Rise of Empires: Spain

Things turned out just as Carlo expected. For these passionate young men who are about to enter the army from the military academy, nothing can make their blood boil more than making their country greater.

Carlo's presence already made these military academy graduates excited. Under the instigation of this passion, the excitement and enthusiasm in the eyes of the young men could no longer be suppressed, as if they could sacrifice their lives for the greatness and rise of Spain at any time.

Of course, things did not reach that point.

Carlo's goal was to make these outstanding graduates from the Royal Military Academy remember their mission and who they should be loyal to.

If you want to act, you have to do it in full. Carlo certainly would not give up halfway. Before the end of this relatively short graduation ceremony, Carlo personally awarded the rank of the Spanish Royal Army to more than 400 military academy graduates and personally issued graduation certificates.

Graduates who performed well in the school can obtain the rank of captain, and the remaining graduates are all lieutenants.

Don't underestimate the rank of lieutenant, who is generally a military commander at the platoon level in the Spanish army.

The starting point of the military career of these more than 400 graduates is platoon leader or deputy platoon leader, and their future potential is still very high.

Although there may not be a few generals among the more than 400 people, a considerable number of them can still climb to the threshold of school-level officers, that is, majors.

But if you want to grow from an officer to a general, in addition to qualifications, certain merits are also necessary.

Carlo is full of expectations for these officers who have graduated from the Royal Military Academy, and will naturally fully support their promotion in the army.

As long as they do not cause trouble in the army and accumulate their qualifications and merits step by step, naturally no one will block their promotion.

After the graduation ceremony, Carlo also personally asked about the future whereabouts of these more than 400 military academy graduates.

Considering the future development of his Guards, Carlo selected more than a dozen relatively outstanding seedlings from these more than 400 military academy students and promoted them to the Guards for growth.

Although the Guards are currently only one regiment in size, as a military force that Carlo can currently control, it will definitely be expanded in the future.

Now they will definitely not be able to serve as platoon leaders in the Guards, but they can also accumulate some qualifications and experience.

When the Guards are expanded in the future, it will be the time for these young officers to truly command the army. The Guards will definitely be expanded to at least a division in the future. Now that they need some military academy graduates in advance, they are also preparing for the officer vacancies after the expansion of the Guards in the future.

Those military academy graduates who have excellent grades and have the opportunity to serve in the Guards are naturally excited.

Compared with the ordinary Royal Army, the Royal Guards are obviously the more elite army. Every expansion of the Guards is carefully selected from the army. It can be said that every soldier in the Guards is the elite of the elite.

In addition, the Guards are the personal army of King Carlo, and the prospects of going to the Guards are definitely much better than staying in the Royal Army.

Although the Royal Military Academy will not force every military academy student to brainwash, various subtle ideological influences are constantly occurring.

These military academy graduates have long deepened this impression during their long-term military academy studies. It is natural for these military academy graduates to be loyal to His Majesty the King.

Of course, Carlo also encouraged the remaining military academy graduates who could not join the Guards.

Carlo said that no matter which army he served in, he was preparing for the greatness of Spain. Whether it was the Royal Guards or the Royal Army, there was essentially no difference, and they were both excellent Spanish armies that he could trust.

Seeing that this kind of subtle brainwashing was indeed useful, Carlo even planned to adopt such a brainwashing method in the entire education system of Spain, little by little, so that the next generation of Spain would always believe in the idea of ​​loyalty to the king and patriotism.

The so-called loyalty to the king and patriotism, of course, means being loyal to the king first, and then loving the country of Spain. It is still very important who is in front and who is behind. After all, Carlo does not want his layout to eventually make wedding clothes for the government.

Of course, such brainwashing cannot be carried out in all schools at once. We can first select a few places for pilot projects, and then slowly expand to the entire national education system, so as to achieve a process of penetration from point to surface.

While Carlo was worrying about the graduation ceremony of the first graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Prime Minister Primo of the Spanish government was also paying close attention to the next contact with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Since the royal families of the two countries chose to marry, the governments of the two countries will naturally get closer in the next diplomacy.

Franz Joseph I still has great prestige in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the marriage of the two royal families, Spain is also likely to get a lot of support from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Without much thought, Prime Minister Primo instructed the Spanish ambassador to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to strengthen the relationship with the Austro-Hungarian government and to promote the preliminary agreement on cooperation between Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as much as possible.

Compared to Spain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is naturally a country with stronger industry and more developed economy. Prime Minister Primo will naturally not miss this good opportunity. He not only intends to ask for some industrial and technological assistance from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but also intends to borrow some funds from the private capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to help the industrial development of Spain.

In short, the Austro-Hungarian Empire provides money and technology to help the Spanish government develop industry and economy.

Will the Austro-Hungarian Empire agree to do this? In fact, it is likely to agree.

After all, industrial technology assistance and financial support are not given for free, and Spain also has to pay something.

The first is the interest on the loan, which is indispensable. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is basically impossible to provide Spain with interest-free loans. After all, the attitude of domestic capital in the Austro-Hungarian Empire must also be considered.

The current Austro-Hungarian Empire faces competition with Russia in the Balkans, and naturally wants to win more allies.

Although Spain is not so powerful, it has some role, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire will naturally not reject an alliance with Spain.

Under the consultations of the two governments, the Austro-Hungarian government and the Spanish government quickly reached a cooperation agreement.

Prime Minister Primo also reported the already reached cooperation agreement to Carlo, which aroused Carlo's applause.

I have to sigh that the economy and industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are much stronger than those of Italy. In terms of funds alone, the Spanish government borrowed more than 120 million crowns from private capital in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The crown is the official currency of the Austrian Empire, and the exchange rate with the Spanish peseta is about 1:1.08. The loan obtained from the Austro-Hungarian Empire is converted into Spanish pesetas as high as 129.6 million, which is equivalent to one-third of Spain's total fiscal revenue last year.

Of course, this money is not so easy to borrow. The annual interest rate of the loan is about 3.1%, and the repayment period is 15 years. If it is paid off within the 15-year period, the accumulated interest on this loan will be as high as 60 million pesetas.

Although the interest rate is a bit high, the good news is that there are no additional conditions attached. The Spanish government only needs to repay the loan and all interest within the specified time, which is basically a happy ending.

Of course, if the Spanish government cannot repay the principal and all interest within 15 years, the annual interest will rise to 5.5% after 15 years, and an additional 5.5 million pesetas of late payment fees will be required for each year of delay.

This requirement is also normal. After all, the Austrian capital does not want their money to end up empty-handed.

Although the Austro-Hungarian royal family came forward, it was his own money after all, so it was necessary to be prepared.

Carlo never worried about this. 129.6 million pesetas is indeed a large amount of money. If you add the interest of up to 60 million pesetas, the Spanish government needs to repay a total of 189.6 million pesetas after 15 years.

But if you take into account inflation and Spain's economic development in 15 years, such interest is nothing.

The investment of 129.6 million pesetas will definitely bring the Spanish government far more benefits than this money.

Carlo never thought that the Spanish government could not pay back this money, and it might even be able to pay it back in the next few years.

After all, large-scale infrastructure construction brings extremely rapid economic development to the country. Spain's total fiscal revenue last year was only more than 300 million pesetas, and it will definitely increase this year. It is not a big problem to reach more than 400 million pesetas.

If the economic growth rate remains good, the Spanish government will not be short of money in a few years, at least the domestic development does not need the help of foreign funds.

In addition to the financial assistance of 129.6 million pesetas, the Spanish government also signed an assistance treaty on industrial technology with the Austro-Hungarian government.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire will provide the Spanish government with steel smelting technology, chemical technology and some military technology in the next five years to help the development of Spanish industry.

In return, Spain's progress in these three technologies in the next ten years will also need to be returned to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the two countries will jointly carry out research.

At the same time, the Spanish government also signed a trade agreement with the Austro-Hungarian Empire to encourage import and export trade between the two countries and strengthen economic ties by reducing tariffs.

Spain's overall grain output is naturally not as good as that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it has a small population and its per capita resources are not less than those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In addition, the coastline is long and has a large amount of aquatic resources. Every year, we can export some grain to Austria-Hungary in exchange for foreign exchange income to purchase other technologies from Austria-Hungary, and strengthen economic exchanges between the two countries.

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