Chapter 34 Taking over the factory

Although Carlo has no experience in dealing with the Carlos faction, it does not mean that other people in the Spanish government do not have experience.

It is worth mentioning that the current Prime Minister Primo was not only born in Catalonia, but also participated in the first Carlos War, and his buff can be said to be full.

Carlo also did everything he could do now, that is, to give full command of the army to Primo, and let Primo solve all the troubles.

This is the huge difference between having Primo and not having Primo. Amadeo had almost no way to deal with the rebellion of the Carlos faction, because there were no other officials and military leaders with a say in Spain except Serrano to support him.

But Carlo is different. With two major military leaders, Primo and Serrano, in charge, Carlo did not consider losing this war.

In order to ensure that everything is foolproof, under Carlo's advice, the Spanish army launched martial law in Madrid and focused on protecting important institutions such as the government and parliament.

In addition to the 500-man palace guards, Carlo's palace also added a 100-man army to patrol around.

Considering that the entire Madrid is under martial law, unless the Carlists and other opponents can directly break through Madrid, it is basically impossible to pose a threat to Carlo and other government officials.

Before Carlos VII's army left Catalonia, the Spanish government received another bad news.

A large-scale march broke out in Victoria, Basque Country. The marching team attacked the Victoria City Government and had a large-scale conflict with the local police.

Obviously, the Basques, who also fantasize about independence like the Catalans, also have certain ideas.

Compared with Catalonia, which supports the Carlists and incites workers, the reason for the march on the Basque side is more radical, that is, to demand independence or autonomy for the entire Basque region.

The Basque region here refers to the Basque, Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque in France.

The Basques entrenched in these areas are a very fierce nation in the Iberian Peninsula and the last nation to be conquered in the entire peninsula.

Fortunately, the population of the entire Basque ethnic group is only about 600,000, and it is scattered in the two regions of Basque and Navarra, so the threat is not as great as that of Catalonia.

For the demonstrations that broke out in the Basque region, Primo's advice is to appease them first and suppress them secondarily.

After all, this ethnic group is still very combative. If it can be absorbed into the large Spanish ethnic group, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army will also be guaranteed.

It is also very simple to control the Basque and Navarra regions. It is only necessary to migrate a certain number of Spaniards to these two regions to reduce the proportion of Basques.

Since the big capitalists, the Carlos faction, the independence elements of Catalonia and the Basque region have all jumped out, then naturally no one else will oppose the reforms of the Spanish government.

While Primo organized the army to prepare for the war with the Carlos faction, he took this opportunity to vigorously promote reforms around Madrid and strictly enforce labor laws.

Those factory owners who took the initiative to provoke demonstrations and rebellions became the targets of Primo and Carlo's liquidation.

In just a few days, the police in Madrid arrested dozens of factory owners and took over hundreds of factories and large and small enterprises.

In order to maintain the production of enterprises around Madrid and protect the jobs of workers in factories and enterprises, the government and the royal family took over most of the industries.

Although the government took the bulk of the money, Carlo also gained a lot.

Because Carlo firmly supported Primo in the reform, in return, Carlo acquired more than a dozen factories around Madrid at a very small cost.

These factories are all high-quality assets, with their own value ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pesetas. Among them, there are also large factories such as the Madrid Steel Plant, with nearly a thousand workers alone.

Carlo also rapidly expanded the scale of his industry with these factories. At present, the total value of Carlo's industry has reached tens of millions of pesetas, not to mention that Carlo still has funds worth more than 10 million pesetas.

Excluding the royal palace, palace and manor taken over from Queen Isabel, Carlo has been able to rank among the top ten richest people in Spain.

If all the assets are counted, Carlo can easily become the richest man in Spain.

However, Carlo does not care about these false names, and even secretly deals with some of the royal enterprises, making them look like they have little to do with the royal family.

At present, except for the winery, which has the word "royal" because it wants to go high-end, other industries do not have the word "royal". It is impossible to tell whether it is a royal industry just from the name.

As the king of Spain, Carlo must of course firmly implement the various provisions of the labor law.

As soon as he took over the more than ten factories, Carlo asked people to count the wages owed to all his workers, and basically repaid all the arrears the next day.

Without exception, the current situation of these more than ten companies was successfully published in the Madrid newspapers and became a hot topic among the people around Madrid.

Carlo's purpose in doing this is also very simple, that is, to set a good example for Spanish capitalists.

As a king, Carlo firmly abided by the Spanish labor law and even paid off the wages owed by the previous factory owner.

What reason do those capitalists have to continue to owe wages? Do they really think the working class is easy to bully?

With the fermentation of public opinion, Carlo successfully gained a certain reputation.

It is normal to pay arrears, but it is not so common to pay the arrears of workers for the former factory owner.

For the workers in Madrid, the biggest difference between Carlo and those capitalists is also reflected.

Since the beginning of February, the residents of Madrid will occasionally mention their king Carlo when chatting, and add a sincere compliment.

Although the scope of Carlo's payment of arrears is only less than 1,000 workers, it affects nearly 1,000 families.

Because they are all around Madrid, after human-to-human transmission, at least tens of thousands of people have a better impression of Carlo.

And this is the purpose of Carlo's doing this, step by step to improve the favorability of the Spanish people for themselves, so that they can support and love themselves from the bottom of their hearts.

Once the workers have friends around them who get the salary they deserve, they will naturally no longer accept the factory owners' deductions from them.

The capitalists of this era are always greedy, and they cannot pay more attention to the opinions of the workers like Carlo.

This will make it difficult for capital and workers to unite again to oppose the royal power, and the influence of the big capitalist class on Spain will always be limited to a smaller range.

As for the future when Spain's economy flourishes due to reforms, Carlo's industry will continue to expand, and even become the largest consortium in Spain, so there is no need to worry about the return of the capitalist class.

As long as Carlo can become the largest capital in Spain, which capital can beat Carlo in Spain?

No matter how powerful the capital is, it will never beat the government, because holding the gun is the hard truth.

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