Chapter 721 (2/2)

This war made the kingdom of Spain, which had just recovered a little, fall into the abyss again. Even in 1739, the kingdom of Spain declared bankruptcy

Neither Philip V nor Ferdinand VI could change the situation in the kingdom of Spain. Later, Ferdinand VI died in the seven-year war, and Carlos III succeeded his half brother and became the new king of Spain.

Not to mention, Carlos III is much better than his father Philip V and his half brother Ferdinand VI, at least in terms of internal affairs.

After his accession to the throne, Carlos III began to carry out various powerful economic promotion policies, which brought a short-term stability and recovery to the rapidly declining Spanish Empire.

The first is the relationship between the kingdom of Spain and the papacy.

The Habsburg family, which ruled Spain in the past, was an ally of the Pope, while the French Bourbon family, which seized the Spanish throne from the Habsburg family, was also quite friendly to Roman Catholicism, thus creating a false image of Spanish Catholicism.

As a matter of fact, since the Bourbon family came to power in Spain, on the one hand, because the Spanish people, who had been bound by the church and the Inquisition for a long time, were quite conservative, they had some innate obedience and sense of responsibility to the church; On the other hand, the citizens, farmers and the middle class who have been affected by the church for a long time hope that their living conditions can be improved. After being influenced by foreign ideas, the aristocracy also began to have doubts about religious power and interest in increasing the secular power of monarchs and nobles.

Therefore, a change aimed at questioning theocracy and yearning for rationality and legal system has begun to germinate in the hearts of the Spanish people.

Carlos III seized this opportunity. He cleverly used compromise means. On the one hand, he used enlightenment to mobilize the resistance of the people and nobles to control the rights of the church; on the other hand, he used traditional thinking to imprison the people's ideas to prevent excessive rationality from threatening his absolute monarchy.

For example, during the reign of Carlos III, the Catholic factional struggle broke out in Spain. In the religious struggle and internal friction of the church, Carlos III skillfully occupied the initiative, eventually expelled the Jesuits and controlled the influence of the church in Spain.

As a result, Carlos is undoubtedly the biggest winner. He successfully weakened the control of Catholicism in Spain, and set up a glorious image of monarchy ”leading the people to seek rationality”.

Because the status of Carlos III in the eyes of the Spanish people has gradually improved, some of his policies on stimulating the economy have been implemented smoothly. However, compared with his political struggle to strengthen centralization, Carlos III is not really strong in economy. At least, the so-called industrial revolution in Spain is more like a joke than that in Britain at the same time.

In particular, this Carlos III gives people a sense of ”recklessness” in his foreign policy.

For example, because of his relationship with the French Bourbons, Carlos III stood with the French just after he ascended the throne. But in the end, the French lost the seven-year war, and Spain also suffered a lot.

However, during the war of independence, Carlos III was in the right position. In 1779, he declared war on Britain. Although he was more in order to regain control of the fort of gibraltarian, Spain also consumed huge national strength in the war, the victory of the war of independence gave the Spanish people hope.

Unexpectedly, a more powerful empire appeared before they could taste the dividend of the victory of the war of independence. Most importantly, this powerful empire does not seem to have a good attitude towards Spain.

But at this time, Carlos III was seriously ill.

What should we do?

This is the common idea of Lorida Blanca, the chief minister of the kingdom of Spain, and other ministers