Chapter 443: The Attention of Various Countries

After the Spanish government announced the plan for a grand military parade to be held at the port of Cádiz in the state of Andalusia in one month, the related news reports immediately attracted the attention of a large number of Spaniards.

It was not just the Spaniards; media outlets from various European countries also reprinted the related news reports, causing the news that Spain was about to hold a grand military parade to spread rapidly across all of Europe.

In fact, anyone could see the intention behind Spain holding a grand military parade at this time. On one hand, it was to celebrate the fruits of victory brought by this war nationwide, and on the other, it was to demonstrate Spain's military strength to the United Kingdom and other European countries, pressuring the United Kingdom, which refused to concede an inch in peace negotiations.

What European countries had to admit was that Spain had indeed demonstrated extremely powerful military strength in this war. Many countries could manage to defeat the British Empire on land, but defeating the British Empire twice in a row at sea was not something ordinary major powers could achieve.

The French navy could indeed launch two consecutive surprise attacks on British squadrons, but what about after a successful surprise attack? The British navy's powerful home fleet was not just for show; once a direct naval battle broke out between the French and British navies, the French navy would absolutely be no match for the British navy.

This actually implied in a roundabout way that the comprehensive strength of the Spanish navy was definitely second to none, on the same level as the United Kingdom, and already a big step ahead of other European countries.

As news related to this war was continuously reported by the media of various countries, European nations had long understood the reason for Spain's victory in the naval battles, which was that battleship named the Dreadnought.

After Spain achieved victory in naval battles twice in a row, European countries all dispatched a large number of intelligence personnel to scout for information regarding Spain's latest warships.

Although Spain's secrecy work was done very well, it was ultimately impossible to keep all performance data of the Dreadnought battleship completely confidential.

Currently, regarding the class naming, tonnage, number of guns, and the power system equipped on the Dreadnought battleship, European countries already had a rough understanding.

Except for the specific layout of the internal structures of the warship, the specific caliber and deployment of the guns, and higher-secrecy data such as warship blueprints, which were still unclear, most other data had actually been learned by European countries.

Regarding the Dreadnought battleship, Yu Kaluo also knew that Spain's secrecy work would not have much effect.

After Christmas ended, the time had already arrived at the end of 1904, and 1905 was about to arrive.

According to the original historical progress, the United Kingdom was also about to start building the Dreadnought battleship; at the very least, the related project had been established, and naval design experts were already beginning to explore a brand-new warship design.

Now, with the powerful pressure brought by the Spanish navy, the United Kingdom's investment in the latest warships would definitely be higher, and the time to build a dreadnought would also be faster.

It was not only the British navy that felt the pressure; the navies of European countries, at least those of France and Germany, would also follow up on the construction of dreadnoughts.

Under these circumstances, it was only a matter of time before European countries possessed dreadnoughts; it was merely a question of time.

If the secrecy work for the Dreadnought battleship were increased, it would only delay the speed at which France and Germany possessed dreadnoughts, and could not delay the speed at which the United Kingdom possessed them.

It was precisely because of this that Yu Kaluo decided to gradually relax the secrecy work on the Dreadnought battleship, allowing France and Germany to start researching and developing dreadnoughts at the same time as the United Kingdom.

Yu Kaluo did this after careful consideration. First of all, after France and Germany possessed dreadnoughts, the one they would fear most would definitely not be Spain, but the United Kingdom, which wanted to maintain naval superiority.

In other words, the development of dreadnoughts by France and Germany would actually only affect the United Kingdom. This was also a way of causing trouble for the British in a roundabout way; if the British were counting on developing dreadnoughts to counter the Spanish navy, then they would be making a huge mistake.

Because while the British possessed dreadnoughts, France and Germany would also possess them at the same time, which also meant that from then on, it would be basically impossible for the United Kingdom to maintain the original Two-Power Standard.

The so-called Two-Power Standard was actually a rule formulated within the British navy, requiring the total scale and strength of the British navy to be greater than or equal to the total scale and comprehensive strength of the world's second and third strongest navies combined.

No matter how fast the British built warships, they could not compare to the speed at which France and Germany combined built warships. Furthermore, Spain's shipbuilding industry was also developing rapidly at this time; in extreme cases, it could build two or even more dreadnoughts a year.

Although Yu Kaluo could accept letting Germany and France possess dreadnoughts to cause some trouble for the British, Yu Kaluo would certainly not unconditionally hand over the Dreadnought blueprints and related materials to France and Germany.

If Germany and France wanted the relevant data to possess dreadnoughts, they would have to pay a price of equal value. If the prices offered by the two countries could not satisfy Yu Kaluo, he would not mind using an auction format to hand over these blueprints to only one of the two countries, Germany or France.

It was believed that even if Germany and France did not have that much interest in dreadnoughts, they would continuously increase the conditions they offered in order to prevent the other side from possessing dreadnoughts.

After Spain announced that it would hold a grand military parade at the port of Cádiz, not only were the Spanish public quite excited, but the soldiers who were about to participate in the grand parade were also quite excited.

Because there was only a little over a month left until the parade, each infantry division, cavalry division, and artillery division selected the troops to participate in the parade in a very short time and then started an emergency training mode.

For this one-month emergency training, most of the training segments were related to the upcoming grand parade in Cádiz. This parade needed to demonstrate the powerful strength of the Spanish military to the outside world, so neither Yu Kaluo nor the Spanish officials allowed any accidents to occur during the parade.

The thousands of soldiers participating in the parade needed to walk past the reviewing stand in an orderly manner according to their unit formations. Regarding the pace adopted by the soldiers when walking past the reviewing stand, the Ministry of Defense also designed it many times, and finally, Yu Kaluo personally made the decision, choosing a pace similar to the goose step.

In order to make the goose step have a better effect, Yu Kaluo also specially ordered the leather shoe factory of the royal industry to prepare leather boots for the more than eight thousand soldiers who were about to participate in the parade.

Using leather boots to perform the goose step, with the soldiers' pace being highly consistent, not only looked quite mighty and imposing, but the neat sound of footsteps could also make people feel refreshed and could not help but exclaim that they were truly an elite force.

In order to cooperate with the parade that the government was about to hold, the port of Cádiz would also undergo temporary renovations during this month, clearing out a large area for the parade to facilitate the holding of future parades.

In the future, this area would not only be used to review the army of up to eight thousand people, but also to review the navy and air force, showing the world the demeanor of the Spanish military.

It was precisely because of this that the government carried out large-scale renovations on this area of the port, striving to show the best side of Spain.

In San Fernando, south of the port of Cádiz, eight thousand soldiers were undergoing quite arduous parade training.