Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 96 Christmas is Coming
The exchange of interests between Carlo and Primo was quickly completed, and Antonio Canovas del Castillo successfully took office as the Spanish Minister of Agriculture and became a member of the cabinet.

The candidate for the governor of the South Morocco colony had also been determined, and after Carlo's appointment, the framework of the colonial government was basically established.

The good news is that the population of the entire South Morocco colony is not large, no more than one million in total, so it is quite simple to manage.

After this war, Morocco in the north will also understand that they cannot afford to offend Spain, and at least they will not take the initiative to cause trouble in the short term.

Under such circumstances, the South Morocco colony will experience a relatively stable period. In his report to Carlo, Prime Minister Primo also mentioned the next task of the South Morocco colonial government, which is the Catholicization of South Morocco.

In the history of European colonization, missionary work and colonization are inseparable. A large number of European missionaries traveled around the world, spreading the ideas of Christianity to distant foreign lands.

As mentioned before, Moroccans are white people who believe in Islam. What Prime Minister Primo needs to do is to make Moroccans believe in Catholicism so that they can be assimilated into the big family of Spanish people.

Of course, if they were unwilling to join the ranks of the Catholic Spaniards, they would have to continue to be their own colonial natives, enduring the oppression of the colonial government and the indifference of the Europeans.

In addition to spreading the Catholic faith, the southern Moroccan colony also had to unify the language within the colony and let the native Moroccans learn Spanish.

Although Spain had lost a large number of colonies in South America, Spanish colonial rule was actually successful.

People in countries like Argentina basically speak Spanish. They are a mixture of Spanish and local indigenous people and have a natural affinity for Spain.

Although Spain's population now lags far behind that of the great powers, Spain is able to assimilate the population that originally belonged to Spain's American colonies at low cost.

Even the population of the Portuguese colonies was able to assimilate quickly. After all, the difference between Spanish and Portuguese is not that big. It is more like the differences in dialects evolved in different regions.

Of course, the promotion of Spanish cannot be limited to the colonies, but must also be vigorously carried out in the mainland.

Especially for regions like Catalonia and the Basque Country that love to clamor for independence, the threat of independence can only be resolved by first letting them widely use Spanish and then letting them slowly accept the broad concept of Spaniards.

In the early stages of nationalism, it is impossible to suppress it by force. Only by letting the Catalans and Basques accept the concept of Spanish from the bottom of their hearts, like José Echegaray, who has Basque ancestry, can these regions be completely stabilized.

If you want to promote Spanish, you can't rely on coercion.

However, this is still very simple. We just need to allow Spanish capital to flow into Catalonia and the Basque Country and create more jobs in these regions.

Since the factories and businesses are run by Spaniards, it is normal for them to recruit people who can speak Spanish, right?

If the local Catalans and Basques wanted to work in these factories, they would naturally have to learn Spanish.

Of course, there will definitely be some extreme people who have certain opinions about Spanish capital entering the local area and only recruiting people who can speak Spanish.

Carlo was hoping that these people would jump out. After dealing with these more radical people, the remaining people would naturally not be so radical.

After all, there are still a large number of farmers and ordinary people who recognize the ruling status of the Spanish government, and those more radical nationalists are ultimately a minority.

At this time, Spain still had hope of resolving the independence of Catalonia and the Basque region. In the future, when the nationalists in the two regions have reached a certain scale, it will be basically impossible to eliminate them.

Unless another large-scale civil war breaks out and the separatist elements who oppose the Spanish government are completely eliminated, perhaps stability in Spain can be restored.

But Spain will also be severely damaged after the civil war, and the rift between the Catalans and Basques and the Spaniards will become increasingly wider.

In fact, it comes down to the fact that the overall size of the Spanish population is not large. If the Spanish population had 30 or 40 million, Carlo would not have to care so much about the Catalans and Basques.

Prime Minister Primo's absolute power made Carlo feel at ease as a king. Apart from the weekly cabinet meetings, Carlo rarely showed up in the government and did not ask too much about government affairs.

Apart from occasionally caring about the development of the royal family's property, Carlo seemed to have nothing to do. He could only enjoy the massage and caring service of the maid while inspecting the construction and experimental area of ​​the Royal Institute of Physics and Chemistry.

Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was Christmas 1870.

Almost a year and a half has passed since Carlo came to Spain.

This also means that Spain's reform has also been going on for a year and a half. Carlo is still looking forward to the results of Prime Minister Primo's reform, and can also feel the changes that the reform has brought to Spain over the past year and a half.

But despite the anticipation, the Christmas holiday is still necessary.

This was Carlo's second Christmas in Spain, and he had a completely different mood from his first Christmas.

Last Christmas, I had just arrived in Spain less than half a year ago and the civil unrest in Spain had not yet been settled, so I celebrated a very simple Christmas.

Now that the civil unrest has been quelled, Carlo naturally doesn't mind enjoying life, such as holding a celebratory banquet or something.

Apart from the top government officials, the only people eligible to attend the banquet hosted by Carlo were the nobles.

Of course, because the banquet hall of the royal palace was not very large, not all nobles could accept Carlo’s invitation.

Who made the Spanish aristocracy so huge? If all the nobles were gathered together, there would definitely be chaos.

Even if we narrow it down to the nobles above the rank of marquis, the number of nobles invited alone would still be several dozen.

Including their companions, the number of people attending the banquet exceeded one hundred.

Together with the cabinet members headed by Prime Minister Primo, there were just over a hundred people attending the banquet.

Those who attended the banquet were all upper-class people in Spain, and it was also one of Carlo's means to win over the aristocracy.

There will be two updates today, and another one will be released around 2 o'clock.

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(End of this chapter)