Chapter 402: 1900

The bells of 1900 rang out quickly, marking the world's entry into a new era; the 20th century had arrived.

As for the Spanish public, they were excited about the government's century-end work report. Some of the data reported by the government in this report was covered by many newspaper media outlets, and almost all Spaniards were feeling excited and thrilled by the achievements the nation had attained.

Yet, while Spaniards were feeling excited about the results their country had achieved, wave after wave of strikes were breaking out across Europe.

The 20th century was destined to be an extraordinary 100 years, for the opening of the 20th century was itself extraordinary.

On January 4, 1900, a wave of strikes swept across Europe. Worker groups demanded that their governments guarantee more of their interests, and worker groups in major powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, and Italy almost all engaged in strike actions.

Spain was fine, because thanks to the Worker Party that Carlos had established early on, the workers' dissatisfaction with the government had already been dispersed in advance.

Coupled with the fact that the Spanish government was indeed very attentive to the worker groups, under these circumstances, it was impossible for the worker groups to launch protests against the government.

Moreover, just on December 31 of the recently concluded 1899, the Spanish government had also reported on the growth of the average annual income of the Spanish public.

The living standards of the Spanish public were getting better and better; with their lives being fulfilling, how could they possibly oppose the government?

After all, opposing the government meant opposing their current lives; could they possibly hope for their lives to get worse and worse?

On the second day of the strike wave sweeping across Europe, the leader of the Irish Nationalist Party, John Edward Redmond, publicly called on the Irish people to resist British rule and drive the British out of Ireland.

Although such a public appeal was not enough to cause British rule in the Irish region to collapse, John Edward Redmond's actions still made the British government feel a deep sense of humiliation.

For Britain, the trouble did not end there, because on the second day, January 6, the largest famine in history broke out in India, Britain's most important colony, with the number of affected people reaching as high as hundreds of millions, and millions of people on the verge of death.

As for the British government, they would not care about the situation of these affected Indian people. Let alone the millions of Indian people on the verge of death, what would it matter even if there were tens of millions of Indian people?

The British government would not feel a pang of pain no matter how many Indians died, but the impact of this famine on the situation in India was something the British government needed to worry about.

What the British cared about was the stability of their rule over India. How long the famine lasted was not important; how to prevent those opponents among the Indians from sabotaging or even launching an armed uprising during this famine was what the British government needed to focus on.

For the British, their troubles were truly not few.

While problems in Ireland and India were occurring frequently, in the South Africa region, the Boer guerrillas also organized a counterattack against the British-occupied areas.

Although this small-scale offensive was quickly defeated by the British army, such frequent harassment was a huge trouble for Britain.

Five years had passed since the end of the Boer War, but the British government still had to deploy nearly 300, 00 troops in the Boer regions for military suppression.

These troops had to face wars of all sizes every day, and the personnel casualties and consumption of supplies faced were a huge financial burden for Britain.

When the Indian colonial region was stable, such a financial burden was nothing to the wealthy British. But currently, an unprecedented famine had broken out in the Indian colony, and the British government had to try every possible means to cut the fiscal budget.

At the end of January 1900, the German government promulgated the second Naval Construction Act, announcing the expansion of the German navy and the construction of its own fleet.

The British people's troubles could be described as one after another, and the problems in other European countries were equally significant.

First was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna. On January 27, 1900, coal miners held a large-scale strike in Vienna, and subsequently, the strike wave swept to major cities such as Budapest.

Now, other European countries had no way to watch Britain's joke; with fires burning at their own doorsteps, putting out the fire first was the most important thing.

On the British side, the Labour Representation Committee was established. The purpose of the Labour Representation Committee was to realize independent labour representation in the British Parliament and provide a political platform for Britain's vast number of labourers and worker groups.

This Labour Representation Committee was later renamed the British Labour Party, which was precisely the largest party in the British Parliament of later generations.

Regarding the strikes and protests that had broken out in most European industrial countries, each country had its own way of dealing with them. However, most of the solutions involved political compromise, satisfying these workers so that they would no longer launch protests.

The German government did exactly this, and the results achieved were also very good. In March 1900, the coal miners on strike within Germany began to return to their jobs one after another, and Germany gradually shook off the influence of the strike protests.

While other European countries were dealing with strike protests one after another, on the Spanish side, Carlos summoned the engineers and heads of several large domestic shipyards to hold a secret meeting regarding the development of the Spanish navy.

The purpose of this meeting was mainly for the recently born submarine. Although Spain's current first-generation submarines still had more or less shortcomings, with the founding of the National Power Laboratory, diesel engines were also constantly being updated and replaced.

The purpose of Carlos convening this meeting was to have these warship designers design a more powerful submarine for the Spanish navy.

In Carlos's plan for the development of the Spanish navy, the role of submarines was no less than that of battleships, and in some cases, even more important than battleships.

Besides being able to sneak attack the opponent's main warships, submarines could also harass the enemy's maritime routes and destroy the enemy's transport lines.

With the continuous progress of diesel engine technology, the performance of Spain's current submarines could be greatly improved.

Carlos naturally would not be satisfied with the crude submarine design of the previous generation; Spain's submarines not only had to become more powerful but also had to be improved generation after generation.

It had to be admitted that the power difference between gasoline engines and diesel engines was still very large. Under the leadership of Diesel, the National Power Laboratory had improved the diesel engine generation after generation, which also allowed the current diesel engine power to quickly break through 200 kilowatts.

How exaggerated was this kind of power? The gasoline engine used by Spain for the previous generation of submarines had a power of only a pitiful 33 kilowatts.

In terms of power, the current diesel engine's power was directly seven times that of the original gasoline engine.

The increase in diesel engine power was an all-around enhancement for the submarine.

The previous generation of submarines had a surface speed of only a pitiful 7 knots, and the underwater speed was even less than 5 knots. Converted into more familiar units, it was actually equivalent to a surface speed of 13 kilometers per hour and an underwater speed of 9 kilometers per hour.

One must know that the walking speed of a normal person could reach nearly 5 kilometers per hour, and the running speed could even reach 6 to 12 kilometers.

This actually meant that the surface speed of Spain's previous generation of submarines was equivalent to the maximum jogging speed of a person, and the underwater speed was equivalent to the normal walking speed of a person.

With the diesel engine power breaking through 200 kilowatts, the new generation of submarines also had the hope of ushering in a huge breakthrough in surface and underwater speeds.

Not to mention catching up with the speed of current mainstream warships, at least the surface speed could easily break into double digits, and the underwater speed should also be able to approach double digits.

This was quite important for the development of submarines; after all, the combat of submarines could not be limited to a certain area, and at least it had to include a vast sea area.

If the speed was only a pitiful few nautical miles, I am afraid that the enemy's warships would have already completed their transport missions before Spain's submarines reached their designated combat positions.

In this meeting regarding submarine development, Carlos put forward his requirements to all the warship designers attending the meeting.

Each shipyard was to design a submarine with more powerful performance for the Spanish navy based on existing diesel engine and submarine manufacturing technology.

This new submarine's surface speed had to reach at least 15 knots, the underwater speed had to reach at least 10 knots, and it had to possess the ability to destroy an enemy's main warship in one strike.

Besides this, the submarine also needed to possess the ability for long-distance navigation. The previous generation of submarines had a surface range of up to 1, 00 kilometers and an underwater range of 50 kilometers.

Carlos hoped that the surface and underwater range of the new generation of submarines could reach new heights, allowing the submarines to possess the ability for longer-distance combat.

Facts proved that these Spanish warship designers were still very capable.