[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-rise-of-the-empire-spain":3,"chapter-rise-of-the-empire-spain-rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-410":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Rise of the Empire: Spain",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2365338,4632,"Chapter 410: Naval Development Plan","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-410",410,"\u003Cp>As time reached the second half of 1902, the sea trial phase of the Dreadnought-class battleship had also reached the halfway point.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Throughout the entire testing phase, the design of the Dreadnought-class battleship did expose some issues. After all, it was an entirely new warship design, and with all secondary batteries removed, it was impossible to perfect the new design all at once.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The good news was that the problems exposed during the sea trial phase were not serious; after several months of modifications and improvements, most of them had already been resolved, and the remaining defects were merely a matter of time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Navy was very expectant of this battleship that was about to officially enter service, and Carlo also held great ambition and expectations for it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For Carlo, he would certainly not be satisfied with owning only one dreadnought. Since Spain had already taken the lead in dreadnoughts, why not make such a lead even more obvious?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the cabinet elections in 1902 concluded, Carlo immediately summoned Qiaodi, who had been reappointed as Minister of Defense, and the high-ranking generals of the Navy to express his support for vigorously building up the Navy over the coming years, and he requested that the Navy and the defense department produce a naval construction plan for the next ten years to be submitted to the cabinet meeting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a kingdom government, the various budgets of the Spanish cabinet government did not require approval from the House of Representatives; they only needed to pass the review of the cabinet meeting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, this also intensified the difficulty for various departments to request fiscal budgets. If they wanted to increase their department's fiscal budget, they either had to obtain permission from the King or the Prime Minister, or they could only fight and scramble for it with other departments.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the various departments in Spain were relatively harmonious in their daily administrative cooperation, when it came to the annual fiscal budget scramble, the expected arguments would still occur.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, no department would complain about having too much fiscal budget, and when building projects, they would have sufficient funds to play freely, rather than carefully calculating the costs of projects one by one for fear of exceeding the budget.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After receiving the signal from Carlo, the Navy department was quite excited. In the previous ten-plus years, the development of the Spanish Navy had been forcibly restricted by Carlo, and the number of warships built each year could be said to be minimal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the construction cost of a single battleship already reaching over 20 million pesetas, the Navy department only had 25 million pesetas annually for warship construction and maintenance, meaning they could only build one battleship every two years on average; the speed of warship construction was very slow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Originally, the high-ranking generals of the Navy thought they would have to wait a few years before Carlo issued the order to build warships; they did not expect that before the sea trial phase of the Dreadnought-class battleship had even ended, Carlo had already signaled them to produce a complete naval construction plan, planning the warships to be built over the next ten years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There was nothing to hesitate about; the main warships to be built in the next ten years would certainly be Dreadnought-class battleships. Just like the difference between battleships and ironclads, the difference between Dreadnought-class battleships and ordinary battleships was also enormous.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the Spanish Navy department's estimates for all their warship models, once the Dreadnought-class battleship officially entered service, the role of all warships previously built by Spain, including the Monarch-class battleships, would be significantly reduced.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Do not be fooled by the fact that the Monarch-class battleships were also very expensive to build; in front of the Dreadnought-class battleship, the Monarch-class battleships had almost no means of resistance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The speed of the Dreadnought-class battleship far exceeded that of the Monarch-class battleships, and because the caliber of the artillery was unified, factors such as the range, power, and rate of fire of the guns were also all unified.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under these circumstances, the Dreadnought-class battleship could completely adopt a strategy of approaching to fire, running away after firing, reloading shells, and then approaching again to fire, running away after firing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In any case, there was no warship in this world that could catch up to the Dreadnought-class battleship. In this situation, unless other warships could discover the Dreadnought-class battleship first and hit it rapidly before it entered firing range, there was no other way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, judging by the armor coverage of the Dreadnought-class battleship, even if one were lucky enough to hit it, unless one luckily hit a place where the armor coverage was relatively thin, it would not cause too much damage to the Dreadnought-class battleship.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was precisely because the Dreadnought-class battleship caused a data-crushing effect on all previous battleships, including various battleship models from other countries, that the Spanish Navy had to vigorously develop Dreadnought-class battleships.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because the high-ranking generals of the Navy had long had an idea about the future construction of the Navy, this ten-year naval construction plan was submitted to Carlo's desk after only a few days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Carlo looked at this naval construction plan and did not say much, letting the Navy department submit it to the cabinet meeting for the cabinet government to discuss.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Prime Minister of the new cabinet government was still Baron Angelo Orcajo; Carlo was quite satisfied with his ability, and his reappointment was naturally a matter of course.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It is worth mentioning that the elderly Hoviliar Soler no longer served as Minister of State, and the Minister of State for the new cabinet government was held by Count Menotti.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Other than that, the cabinet positions were almost the same as the previous cabinet government. Because Count Menotti served as Minister of State, the Minister of Colonial Affairs was held by the former Viceroy of the Congo Territory, Helen Hakes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the Minister of Defense, Qiaodi, submitted such a naval development plan to the cabinet government, the specific content of the naval development plan sparked intense discussion among the cabinet ministers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first to stand up and express dissatisfaction was the Minister of Finance, Or Acosta; he was shocked by the fiscal budget requested by the naval development plan proposed by the Ministry of Defense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes, it was shock.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How exaggerated was this naval development plan proposed by the Ministry of Defense?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to what was stated in this development plan, in the next ten years, that is, between 1902 and 1911, the Spanish Navy would build an average of two Dreadnought-class battleships, five auxiliary warships of the several-thousand-ton class, three of the latest model submarines, and other small warships each year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Over these ten years, the total tonnage of warships built by Spain would reach an exaggerated 750,000 tons. After the naval construction plan was completed, Spain would possess a full 21 dreadnoughts, dozens of battleships and ironclads, hundreds of cruisers and small-to-medium warships of various models, and dozens of submarines, with a total naval tonnage exceeding one million tons—a super fleet in the true sense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Spain, possessing such a fleet, could undoubtedly walk sideways in the Mediterranean and even the entire Europe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By then, whether it was France or Britain, the number of their fleets in the Mediterranean would not be able to compare with Spain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even without mentioning the scale of the Mediterranean fleet, by then, Spain's total fleet tonnage would be about the same as Britain's current total fleet tonnage. Spain could completely rely on the advantage of 21 dreadnoughts to defeat the British Royal Navy just as Britain had previously defeated Spain's Invincible Armada, becoming the maritime hegemon of Europe and even the entire world once again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So the question arises: to build a fleet with a total tonnage exceeding 750,000 tons, how much total warship construction cost would the Navy department need?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the fact that the construction cost of each Dreadnought-class battleship was close to 40 million pesetas, and the construction cost of each cruiser of the several-thousand-ton class and other small-to-medium warships ranged from several million to over ten million pesetas, Spain would have to pay at least 150 million pesetas in funds for this naval construction plan every year, totaling at least 1.5 billion pesetas for the ten-year naval construction plan, which was 60 million pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The annual naval construction cost of at least 150 million pesetas was precisely the point that made the Minister of Finance, Or Acosta, stand up instantly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Do not look at the fact that the Spanish government's total annual fiscal revenue was already close to 1.6 billion pesetas; in reality, the government's annual surplus was only tens of millions of pesetas.\u003C\u002Fp>",1456,"2026-06-25T09:27:15.200Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","68773f2008273d98655ecfb8840367a703b395aeb7961352959169a1e696920f","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-411","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-409",493,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Frise-of-the-empire-spain-cover.jpg"]