Chapter 329: Spring Outing

March 12, 1886, weather clear, not a cloud in the sky.

A carriage that looked somewhat massive was moving slowly along the road; the emblem of the Spanish House of Savoy was clearly visible on it.

To pull this somewhat bulky carriage, six handsome white horses were harnessed to the front, their strong and powerful hooves moving with ease, driving the luxurious carriage slowly forward.

In front of the carriage were two fine horses. Both horses were white; one was handsome and spirited, ridden by a man in noble attire around 30 years old. The other horse was slightly younger, looking like a small colt. However, due to its excellent pedigree, the colt did not struggle while carrying a young boy, and the two horses together guided the carriage forward.

To the left and right of these two horses, several knights carrying weapons and equipment rode in a scattered formation. While carefully observing the situation around the road, the knights would, in their spare time, look respectfully and fanatically at the man on the two fine horses in the center.

Behind the carriage were several specially modified automobiles, carrying palace servants and various utensils and supplies.

At the very end of the convoy were hundreds of cavalrymen, responsible for escorting the entire group and ensuring the safety of the procession.

"Little White, run faster, we're about to lose sight of Father." On the small white colt, the excited Juan Fernando said with some dissatisfaction to the colt beneath him.

The small white colt seemed to have a spirit of its own; after little Juan Fernando finished speaking, it snorted and quickened its pace, managing to catch up with the stride of the large horse in front.

"Father, wait for us!" The two leading horses suddenly quickened their pace, which made the little ones in the carriage dissatisfied.

They had been enjoying the beautiful scenery along the road in a leisurely manner, but seeing their father and brother about to ride away, they all began to call out.

"Hahaha!" Hearing the shouts of the little ones, Gao Da, who was running the fastest in front, pulled on the reins to let the horse run a bit slower, not forgetting to say to Juan Fernando: "Let your little colt run a bit slower; don't tire it out before we even reach our destination."

The little one nodded obediently and, imitating his father's manner, tightened the reins to bring the colt to a stop.

Although he was not yet 11 years old this year, Crown Prince Juan Fernando had long since been exposed to and studied riding lessons. While he could not yet match Gao Da's superb horsemanship, he was able to ride a small colt and ride freely at a relatively slow speed.

The royal horses were all specially trained. They were selected not only for being plump and sturdy fine horses but also for having a gentle temperament, having shed their wild nature.

A colt with this kind of temperament would not cause any accidents; as long as the speed was controlled, even someone who did not know how to ride could ride it at a slow pace.

"Gao Da, does the Aranjuez Palace really have a garden larger than the one at the Madrid Palace?" Queen Sophie was a bit curious; she was quite satisfied with the large garden at the Madrid Palace, but if there were a garden even more massive than that, she naturally would not mind going to admire it.

"Of course, Sophie." Gao Da nodded with a smile and said to his Queen: "The garden of Aranjuez Palace possesses the seeds of trees, flowers, and plants brought back from all over the world by all the botanists and explorers of Spain over the past few centuries; it should be the place with the most plant seeds in Spain.

Knowing you like to look at flowers, I had large areas of flowers planted last year, and now is just the time to enjoy them."

"Really? I want to see too, I want to see too!" Before Queen Sophie could nod in response, Princess Sofia, who had been enjoying the scenery outside the window in the carriage, poked her head out and said to her father with some excitement.

"Haha, of course, you have a share too, Sofia." Gao Da nodded, naturally not refusing the request of his most beloved princess.

Aranjuez Palace was the destination of Gao Da's trip and one of the summer palaces he had selected for the Spanish royal family.

This place was originally the property of the Bourbon dynasty; after Gao Da became the King of Spain, these palaces that originally belonged to the Bourbon dynasty naturally belonged to Gao Da as well.

Aranjuez was not far from Madrid, located in the southernmost part of the Madrid Special Municipality, forming a triangle with Madrid and Toledo.

This triangular area was also the most densely populated region for Spanish palace and castle complexes, inhabited by a large number of old-fashioned nobles.

Gao Da had his reasons for choosing Aranjuez as his summer palace. First, Aranjuez Palace was originally the summer palace of the Spanish royal family, possessing beautiful scenery and a quiet environment, which was just right for royal residence.

Secondly, the Aranjuez palace was not far from Madrid. If the government had any urgent state affairs that required Gao Da to handle, he could reach Aranjuez from Madrid in a few hours.

Although this palace was not famous among all the palaces in Spain, in terms of historical heritage and scenery, Aranjuez Palace was also among the best of all palaces in Spain.

Aranjuez Palace was known as the Versailles of Spain. In addition to its impressive gardens and lake views, it also possessed a porcelain room, an armory, and a jewelry room, containing a large amount of gold and silver products and ornaments.

When Queen Isabella fled Spain, because the revolutionary army was about to reach Madrid, she had no time at all to pack up these gold products.

This also allowed Gao Da, who took over these palaces, to pick up a bargain. According to the statistics of Butler Luo Lun, the collections and various jewelry ornaments left behind by the Bourbon dynasty in these palaces were worth at least over 50 million pesetas.

Among them, the weight of the gold products and ornaments alone exceeded 10 tons; just converting this gold into wealth was enough to become the richest person in Spain at the time.

From this, one could also see how exaggerated the exploitation by the former Bourbon royal family in Spain had been. The money earned during Spain's colonial era almost all went into the pockets of the royal family, the nobility, and the church, and the Bourbon royal family thus became filthy rich.

The reason the Madrid Palace could become one of the three great palaces of Europe was precisely because of the expenses the Spanish royal family invested in the repair and renovation of the palace; if this money had been invested in national development and industrial popularization, Spain might not have failed to achieve some results during the First Industrial Revolution.

When Gao Da didn't have much money at the time, he misappropriated a portion of the assets to cash them in, which was why the royal enterprises developed so rapidly.

By the time Gao Da also gradually began to have money, he had not moved the treasures stored in these palaces much.

The collections of Aranjuez Palace still remained in various treasure rooms, including many exquisite porcelains, calligraphy and paintings from all over the world, and other antiques.

Because the distance between Madrid and Aranjuez was only about 50 kilometers, even though the convoy was moving very slowly, it still arrived at Aranjuez Palace a few hours after departure.

Of course, Gao Da and Juan Fernando did not choose to ride horses the entire way. Although the royal horses were all carefully selected, this kind of slow and long-duration riding was also quite tiring.

In fact, Gao Da and Juan Fernando only experienced less than an hour of riding before returning to the spacious and comfortable carriage.

This carriage was the exclusive carriage of the Spanish royal family, generally only used when the King or Queen went out.

Because it was exclusive to the royal family, this carriage had also undergone quite fine and luxurious modifications. Almost everything on the carriage was a luxury item; a blanket covering the entire carriage might be worth several decades of income for a Spanish family.

Because the carriage was very spacious, even with Gao Da, Queen Sophie, and the 5 little ones inside, it did not appear crowded.

A large sofa was placed on both the north and south sides of the carriage, and the position in the middle that was originally a table had been vacated to place a specially customized crib.

The one lying in the crib, needless to say, was Gao Da's youngest daughter, Princess Cristina, who was not yet a year old.

Prince Alexander, who was a year and a half older than Princess Cristina, was already two years old this year. He did not need a crib to be served; at this time, he was being held in the arms of his mother, Queen Sophie, obediently admiring the scenery outside the carriage.

Gao Da sat opposite Queen Sophie, with his eldest son Juan Fernando and his eldest daughter Sofia sitting on his left and right respectively.

This time, Gao Da specifically brought his eldest son along, intending to let him have some leisure time amidst his busy studies so that he would not be suppressed all the time.

However, in the middle of the trip, Gao Da also briefly inquired about Prince Juan Fernando's academic situation.

Currently, only his studies were relatively busy; Gao Da's second son, Ma Ding, had just turned 6, and because he was not the heir to the throne, his studies were not as complicated as those of his older brother, Prince Juan Fernando.

Of course, regarding the education of his children, Gao Da would still treat them equally. The education that Ma Ding and Alexander received was also specially customized by Gao Da for them, with the goal of making them traditional nobles while also considering and taking into account the development of the times.

Gao Da did not want his sons to be just nobles who only sought pleasure. Gao Da hoped that the two of them could become the right-hand men of Juan Fernando, working together to add impetus to the development of Spain and the development of the House of Savoy.

Moreover, it was not impossible for the two little ones to obtain their own fiefs in the future.

The future European situation would undergo changes, and more European countries would become independent from the control of the original great powers. In a situation where monarchy was the main body, these European countries would very likely become monarchical kingdoms.

By then, it would be quite easy to secure two crowns for his two sons; whether they wanted to be kings or not would depend on their choices at that time.

Of course, the premise of securing crowns for them was that Gao Da was certain they could become qualified kings.

If their abilities were insufficient and they were unable to suppress local officials and other forces, then it would be better to just be good Spanish nobles.

Although a king symbolized supreme power, this crown also symbolized obligations as heavy as a mountain.

If a king could properly fulfill his obligations, he could of course enjoy his power with peace of mind. But if a king could not even fulfill his own obligations, how would the people be willing to let the king enjoy power unscrupulously?

After examining Prince Juan Fernando's studies, Gao Da picked up a book and read it with great interest.

The words "History of Spain" were clearly written on the cover, and the entire book was brand new, as if it had not been on the market for long.

Speaking of which, the publication of this History of Spain had a lot to do with Gao Da. It had been mentioned before that Gao Da wanted to downplay the contributions of the Bourbon dynasty to Spain and increase their harm to Spain.

Public opinion propaganda in newspapers was one method, and subtly modifying the Spaniards' perception of history through various means was also a method.

Speaking of which, Gao Da was not exactly modifying history. This book was still relatively objective on the whole, describing the history of Spain from its unification to the present.

It was just that when this book introduced the several kings of the Bourbon royal family, it briefly glossed over the deeds of the first few kings and focused on the stories of Charles IV and his son and granddaughter.

The last three monarchs of the Bourbon dynasty, Charles IV, Ferdinand VII, and Isabella II—their stories were simply absurd, one more absurd than the other.

One-third of the entire History of Spain was devoted to describing their achievements, detailing how the once great Spanish Empire on which the sun never set declined more and more severely in their hands, and created the tragic situation of Spain becoming one of the countries with the lowest per capita income at the time.

Anyway, the Bourbon family had already completely left Spain, so some of the blame belonging to the monarchy was completely placed on them.

For Gao Da, he had to clarify one fact, which was that there was nothing wrong with the monarchy; what was wrong was the Bourbon royal family, the monarchs at that time.

And don't say, with the dual approach of newspaper public opinion propaganda and detailed historical description, the hatred of the Spaniards for the Bourbon royal family was indeed deeper.

And indeed, no one would have any good feelings for a family of incompetent royals. Moreover, besides the kings being relatively incompetent, the Bourbon royal family also led to the outbreak of the Carlist Wars that lasted for decades, and this war was also one of the reasons for Spain's move toward more severe decline.

While Gao Da was reading this book, the convoy had already slowly approached Aranjuez Palace. The team of cavalrymen walking at the very front approached the carriage and respectfully reported to Gao Da: "Your Majesty, we have arrived at Aranjuez Palace."

Hearing this, Gao Da put down the book and said to the children beside him who had already been impatient: "Alright, little ones, Aranjuez Palace is already waiting for you.

Let's go, enjoy a wonderful holiday; I don't mind letting you keep company with flowers tonight."

The carriage stopped at the square in front of Aranjuez Palace, where the entire palace could be taken into view. Because it was only a summer palace, the building of this palace was not high overall, with the highest being only about 4 stories.

But it was undeniable that after many repairs and expansions by Spanish kings over these hundreds of years, the palace before them indeed already possessed a certain scale.

Aranjuez Palace was located in the town of Aranjuez, which was also the origin of the name of this summer palace. Previous Spanish kings, for the sake of the quietness of the summer palace, specifically chose to build the summer palace a few kilometers away from the small town.

This also made the entire Aranjuez Palace almost undisturbed, a peaceful residence of contentment. Blue sky, white clouds, beautiful scenery—this was almost the truest portrayal of Aranjuez Palace.

Asking for a few monthly tickets!



(End of this chapter)