Of the 9,000,000 ducats, 700,000 ducats went to the royal family's private treasury, and of the remaining 8,300,000 ducats, 3,500,000 were used for military expenses, and of the remaining 4,800,000 ducats, 2 million ducats were spent on the industrial development of Sardinia!

In the 16th century, Spain and Portugal were far ahead of Europe's overseas ventures, and made great fortunes from the spice trade in the East and the silver mines, estates, and plantations of the Americas. By the end of the 16th century, however, the Spanish Empire, which had united Spain and Portugal, was rapidly declining, with France, the Netherlands, and England constantly threatening, encroaching, and plundering the Portuguese colonies of the East and the Spanish Americas.

From the geographical point of view of the Spanish Empire itself, it was no less independent of the European continent than Britain, but a great historical regret is that the Spanish Empire was involved, and very badly, in the wars of religion and dynastic wars in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In the wars of Charles V and Philip II against the Protestants, in the wars with the Ottoman Empire and France, and in the wars to suppress the independence of the Netherlands, Spain exhausted its human, material, financial and even national resources. The Spanish Empire's excessive involvement in continental Europe dealt a fatal blow to its hard-won global cause.

They are trying to dominate not only at sea, but also on land.

It's not impossible to become a king on land and sea, but in the final analysis, your national power must be strong, and if you want to become a hegemon on sea and land, you need to temporarily retreat from land and work hard to build a "superpower".

However, the Spanish Empire made an even fatal mistake that fundamentally led to the long-term decline of the Spanish Empire. This is the contempt for industry.

Even the Netherlands despised industry, which led to the shipbuilding industry gradually lagging behind Britain and the weakening of the country's national strength base and the loss of maritime superiority.

The Spanish Empire manifested itself even more obviously.

Spain has long been economically dependent on northwestern Europe. This was true before Spain began to expand abroad, and it has continued to be the case ever since. After the Spanish Empire opened up the Americas, it did not use a lot of wealth to develop industry, but used it to buy high-quality and cheap goods from abroad, "let the whole world work for the Spaniards".

History has long proved that despising domestic products is really fatal, no matter what the reason, if the whole people take the purchase of foreign high-quality goods as the highest pursuit, it is really the rhythm to be finished.

As a result, instead of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by its colonial empire to change its economic control, Spain made its colonies economically controlled directly or indirectly by the countries of Northwest Europe.

In the late Middle Ages, the economic center of Europe moved from the Mediterranean basin to the north, which had a certain relationship with the fact that Spain's economy was not good and was in a subordinate position. The reason for the shift was the accelerating development of productive forces in Northern Europe, which allowed the Baltic-North Sea region to trade on a new scale – grain, timber, fish and coarse cloth – beyond the traditional Mediterranean trade in luxury goods: spices, silk, perfumes and jewelry.

Since the Middle Ages, with the development of the European economy and the improvement of living standards, the bulk trade to meet the needs of ordinary people has grown much faster than the luxury trade that caters to a few wealthy people.

Trade in the north was controlled by the Hanseatic League, which played the role of Venice and Genoa in the Mediterranean in the Baltic and North Seas. In the 16th century, the Dutch built up a large and effective merchant fleet, and soon extended their control to the Atlantic coast, thus crowding out the Hanseatic League.

Previously, the Atlantic trade had been controlled by the Venetians and Genoese, who carried luxury goods to the north, but in the 16th century it was controlled by the Dutch, who carried bulk goods south.

In this new trade pattern, Spain's economic subordination is evident in the export of goods. Spain's exports are almost entirely raw materials – wine, wool and iron ore are exported from Spain, while gold from Africa and salt from Setúbal are exported from Portugal.

In exchange, the Iberian Peninsula received various metallurgical products, salt, fish and, ironically, wool produced in the Iberian Peninsula, which had been processed into woollen fabrics by foreign countries.

Thus, in contrast to the booming capitalist economies of the Nordic countries, the Iberian countries began to degenerate from developed to backward societies, as did the Italian countries.

The reason why Spain and Portugal, which were economically backward, were able to take the lead in overseas expansion; Simply because they were fortunate enough to have a favorable geographical location, seafaring skills and a strong religious impetus to spread Catholicism. However, this expansion was not backed up by economic power and momentum, which meant that the Spanish Empire never had a foundation. If you want to make an analogy, the Spanish Empire and the Russian Empire are very similar.

The Spanish Empire lacked the shipping industry necessary to run the trade of its colonies, nor did it have a strong industry to supply the Spanish American colonies with the manufactured goods they needed.

The Spanish Parliament – which was a puppet and had little control over the absolute power of the monarchy, but which was composed of the aristocracy and reflected the attitude of the aristocracy – was indifferent to the development of industry and commerce, and the whole of Spanish industry had been in a long period of decline since the middle of the 16th century, after the end of the German Wars of Religion.

……

Therefore, Ferdinand must have vigorously developed Spanish industry. The industrial development situation in Sardinia is very good.

It seems difficult to count on private individuals, and Ferdinand had to use the means of state intervention in advance, implement the measures of state capitalism, and form a large monopoly group of modern industry

Let's talk about heavy industry first, under Ferdinand's lavish money, Sardinia's industry has developed rapidly.

Blast furnace ironmaking is progressing smoothly, and pig iron production in Sardinia is rising. More important is technological innovation.

Ferdinand used a Siemens regenerator-type open-hearth furnace for open-hearth steelmaking.

The so-called regenerative chamber is a furnace with a very thick wall. The thicker the furnace wall, the less heat is lost and the higher the thermal efficiency. The open-hearth furnace can be burned by means of pipes and valves that feed preheated gas and air into the furnace. Because of the thick walls of the furnace, there is little heat loss, and the space is relatively closed, so it is easier to produce very high temperatures for steel smelting. A coke oven can also be built next to the open-hearth, and when the coke oven is coking, it will also produce a large amount of gas, which is just enough to supply the open-hearth steelmaking. When the blast furnace is making iron, there will also be gas on the top (the gas is not high, mainly produced from the coke) rises, or it can be collected and piped into the open-hearth for combustion.

As a result, blast furnace ironmaking, open-hearth steelmaking and coke coking form a three-in-one iron and steel smelting circulation system of iron-making blast furnace-steel-open-hearth furnace-coke oven. A virtuous cycle is formed by the continuous supply of blast furnace and coke oven gas to the regenerative open-hearth for open-hearth steelmaking.

The mass production of steel or wrought iron provided a sufficient industrial base for the production of armaments in Sardinia, mainly the production of large quantities of artillery, and part of the steel for the manufacture of flintlock pistols, and Sardinia was built not only as a "cement island", but also as a "steel island", thus, the 18-pounder Koffilin cannon, the new "brown bass" flintlock pistol (the original flintlock pistol combat efficiency and cost performance were problematic, Ferdinand took out the drawings of the brown bass flintlock pistol, after more than a year of research, Improved to the classic flintlock type), reinforced concrete bastions, moats and barbed wire, Sardinia has become perhaps the largest fortress, fortress, staging post, industrial and military base in all of Europe.

Such a super-strong fortress would play an important role in the ensuing Italian war.

The light industry in Sardinia is an epoch-making change -

In the state-of-the-art factories, men and women operated water-powered spinning machines, water-powered looms and mule machines for cotton textile production equivalent to the level of the first half of the Industrial Revolution in England in the late 18th century, while women and children in the countryside, serfs and peasants in special territories who did not go to the factories (many did) used Jenny spinning machines and flying shuttle looms for spinning.

Participation in social work objectively improves the social status of women. In Sardinia, on the other hand, the status of women has improved not only objectively, but also subjectively.

The improvement of women's status and the protection of women's rights and interests have greatly enhanced women's enthusiasm for labor, and cotton textile production has proceeded quite smoothly. In addition to being produced and sold in-house, Sardinian yarns and cloths are resold locally and across Europe through relatively secret channels. Quite profitable.

The advancement of women was reflected in a number of ways, such as the fact that the men, Rodriguez, was now waiting to be put on the gallows in a death penalty prison.

The reason was that he raped a woman named María González, the wife of a fisherman. According to the relevant decree issued by Ferdinand in Sardinia, such crimes are punishable by death.

Exceptionally, he was the first criminal in Sardinia to commit such a crime. And he was also the first condemned prisoner in Sardinia.

The crime rate in Sardinia is extremely low, the locals are only serfs, the rest are the best Spanish military discipline, and the peasants, fishermen, and workers who have moved in from other places are farmers, fishermen, and workers who have "sold themselves" to His Majesty the King.

However, the dark side of human nature is still revealed, and he will also go into the darkness.

“…… Drag him out, this scumbag...... This is the first guy here in two years who is going to go to the gallows! ”

"Oh, really...... Hey, scumbag, go see God...... No, how did you feel before you went to meet Satan? ”

……

The victim, Maria González, was a simple fisherman's wife, who was in agonizing and was finally dissuaded to give up the idea of suicide, and with the comfort of her neighbor María Rodríguez, she began to learn to operate Jenny's spinning machine to pass the time and erase the wounds.

Maria Rodriguez also had troubles, but they were small things in comparison. Diego Rodriguez recently considered himself a good weaver because he spun yarn much better than his wife, and boasted about it as soon as he returned home, which led to many family conflicts and quarrels, Diego insisted that he was highly skilled, but he subconsciously ignored the difference between a mule machine and a Jenny spinning machine......

……

"I'm also annoyed, this guy is so stubborn, he always doesn't let go, what can I do?"

"What else can I do? Where are the bamboo skewers? Hehe, if you dare to come to our Sardinia Island, you must be prepared to live rather than die! ”

PS: The next chapter opens the Italian War.