao Da summoned the newly appointed Prime Minister Canovas at the Madrid Royal Palace and congratulated him on his successful reelection, becoming the Prime Minister of the fourth cabinet government of the Spanish Savoy Dynasty.

Prime Minister Canovas certainly understood why he was able to stand out among the many Spanish officials, and loyalty to the royal family was the first thing he had to prioritize.

Prime Minister Canovas once again expressed his respectful attitude to Gao Da and stated that the Spanish government, under the leadership of the royal family, would deepen the advancement of the Five-Year Development Plan and attach importance to the West African colonial development plan to realize the goal Gao Da proposed of making Spain great again.

The meeting between the two did not last long; after all, with neither the King nor the Prime Minister changing, the various policies of the cabinet government would not deviate significantly.

It is worth mentioning that because Grand Duke Serrano chose to retire, there was a new candidate for the position of Minister of State, which is the Deputy Prime Minister.

Gao Da did not choose the Deputy Prime Minister from the Conservative Party, but instead chose Ewald, the former Minister of Finance who had joined the Progressive Party during Prime Minister Primo's term.

Ewald Bartel had rendered meritorious service to Spain. As early as the first cabinet government, he served as the government's Minister of Finance and made great contributions to Spain's economic development.

At that time, he and Ruiz were known as Prime Minister Primo's right-hand men; these three were the three giants of the Progressive Party and the reason why the Progressive Party was the number one party in Spain at the time.

Unfortunately, after Prime Minister Primo was assassinated, Ruiz chose to betray the royal family, ultimately failing in his efforts and being executed.

Ewald was not implicated, but as Grand Duke Serrano became Prime Minister and Count Canovas was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, the Progressive Party's control over the Spanish political scene was completely dismantled.

If Gao Da had not appointed him as Deputy Prime Minister, it would have been difficult for Ewald to continue serving as a cabinet minister in Spain.

Because at this time, Prime Minister Canovas already possessed enough influence that he could have completely replaced officials in these positions with Conservative Party members, thereby achieving control over the government.

Considering that Spain should not be dominated by a single party, Gao Da ultimately chose to let Ewald, who currently had the most influence in the Progressive Party, become the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain to serve as a check and balance on the Prime Minister.

Of course, this was not out of a lack of trust in Prime Minister Canovas. It was simply that from the perspective of checks and balances, Spain still needed a Deputy Prime Minister from another party to maintain political equilibrium.

The Spanish government in Gao Da's plan is to implement a three-party rotation system. The current Liberal Party is also constantly changing, and Gao Da specifically instructed Prime Minister Canovas to retain the position of Minister of Education for Gerard; this was also to protect the Liberal Party and prevent this third-largest party in Spain from completely falling into a minor, opposition party.

While Spain was vigorously developing its domestic industry and economy, the international situation was not so peaceful.

French President Jules Ferry, who had previously instigated the Tunisia War, ultimately lost his prime ministerial seat because France spent a large amount of funds without occupying the entirety of Tunisia.

But he did not abandon his political stance because of this; instead, he loudly promoted the benefits that colonial expansion brought to France.

With European countries taking colonial actions, France was also constantly searching for its own colonial targets across the globe.

In addition to possessing large colonies in Africa, France also had colonies of considerable size in Asia.

Because the British occupied the entirety of India, France could only seek out the more distant East Asia and Southeast Asia, ultimately establishing its own colonies in places like Vietnam and Cambodia in Southeast Asia.

But the scale of the French colonies was not that large, and local countries, including Vietnam, were still constantly resisting French colonial rule.

As early as when Jules Ferry was still the French Prime Minister, he passed a military budget of 2. million francs, which was intended to conquer the Vietnam region.

Even though Jules Ferry was no longer the French Prime Minister, France's colonization of the Vietnam region never stopped, and the related colonial actions even became increasingly intense.

As the end of 1882 approached, in order to be reelected as French Prime Minister, Jules Ferry high-profilely spread his theory of colonial expansion in major French cities and stated that if he could be reelected as French Prime Minister, he would expand France's colonies by at least hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land.

In fact, judging by Jules Ferry's performance in the Tunisia War, it was very difficult for him to become French Prime Minister again.

But the problem is, everything must be viewed through comparison. The situation in France during this period was not calm; France changed prime ministers multiple times in just a few years, with the most frequent period seeing three prime ministers in over a year.

This also resulted in the French government's decrees being difficult to implement in various regions, and even if decrees reached the regions, before they could be properly executed, the high-level French cabinet would change and issue new decrees.

Under such chaotic political circumstances, Jules Ferry's insistence on external colonial expansion to eliminate the influence of internal political chaos did indeed win the support of some people.

Time came to 1883, and the changes in French politics gave Jules Ferry an opportunity.

The famous nephew of the French Emperor Napoleon, the eldest son of the former King of Westphalia, Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte, claimed that he wanted to be the King of France and caused quite a stir.

As Napoleon's own nephew, Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte's claim to the French throne attracted the attention of some royalists; after all, there were Bonaparte factions among the royalists.

The reason why Napoleon III was able to establish a dictatorship and rebuild the French Empire was largely due to the efforts of the royalists, especially the Bonaparte faction of royalists.

For the French government, they were destined not to remain indifferent to Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte's claim.

The royalist factions within France were very powerful, but because there were too many royal families that had once ruled France, the French royalists were split into the Legitimists, the Orléanists, and the Bonapartists; the so-called Legitimists were actually the faction supporting the Bourbon family.

Since they could not remain indifferent, it meant that the French government had to make a choice. Either they tacitly accepted Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte's claim, but this would very likely lead to a repeat of Napoleon III's dictatorship, and France could very well become a monarchy again.

Or they could push for an expulsion bill before all this happened, forcibly expelling Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte to stabilize France's fragile republican rule.

In fact, under normal circumstances, it is very easy for a French Prime Minister to push for an expulsion bill. The Prime Minister is the head of government elected by the parliament, so how could the parliament refute the Prime Minister's proposal?

But the problem is, the current French Prime Minister, Armand Fallières, was suffering from a serious illness, and his position as Prime Minister was even held on a temporary basis.

This led to the expulsion bill proposed by the French government to the Senate being firmly rejected by opponents, and the ailing Prime Minister Armand Fallières also realized that the situation was beyond his control, so he decisively announced his resignation after the Senate rejected his expulsion bill.

After Prime Minister Armand Fallières announced his resignation, Jules Ferry immediately welcomed a great opportunity.

He succeeded in the election and smoothly ascended to the throne of French Prime Minister once again.

Having become French Prime Minister again, Jules Ferry did not hesitate at all; he immediately increased the French government's colonial invasion of the Vietnam region and declared that he would not hesitate to use more troops to conquer Vietnam.

France's plotting against Vietnam had lasted for decades, during which the friction between French troops and Vietnamese troops was countless.

This time, the French clearly made more thorough preparations for the attack on Vietnam; the military budget allocation alone reached tens of millions of francs, and they even transferred two warships from the European fleet to Southeast Asia, which shows the importance the French government attached to this war.

In fact, as early as before the outbreak of the Tunisia War, the Royal Security Intelligence Agency had reported France's colonial invasion plan to Gao Da.

It was just that because of the Tunisia War at the time, France temporarily delayed its attack on Vietnam. The final outcome of the Tunisia War was not as the French government had expected, which led to the French government experiencing more than a year of chaos, making it even less likely to launch a war against Vietnam.

Now that Jules Ferry had become French Prime Minister again, it seemed that France's war against Vietnam was a certainty.

However, as a competitor to France, Gao Da would not sit idly by and watch France launch a war against Vietnam.

For Gao Da, letting France sink into the quagmire of the Vietnam War was absolutely the best direction for this war.

Gao Da did not care who won or lost this war; the only thing he cared about was the casualties France suffered in this war.

In other words, the French could win this war, but they had to pay a heavy price in casualties and also needed to invest a large amount of military funds.

Only in this way could the French rest and recuperate for a period of time and temporarily abandon the development of African colonies.

In fact, for Gao Da, a transmigrator, the result of this war and who France's true opponent was were very clear.

Since he wanted to let France sink into the quagmire of war, the best way was to help France's enemies so that France would not be able to win the war so easily.

The moment the Royal Security Intelligence Agency confirmed that France was about to launch a larger-scale offensive, Gao Da had the relevant sales personnel of the Royal Military Factory contact Vietnam and the country behind it to find ways to sell Spanish weapons and equipment.

Whether it was Spain's standard Vitali M1872 rifle or the steel cannons currently equipped in large numbers, they could all be sold to Vietnam and the country behind it.

As long as they did not lag too far behind in weapons and equipment, he believed the Vietnamese army could still resist for a period of time.

After all, the troops mobilized by the French were not all native French troops; there were many indigenous troops mixed in.

If Vietnam and the country behind it were willing, Spain could even sell them warships.

From Spain's two types of ironclad ships down to various cruisers and coastal defense ships, all could be sold.

In order to catch up with the war, Spain could even sell the active-duty warships currently equipped by the navy. Anyway, Spain's shipbuilding plan was also continuously building ironclad ships and other warships; selling old warships to build new ones was actually profitable for the Spanish Navy.

The sales personnel of the Royal Military Factory traveled across the ocean to Southeast Asia following Gao Da's orders; they carried not only partial data on the weapons and equipment Spain could sell to the outside world, but also some pictures of Spain's active-duty warships.

After all, only by fully demonstrating the power of Spanish weapons and equipment to Vietnam and the country behind it could they spark their interest in purchasing.

Because there was a distance of over ten thousand kilometers between Spain and Southeast Asia, this meant that it would take at least more than a month for the Royal Military Factory's sales personnel to reach Southeast Asia.

Before that, Gao Da could only let the Royal Security Intelligence Agency closely monitor the movements of the French government and use the French government's movements to judge the situation of the war.

Gao Da was not idle either. Since France had no time to attend to other things, Spain would certainly launch a colonial war to expand its own territory.

The target for Spain's next expansion was also very clear, and that was the Oman region, which the British had nodded and agreed to let Spain colonize during the colonial exchange.

For Spain, in addition to the oil possessed by the Oman region, its geographical location was also very important.

Spain possessed the Philippines colony in the Southeast Asia region, which was currently Spain's second-largest colony.

There was a distance of over ten thousand kilometers between Spain and the Philippines colony, but there were no Spanish colonies in this distance of over ten thousand kilometers that could serve as a transit point.

In other words, on the journey of over ten thousand kilometers from Spain to the Philippines colony, Spanish merchant ships and warships could only dock at the ports of other countries and were subject to the restrictions of other countries.

Although the cruising range of warships was constantly increasing with the increase in warship tonnage, current warships were far from being able to travel over ten thousand kilometers without stopping at the coast; after all, besides needing to replenish coal, they also needed to replenish the living supplies required by the crew.

It could also be seen from the map that although Oman deviated from the route, it was roughly in the middle position between Spain and the Philippines.

As long as Spain could occupy Oman, it could use it as a transit station, allowing ships traveling between Spain and the Philippines colony to dock on the coast of Oman to replenish supplies and rest for a period of time.

Of course, occupying Oman was not all benefits.

After all, this place was close to British India; more than a decade ago, the British had invaded Oman and forced the local natives to sign various unequal treaties.

Although Spain obtained the right to colonize Oman through the colonial exchange, the native countries around Oman had long been infiltrated by the British.

There were even traces of the British on this land of Oman. As Spain became increasingly powerful, the British would certainly be more guarded against the Oman occupied by Spain and would even look for opportunities to retake Oman.

Occupying Oman meant that the relationship between Spain and Britain was further damaged.

But this land had to be occupied eventually; in addition to the geographical location, there were also a large number of oil fields on this land, and in the future, after oil appreciated in value, the economic value here would be very high.

If they could preemptively annex the Trucial States while Britain was mired in the quagmire of war, the income generated from selling oil alone in the future would be enough for Spain to carry out various military actions.

The so-called Trucial States were the UAE region of later generations; although this was a desert, it was quite famous in later generations.

Relying on oil, the native countries here were quite wealthy, and even the city of Dubai, the world's city of desire, was born here.

Of course, now that Middle Eastern oil had not been discovered, this was still just an ordinary desert.

There were also various states existing locally, but these small-scale native states really had no sense of presence in front of Britain or Spain.

Compared to the Vietnamese that France was plotting against, the enemies Spain faced in colonizing Oman were clearly weaker, which was the reason why Gao Da decided to launch the colonial war without much hesitation.

At this time, it was still the era of the Great Colonization, and European countries were constantly conducting colonial exploration.

As a great power, if Spain did not actively carry out colonial expansion, it would certainly lag behind others in terms of colonization.

The native forces in the Oman region were not strong, which was the reason why the lower house quickly passed the government's proposal after Gao Da proposed the war plan.

Because of the previous agreement, the British would not interfere with Spain's action to colonize Oman. France was also launching the Vietnam War, which meant that no country would interfere with Spain's actions.

Since no great power was interfering, Spain naturally did not need to take too large an action.

According to the estimates of the Ministry of National Defense, conquering Oman only required dispatching four colonial garrison regiments with a force of less than ten thousand people, plus a small squadron.

The military budget required to launch this small-scale war was even less than 5 million pesetas; for the finances of the Spanish government at this time, this expenditure was merely a drop in the bucket.

On March 12, 1883, the Xibanyazheng Prefecture officially launched a colonial operation against Oman. Transport ships carrying a force of over 8, 00 men were protected by a detachment fleet, heading toward the Oman region in a grand procession.

A 5, 00-character two-in-one chapter, requesting monthly votes!

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(End of this chapter)