Chapter 5: The Persona is Most Important

Since I now have a newspaper as a weapon of public opinion, the next most important step is to craft a popular persona for myself.

If a persona is crafted well, it can lead the public to assume one stands with the majority, even without Kaluo taking any action.

And as a member of the royal family, a friendly and benevolent character is destined to be welcomed.

The public certainly does not want the royal family above them to appear aloof; this is why monarchs in later generations, led by the King of England, always maintain a friendly and loving image.

Whether displayed to the Italian public or the European public, rigid and conservative thinking is destined to be unpopular.

Although there are many conservatives in monarchical countries, for Italy and the Spain that Kaluo wants to go to, reformists are what the public truly wants to see.

However, although Kaluo wants to establish the impression of a reformist, he will absolutely not offer any opinions on Italy's reforms.

Reform is reform, but who leads this reform is the truly important question. Supporting and favoring reform is a weapon in Kaluo's hands, but if he were to truly point fingers at the reform, the losses would outweigh the gains.

No government likes a king who points fingers at everything in the country; if Kaluo wants to become the King of Spain, he must first understand how to be a mascot and not point fingers everywhere.

On February 21, 1866, the Italian "24-Hour Sun" published an article written by Kaluo titled "We Want Bread, Pasta, and Milk," successfully firing the first shot in establishing an impression of caring for the people.

In this piece of pure "chicken soup" writing, Kaluo repeatedly mentioned the importance of the lower-class Italian people, especially those farmers in Southern Italy.

And he concluded in the article: whether in Italy or Europe, the demands of the people are actually not complicated; they are nothing more than being well-fed and warmly clothed.

If the government could focus more attention on the lower-class people, perhaps the people's lives would be happier.

The entire article had no grand principles, and even portrayed Kaluo as a prince with nothing to do and an overflowing heart of love.

Although many lower-class people gained a favorable impression of Kaluo because of this report, government officials dismissed it with disdain.

Taking care of the lives of the lower-class people? It sounds nice, but isn't it still the government paying for it?

Not to mention how much of a fiscal budget it would take to improve the lives of all lower-class Italians, wouldn't it be better to invest this money in places where Italy needs it more, such as military construction and industrial development?

As for those civilians at the bottom of society, it is already quite good to ensure they don't starve to death; which noble masters have the heart to care whether the commoners are full or warm?

Because Kaluo had no one to use under his command, this report only had a certain influence near Milan and did not even spread to Florence.

But for Kaluo's plan, the first step has been successfully taken. Regardless of what the government and the nobles think, the first thing to do now is to make the people believe that Kaluo is a prince who cares about the lower classes and even has an overflowing heart of love.

Such a character will absolutely not be hated by the public; after all, the vast majority of a country's population are lower-class people, and this is something no political system or ideology can change.

It is a pity that Kaluo is too young now, and many layouts cannot be carried out smoothly; he still needs to spend a lot of time and energy to complete the traditional elite aristocratic education of Italy.

Although he is only a prince, his succession rank is in the third place, which is basically impossible.

But Vittorio Emanuele II still pays great attention to Kaluo's education and cultivation. As the youngest son of Vittorio Emanuele II at present, Kaluo undoubtedly received the most love and attention from his father.

Kaluo is now nearly 15 years old and has basically completed his early elite aristocratic education.

According to Vittorio Emanuele II's plan for Kaluo's cultivation, Kaluo has two choices. One is to choose to study management and economics in depth so as to properly handle his land and property in the future.

The other choice is to go to a military academy to study, become a glorious Italian officer, and contribute to the royal family and the country.

For Kaluo, who already had a plan in his heart, the most suitable choice was of course to go to a military academy to cultivate his military capabilities.

More importantly, in the military academy, he might be able to meet some officers who are not famous but have good military capabilities, and accumulate his own connections.

It is a pity that Kaluo is not the first heir to the throne, that is, the Crown Prince. Otherwise, he could have relied on the status of the Crown Prince to form a palace guard and cultivate his own armed forces from scratch.

Although the unified Italy already has the qualifications to compete with the great powers, Italy's foundation is still too thin at this time, even in terms of military schools.

There is simply no Italy among the world's top ten famous military schools of later generations, and even now, there are actually not many military schools in Italy worth choosing.

The most reliable military school choice at present is the Turin Military Academy located in the capital of the former Kingdom of Sardinia.

This military school is located in Turin, the base camp of the House of Savoy, and is an important institution for the Kingdom of Sardinia to cultivate military backbones.

Vittorio Emanuele II maintains a supportive attitude toward Kaluo's idea of going to a military academy.

This is very common for Western monarchical countries. For the kings of these monarchical countries, the people they can trust most are members of the royal family and the nobility.

The Turin Royal Military Academy is mainly responsible for the training of infantry and artillery officers, and the Milan Royal Military Academy is responsible for the training of cavalry officers.

This is also the reason why Kaluo chose the Turin Royal Military Academy directly; after all, first of all, Kaluo does not need to charge into battle himself, and secondly, cavalry will be eliminated in the next few decades, and the terrain of Spain and Italy is not suitable for large-scale cavalry charges.

In fact, compared to those instructors at the Turin Royal Military Academy, Kaluo admires a legendary Italian name more, one of the three great contributors to the unification of Italy, the hero of two worlds—Giuseppe Garibaldi.

If we discuss military ability alone, Garibaldi is definitely the most outstanding military commander in all of Italy in modern times.

Even historians of later generations only mentioned three meritorious contributors in their description of the entire Italian unification event, which is the so-called "Three Heroes of Italian Nation-Building."

"The unification of Italy is attributed to the ideas of Mazzini, the swords of Garibaldi, and the diplomacy of Cavour."

From the description of this sentence, it is enough to see how excellent Garibaldi's military talent was.

But unfortunately, among the Three Heroes of Italian Nation-Building, only Prime Minister Cavour belonged to the faction of the Kingdom of Sardinia; Mazzini, who created the ideology for Italian unification, was a thorough republican and an enemy of the monarchy.

And Garibaldi, whom Kaluo admires extremely, although he did not clearly oppose the monarchy, had also defected to the republican system many times and was not trusted by the monarchy.

Although Garibaldi was extremely selfless in the process of Italian unification, even after obtaining the territory of the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he resolutely handed it over to the Kingdom of Sardinia for rule.

But Garibaldi's high prestige in the army and his history of serving the republic still made it impossible for him to enter the upper echelons of the new Italy.

Seeking monthly tickets, seeking follow-up reading, seeking collections, seeking recommendation tickets!

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(End of this chapter)