While Carter Bruno was working tirelessly for Carlo's orders, Carlo, far away in Madrid, also ended his leisure life.
After a long wait, Carlo's Royal Arsenal finally took shape, recruiting workers from various Spanish weapon workshops and extensively scouting for rifle design experts in countries like France and Italy.
Starting this year, rifles will enter a new era: the era of bolt-action rifles.
The prosperity of bolt-action rifles will continue until World War II, after which they will be replaced by semi-automatic and automatic rifles.
As the primary equipment for the Spanish Royal Army for nearly a hundred years in the future, Carlo placed great importance on the development of bolt-action rifles.
In fact, as early as last year, the Swiss had already developed the first practical bolt-action rifle, named the Vetterli rifle.
This rifle was not only widely purchased by the Swiss Royal Army but also exported to Italy; this is all the information Carlo currently knows.
Besides Italy, other countries are also continuously experimenting with research into bolt-action rifles. Within the next few years and decades, a large number of famous firearms will be born and prove their worth in multiple wars.
The first task Carlo gave to the Royal Arsenal was to go to Switzerland to purchase a batch of Vetterli rifles and, based on their advantages, design Spain's first bolt-action rifle.
It is currently very difficult for the Royal Arsenal to independently develop a bolt-action rifle. It's not that they can't develop one, but that the bolt-action rifle developed would have many shortcomings, and its safety and stability could not be guaranteed.
Rifles are a soldier's most important weapon; if safety and stability cannot be guaranteed, how can soldiers feel confident taking such weapons to the battlefield?
Therefore, before independently developing their own bolt-action rifle, it is very necessary to learn from the ideas of foreign Royal Arsenals regarding bolt-action rifles and absorb their advantages.
At least the Swiss rifle has received dual affirmation from Switzerland and Italy, guaranteeing its safety and stability.
Since he came to the Royal Arsenal, Carlo naturally wouldn't just deal with rifle issues.
Currently, the two most important weapons in the Royal Army are rifles, as light weapons, and artillery, as heavy weapons.
The good news is that after the Franco-Prussian War, Germany and France phased out a large number of artillery pieces.
It's not that these artillery pieces were problematic, but that in peacetime, Germany and France didn't need to arm so many cannons.
How should these second-hand cannons, only used in the Franco-Prussian War, be dealt with? Of course, by selling them at a lower price to other European countries, it reduces the large amount of capital invested by the nation in war.
Compared to French artillery, Carlo actually preferred to purchase Prussian Krupp artillery.
For no other reason, the Germans taught the French a lesson with Krupp artillery in the Franco-Prussian War; in terms of artillery, the Germans are undoubtedly leading.
While French artillery is certainly of excellent European standard, it is slightly inferior compared to the even more excellent Krupp artillery.
The current Royal Arsenal is divided into a rifle design team and an artillery design team.
Carlo also gave the artillery design team a new task: to go to Germany to purchase a batch of Krupp artillery and, as much as possible, imitate it to ensure Spain possessed the technology to produce Krupp artillery.
Producing it themselves is more cost-effective than buying it from Germany. Although Krupp has a larger output, their production costs might be lower.
However, the export of such heavy firepower comes with a significant markup, making it less cost-effective than Spain producing it themselves.
Moreover, artillery technology is also extremely important.
Besides being used in the Royal Army as crucial fire support for infantry, artillery can also be mounted on warships, becoming the primary method of firepower output for warships.
Current artillery technology can only be considered in its infancy; learning from the German artillery technology will at least ensure that Spain does not fall behind other Great Powers in terms of artillery.
Purchasing a batch of weaponry from countries with excellent designs, and then continuously researching and imitating these purchased weapons and equipment—this is the current mission of the entire Royal Arsenal.
This is unavoidable. Although Carlo has invested a lot in the Royal Arsenal, as a newly established Royal Arsenal, it is difficult for it to possess the complete ability to independently develop weapons.
Compared to independently developing and producing weapons, purchasing excellent weapons and imitating them will be more cost-effective and more reliable.
Furthermore, imitating weapons is not shameful, because other countries do the same.
Even in later generations, it is like this: when exporting one's weapons, one must be prepared for the exported weapons to be extensively researched and imitated by other countries.
This is also why, in weapon research, there is the saying: phasing out one generation, exporting one generation, equipping one generation, and developing one generation.
Generally, more advanced weapons are not exported; those that can be exported are products that are almost obsolete domestically, and the purpose is to generate some income to pave the way for the development of more powerful weapons.
After allocating a new budget to the Royal Arsenal, Carlo can only hope that after acquiring new rifles and artillery, the Royal Arsenal can quickly grasp the technology and achieve imitation.
This might take a few years, but it will definitely be more beneficial than harmful. However, this is only the first objective; the task for the Royal Arsenal remains arduous.
Self-producing weapons and equipment is nothing for Great Powers; the future Royal Arsenal must continuously research new weapons and equipment and always maintain its weapon standards at a world-class level.
Among all of Carlo's current industries, the Royal Arsenal is the most money-consuming.
If he hadn't acquired more than a dozen factories, the income from those newspapers alone would not have been enough to support the Royal Arsenal.
After all, those who can buy newspapers are not illiterate; they must first be able to understand the content of the newspaper.
And Spain's illiteracy rate is as high as 70%, which is one of the reasons why newspapers are not developing well at present.
Fortunately, there are many nobles around Madrid, plus factory owners, the middle class, and some skilled workers with higher incomes, which gives Carlo's Sun Newspaper a stable daily circulation.
Compared to newspapers that have entered a bottleneck period, Carlo's several steel factories are undoubtedly more profitable.
Whether for the expansion of Spanish Industry or to make his own wallet fatter, Carlo issued orders to the steel factories, requiring them to continuously expand in scale and increase steel production in the coming years.
In any case, with Royal United Bank as a financial guarantee, the expansion of these industries, as long as it is not too aggressive, will generally not have too many problems.
Expanding real Industry in current Spain will not lose money at all, because Spain's future development plan will involve a large amount of infrastructure construction; just the railway alone ensures that the steel factories will not lose money.
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