Chapter 326: 1886

Not much different from what the Colonial Affairs Department estimated, Spain successfully completed the African colonial merger plan within the year 1885.

After the war against the Sokoto Caliphate ended, Spain only had four colonies left in Africa, which were the South Morocco colony, the West Africa colony, the Guinea colony, and the Congo territory.

As for Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco, although these two cities also belonged to the African land occupied by Spain, because the time Spain had controlled them had already reached hundreds of years, they had actually completed localization.

The area of Ceuta and Melilla was not large, both only over ten square kilometers. It was precisely because the area was not large that these two cities were mainly used for military purposes, and military fortresses were also the largest buildings in the cities.

After these hundreds of years of development, the main population of the two cities was Spanish or Portuguese, and they naturally could not be treated as colonies.

Spain's localization action for South Morocco also referred to Ceuta and Melilla to a certain extent. The current capital of the South Morocco colony, Agadir, was no different from cities like Ceuta and Melilla where the Spanish population was the majority.

In fact, Spain had already been discussing the naming of the city of Agadir. Since localization was to be carried out, the name Agadir must also be modified to a Spanish-style name.

Europe's naming of new places and cities was relatively simple; either they added the word "New" to the names of existing European regions, such as New Orleans, New Newfoundland, New York, etc.

Yes, the naming of New York was actually in this form. The English for New York is New York, and this York actually referred to the fief of the Duke of York in the UK, Yorkshire.

The true meaning of New York was New Yorkshire, and the name New York was just a new name based on transliteration.

There were too many examples of adding "New" to existing place names to become new place names, so there was naturally no need to say more.

The second most common naming method was to name them after people with high prestige in history or at present.

For example, the capital of Tsarist Russia, Saint Petersburg, the source of the name was Russia's famous Peter the Great. The United States also had such cities; the official name of San Francisco was Saint Francisco, and Francisco was a relatively famous saint in Catholicism.

There were also many cities named after saints, and these two naming methods were also the mainstream ways in Europe to name new places and cities.

Currently in Spain, regarding the naming of Agadir, the capital city of the South Morocco colony, there were several relatively mainstream names.

First was the naming method starting with "New"; names like New Ma Deli, New Barcelona, etc., received a certain amount of support.

Then there was the naming method starting with "Saint", such as San Carlos, San Felipe, etc.

The Carlos here did not refer to the Carlos of the Carlist faction, but the first Spanish king of the Habsburg dynasty, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

During the time he ruled Spain, Spain's territory spanned Europe and the Americas, and it was the world hegemon in the true sense at that time, and he was also hailed as Spain's second greatest king.

As for the first greatest king, that was naturally the Catholic Monarchs who created Spain, Isabella I and Ferdinand II, who integrated the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon through marriage.

Because Spain's history had only been about four hundred years so far, it resulted in Spain only having a few kings who could be brought out.

Plus the hype of public opinion regarding Gao Da's achievements, in the minds of many Spanish media and the public, Gao Da, who had only been the King of Spain for sixteen years, could already be ranked in the top five among Spanish kings, second only to the several kings of the Habsburg dynasty who created the empire on which the sun never sets.

In other words, the contributions of the Spanish kings of the Bourbon dynasty were almost all weakened. Although not all Bourbon family members were dim-witted rulers like the irritable King Ferdinand VII and the previous dim-witted Queen Isabella II, who made them belong to the Bourbon dynasty?

In order to weaken the influence of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain, it was very necessary to weaken the contributions of the Spanish kings of the Bourbon dynasty.

Of course, when weakening the contributions of these kings, it could not be too blatant. In this case, the best way was to brag about the kings of the Habsburg family.

Anyway, Gao Da's queen came from the Habsburg family, and could be considered half of the Habsburg family's own people. By strengthening the contributions of the kings of the Habsburg dynasty and weakening the contributions of the kings of the Bourbon dynasty, it could ensure the stability of Spain to a great extent and avoid the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain.

From the historical trend of Spain during this period, it could be seen that the Bourbon dynasty, which had ruled Spain for nearly two hundred years, still had a lot of influence in Spain.

Historically, Spain established a republic twice after Queen Isabella, but in the end, it still allowed the Bourbon dynasty to be restored. Spain's monarchy even persisted to later generations, which was enough to witness the huge influence of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain.

After Gao Da's various means to weaken the prestige of the Bourbon dynasty, the influence of the Bourbon family in Spain was currently negligible.

The nobility and the royalists had also been cleared once, and those nobles and royalists who supported the Bourbon family were basically liquidated by Gao Da under various names.

It is worth mentioning that in the proposal to rename Agadir, there was no proposal named after Gao Da.

Although this looked a bit strange, it was actually a very normal thing.

Because Gao Da's name in Spanish was Carlos, this actually also meant that the proposal of San Carlos could also be said to be named after Gao Da.

In fact, according to the naming tradition of Spanish kings, since the name Gao Da was called Carlos in Spain, Gao Da should also be the fifth king of Spain named Carlos, that is, Carlos V.

However, because the Carlist faction of the Bourbon dynasty had successively supported the fake kings "Carlos V" and "Carlos VI" at that time, Gao Da chose to be independent and announced himself as Carlos I of Spain, not Carlos V.

At that time, because the focus of Spain from top to bottom was on the formation of the new government and the reform of the political system, the ordinal number of an elected king was not so concerned.

Prime Minister Pulimo, who had the highest right to speak at the time, expressed support for Gao Da calling himself Carlos I because Gao Da did not fight for power and was independent, which also allowed the statement of Carlos I to be settled.

By now, because Gao Da had gradually been considered a great monarch, the Spanish people were not so picky about whether it was Carlos I or Carlos V.

Of course, this was also related to the previous Spanish king named Carlos, Carlos IV. Because of a series of major wrong decisions by Carlos IV, Spain faced a series of crises in the early 19th century.

During the reign of Carlos IV, Spain was first wrongly involved in the Napoleonic Wars, becoming a pawn for France against Britain.

This decision caused the Spanish navy to be completely annihilated by the British navy in 1805, and the Spanish government also suffered heavy losses due to the confrontation with Britain.

This was not the end; just two years after fighting with the British, Napoleon invaded Spain. The war with France made Spain even worse, and it could be said that it was precisely the terrible rule of Carlos IV and his son and granddaughter that made Spain face a dark hundred years since the beginning of the 19th century.

With these few Carlos as pearls before, Spain was not so repulsive to whether its king was named Carlos.

After all, for the Spanish people, the most important thing was whether their monarch was wise and whether he could make their living environment and living standards better under his rule.

In fact, Gao Da did not pay much attention to the naming of Agadir. Because this kind of thing was indeed not very important, Gao Da could accept whatever name Agadir would be called in the future.

Of course, the naming of the city still had to get rid of the influence of the Bourbon dynasty as much as possible. If it was named after the kings of the Habsburg dynasty, or named after Spanish place names, Gao Da had no opinion at all.

In addition to Agadir, many colonial cities in Spain would be renamed in the future. Some colonies were named entirely based on local culture, and some colonies were named by their former owners.

Since they already belonged to Spain, they naturally had to be renamed to Spanish-style names.

The time Spain launched the war against the Sokoto Caliphate was in July 1885, and the time the war ended was at the end of September, and the whole war took about two and a half months.

The next two months were used to stabilize the situation in the Sokoto region. Because Spain's colonial merger plan had been successfully completed, there would basically be no colonial wars in the African region in the future.

The only remaining goal for Spain was Morocco, and it still needed to wait for a suitable opportunity for Spain to ensure that its war against Morocco would not be interfered with by Britain and France.

The war against the Sokoto Caliphate was also the last major event Spain experienced in 1885. In the two months that followed, the situation in Spain had been very peaceful, and time had arrived in 1886 in such an unhurried manner.

For Gao Da, the thing that could best prove that his age was constantly growing was the age of his children.

Gao Da's eldest son, Prince Juan Fernando, was born in 1875. If calculated according to the time of 1886, Prince Juan Fernando's age was also almost 11 years old.

For this little guy who was almost 11 years old, Gao Da was quite satisfied. As the first heir to the throne, Prince Juan Fernando not only possessed a noble status but also possessed extremely huge responsibilities.

With the growth of age, the little guy also gradually became sensible. He knew what kind of responsibilities he should shoulder, and for the relatively strict aristocratic education arranged by Gao Da, Prince Juan Fernando not only did not have any resistance but instead hungrily absorbed various kinds of knowledge.

The teachers Gao Da found for him were all the most excellent teachers in all of Spain, and even the top professors and experts from various European countries.

These people had expressed to Gao Da more than once how sensible Prince Juan Fernando was. Although he was only ten years old, Prince Juan Fernando had already shown enough intelligence; he had even completed the primary school curriculum customized for him by many professors and experts in advance and was learning the middle school curriculum in advance.

In later generations, the age of eleven to learn middle school in advance was already relatively exaggerated. You must know that the education Gao Da arranged for Prince Juan Fernando was all elite aristocratic education, and the things the little guy had to learn were naturally more than just the little bit that primary school students in later generations had to learn.

Under such circumstances, Prince Juan Fernando could still complete the primary school studies in advance, which was already a kind of talent.

After entering the middle school stage of learning, Prince Juan Fernando would have more things to learn. In addition to basic cultural knowledge, he also had to understand and learn knowledge related to history, science, physics, chemistry, and psychology, and even had to undergo education related to the nobility, such as aristocratic etiquette, horsemanship, simple medical knowledge, etc.

So many subjects were enough to drive a middle school student in later generations crazy; for Prince Juan Fernando, this was just his normal scope of learning.

It could be expected that when Prince Juan Fernando completed the education customized for him by Gao Da, he would definitely be able to grow into a monarch above the passing line.

After experiencing a certain amount of training in the military and government, even if he cannot become a pioneering great monarch, he can at least grow into a qualified ruler who maintains the status quo.

Although he attached great importance to the education of Prince Juan Fernando, Gao Da did not ignore the education of other children.

In addition to Prince Juan Fernando, Gao Da also had two sons and two daughters, namely Sofia, Martin, Alexander, and Cristina.

The eldest, Sofia, was born in 1876, and currently, she was ten years old.

The youngest, Cristina, was born in 1885, and she was not even one year old yet.

For these little guys of different ages, Gao Da also expressed his love for them. Although he was very busy with government affairs as a king, Gao Da still found time to accompany their childhood.

Except for Prince Juan Fernando, who had to receive education early as the heir to the throne and could not enjoy Gao Da's company, the other princes and princesses all had Gao Da's company.

Even Sofia, who was already ten years old, would still pester her father from time to time, asking her father to take her to play in the palace garden.

Whenever this happened, Gao Da would not refuse his daughter's request.

The good news was that as one of the largest palaces in Europe, the Wang Gong of Ma Deli had a sufficiently large garden, and this garden was also one of the places where several little guys often played in groups.

Under Gao Da's beneficial management and cultivation, the relationship between the several little guys was still relatively warm and intimate.

This was the best news for the Spanish royal family and Gao Da. No one wanted to see an intense competitive relationship between their children, and no one wanted their children to resent or even hate themselves.

Currently, Gao Da was doing quite well in this regard; several little guys were clearly very fond of Gao Da and would stick to their father from time to time.

When government affairs were not busy, Gao Da was happy to enjoy such leisure time. Anyway, Gao Da already possessed endless wealth in his hands, and stopping appropriately and enjoying life was also very important for Gao Da.

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 327 =====