Chapter 172 The problem of military expansion

The achievements of the Spanish government in 1874 cannot be explained in just a few words. Even in the colonies, Spain has made considerable breakthroughs.

The railway construction in the East Indies was very smooth. The annexation of several indigenous sultanates was carried out openly, and the subsequent colonial rule and railway construction could naturally be carried out openly.

The railway in the Congo River Basin needs to be concealed in the early construction, which is also the biggest problem in railway construction. After all, laying railways requires a large number of steel rails, and the transportation of these steel rails is not so easy.

At present, the fastest construction is the railway laid by the Guinea colony to the upper reaches of the Congo River Basin, and the total length of construction has reached nearly 100 kilometers.

However, such a railway is somewhat simpler than the railway built in Spain. It is only a single-track railway, and it will be much simpler to build.

With the help of this section of the railway, the Guinea colony has transported a large number of materials to the land in the Congo River Basin.

When the colonial outposts in this land are almost expanded, Spain can declare that it has established its own territory in this land and exercise its own rule.

By then, even if Portugal and Britain and France reacted, they would not be able to compete with Spain for colonization on this land. Unless they were willing to start a local war with Spain for this land, no one could threaten Spain's rule here.

Although the development of Spain's mainland and colonies was very smooth, this was achieved under the premise that the government paid a lot of money.

In terms of finance, the Spanish government's total fiscal revenue in 1874 reached 731.7 million pesetas (about 28.12 million pounds), which was greatly improved compared with 1873.

The main reason for this was the large number of achievements brought by the first five-year plan and the economic improvement promoted by the government's large amount of funds.

The first five-year plan supported a large number of private enterprises. Although most of them were small and medium-sized enterprises, there were more or less a few enterprises that gradually became medium and large leading enterprises.

The tax revenue contributed by these enterprises to the Spanish government was not a small number. Coupled with the taxes paid by the royal enterprises, the Spanish government's fiscal revenue in 1874 reached a new high.

Although the total fiscal revenue in 1874 was close to the fiscal expenditure in 1873, Carlo was obviously not happy looking at such income figures.

The reason is the Spanish government's fiscal expenditures listed in the next line. Revenues have been greatly improved, and so have fiscal expenditures.

In 1874, the Spanish government's fiscal expenditures for foreign operations reached 270 million pesetas, more than twice the expenditures for foreign operations last year.

At the beginning of 1874, Prime Minister Primo discussed the annual fiscal budget and raised the fiscal budget to 897.2 million pesetas with great foresight.

But it is obvious that Prime Minister Primo underestimated the economic burden brought by the comprehensive development of the Spanish government. The fiscal expenditure level for the whole year of 1874 exceeded this figure by a large margin, and even exceeded ten digits.

1.0552 billion pesetas, when Carlo saw such an expenditure level, he couldn't help but be shocked.

This amount of money is equivalent to 40.55 million pounds. According to the cost of an ironclad ship of about 500,000 pounds, the total fiscal expenditure for this year can build more than 80 ironclad ships.

Although the actual situation cannot be calculated in this way, it can also prove how exaggerated this fiscal expenditure is.

No wonder all departments have achieved good results. This is entirely the result of the Spanish government's spending money. In simple terms, it is the result of krypton gold krypton gold.

Obviously, the Spanish government is not a big money. Therefore, in the future development, it is basically impossible to achieve good results through a large amount of krypton gold.

The biggest reason why Spain can bear the high fiscal expenditure of more than 1 billion pesetas is that it obtained a large amount of capital loans from Italy, Austria-Hungary and France before the economic crisis.

The loans provided by Italy and Austria-Hungary are not much, 75 million lira and 120 million crowns respectively (3 million pounds and 5 million pounds).

Adding the 200 million cash that can be obtained from the 500 million francs low-interest loan provided by the French, it is already more than 400 million pesetas of funds that can be misappropriated.

Counting the additional currency issued by the Currency Issuance Committee through the gold of the Indian temple, the Spanish government has such a strong confidence that it can pay more than 1 billion pesetas to promote the development of the country during the economic crisis.

In 1874, the Spanish government's fiscal loss was as high as 323.5 million pesetas. The fiscal loss in 1873 was also as high as about 200 million pesetas.

Although these funds brought rapid development to all walks of life in Spain, it is obvious that Spain can no longer afford to continue such financial expenditures.

Since the gold from the Indian temple was transported to Spain, the Currency Issuing Committee has issued more than 250 million pesetas of currency.

Coupled with loans from the three countries, Spain has enough funds to maintain its vigorous development in recent years.

However, the available funds in the Spanish treasury are less than 100 million pesetas. The development in 1875 still needs to take into account the balance between fiscal expenditure and income.

Although the Currency Issuing Committee can still create enough available funds for the Spanish government by issuing more currency, if the Spanish market is not taken into consideration and the banknotes are released to the market at a high frequency, it is likely to affect the actual value of the peseta.

Moreover, Spain's development has gradually been on the right track. The most important thing next is to seek stability. It is the most important thing for the government to make steady progress in Spain's economy and industry.

Thinking of this, Carlo had to be thankful for the corruption during Queen Isabel's reign. It was precisely because the Spanish government ignored development and pursued pleasure at that time that the Spanish government did not bear too much debt.

At present, the total debt of the Spanish government is only about 700 million pesetas, which is still within the acceptable range for the Spanish government.

Moreover, the shortest debt repayment period is more than ten years, and the longer one is even more than twenty years.

In the case of not much debt pressure, the future development of the Spanish government is indeed bright. Even without relying on the promotion of funds, the growth rate of industrial and economic development in the next few years will be steady and progressive.

Not to mention, because of the economic crisis, Spain's agriculture in 1874 also had a significant improvement.

After obtaining large tracts of land from the nobles and the church, these lands were provided to farmers for cultivation in various ways.

Coupled with the newly reclaimed land, the total area of ​​arable land in Spain has reached a new high, and grain production is also rising steadily.

Although there are no more detailed statistics, it is certain that the arable land area in Spain has exceeded 10 million hectares, and most of the 18 million Spaniards are engaged in agricultural work on this land.

Yes, the population of Spain has exceeded 18 million. Although this data is a simple estimate of the birth and death of the population in each region, the actual situation should not be much different.

After the increase in Spain's per capita annual income, the birth rate is also increasing. After all, only when the people have spare money in their hands will they consider more things.

If they can't even eat enough, not many people will consider the issue of passing on the family line.

It is a pity that among the large number of babies born in Spain every year, of course, some babies will die prematurely.

This is something that cannot be helped, and Carlo is powerless to change.

In the final analysis, it is because the medical technology of this era is too backward, resulting in a very high risk factor in the production process.

Even if you can survive the birth safely, the care of infants and young children is still a big problem. Various invisible diseases can endanger the lives of infants and young children, which also makes the survival rate of infants in Spain low.

This problem also exists in other European countries, even the European royal family is no exception.

If you want to improve the survival rate of infants and young children, you can only hope for the progress of subsequent medical environment and related medical equipment and technology.

"Your Majesty, the total fiscal budget of the government this year is about 722 million pesetas. This is the fiscal budget report of each department, please take a look." After reading the work report of the Spanish government in 1874, Prime Minister Primo handed over a brand new fiscal budget report and introduced it to Carlo.

"722 million pesetas?" Carlo was a little curious when he heard this. He looked at Prime Minister Primo and asked, "Will reducing the fiscal budget by more than 300 million pesetas at once affect the construction plans of various departments this year?"

"Based on the current situation, reducing the budget will have an impact, but the impact should not be large." Prime Minister Primo explained: "The biggest reason why our total fiscal expenditure exceeded 1 billion pesetas last year was that the expenditure on foreign operations was close to 270 million pesetas.

It is for this reason that even if our fiscal budget is reduced by 300 million pesetas this year, the impact on various departments will not be too great.

In addition, our military expansion has ended, and military spending can be appropriately reduced. It is precisely because of these reasons that this year's fiscal budget will be reduced by 300 million pesetas compared to last year."

After hearing what Prime Minister Primo said, Carlo nodded, and naturally there was no problem.

Indeed, the reason why the fiscal budget exploded last year was largely because the industrial sector spent a lot of money to purchase foreign companies and industrial equipment.

At present, European countries have gradually emerged from the impact of the economic crisis, and the procurement plan of the industrial sector has been completed, so there is no need to spend any additional funds.

After deducting the 270 million pesetas of foreign action funds last year, the Spanish government's annual fiscal budget is only about 800 million pesetas.

This year's fiscal budget has indeed decreased compared to last year, but the decrease is not much, and it is only tens of millions of pesetas at most.

"Did you encounter any problems during the expansion of the army?" Carlo expressed his concern about the expansion of the Spanish army.

This expansion is not a small action, but it has expanded the original size of the Spanish army several times.

After the expansion, the size of the Spanish army has increased to the top eight in Europe. To be precise, it is second only to Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria, and is larger than Italy's standing army.

More importantly, the Spanish army also has strong combat effectiveness. As early as the British Empire, Spain was a world hegemon with strong land and sea.

Although the army and navy have weakened, the Spanish army has no major problems. After training, it can still become an elite army.

In addition to the new rifles and cannons equipped after the military reform, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army, even if it is not as good as that of the great powers such as Germany and France, which are famous for their armies, is at least at the level of Britain and Austria, and is still a little stronger than Russia and Italy.

Needless to say, Italy performed very poorly in World War I and World War II. Although there are various reasons, it is an ironclad fact that the Italian army performed poorly overall.

There are too many complex reasons for the Russian army, but the biggest reason is the corruption of Russia as a country.

After all, it is an autocratic empire that has been established for hundreds of years, and the corruption of the empire is very normal. Corruption and deductions can be seen everywhere in Russia, and the combat effectiveness of the army is a mess.

Whether in World War I or World War II, the Russian army relied on numbers rather than combat effectiveness.

This also made Russia one of the countries with the most casualties in the world war, with casualties of soldiers alone reaching tens of millions.

It is nothing that the army's combat effectiveness is stronger than that of Italy and Russia. Italy is the tail of the great powers, while Russia has an extremely large territory and a dense population.

Spain has a population of only 18 million at most. In extreme cases, it can indeed recruit millions of troops, but this will cause irreversible damage to the country.

Let's look at the great powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria. Any of them can recruit more than one million troops, or even several million.

Compared with these countries, Spain still has too many shortcomings, and the biggest gap is population.

Only by increasing the population to more than 30 million, Spain will be qualified to confront these countries. Otherwise, the casualties in population alone will be enough to make Spain feel painful, which is also the biggest gap between small and medium-sized countries and powerful countries.

"The expansion of the army is going very smoothly, and basically there are no problems." Prime Minister Primo first said a good news, and then mentioned the actual problems encountered in the expansion of the army: "

If there is a problem, it should be that there is a certain difference between the number of artillery we planned for the army and the number of artillery that can be equipped.

In our expectation, each infantry division has more than 248 artillery pieces. But after actually equipping 248 artillery pieces, we simply cannot meet the demand for artillery shells for these artillery pieces.

This will put huge pressure on the supply of the front line and will also slow down the advance of the infantry division.

After discussion, the Ministry of National Defense reduced the number of artillery pieces equipped by each infantry division to 112 pieces, which can barely meet the demand for artillery shells for these artillery pieces to fire at the same time."

Artillery is indeed a good thing, but this does not mean that the more artillery pieces, the stronger the combat effectiveness of the army.

Artillery needs shells to show its power. Once the war starts, the consumption of shells is astronomical.

Although the current artillery firing rate is not very fast, if each infantry division is equipped with more than 200 artillery pieces, the six infantry divisions in Spain alone have more than 1,000 artillery pieces, almost catching up with the number of artillery pieces of Prussia and France during the Franco-Prussian War.

However, the six infantry divisions in Spain have less than 100,000 people. What does this mean? The number of artillery pieces equipped by each Spanish division is several times that of the Prussian and French armies. Such logistical pressure can be imagined.

After discovering this problem, the defense department made timely modifications, changing the original 248 artillery pieces equipped by each infantry division to 112 artillery pieces, which barely solved the problem.