Chapter 34: Taking Over The Factory
Although Carlo had no experience dealing with the Carlist faction, that didn’t mean others in the Spanish Government had none.
It was worth mentioning that the current Prime Minister Primó was not only born in Catalonia but also participated in the First Carlist Wars, with buffs fully maxed out.
Carlo also did everything he could now, which was to hand over full command of the Army to Primó and let Primó deal with all the trouble.
This was the huge difference between having Primó and not having him. Amadeo had almost no way to deal with the Carlist faction’s rebellion, because in Spain besides Serrano there were no other officials or senior military officials with right to speak who supported him.
But Carlo was different. With two senior military officials, Primó and Serrano, in charge, Carlo never considered defeat in this war.
To ensure foolproof success, at Carlo’s suggestion, the Spanish Army imposed martial law in Madrid and provided key protection to important institutions such as the government and parliament.
Carlo’s Royal Palace, besides the 500-man Court Guard, also added a 100-man army dispersed around for patrol.
Considering that the entire Madrid was under martial law, unless the Carlist faction and other opponents could directly break through Madrid, it was basically impossible to threaten Carlo and other government high officials.
Before Carlos VII’s army could leave Catalonia, the Spanish Government received another bad news.
A large-scale parade broke out in Vitoria in the Basque Country, the parade crowd impacted the Vitoria municipal government, and a large-scale conflict erupted with local police.
Obviously, the Basque people, like the Catalans also fantasizing about independence, had some ideas of their own.
Compared to Catalonia’s approach through supporting the Carlist faction and inciting workers, the reason for the parade in the Basque Country was even more radical: demanding independence or autonomy for the entire Basque Country region.
The Basque Country region here referred to Spain’s Basque Country, Navarre, and France’s North Basque Country.
The Basque people entrenched in these regions were one of the fiercest ethnic groups on the Iberian Peninsula and the last to be conquered on the entire Peninsula.
Fortunately, the total population of the entire Basque ethnic group was only around 600,000 and dispersed in the Basque Country and Navarre two regions, so the threat was not as great as Catalonia’s.
For the parades erupting in the Basque Country region, Primó’s opinion was to soothe as the main approach and suppression as secondary.
After all, this ethnic group still had considerable combat effectiveness. If they could be absorbed into the larger Spanish people group, the Spanish Army’s combat effectiveness would also be guaranteed.
Controlling the Basque Country and Navarre regions was also very simple. It only required migrating a certain number of Spaniards to these two regions to reduce the proportion of Basque people.
Since the capitalist class, Carlist faction, Catalonia, and separatists in the Basque Country region had all eagerly stepped forward, naturally there would be no one else opposing the Spanish Government’s reforms next.
While organizing the army to prepare for war with the Carlist faction, Primó took this opportunity to vigorously promote reforms around Madrid and strictly enforce labor law.
Those factory owners who actively incited parades and rebellions became targets for Primó and Carlo to settle accounts with.
In just a few days, Madrid’s police arrested dozens of factory owners and took over hundreds of factories and enterprises of various sizes.
To maintain production of enterprises around Madrid and ensure jobs for workers in factories and enterprises, the government and Royal Family took over most of the industries among them.
Although the government took the lion’s share, Carlo’s harvest was also considerable.
Because in the reforms Carlo firmly supported Primó, as a reward, Carlo obtained more than a dozen factories around Madrid at an extremely low cost.
These factories were all high-quality assets, with their own value ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pesetas, including large factories like the Madrid steel mill, with nearly a thousand workers alone.
Carlo also rapidly expanded his industry scale through these factories. Currently, the total value of Carlo’s industries had reached over ten million pesetas, not to mention the funds worth more than ten million pesetas in Carlo’s hands.
Excluding the Royal Palace, secondary palaces, and manors taken over from Queen Isabella, Carlo could already rank in Spain’s top ten richest list.
If all assets were included, current Carlo could easily become Spain’s richest person.
However, Carlo didn’t care about such empty titles and even secretly handled some of the Royal Family’s enterprises to make them appear unrelated to the Royal Family.
Currently, among these industries, except for the winery which used “Royal” for high-end positioning, other industries did not have “Royal,” and could not be identified as Royal Family’s industries just from the name.
As Spain’s King, Carlo naturally had to firmly implement all provisions of the labor law.
At the first moment of taking over these more than a dozen factories, Carlo had people tally all the salaries owed to workers under him and basically repaid all arrears the next day.
Without exception, the status of these more than a dozen enterprises smoothly made it to Madrid’s newspapers and became a hot topic among the public around Madrid.
Carlo’s purpose was also very simple: to set a good example for Spain’s capitalists.
As King, Carlo firmly complied with Spain’s labor law and even paid off the salaries arrears left by previous factory owners.
What reason did those capitalists have to continue withholding salaries? Did they really think the working class was easy to bully?
Under the fermentation of public opinion, Carlo smoothly gained certain prestige.
Paying arrears was normal behavior, but paying workers’ arrears for previous factory owners was not so common.
For Madrid’s workers, the biggest difference between Carlo and those capitalists was thus demonstrated.
Starting from early February, Madrid residents would occasionally mention their King Carlo in chats, accompanied by sincere praise.
Although the scope of Carlo paying arrears only covered less than 1,000 workers, it affected nearly 1,000 families.
Because they were all around Madrid, after word-of-mouth spread, at least tens of thousands of people had a better impression of Carlo.
And this was Carlo’s purpose: step by step increasing Spaniards’ favor towards him, making them support and love him from the heart.
Once workers saw friends nearby getting rightful salaries, they naturally would no longer accept factory owners’ deductions from themselves.
And the capitalists of this era were always greedy; they couldn’t be like Carlo in valuing workers’ opinions more.
This would make it hard for capital and workers to unite again against royal power, and the capitalist class’s influence on Spain would always be limited to a smaller scope.
As for when Spain’s economy booms due to reforms in the future, Carlo’s industries would also continuously expand, even becoming Spain’s largest consortium, naturally without worry of the capitalist class making a comeback.
As long as Carlo could become Spain’s largest capital, which capital could fight against Carlo in Spain?
No matter how powerful the capital, it could never fight the government, because holding the gun is the hard truth.
First update, seeking support!
