During Leopold's contacts with the Spanish Parliament, the question of the throne of the Kingdom of Spain had already begun to be disputed in Europe.

France immediately expressed its attitude to the Hohenzollern family, and clearly opposed the members of the Hohenzollern family to become the king of Spain, but today is different from the past, the historical King William is only the king of the small country of Prussia, but in this history, William is not only the king of Prussia, he is also the emperor of the entire German Empire.

His reply to the French Republic was that it was a matter between the Hohenzollerns and Spain, and that France should not, and had no reason to interfere.

William, of course, would not be willing to fight if it was possible, but if France bullied him, Germany would certainly not be afraid.

But with the addition of a British, William will be much more jealous, the British government has also expressed a basically consistent attitude with France, they do not want to see members of the Hohenzollern family become the king of Spain, Britain is very active, they have repeatedly asked to see William, and even put forward a British plan, that is, to select a member of the royal family of a small country from Germany to Spain to inherit the throne, and Britain will support this. In other words, Britain could accept that Germany should strengthen its relations with Spain through its own royal family, but it must not allow the Hohenzollerns, the German royal family, to rule Spain themselves.

William could accept this concession from England, provided that Britain and France were really opposed, and Germany was isolated, but now Leopold told him that China was willing to fully support him in inheriting the Spanish throne, and only needed to make some concessions in the territorial and economic fields.

In terms of territory, the change was not very significant, and it was still the Eastern Cordillera as the demarcation line, but the Malay Lake Caybo area was ceded to the Inca kingdom, which did not hurt, and Spain was able to keep at least most of Colombia and Venezuela, and also regain Mexico. Economically, China demanded the same development rights as Germany in the Spanish colonies. Economic interests were only one aspect, for the king, and especially for the king of Germany, the land was a certain belief, great Germany, there should be vast territories worthy of greatness.

The German Empire, which was confined to a corner of Central Europe, was not worthy of its national strength, and there was no reason why Germany's territory should be smaller than that of Russia and smaller than that of France, and Germany, as the first power in Europe, should enjoy the same power as Britain to rule the world. The only obstacle was that the Anglo-French alliance was stronger than Germany, and they wanted to prevent Germany from becoming great and having the same power to rule the world as they did. But China was stronger than Britain and France, and China supported Germany's legitimate demands, and in this case, if Germany did not dare to fight for power for itself, Wilhelm considered it a shame as emperor, and he really preferred to abdicate.

But Bismarck was adamantly opposed to this, believing that the Spanish colonies could not make Germany great, but could only become a burden to Germany, pushing Germany into the abyss of hostility with the great powers.

The differences between the emperor and the prime minister were so great that they could not be reconciled, and either the emperor abdicated or Bismarck resigned, and the final result was Bismarck's voluntary resignation.

After Bismarck's resignation, Wilhelm began to worry that he was no longer used to being without an old helmsman like Bismarck.

As Bismarck finally requested, he asked Leopold to come forward as the king of Mexico to negotiate with China.

The reason why Germany did not come forward directly was that it did not want to provoke Britain and France, and disguised the succession issue as a matter of Spain and Prince Leopold himself, of course, Germany will definitely reap great benefits from it, just like in Mexico, in the future, German capital will pour into the Spanish colonies, German industrial products will pour here, and the raw materials here will supply Germany, and this will become the source and market of raw materials for Germany. But procedurally, it was just Spain choosing a king, but that king happened to be a German royal family.

Of course, if Leopold succeeded to the Spanish throne and was opposed by Britain and France, Germany would naturally support it in the end, just as Louis XIV supported his grandson to inherit the Spanish throne and did not hesitate to fight. For the throne of Spain, a great power, for the vast colony of Spain, the empire, it is worth fighting, and if this is not worth drawing the sword of Germany, there is no need for Germany to continue forging its blade, because Germany will no longer have anything worth fighting for.

Leopold negotiated with the Chinese representative, who was a consul in Mexico, and the specifications were not good, as if they did not pay attention to it, but the content of the negotiations between the two sides was very important. Leopold fully accepted the demands of the Chinese representatives, including ceding territory to the Inca Kingdom, a Chinese vassal state, opening up more economic benefits to China, and allowing Chinese merchants to have the same rights as German merchants in the Spanish colonies, including Mexico, which were very broad, including investment, trade, and immigration.

Leopold agreed to cede these powers, and did not even ask China to provide reciprocal benefits, such as opening up Chinese territory and colonies; Because Leopold needed China's support, he made a wide range of demands on China. China was asked to recognize and support Leopold's succession to the Spanish throne, and China was asked to guarantee that in the event of a war between Prince Leopold and other countries over the Spanish throne, China would provide all of his navy to support him.

The issue of the army was not mentioned because China was too far away from Europe to intervene, and it was hoped that it would make it easier for China to accept. As for the land problem, once China really goes to war with Britain and France because of the Spanish throne, there is no reason for the Chinese to only fight Britain and France at sea.

The Chinese delegates also agreed to Leopold's request and signed the "Treaty on the Spanish Throne" with him, stipulating that as long as Leopold could obtain the consent of the Spaniards and inherit the Spanish throne, China would recognize Leopold's royal power and at the same time support Leopold's legitimate rights and interests, and in the event of a war over the issue of succession to the throne, China would use all its naval forces to ensure that Leopold's legitimate rights and interests would not be violated.

Immediately after the signing of the treaty, Leopold publicly announced that he had accepted the invitation of the Spanish Constituent Assembly to assume the position of King of Spain.

At this time, there were actually changes in Spain, and the Spanish Constituent Assembly had begun to hesitate. When they broke up with Leopold before, they really thought that Leopold was the best candidate, who had to be talented and have an attitude, and was not only willing to fully support them in carrying out reforms, but also willing to accept a constitution with very strict restrictions on royal power, almost willing to be a national symbol, and not to compete with parliament for power at all.

However, after the news was exposed, countries not only put pressure on Germany, but also on Spain, and the representatives of France and Britain urgently contacted Spanish dignitaries, mainly the Big Three, and clearly told them that they did not accept and did not support their choice of the German royal family to inherit the Spanish throne, and hoped that they would elect other candidates. The Spanish triumvirate carefully considered the attitude of the great powers, believing that it was indeed too risky to let Leopold inherit the throne, and it was already more than Spain could afford. So they began to contact the Italian prince, and found that the Italian prince was also a good candidate, and was willing to carry out reforms, and was willing to give up real power, and they had already begun to work on inviting the Italian prince to come to Spain to inherit the throne. But at this time, Leopold publicly announced that he was willing to accept the invitation of the Spanish Constituent Assembly to become the king of Spain.

Spain in history is like this, they obviously threw their throne as bait, let the two European powers of France fight, Prussia beat France, Napoleon III stepped down, after that, the Spanish god chose the Italian prince to inherit the Spanish throne, Spain lost nothing, as a result, such an empire as France fell, re-became a republic, and Germany completed the unification.

If conspiracy theories are taken by the view, Spain is a clever provocateur that has weakened its powerful neighbor.

But not this time, things have reached such an extent that Spain can no longer have the final say.

Leopold publicly announced that he was willing to accept the invitation, and the reason why he announced it publicly, rather than with the Spanish Parliament, was because after Leopold replied to the Spanish Parliament, the Spanish Parliament said that they had to consider it again, but Leopold did not give them a chance to consider it, and directly announced it publicly.

What to do with the Spanish Constituent Assembly at this time? Expressing displeasure offended Germany, expressing welcome offended Britain and France.

And Leopold also took out the treaty signed with China, now Leopold still stands behind the Chinese, the Spaniards are already afraid, they don't want to play with China anymore, if it wasn't for China back then, their colonies would have long been independent, but then they were drawn by Britain because of the gold mine problem, and started a war with China, as a result, under the First World War, let alone the gold mine, the colony was split into two halves, and China directly supported Carlos and took away a large piece. Later, in these colonies, the Inca Kingdom was established, and Florida, Cuba and other places were annexed by the United States, and after fortunately keeping Colombia, Venezuela and other colonies, Spain really did not dare to continue to get involved in great power disputes.

If Leopold was rejected, it would mean that he would be hostile to China again, and Spain believed that there was no hope of preserving the remaining American colonies. If Leopold was supported, then he would be hostile to Britain and France, and the British and French armies would march directly into Spain.

Dilemma.

However, the veteran Leopold did not give the Spanish parliament a choice, and he quickly declared his succession to the Spanish throne in Mexico, and sent representatives and troops directly to Caracas to force the local colonial government to declare their recognition of Leopold's royal power.

Britain and France immediately protested against Leopold's unauthorized actions, announced the severance of diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Mexico, and did not recognize the occupation of Venezuela by the Kingdom of Mexico.

Leopold dared to act directly, and it was impossible not to have the support of the great powers, and not to mention Germany, the Chinese American fleet immediately set sail and rushed to Caracas to confront the British fleet.

The War of the Spanish Succession was on the verge of breaking out.