Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 471 Super Dreadnought

After concluding his tour of Portugal, Carlos, accompanied by Prince Ángel Fernando and a group of high-ranking government officials, visited the states of Andalusia, Valencia, and Catalonia. He also visited the industrial base in Barcelona, ​​where he met with hundreds of thousands of workers before returning to Madrid by train.

Carlo was quite satisfied with the entire inspection process. Based on what he saw with his own eyes, Spain is currently thriving, with all industries developing and building rapidly, and the country can be described as prosperous.

Carlos is quite satisfied with the state of the country under his rule. Spain has shown no signs of decline so far, and even has the potential to rise even higher.

Because the entire inspection tour covered almost half of the Iberian Peninsula, the entire inspection period was extended to two and a half months.

During those two and a half months, Carlo also had several discussions with Prince Juan Fernando about what the King of Spain should pay attention to, which industries should be closely monitored, and which industries should be left unregulated. Carlo and Prince Juan Fernando had long discussions on these topics.

Carlos was quite satisfied with the heir to the throne he had personally groomed. Putting aside other considerations, he was confident that the successor would play a pivotal role, ensuring Spain's prosperous era would continue for decades to come.

As for what happens after that, that will depend on the efforts of the next generation.

Carlo also placed great hopes on his eldest grandson, Christian, who was second in line to the Spanish throne.

Christian was born in February 1903, and he is only 5 years old now.

At the age of 5, most children are still young and carefree, able to play without worrying about their future.

But for Prince Christian, the second in line to the throne and destined to be the third king of the House of Savoy in Spain, his childhood was destined to be anything but leisurely.

Carlo was not as strict with his grandson as he was with his son.

But the necessary learning cannot be avoided. Since last year, Christian has been absorbing all kinds of knowledge, preparing early for his future succession to the throne.

The good news is that Prince Christian isn't as mischievous as other children. He seems to have already understood the heavy responsibility on his shoulders, and he doesn't resist the various learning tasks that Carlo assigns him; in fact, he completes them quite successfully.

This is a point of difference from the preference given to William, the eldest son of Carlo's second son Martin.

Prince William was also born in 1903, but he was about six months younger than Prince Christian.

Based on the principle that training one child is the same as training two, Carlo planned to train the two children, who were about the same age, together to ensure that the third generation of the Savoy dynasty would be highly capable nobles.

But things didn't go as planned. Compared to the sensible Prince Christian, Prince William was not so obedient.

Under Carlo's supervision, William barely passed his various studies; without it, he would probably spend most of his time playing.

After learning that the young William was indeed not interested in studying, Carlo temporarily gave up on nurturing Prince William.

Anyway, the little guy is not even 5 years old yet, and given that he is far from inheriting the throne, it won't hurt to let him play for a few more years.

Compared to his strictness with his grandsons, Carlo was much more lenient with his two granddaughters, Princess Anna and Princess Maria.

Princess Anna, the eldest granddaughter, is now 7 years old, while her youngest granddaughter, Princess Maria, is only 3 years old.

Aside from her regular studies, Princess Anna was mostly exposed to learning aristocratic etiquette and general knowledge; she did not receive a rigorous elite aristocratic education.

Princess Maria, of course, needs no introduction. Since she has just turned three, she spends most of her time playing, aside from learning Spanish.

So far, the Spanish royal family has truly succeeded in expanding its lineage.

Moreover, there is more good news for Carlo: Prince Juan Fernando and Prince Martín will both have children this year, and the wedding of Prince Alexander and Prince Cristina is also about to take place. The Spanish royal family will continue to expand in the future, and the number of members may even reach more than ten.

Carlo and Queen Sophie had five children together. Carlo didn't have high expectations for his children; he just wanted them to have more than five children in total.

To encourage their enthusiasm for having children, Carlos even devised a rule within the Spanish royal family to increase the annual allowances of several princes and princesses based on the number of children they had.

Carlo treats his sons and daughters equally; both Prince Andrew Fernando and Princess Cristina receive an annual royal annuity of 100 million pesetas.

Although this pension may not seem like much, it is actually much higher than the pension Carlo received when he was a prince in Italy.

When Carlo was still a prince of Italy, the Italian royal family paid him an annual pension of only 26 lire, which was roughly equivalent to 30 pesetas at the time.

According to Carlo, although the Italian royal family's assets have expanded over the years, the annual pension for ordinary members of the Italian royal family has remained at around 30 pesetas due to the increasing number of royal family members.

The pensions of members of the Spanish royal family are already three times that of members of the Italian royal family, and this is certainly not small even when compared to other parts of Europe.

After all, royal annuities are funds that royal members receive without any effort on their part. The purpose of these funds is simply to cover their daily expenses, so the amount of the annuity is generally not very high.

If one simply wants to live a slightly wealthier life than the average person, 100 million pesetas a year is more than enough. However, members of the royal family need to attend certain banquets, and both their dresses and jewelry are custom-made by royal jewelers and tailors.

Expenses on clothing and accessories alone amount to an astronomical figure. In addition, the royal family members' living standards are extremely high. Although 100 million pesetas would be enough, no one would prefer a larger royal annuity.

Carlo also gave his sons and daughters millions of pesetas as coming-of-age gifts, but the net profit these assets could generate each year was only a few hundred thousand pesetas. This led his sons and daughters to suggest to Carlo more than once that the royal annuity be increased, since the Spanish royal family's wealth was already so vast that it was impossible to count, and giving each person a few million pesetas a year was just a drop in the ocean compared to the royal family's wealth.

Carlos did not want a culture of extravagance and waste to develop within the Spanish royal family. Therefore, in response to his sons and daughters' requests for increased royal annuities, Carlos stated that for each son and daughter born, the royal annuity would increase by 50 pesetas.

There is no other way to increase the annual amount of royal annuities except through this method.

Either have children to increase your credit limit, or expand your assets to make more money and enjoy it yourself.

Thanks to Carlo's unconventional methods of encouraging childbirth, his two older sons, Juan Fernando and Martin, have already had two children each, and both want to have more.

Alexander and Christina's marriage has been arranged, and Prince Alexander has vowed to Carlo that he will have at least five children in the next ten years and receive an annual pension of millions of pesetas.

What could Carlo say about his son's desire to have more children? Of course, he encouraged him.

Since members of the Spanish royal family can enjoy the most advanced medical technology of the time and don't have to worry about raising children, they can naturally have children without restraint.

Let alone having five children in the next ten years, even having ten children in the next fifteen years would be perfectly acceptable to Carlo.

Before the Spanish royal family has fewer than 100 members, of course, the more children the better. If they have too many children in the future, they can leave a large sum of money to their sons so they can support their own children.

When Carlo's special train arrived in Madrid from Barcelona, ​​Defense Minister Andreu also reported good news to Carlo: the Navy's concept for a new type of warship was in the works.

The so-called new warship is not the Dreadnought-class battleship, but a super-giant ship with a displacement of 2.5 tons, which is even more powerful than the Dreadnought-class battleship.

The reason for designing such a massive warship was due to the pressure on the British Navy to build it.

This also brings to mind the grand military parade in Spain. Although the British government did not send any important representatives to attend the parade, the officials they sent still meticulously documented the performance of the Spanish troops and took photographs of the Spanish battleships.

Spain naturally did not object to British officials taking photos. At least 100,000 people participated in the parade, and the number of newspapers and media outlets from all over Europe attending was at least a hundred.

This also means that even if British officials did not take the relevant photos, the photos related to the Spanish battleships would still have circulated to European countries and been studied by them.

Sure enough, the day after the military parade, news reports featuring photos of Spanish battleships spread rapidly throughout Europe.

Although these photos gave other European countries a rough idea of ​​what Spain's new battleships looked like, it wasn't all bad news for Spain. At least the reputation of the Spanish Navy's strength spread throughout Europe.

Based on photographs of Spain's new battleships, the British naval construction department estimated that the new Spanish warships had reached a displacement of around 2 tons.

In order to compete with Spain's new battleships, the British made crazy modifications to their new warship design, increasing the tonnage to over 2 tons, to be precise, 2.2 tons.

It's important to understand that this 2.2-ton displacement is just the standard displacement for a warship. The new British-designed warship has a staggering full-load displacement of 2.58 tons, while the full-load displacement of the new Spanish battleship barely exceeds 2 tons.

When Carlo learned that Britain was building battleships with a standard displacement of 2.2 tons, he understood that the competition for super-dreadnoughts following the dreadnoughts had begun.

Dreadnoughts are not invincible; there are super-dreadnoughts that follow, and the performance of future battleships will continue to improve step by step.

Spain certainly cannot give up its established naval advantage. Since the British Navy is already building super dreadnoughts, the Spanish Navy naturally has to follow suit.

For this reason, the Spanish Navy also raised the standard displacement of the new battleship to 2.2 tons and the full-load displacement to about 2.6 tons in the design standards for the new battleships issued to various shipyards.

Such a super battleship, weighing over 2 tons, presents a novel and challenging task for the Spanish Navy. However, given the experience and expertise of major shipyards in designing dreadnoughts, they are actually quite confident in handling a challenge involving an increase of only a few thousand tons in displacement.

It has been almost seven years since the Spanish Dreadnought-class battleships were built.

It was indeed time to update and iterate the Dreadnought-class battleships. For the new class of battleships of Spain, Carlo even named the new class of battleships the Victors-class battleships before the design of the new battleships was completed.

Besides commemorating Spain's victory in the war against Britain, the victory also signifies the hope that Spain would win in a future world war.

Carlo hoped that Spain would always be the victor, whether in the previous war with Britain or in the future world war, Spain would be the ultimate victor and continue to win.

Since Carlo had personally named it, the major shipyards naturally attached great importance to the design of the new battleship.

In the past two years, the Navy has reviewed more than ten design drawings for new battleships, but none of them have been adopted.

Although the blueprints for these new battleships looked quite good, some designs did not completely solve the shortcomings of the Dreadnought-class battleships. They were merely modifications to the existing Dreadnought-class battleships, increasing their tonnage. This was certainly unsatisfactory for the naval department, which had high expectations.

What the Spanish Navy wanted was a super-dreadnought that went a step further than the Dreadnought-class battleships, improving their shortcomings and enhancing their overall performance, rather than simply making modifications to the existing products.

After another two years, in May 1908, Carlo finally saw a decent dreadnought design that seemed to meet the needs of the Spanish Navy.

(End of this chapter)