Empire Rise: Spain-Chapter 4: Italian Sun Newspaper

Carlo’s first task assigned to Loren was to possess a formal newspaper office.
Whether purchasing an existing newspaper office or starting a newspaper office from scratch, Carlo only needed one result.
To show Carlo his ability, Loren attached great importance to this task.
In just two days, he investigated the existing newspaper offices in Italy and screened out those with potential and possible for acquisition.
Il Sole 24 Ore（Twenty-Four Hours Sun Newspaper）, this was the newspaper office list that Loren ultimately provided.
This was a newspaper office founded last year, currently only having some fame in Milan’s business circles.
But this newspaper office persisted all the way to posterity, even becoming one of Italy’s top ten newspaper and media.
Achieving such results represented that the potential of this newspaper office was beyond doubt.
This also represented that Loren, who selected this newspaper office, absolutely had very unique and excellent eyesight.
After determining the acquisition target, Carlo’s next task for Loren was to properly acquire this newspaper office named Sun Newspaper.
This also embodied the benefit of having subordinates to command; at least Carlo, as a prince, didn’t have to personally do some things.
The acquisition path was still relatively smooth.
At this time, the Sun Newspaper was ultimately just a small newspaper office, and its founder couldn’t resist the temptation of Carlo’s premium acquisition.
From proposing the acquisition of the newspaper office to obtaining all shares of the Sun Newspaper, Carlo used less than four days.
Unfortunately, precisely because the Sun Newspaper was currently still a small newspaper office, the daily sales volume of newspapers was only around 1500 copies, and this sales volume was difficult even to sustain the newspaper office itself.
However, Carlo’s goal wasn’t to make the newspaper office profitable immediately. The role of the newspaper office wasn’t to earn that little money; Carlo’s goal was to flood Italy’s streets with cheaper and more popular newspapers, to enhance Carlo’s control over public opinion in Italy.
Whether continuing to stay in Italy or seeking the opportunity to become King of Spain in the future, experience in the newspaper office aspect could allow Carlo to more smoothly complete the layout of the public opinion empire.
After controlling public opinion, wanting to do anything would become much easier. At least with public support, Carlo would hold the initiative.
However, speaking of which, compared to other small and medium-scale private newspaper offices, the Sun Newspaper controlled by Carlo still had great advantages.
At least with the identity of Italian Prince, Carlo could publish some content not easy to pass review, such as current political news that the public cared about.
This wasn’t the era in posterity when newspapers had no sales at all. If there was good news and content, it was still very simple for the newspaper office to expand sales volume and achieve profitability.
Loren, as Carlo’s only subordinate currently, naturally took charge of the Italian Sun Newspaper without hesitation and was fully responsible for the expansion of the Sun Newspaper.
Several plans that Carlo formulated for Loren.
First, within the next two years, the daily sales of the Sun Newspaper should increase from 1500 copies to at least 7500 copies.
Considering that the Sun Newspaper was located in the prosperous city of Milan in Northern Italy, and could also radiate to nearby Turin and Genoa, such a sales requirement was actually not high.
The second requirement was that the Sun Newspaper must become one of the well-known newspaper and media in Northern Italy, and have certain credibility among civilians.
If the content published by the newspaper couldn’t be believed by the public, then the existence of the newspaper office would be unnecessary.
After all, the primary purpose of achieving public opinion manipulation was to make the public believe the public opinion, which was also one of Carlo’s expectations for Loren.
Additionally, within two years, make the Sun Newspaper profitable and control as many newspaper offices as possible.
Although Carlo’s original intention wasn’t to make money through the newspaper office, since the newspaper office industry could inherently break even, Carlo definitely wanted to use the funds for more important places.
As for founding or acquiring more newspaper offices, it was naturally to strengthen the public opinion power in Carlo’s hands.
In Carlo’s layout, the Sun Newspaper would in the future focus on ing current political news and international affairs, while some small newspaper offices could fill the gaps in entertainment news and various gossips.
After all, if a newspaper office with considerable credibility ed some tabloid news and gossip, it would absolutely destroy the newspaper’s credibility.
While Loren diligently executed Carlo’s tasks, Carlo was already contemplating while looking at the existing map of the Kingdom of Italy.
Although the fragmented Apennine Peninsula had basically unified into the complete Kingdom of Italy, there were still two places that hadn’t returned to Italy’s embrace.
The Venice Region in the north was still controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Rome, the most important city for Italy, still belonged to the Papal States.
Although the Papal States seemed to be the soft persimmon, helplessly, France stood behind the Papal States.
The France at this time wasn’t the surrender molecule mocked in World War II, but the French Empire bathed in Napoleon’s afterglow.
Because Germany hadn’t unified yet, the France at this time could be said to be the hegemon of Western Europe plus Europe’s number one army great power.
With France’s support, the Papal States continued to hold Rome, which also forced Italy’s capital to settle in Florence.
However, Carlo wasn’t anxious about this.
Historically, the process of the Kingdom of Sardinia unifying Italy could completely be said to be winning without effort, without experiencing any difficult battles at all.
The largest country in Southern Italy, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, was rotten to the core and was easily annihilated by Garibaldi’s thousand-man group.
The states in central Italy were completely incomparable in volume to the Kingdom of Sardinia, and had no qualification to resist in the face of the great trend of unification.
The truly tough two bones were completely relied on hugging Prussia’s thigh. In the Austro-Prussian War, by Prussia attracting the attention of the Austrian Empire, the Venice Region was recaptured.
In the Franco-Prussian War, by the French guarding against the Prussian Army, Rome was smoothly taken over.
The two bones that seemed very tough were so easily crushed, although it was the Prussian Army that crushed these two bones, but the one that truly obtained the benefits was indeed the Kingdom of Italy.
For this time period of Prussia’s rise, Carlo still had some understanding.
Coincidentally, this year was exactly 1866, the phase when the Austro-Prussian War erupted.
If following the historical trajectory, the Austro-Prussian War should break out in half a year, Prussia would accelerate Germany’s unification, and Italy would also recapture the Venice Region in the north.
Facing such an important historical node, Carlo naturally couldn’t let the opportunity slip away in vain. Although he couldn’t directly intervene in the Austro-Prussian War, as a participant in the Kingdom of Italy, Carlo changing a tiny bit of history’s process was still no problem.
New book sets sail, seeking recommendation tickets, seeking collections, seeking follow reads, seeking investments!