Empire Rising: Spain

After the Spanish Government fully mobilized Portugal’s desire to merge the West Africa and Mozambique colonies, the Spanish government took the lead in the negotiations.

It is worth mentioning that the current King Luis of Portugal also played a role in the colonial exchange negotiations between the two Iberian countries.

As King of Portugal, Luis could not resist the temptation to expand and gain a large colony comparable to Brazil.

Even for Carlo, he similarly could not resist the allure of expansion. This could not only enhance his reputation as a king, solidify his throne, but also bring tangible benefits.

The fundamental reason why European countries were keen on opening up colonies was that the benefits brought by colonies were considerable.

For those colonies that did not bring significant benefits, governments would abandon development and focus their limited energy on more valuable lands.

Spain could still choose among several colonies, while Portugal was only left with these two relatively large colonies; the others were small and offered little development value.

Under the secret guidance of the Spanish Government and the strong promotion by King Luis of Portugal, Spain and Portugal reached an agreement on colonial exchange.

In the coming years, Spain will stop colonizing land south of the Congo Basin and fully support Portugal’s colonial development in this area.

In the Congo Basin and its southern region, there were various indigenous tribes and nations. After Portugal occupied any of these indigenous countries, they should start exchanging colonies with Spain.

Overall, Spain would exchange all the land south of the Congo Basin for several of Portugal’s colonies in West Africa.

Portugal relinquished Portuguese Jijinshao’er, Portuguese Guinea, Portuguese Vida, and Portuguese São Tomé and Principe.

It can be said that, apart from Cape Verde, Portugal abandoned all land in West Africa, pinning its hopes on the merger of West Africa and Mozambique.

There are indeed reasons why Portugal is willing to give up so much land.

Firstly, the lands Portugal abandoned were small colonies surrounded by other great powers’ colonies, making expansion or deeper development difficult.

Secondly, Portugal’s land area and population were limited, and so were its colonial development experiences.

Even Spain could not develop several colonies well simultaneously, let alone Portugal, which has only one-fifth of the population of Spain.

For Portugal, its priority must be developing the West Africa Colony and Mozambique Colony. Based on this, it is not surprising that Portugal is willing to abandon several West African colonies.

Cape Verde’s geographical position was somewhat important, and since Portugal was unwilling to give up all West African colonies at once, Portuguese Cape Verde was retained.

For Spain, such a land exchange agreement was entirely acceptable. Once Portugal occupies any indigenous country south of the Congo Basin, Spain could sequentially receive Portugal’s colonies in West Africa.

Especially the Portuguese Guinea and Jijinshao’er Colonies could directly merge with Spain’s Gambia Colony, with the merged Gambia Colony reaching an area of over seventy thousand square kilometers, making it fully sufficient to become Spain’s granary.

Considering Spain’s significant moves in the West Africa region would attract the attention or even apprehension of the French, Carlo specifically requested the Portuguese Government to keep the agreement as confidential as possible until the colonial exchange was complete.

This was precisely what King Luis of Portugal wanted. Compared to Spain annexing Portugal’s West African colonies, Portugal colonizing land south of the Congo Basin was more challenging.

The Portuguese side did not want any complications. If confidentiality could be maintained, it would naturally create more opportunities for Portugal to promote the merger of the two colonies.

The good news was that the occurrence of an international event immediately attracted the attention of all European countries. The small maneuvers between Portugal and Spain naturally went unnoticed by other European countries.

What was this international event? Of course, it was the chaotic situation within Russia, where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated.

For this Tsar, evaluations in later generations and current evaluations were completely different. Later generations hailed Alexander II as a reformer and praised his reforms for extending Russia’s lifespan by decades.

However, at this time in Russia, due to the fact that Russia did not achieve great results in the Russo-Turkish War, Alexander II’s prestige had already suffered invisible damage.

Those dissatisfied with the government transferred their hatred onto Alexander II, launching repeated assassination attempts on him.

From the end of the Russo-Turkish War to now, which had only been a few years, the number of assassination attempts against Alexander II had exceeded double digits.

Even with various precautions, Alexander II faced assassination attempts that constantly changed forms.

Sometimes explosives were buried under the tracks of Alexander II’s special train, sometimes bombs were thrown at the Winter Palace where Alexander II resided, and other times guns were used to attack Alexander II’s convoy.