Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 97 Government Work Progress
1870 passed quickly and 1871 came.

Carlo attended the Spanish government's summary meeting for 1870 and asked the Spanish government about the progress of building industry and economy.

The specific differences in Spain's development between the Primo government and the interim government can also be seen from the government work report submitted by Prime Minister Primo.

During the Provisional Government period, the total railway mileage in Spain reached 5400 kilometers.

This railway mileage data is actually not much different from Italy's 5700 kilometers. Although it is not as good as the tens of thousands of kilometers of railway mileage in Britain, France and Germany, it is not bad.

So the question is, why didn't Spain's 5400 kilometers of railway mileage enable its economy to take off?
The real reason is that the width of Spain's railway tracks is not consistent with that of other European countries. Spain's railways have completely become a transportation channel for domestic economy and materials, rather than an international trade route.

Although the width of Spain's railway tracks is the same as that of Portugal, Portugal is a small country after all. If the Spanish economy wants to take off, it must speed up economic exchanges with other countries.

Since Prime Minister Primo officially took office, the Spanish government has attached great importance to the construction of railways.

From mid-1869 to the end of 1870, Spain built more than 500 kilometers of railway lines, bringing the total railway mileage to nearly 6000 kilometers.

For the Spanish government, this speed of railway construction is far faster than before. From the birth of railways to 1869, Spain only built 5400 kilometers of railways, but since Prime Minister Primo took office, 500 kilometers of railways have been built in one year. This is one of Prime Minister Primo's achievements.

Of course, in addition to railways, roads are also a very important part of the Spanish government's construction.

Over the past year and a half, the Spanish government has built a total of 4132 kilometers of roads, including more than 1500 kilometers of two-way four-lane main roads.

There are always areas that cannot be reached by railways, so it becomes necessary to build roads. With the birth of the car, the importance of roads will increase infinitely.

The importance of road construction to the Spanish government will not decrease in the future, and roads and railways will also be one of the main construction goals of the Spanish government in the future.

Carlo also focused on the educational situation in Spain.

When Carlo first arrived in Spain, the illiterate population accounted for more than 70% of the total population. So far, more than one million people have received literacy education, and the illiteracy rate has been reduced by at least 5%.

预计未来四年内，西班牙的文盲人口应该能减少15%到20%左右。在1880年以前将西班牙的文盲人口降低到总人口的40%以下，在1900年以前将西班牙的文盲人口降低到总人口的10以下，这就是卡洛长期的目标。

The ultimate long-term goal is to achieve zero illiteracy in Spain. Only by fully implementing free primary education can Spanish teenagers enter society with sufficient knowledge and become skilled workers and other occupations needed by the country.

Only when more and more people receive education and eventually all children of school age can receive education above primary school, can universities be guaranteed to have enough students when recruiting students.

It makes sense that education should start from childhood. If you don't even receive primary education, how can you skip middle school and high school and directly apply for university?

Speaking of universities, all the universities in Spain combined currently enroll more than 4000 students each year.

But among these 4000 people, less than 1000 chose majors related to physics and chemistry. There are too many students majoring in literature and art in Spanish universities. Even architectural engineering is more popular than physics and chemistry. Spain obviously does not need so many students of literature and art. The next plan is to transform some universities. Either build them into comprehensive universities, or directly transform them into science universities and integrate the colleges of literature together. Just one or two universities will be enough.

It is still difficult to achieve such integration because most universities in Spain are private institutions and there are very few universities established by the government.

The only thing that made Carlo feel relieved was that Spain's population grew steadily in 1869 and 1870.

In 1868, Spain's population growth rate was the lowest in the past decade. This was not only due to the outbreak of the revolution, but also because a large number of Spanish farmers could no longer afford to raise children in the face of the government's harsh taxation. Since they could not afford to raise children, the best way was not to have children.

After the revolution, the population growth rate returned to normal levels.

Although it is impossible to accurately count the entire population of Spain, we can roughly estimate the current population of Spain based on the population increase and decrease in various places, and it has basically exceeded 1680 million.

In 1870 alone, the Spanish population grew by at least 15 people. If it weren't for the underdeveloped medical system that led to a large number of premature deaths, the population growth figure would probably have doubled.

The low survival rate of newborns and young children is a major problem currently faced by all European countries.

Not to mention ordinary civilians, even among nobles and royal families, childhood death is very common.

For example, Carlo's father, Vittorio Emanuele II, had two sons who died young, one of whom only lived for a few days.

Carlo was generally satisfied with his travel to this world. The only thing he was not satisfied with was the backward medical technology in this world, which was too bad compared to later generations.

Although the Industrial Revolution brought considerable strength to European countries, it did not bring about such great progress in medical technology.

Although there are constant breakthroughs in biology and medicine in various countries, the fact that the average life expectancy in Europeans remains below 40 years old is enough to prove the poor medical environment of this era.

Of course, the average life expectancy of 40 years in Europe cannot be entirely blamed on the poor medical environment. After all, most European civilians are being exploited by capitalists, working more than ten hours a day, and living to around 40 years old is already quite good.

Although there is currently no specific working hour system in Spain, some of the royal family's companies have repeatedly and clearly required that workers should not work more than 12 hours a day.

Carlo is the king, so it is impossible for him to exploit the workers wantonly.

In addition to the clear requirement that daily working hours should not exceed 12 hours, the royal family's enterprises allow employees to have one day off per month to relieve long-accumulated fatigue and sleepiness.

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(End of this chapter)