Chapter 289: One Million Tons Of Grain Output
The commercialization of cars and the deployment of wired telephones are definitely two pieces of good news, but they only held Carlo’s attention for a short time.
After the hype faded, Carlo’s gaze returned to the situation in Europe.
The reason Carlo paid such close attention to the situation in Europe was mainly due to the changes in the European situation following the Russo-Turkish War.
Although Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Tsarist Russia had re-signed the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty, anyone with eyes could see that the relationship between Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Tsarist Russia had already broken down.
The Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty signed by the three countries was more like a compromise unwilling to destroy the European situation. Beneath the surface of the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia were all seeking new solutions.
Sure enough, as time reached February 1882, the director of the Spanish Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, Cadillac, reported a major piece of news to Carlo: Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Italian Government were secretly negotiating, and the three countries might conclude a military treaty after the secret negotiations ended.
For Spain, even if the Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy trio concluded a military alliance treaty, it would not have too much impact on Spain.
Spain even maintained alliance relations with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy. This alliance formed by the three great powers would not pose any threat to Spain.
So why did Carlo still order the director of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, Cadillac, to closely monitor the situation in Europe, especially the developments between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy?
Mainly to verify whether the European situation in this world would develop as it did in history.
So far, although there were some changes in minor events, there were no major changes in the general direction.
The Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty would eventually break down one day. Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire clearly already had new plans. One of the two major military blocs that would launch World War I, the Allied Powers bloc of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, was about to emerge.
Although the Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy military alliance was not as powerful as the Germany, Austria, and Russia Three Emperors’ Alliance appeared, the three Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy countries were closer to France, which might not be a smaller crisis for France.
Originally, Russia in the Three Emperors’ Alliance was nearly a thousand kilometers away from France, one in Eastern Europe and one in Western Europe. The Russians could not possibly launch an expedition against France from thousands of miles away.
But Italy was different. Italy and France shared a direct border, and there were both new and old grudges between the two countries.
Once more intense conflicts broke out between France and Germany, France would face a joint attack from the three great powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
Precisely because of this, once the French learned of the formation of the Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy Three-Country Alliance, they would definitely intensify their efforts to pull in the Russians.
The Three Emperors’ Alliance had little role left after the formation of the Three-Country Alliance. Russia would also find it difficult to guarantee that it would not be pressured by the new Three-Country Alliance to withdraw from the competition on the Balkan Peninsula.
Precisely because of this, after the formation of the three-country military alliance, the Franco-Russian Alliance would soon be reached.
Once these two major military blocs were formed, the situation in Europe would become extremely intense. At that time, the European powers left outside the two major military blocs would only be the British Empire and Spain. These two countries would surely become targets that the two major military blocs vied to pull in.
The British Navy was the world’s number one great power, and the army also had a quite good level. It could be foreseen that after the two major military blocs began intense competition in the future, Britain would become the most coveted prize, and France and Germany would try every means to pull Britain into their camp.
Although Spain did not have strength as powerful as Britain’s, given Spain’s geographical position, France and Germany would also attempt to pull in Spain.
Spain’s position could not only serve as France’s great rear area but could also open another battlefield for operations against France.
This also meant that Spain, whether joining the Allied Powers or the Entente Powers, would play a great role. The efforts by Germany and France to pull in Spain would certainly not be small.
Of course, the dangers involved also had to be considered.
Precisely because Spain’s geographical position was extremely important, the two major military blocs might adopt some rather extreme measures if they failed to pull it in.
After all, there was still Britain outside the two major military blocs. If Britain used its joining a camp as chips to make one military bloc besiege Spain, would that military bloc choose to sacrifice Spain? This was also a question worth thinking about.
The negotiations between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy lasted a long time, and this anomaly also attracted the attention of other European powers.
However, the three countries kept the content of the negotiations highly confidential. Even the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, which Carlo had fully built, could not obtain what the diplomatic representatives of the three countries had actually negotiated.
Besides the governments of the three countries knowing what they had negotiated, perhaps only Carlo truly knew what these three countries were negotiating.
As time reached March 1882, grain planting in Spain also began on a grand scale.
Grain planting on the Spanish Mainland was diverse, including corn, potatoes, wheat, rice, barley, and so on.
For agricultural development in the West African Colony, especially the Gambia Colony, the main crops planted were corn and rice.
In the Gambia Colony, rice could achieve three crops a year. Early rice was planted right in March, the earliest harvest in June, and the latest in early July, followed by planting mid-season rice.
Mid-season rice was generally planted from June to July, harvestable as early as September or as late as October.
After mid-season rice was harvested, late rice would be planted immediately, harvested before early winter.
Some places could not achieve three crops a year, but two crops a year was no problem.
Precisely because tropical regions could achieve two or more crops a year, grain yields in tropical regions were generally higher than in temperate regions.
Although Spain’s Gambia Colony had so far only over 30,000 square kilometers in area, if the existing colony was fully developed, grain yield might even rival Portugal’s.
In late March, a telegram from the Gambia Colony was reported to the Spanish Government and then forwarded by the Minister of Colonial Affairs to Carlo.
This telegram detailed the land development situation in the Gambia Colony and also introduced the current total scale of arable land and crop planting situation in the Gambia Colony.
Speaking of which, it had been nearly two years since the Spanish Government proposed the West Africa Development Plan.
In these two years, development in various West African colonies had achieved certain results. The Gambia Colony, as the focus of agricultural development, had far outpaced other West African colonies in agriculture.
The Gambia Colony currently had over 50,000 immigrants, of which nearly 30,000 were immigrants from various places brought by Spain, and 20,000 were immigrants already living there during the British colonial period.
Besides these 50,000 immigrants recognized by the Spanish Government, the local area also had about 300,000 indigenous people.
In reality, the number of indigenous people here was not that high. The main reason it reached 300,000 indigenous people was that after the Ashanti War ended, Spain transported a large amount of indigenous labor from Ashanti.
Under the joint efforts of these 350,000 people, the Gambia Colony had currently developed over 1 million acres of land. Averaged per immigrant, each person possessed up to 20 acres, or 4 mu, nearly 8 hectares of land.
Of course, the actual situation was certainly not that exaggerated. The West Africa Development Plan had a lot of nobles and capital participation, and a large portion of the land developed by these nobles and capital was also included.
In West Africa, the per capita land for those 50,000 immigrants was at most 10 acres, with very few people’s land scale reaching over 10 acres.
However, compared to the situation on the Spanish Mainland, the per capita land area in the Gambia Colony was already much larger.
After all, on these over 30,000 square kilometers of land, there were only 50,000 people. The land was more than enough to distribute, even raising concerns about too small a population.
Calculated by the Gambia Colony’s previous grain yield per acre, over a million acres of land could yield at least 400,000 tons of grain per harvest season.
Even if some areas could only achieve two crops a year, the entire Gambia Colony could easily harvest over one million tons of grain annually.
How exaggerated was a grain yield of one million tons? Based on current Europe’s per capita grain consumption, one million tons of grain was enough to feed at least 6 million people for a year.
Europe’s per capita grain consumption was the highest among all continents in the world currently. If referencing per capita grain consumption in other continents, one million tons of grain could feed even more people.
It must be known that as of this year, Spain’s population was just over 21 million.
This also meant that if the Gambia Colony’s grain could be smoothly harvested this year, just the grain obtained from the Gambia Colony would be enough to feed over a quarter of Spain’s population.
With the Gambia Colony’s grain yield, even if the drought in Spain’s inland continued, the Spanish Mainland would not need to worry about any grain crisis.
More importantly, 1 million acres of land was actually just over 4,000 square kilometers, merely close to one-tenth of the Gambia Colony’s total area.
As the Gambia Colony developed, the total arable land area in the Gambia Colony would increase more and more, and grain yield would naturally increase as well.
Feeding Spain’s entire population might be exaggerated, but providing over 2 million tons of grain yield for Spain was still achievable for the Gambia Colony.
For Spain’s grain yield, the expansion of arable land area in the Gambia Colony was definitely a good thing.
But considering that too much grain yield from Gambia would affect the income of farmers on the Spanish Mainland, a certain restriction was still needed on the improvement of grain yield in the Gambia Colony.
For Spain at this time, the over ten million farmers were still the country’s basic foundation. If grain yield increased too much, leading to heavy losses for these over ten million farmers, it would be counterproductive.
Blindly increasing grain yield without considering the attitudes of the over ten million farmers would only trigger a greater crisis domestically in Spain.
Therefore, for Spain at this time, keeping the Gambia Colony’s grain yield around one million tons was the best outcome.
The Gambia Colony could provide sufficient grain yield to the Spanish Mainland, ensuring no grain crisis on the mainland, while also guaranteeing the income of mainland farmers by restricting Gambia grain yield, ensuring Spain’s basic foundation would not have problems.
Anyway, the Gambia Colony was in Spain’s hands. In the future, if there was any need to increase grain yield, it could be achieved by quickly reclaiming land.
After all, the Gambia Colony was in a tropical region, where corn and rice could basically be harvested once every three months.
After reading the grain planting situation reported by the Gambia Colony, Carlo nodded quite satisfied and unreservedly expressed his recognition of Cabinet Minister William and Colonial Governor Harrison of the Gambia Colony.
Receiving Carlo’s praise, William stood up quite excitedly, clearly his goal had been achieved.
It must be known that five years had already passed since the election of Spain’s third Cabinet Government.
This also heralded that the fourth Cabinet Government election would be held this year.
As one of the Cabinet Ministers, William naturally wanted to continue staying in the Cabinet Government. More importantly, this year’s Cabinet Government election would see even greater changes.
Previously, for the sake of stability, when Count Canovas was elected as the new Prime Minister of the Spanish Government, he did not replace a large number of Cabinet Members.
Many officials who served as Cabinet Ministers during Prime Minister Primó’s time safely passed through the interim Cabinet and the third Cabinet Government’s term.
In the new Cabinet Government election, Prime Minister Canovas would certainly not give up. Once Prime Minister Canovas was elected as the new Prime Minister, he would definitely carry out large-scale replacements of the existing Cabinet.
After all, Prime Minister Canovas at this time already possessed sufficient prestige. He could naturally replace Cabinet officials at will within his power without worrying about opposition from other parties or Cabinet Ministers.
The reason William curried favor with Carlo instead of Prime Minister Canovas was mainly because the Minister of Colonial Affairs was elected by the Upper House.
As a Cabinet Minister, William had a relatively clear view of Spain’s political situation.
Although Prime Minister Canovas seemed to possess sufficient prestige, the Spanish Government was actually still controlled by Carlo.
Especially Spain’s Upper House, after adding many noble Members of Parliament, had almost become Carlo’s one-man show.
If Minister William wanted to continue serving as Minister of Colonial Affairs, he must obtain Carlo’s trust to have a chance of winning successfully in the Upper House election.
Although Prime Minister Count Canovas had more appointment rights over Cabinet Ministers, these important departments in the Cabinet were each a perfect fit, impossible to vacate a position specifically for William.
