Rise of Empires: Spain

Noon on November 1, 1875, in a secret manor on the outskirts of Madrid.

This was originally a suburban manor where a Spanish earl kept his mistress. Since late October, it has become a place for some nobles to meet privately.

The nobles' private meeting had only one purpose, which was to discuss how to overthrow the existing Spanish government and support Alfonso XII of the Bourbon family as the new king of Spain.

Only a few dukes participated in the meeting some time ago, but since Carlo publicly inspected the colony of southern Morocco, the number of dukes traveling to the suburban manor has increased.

The nobles who attended the meeting were happy at the moment and were quite enthusiastic about the discussion. Among them, Duke Osuna was the most excited.

The last time it was investigated that the real murderer behind the assassination of Prime Minister Primo was Duke Osuna, in order to stabilize the situation in Spain, Carlo and Prime Minister Primo chose to focus on dealing with the matter, which also allowed Duke Osuna to save his life.

But making mistakes is not without cost. The Duke of Osuna sold most of his land to the government and the royal family at a low price, which made the Duke of Osuna, who had a very long history, become embarrassed that his property was not even as good as that of an ordinary earl.

The most radical and most opposed to Prime Minister Primo and Carlo among these nobles is probably the Duke of Osuna.

Only by overthrowing the rule of Carlo and Prime Minister Primo can the land that once belonged to the Duke of Osuna be taken back. This concerns the interests of himself and his family. For the Duke of Osuna, he has put all the weight on the side of Queen Isabel.

There is no way. The crime of assassinating Prime Minister Primo alone is enough to exclude him from the core interest circle of Spanish politics.

In addition to the loss of most of the land and property, if he does not give it a try at this time, the title of Duke of Osuna and his family will never rise, and they will even be worse than ordinary dukes.

"Our King actually chose to go south to South Morocco at this time. Didn't anyone tell him that he was going to be in trouble?" Duke Osuna took a sip of red wine produced by his own winery, with a mocking smile on his face, and said quite easily.

He was originally worried that Carlo and Prime Minister Primo's stay in Madrid would increase the difficulty of their coup. But now Carlo has gone to South Morocco. Isn't this actively creating opportunities for them to coup?

It can only be said that Carlo is still a young man after all, and he has a unclear grasp of the changes in the political situation, and he does things without considering the consequences.

"It's best not to be careless before we complete our plan." Another duke next to Duke Osuna stood up and expressed his opinion: "

We still have to be cautious and investigate the matter before formulating an action plan. It's a bit too incredible that our king went to South Morocco at such a time.

Even if our young king has no relevant considerations, will the old guy Primo be unprepared? Our king is concerned about his reform plan, and he will not watch Carlo get into trouble."

The attitudes of these two dukes are almost the same as those of all the nobles attending the meeting. There are two types in total. One attitude is more radical and believes that it is the best time to overthrow Primo's government. The other is more cautious and thinks that it is necessary to wait for the opportunity and determine whether it is unusual for Carlo to go south to South Morocco at this time.

When the talks were deadlocked, the Bourbon family representatives finally changed the balance between the two factions with their speeches.

The so-called representatives of the Bourbon family are actually the guards of the former Queen Isabel II. As Queen Isabel's absolute confidant, the words spoken by the guards actually represent Queen Isabel's own views.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's not that troublesome. Although Queen Isabel was forced to go to France because of the evil revolution launched by Primo, it does not mean that Her Majesty will surrender.

In France, the power of the Bourbon family is extremely large. We have trained a small elite force with the purpose of re-establishing the great rule of the Bourbon family.

No matter what Carlo's purpose is in going to southern Morocco, this is indeed our best opportunity. We will deal with Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano. You must be prepared to reorganize the Spanish government in chaos after losing the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense.

The moment we take control of the Spanish government, it will be the moment when Queen Isabel and His Majesty King Alfonso return to Spain. When the rule of the Bourbon family returns to Spain, its loyal subjects will also get their own glory."

Hearing the words of the Queen's guards, the nobles present breathed a sigh of relief. If they rely on their own strength to promote the coup, it is impossible to succeed even with their toes.

Prime Minister Primo controls the government, and he and Archduke Serrano have high prestige in the Spanish army. This alone makes the current Spanish government invulnerable.

Unless Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano can be dealt with, or there is a stronger and larger army to fight against the Spanish Royal Army, it is absolutely impossible to have a coup.

Although Queen Isabel does not have an army strong enough to fight against the Royal Army, if Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano can be dealt with, the hope of a successful coup will be greatly increased.

Relying on the afterglow of the Bourbon family and the efforts of many nobles, it may be possible to stabilize the situation in the chaotic Spanish government that has lost Prime Minister Primo and Grand Duke Serrano.

In this way, even if Carlo notices and returns to Spain, it will be difficult to regain control of the situation. After all, Carlo was an Italian, and the rejection of Carlo by some Spanish nobles still existed.

In addition, Prime Minister Primo's agricultural reforms threatened the interests of the nobles, making the nobles' rejection of Carlo even more serious.

There will be no problem when the situation in Spain is stable, but if the situation in Spain enters a state of chaos, it is not certain whether the nobles will listen to Carlo's words.

If Queen Isabel raises her arms at this time, I am afraid that there are many nobles who want to return to the period of the Bourbon family's rule, and it is not just the small group of nobles participating in the meeting now.

"As long as the troubles of Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano can be solved, the next thing will be much simpler." The Duke who advocated a cautious attitude also nodded, his face became a little more relaxed, and he smiled. He looked at Duke Osuna and the guard and said with a smile: "

How about we continue discussing how to act and how to quickly take control of the Spanish government? Only by controlling the situation of the Spanish government can we welcome the arrival of His Majesty Queen Isabel and King Alfonso more quickly. "

None of the nobles here are stupid. If the coup they planned can succeed, then the Bourbon family will be in control of the situation in Spain again.

The Bourbon family and Queen Isabel, who were once like street mice in Spain, have become the rulers of this country again.

If anyone can gain the trust of Queen Isabel, wouldn't it mean that they will be more reused in the future Spanish government?

Isn't it that they tried their best to overthrow the rule of Prime Minister Primo and Carlo just to gain more reuse for themselves and regain their own interests at the same time?

Naturally, these nobles would not miss this opportunity to win Queen Isabel's favor.

Under the duke's proposal, the nobles quickly began a detailed discussion on how to act and how to quickly control the Spanish government situation.

After heated discussions among many nobles, a relatively complete and detailed action plan was newly released. It also included how to quickly control the Spanish government's situation after successfully assassinating Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano, and formulate a series of temporary policies. to stabilize the situation.

The nobles burst out with unimaginable enthusiasm during the discussion, and the leading Dukes only thought it was everyone's expectation to end Primo's revolution and restore the privileges of the nobles, and did not have any doubts.

On November 2, 1875, a steam train rumbled from a city in southern France to Spain. After going through a series of rather troublesome procedures at the Spanish border, the passengers in the train changed to a brand new train and continued towards Spain.

Because there is a large gap in the width of train tracks between France and Spain, French trains cannot travel directly to Spanish land.

Although this hindered economic exchanges between Spain and the European continent, it also effectively prevented French invasion of Spain during Spain's period of weakness.

France did successfully invade Spain during the Napoleonic Empire, but France at that time was simply unstoppable in Europe, and it was natural for Spain to be invaded.

After the Napoleonic Empire, France's control over Spain was no longer able to be maintained, and France failed to invade Spain again.

After successfully transferring to the train to Spain, several strong men in the last carriage gathered together again. The strong man at the head was obviously relieved, and his face became relaxed.

"Captain, do you think our operation will be successful this time?" One of the strong men glanced around, then quietly came to the leader and asked in a low voice.

"Of course it's no problem." The man called captain closed his eyes and pretended to be resting, but he was communicating with his team members in a low voice: "What's the matter? Just get close to the target and fire a shot. This is the process. We trained hundreds of times in France, we only have to do it once this time.”

The team member nodded, no longer having any doubts in his mind.

Armed with the entire action plan, the rebellious nobles and Bourbon remnants did not hesitate at all and prepared to launch a large-scale rebellion that day.

The most important core of completing the coup is to complete the assassination of Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano. In order to ensure nothing goes wrong, the rebel nobles decided to do something to attract Prime Minister Primo's attention and lower Prime Minister Primo's defense.

What's going on?

Just like the clichéd conflict of interests between capitalists and workers.

If the most important contradiction in the feudal autocratic kingdom is the contradiction between the landed aristocracy and the peasants, then the most important contradiction in the constitutional monarchy is the contradiction between the capitalist class and factory workers.

Although there are labor laws and other legal protections in Spain, which provide a little guarantee for the interests of workers, workers still cannot escape the exploitation and enslavement of capitalists.

As the saying goes, there are policies from above and countermeasures from below. The enslavement of workers by capitalists can never be eradicated. The Spanish government labor law stipulates that workers' working hours must not exceed 11 hours a day and 70 hours a week.

But the capitalists used various methods to coerce the workers to process, and in the end the working hours of Spanish workers still exceeded 11 hours.

If it weren't for the government and the royal family's enterprises implementing a ten-hour work system, I'm afraid the average working hours of Spanish workers would exceed 12 hours.

Yes, it's so exaggerated. This is the dark age, and it is also an inevitable topic for European countries to build industry.

It's not just Spain, but also the powerful powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria.

In addition to colonial exploitation around the world, the rise of Western countries' industry is also the exploitation of domestic workers and people by the rising capitalism.

The industrial history of the West is a history of blood and tears. It is the exploitation of tens of millions of people that made Europe the pearl of the world in this era and the most developed, advanced and prosperous region in the world.

Of course, with the advancement of time, the treatment of workers in various countries has also been guaranteed to a certain extent. At least the working hours of Spanish workers will not exceed 12 hours, which is also the bottom line set by Prime Minister Carlo and Prime.

Capitalists can be allowed to exploit the people within a certain range, but they are not allowed to not treat the people as human beings. Without exceeding the bottom line, the government will turn a blind eye to the exploitation of capitalists.

After all, doing so can indeed improve the production efficiency of factories and promote the industrial and economic development of Spain.

As the overall environment in Spain improves, the contradiction between capital and workers is fierce, but it is not a powder keg.

However, for these rebellious nobles, nothing is unusable. If the old-fashioned topic of capital exploiting workers can be ignited, Spain will become more chaotic.

It is easier to fish in troubled waters. If a large-scale demonstration breaks out, it will definitely attract the attention of Prime Minister Primo. When Prime Minister Primo pays attention to the large-scale demonstration, he will naturally relax his vigilance against the rebellious nobles.

At that time, an unexpected assassination will directly make the Spanish political arena more chaotic. At that time, the nobles will come forward again, gain the favor of the people and workers by criticizing the capitalist class, and then take over the Spanish government without Primo. Everything is so natural.

On the afternoon of November 2, several newspapers in Spain published articles about capitalist factories over-exploiting workers. Under the premise that the government clearly ordered workers to work no more than 11 hours, they still made workers work close to 12 hours in various ways.

It seems that someone pushed them. These newspapers were originally small-scale newspapers and did not have the ability to sell newspapers throughout Spain.

But once the news of the day was published, the newspapers soon appeared on the streets of Madrid and several surrounding cities.

Thanks to the literacy education of the Spanish government, more than half of the Spanish people are literate, at least most of the words in Spanish can be understood.

It is precisely because of this that this report has caused widespread discussion in Madrid and surrounding cities, arousing workers' further hatred of capitalists.

People are blindly following the crowd. Regardless of whether they have been exploited and oppressed by factory owners, when they see such news reports, they will always involuntarily bring themselves in, and then strengthen their hatred and hostility towards factory owners.

At this time, there were no trade unions in Spain, and the workers' power had no outlet, so they could only ferment secretly.

When such reports appeared in the streets of Madrid, they immediately attracted the attention of Prime Minister Primo. Prime Minister Primo certainly knew who was behind this, after all, the capitalists would not be stupid enough to distribute such reports to the streets of Madrid.

"What a bunch of damn guys! For their own interests, they abandoned the interests of the country." Prime Minister Primo sat in his prime minister's office, looking at such news reports with a sullen face.

"Perhaps your majesty is right. Only by sweeping away such termites can we avoid them from harming Spain in the future. The achievements of Spain's reforms cannot be corroded by these termites." Prime Minister Primo sighed and admired Carlo's decision even more.

A young king has the courage to risk his life to lure the snake out of the hole, which is enough to make people admire.

Facing the rebellious nobles, Carlo seemed to be at ease, which also made Prime Minister Primo sigh that Carlo has matured and has the ability to become an excellent king.

"It seems that it is time to return power to His Majesty the King." Prime Minister Primo looked at the map of Spain's territory hanging on the wall, and couldn't help but touch every inch of Spain's land, and then seemed to have made up his mind.

In the city of Madrid, the workers' anger had nowhere to vent, and eventually evolved into workers gathering and discussing dissatisfaction with each other.

Under the impetus of a force, a small-scale march soon broke out. The march attracted the attention of some workers, and then evolved into a larger-scale strike and march.

In just half a day, more than one-third of the workers in the factories around Madrid went on strike, and the number of workers participating in the march exceeded tens of thousands.

The workers gathered spontaneously, holding up homemade, simple slogans and banners, and marched in a mighty manner on several busy streets in Madrid.

The large-scale march soon attracted the attention of the public security department, but the police could do nothing about it. The march of tens of thousands of people is simply not something the police can solve, unless a large number of police can be mobilized to come.

But the current chaotic situation in Madrid does not allow the Ministry of Public Security to have enough time to mobilize the police. At present, it seems that only the army can suppress such a large-scale demonstration.

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